

### Broken Wings: Genesis

By A. J. Rand

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2006 by Bo Savino/A. J. Rand

License Notes.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchase for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is also available in print at most online retailers. If you enjoyed this book, please return to **Smashwords.com** to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support!

Dedication

To my mother first and foremost, who has always been my biggest fan.

To my editors and friends, who offered encouragement even while bleeding red ink all over my pages.

And still to Kenny Redhawk. True artists create for people an image with their paint, words, and/or music. Each masterpiece becomes something new in the heart and mind of the person viewing it. Although I know this is not what you envisioned when writing your songs, Broken Wings and Voices, this series of books came into full bloom in my own heart and mind from within the words of your masterpieces.

## Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

## Chapter 1

[Back to Top]

Heaven and hell. I have to laugh. If I didn't laugh, I'd start crying and never stop.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

Crickets have to be the most annoying creatures on the face of the planet—at least when you need to concentrate. The sound of their shrill trilling cuts straight through every thought.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I was on a mission and needed focus. Lives hung in the balance, and my objective was close. The damned insects needed to shut up.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

With every trill I felt my focus slipping. I was too close. My heart pounded an erratic tempo to the surging adrenaline in my veins. The edge of the precipice was in front of me. I could see the opposite side of the yawning chasm by raising my head.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

The pounding of my heart was at a full throb, filling my ears with the dull roar of its bass beat. Still those little buggers cut through. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't let my mark know I was there. Instead, I slammed my hands on the ledge of rock in front of me, pulled myself forward and looked over the edge. Big mistake.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

He looked right at me. I tried to pull back but couldn't. My hands were stuck, caught in a sticky web-like substance. _Damn_. I hadn't seen it.

Without taking my eyes from his, I tried to yank free, but it was a no-go. The more I struggled, the more the substance entangled itself around my fingers. His expression was amused, almost contemptuous. His dark eyes absorbed the night, reflecting no light. This man _was_ darkness, all the way down to whatever passed for a soul. He was a true creature of the night, wrapped in its black arms.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

_Stupid bugs_. I really needed to focus. I couldn't afford a misstep. It would be my undoing.

He started toward me at a slow, insolent pace across the web strung between the chasm walls. The webbing vibrated with each step, my hands resonating to his movements on the strands. He never took his eyes from mine. I was trapped—caught in his web—and I wasn't alone. Scattered across the surface were almost a dozen women wrapped in various layers of silken entrapment, unable to get away from the creature that toyed with them at his whim.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I tore my eyes away from him and looked at my hands. They were burning now, the viscous substance of the web marking my skin with lines of raised red welts where it touched. I winced at the searing pain, trying to pull away. Each movement tightened its hold on me, so I stopped. His smile told me that he took pleasure from the struggle. It made him stronger.

He was close now. Too close. If I hadn't known better, he could have snared me with the power of his attraction. Even though I _did_ know better, I still had trouble separating what I was seeing from what I knew to be true.

He was almost perfection. The slight golden tan of his skin was etched in muscled, shadowed relief amidst the play of darkness. Long, dark hair caressed his shoulders, falling down his back. The face was like that of an ancient god––squared, chiseled, surrealistic symmetry––and I know my gods, trust me.

Every inch of him was designed to call to a woman's deepest desires. He sucked me in, pulling on my life force, merging it with his own. I couldn't stop him.

Then I met his eyes again. I felt the darkness bore into me, winding around me, choking off my life force...

That was all it took. I thrust my hands deeper into the web and grabbed tight. If I couldn't break free, I would use it to my advantage. I yanked hard and quick, like jerking a rug out from under him. It worked.

Off balance, he fell back, landing in the web. He didn't look happy about it. Neither was I. The weight of his body hitting the web flipped me forward off the ledge. There was no stopping. I was going to strike that sticky surface and I would be imprisoned like all those other women––just one more plaything. His eyes gleamed with anticipation of my entrapment. I closed my eyes and waited to land.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I expected the springy web to absorb my landing. Instead, the painful impact knocked the breath out of me. It was hard, solid and cold. Part of it wrapped itself around me, warm, soft and cocoon-like. I lay still for a second, re-orienting myself.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

The sound of the cricket was near my head now. I was lost, struggling for awareness, trapped in a state of confusion...

Then it hit me. _A dream_. It had all been a dream. I lay on the cold wooden floor of my bedroom, with blankets entwined about my body like webbing. I shook off the feeling, still caught in the state between the dream world and my waking one.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I groped for the sound of the annoying insect and grabbed hold of it like a lifeline to anchor me in a moment of physical reality. I let loose a long, shaky breath and flipped open the cell phone. It had been the cricket, cutting through the wandering realm of my dream.

"This had better be good."

My voice sounded dry and harsh to my ears. As my mouth formed the words, I tasted the rich, coppery flavor of blood. I must have bitten my tongue. I moved it around, testing. A brief flash of pain made me pull it back further into my mouth. Nope. I had bitten my lower lip.

"Yesh?" The voice on the other end of the call was hesitant.

_What time was it, anyway?_ I looked around the room and then turned over to look at the clock on the bedside table. The red numbers burned through the darkness. _5:58_. The alarm would have woken me up in another two minutes. Chaz was saved from the worst of my crabbiness this time.

"You okay?"

I thought about the dream and shuddered, pulling the blanket tighter around me for what—warmth? Protection? The kid had actually done me a favor. But I was irritated enough not to tell him that.

"Yesh?"

"Yeah. I'm here."

"Are you––?"

"Fine." I snapped, trying to get my annoyance under control. "I'm fine. What's up?"

"I've got another one for you." His voice held the kind of excitement that always spelled trouble.

"Like the last one?"

"No." I could almost feel the heat of his face rising to embarrassment. I knew he wouldn't likely make the same mistake a second time––at least not so soon after the first. "This one's for real, Yesh. I think––I'm pretty sure anyway."

"What is it, Chaz?"

"I think we have a dream stalker."

_Of course. What else would it be?_ The thought of the piercing gaze of the man from my dream made my stomach turn over. Or maybe it was the combined taste of blood with the morning breath still thick in my mouth. The alarm clock went off and I reached to shut it down.

"Yesh?"

"Yeah. I'm still here. Where am I going, kid?"

Chaz shot me an address that I fixed in my mind. I wasn't about to scramble for a pen and paper in the dark. There wasn't any in the bedroom anyway. I made a vague promise to be there when I could and snapped the phone shut. It took me a few minutes to get motivated. I used them to collect my thoughts and center. I leaned back against the bed, still semi-wrapped in my blanket and surrounded by the dusty darkness of the early morning.

People are afraid of the dark. There is something about darkness that makes them uneasy, twitchy. It sets even the bravest on edge, ready to jump at a glimpse of movement, or sometimes to freeze in fear, unable to move at all. When light dispels the shadows, they laugh at their own foolishness to find nothing there.

I stopped laughing a long time ago.

I have learned over the years not to be afraid of the dark. It's the things that hide in the dark that scare me. Occupants of darkness wear it like a shroud, hiding their true nature from eyes that wouldn't understand what they're seeing anyway.

The worst part is that in the light, they look the same as you or me.

They don't have to hide––they do it only because it's something deeply ingrained into their nature. People have forgotten how to see them for centuries. Or most people have. Not me. I've always been able to see them. Sometimes I wished I couldn't. Life would be so much simpler.

Time to get moving. Chaz could be onto something. _A dream stalker_. The thought made me want to puke. I forced myself to get off the floor and extricated my body from the tangled blankets. As I headed to the shower, I snagged my robe from a pile of clothes at the foot of my bed.

I flipped on the light and tossed the robe onto the hook on the back of the bathroom door. It stayed in place. _Must be one of my better days_. It just didn't feel like it yet. While I went through the physical rituals of morning absolutions—like getting the fetid taste out of my mouth by brushing my teeth—my mind wandered, starting to wake up.

Chaz was a good kid. Maybe a little overly enthusiastic for someone like me, but that's okay. We need a little enthusiasm in this world. I'm cynical to tip the balance against a dozen of his kind. Chaz was once one of my rescue victims. I get a few of those, tossed my way by the church that raised me.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not a religious person. I was raised in an orphanage funded by the church. That's where my old man dropped me off after my mother died in childbirth.

The thought still hurt at odd times. It's not like it wasn't for the best. Pops was a sociopathic drunk––and did I mention pathological liar? No matter. I was alone in my apartment where only I could see the vulnerability in the eyes staring back at me from the mirror. I didn't have time to wallow. And more and more, I had even less time to feel.

I turned on the shower and hopped in while it was still cold, letting it shock me fully awake. The streaming droplets ran over me. I let them warm as the moments passed, before I started washing.

The nuns at the orphanage figured out that there was something different about me—my dreams were not the normal dreams of a five-year-old child. They were night terrors with a basis in reality. It terrified them that the things I said I saw and spoke about were not the "imaginary" musings of a child trying to compensate for loneliness, but rather the kinds of things they had forgotten how to see. So they turned me over to the priests.

Not everyone realizes that religions have more to their concepts of light and darkness than they see. Oh, yeah, sure. There are the regular teachings of heaven and hell. But those focus on having faith that heaven exists and is a happy place to go to.

They gloss over the part about the balance that needs to be maintained between the light and the darkness, and hell is not only real, but it's all around us. I'm pretty sure it's because if they could see what is really there, they'd drop faith for the future of their souls and live in the physical reality of the now in order to survive the onslaught against their minds and bodies.

That was my job.

I finished washing and reached to turn off the water. Something stopped me. I brought my hands back and held them under the water, turning them over to see both front and back. They were crisscrossed with red marks––some raised to welts. My fists clenched in frustration. Chaz was definitely onto something. I hated dream stalkers. With a resigned sigh, I turned off the water and went to get dressed. It was time to get to work.

## Chapter 2

[Back to Top]

There's a lot to be said for cruising down the freeway on a bright sunny day straddling a shiny, black, 998cc vibrating crotch rocket. Aside from the obvious, it's a feeling of total freedom and the closest I'll ever get to flying like some of the other _things_ I encounter. Okay, I have to admit a bit of envy on my part for that ability. The total freedom of movement, the wind stinging your face and blowing your hair out behind you like an extra set of wings at your head, no traffic––pure adrenalin. You can't be in my line of work and not be addicted to the rush of adrenalin.

I hit a button at my waist that piped radio waves to my headset.

"...House announced today that the president would soon begin his promised promotion of literacy in the schools. His planned tour will take him..."

Gack. The radio went back off. I was not up for politics this morning. As far as I was concerned, politics and religion could be lumped into the same category. They were both necessary institutions whose sole function was to give the appearance of control to the masses in a world where control was an illusion for the most part.

Maybe that wasn't entirely accurate. Both institutions had control enough to keep the masses from seeing the truth of what was really going on. The political and religious factions that drew the most people to their sides were the ones that could put the best spin in place to make people feel good about themselves and the world they live in.

They certainly don't live in the same world I do. People can't handle that kind of reality with their coffee in the morning. Coffee. Damn. That's what I had forgotten. They might not be able to handle reality with their coffee––I can't handle it _without_ my coffee.

The kind of reality I live in means I can't turn my back on the world, pretending true evil doesn't exist. The world the rest of society lives in has its own breed of monsters––rapists, murderers, child molesters––and the list goes on. That's not to say I don't feel about these things like everyone else does. They shouldn't be allowed to have a place in the world at all. But I know the reality behind the _true_ perpetrators of these mundane acts.

The balance between light and darkness is a delicate one. Flip open any newspaper or turn on any television and it always seems that darkness is winning. But that's not true. It only seems that way. All it takes is one good, selfless act and the balance tips back against a horde of evil ones. That's why you hear so much about the darkness of humankind. Darkness has to exploit its own acts, sensationalize the fear. It is the only way for them to gain power in the hearts and minds of people.

For the most part, people reject the thought of evil. Only through constant bombardment can it keep a foothold in society. The downside to this? Constant inundation tends to create immunity. The people of today's world have had their senses numbed to the violence around them. Believe it or not, my side was winning. Or at least I liked to consider myself on the side of good. It was going to take something truly spectacular to shake the world up enough to tip the scales back in the favor of darkness again. It's coming. I know it is. And I'm going to do my best to stop it if I get half a chance.

I took the exit that would lead me to Chaz, my thoughts wandering in the same direction. He was a good kid. No matter how hard I tried to dissuade him from the path he was on, he stuck like glue. It was annoying at times, but I understood his drive. He _needed_ to do this.

Chaz had been one of my "rescue" victims. He had a nose for dream stalkers. He should. His father had been one. I was the one to put his father out of commission. Indirectly perhaps, but permanently.

If you think murderers, rapists or child molesters are the worst humanity has to offer, you'd be wrong. They're bad all right, but at least those types of scum leave a physical trail that eventually leads to their capture or death if people are bright enough to figure it out. Dream stalkers, skin walkers and others of their ilk don't. Dream stalkers will even perpetrate the same type of crime––abuse, rape, murder––but they do it in the dreamscape where the only evidence left is what appears to be the insanity of their victims.

Think about it. That is, if you can wrap your mind around the thought. Some sick-minded piece of crap goes to a late night meditation class, a bar, or maybe even spends the night with a group of his or her "friends". They settle into a good meditative state, go to sleep, or pretend to pass out. They put themselves into a seeming state of unconscious awareness around a group of people who can vouch for their whereabouts. Then they drop into their victims' dreams, commit whatever crime gets their twisted juices flowing and presto––deed done with no physical evidence.

The _really_ good ones can even beat the crap out of their victims and leave marks and bruises that show up when their victim is awake. What are the cops going to do about it?

"Ma'am, tell us from the beginning––how did this happen?"

"The man beat me and raped me."

"These are the bruises?"

"Yes."

"Can you identify the assailant?"

"Yes."

"And when did this incident take place?"

"Last night, I had this dream–"

"A dream."

"Yes."

"You are saying this happened to you in your dream."

"Yes, but–"

"Okay. Thank you, ma'am. I think we have enough to go on for now. We'll contact you if..."

Yeah, right. Case closed. One of the _hundreds_ of women attacked by Chaz's father was a devout little Catholic girl who mistook the bruises she woke up with as punishment from the Almighty for the type of dreams she was having. After all, they were _her_ dreams, right? So she must have some kind of "taint" to make her dreams take that direction in the first place. She went to confession and spilled the sordid details to a priest.

The priest happened to be Father David, the one who had taken over my "care" from the nuns. Up to that point, dream stalkers and skin walkers had been among my primary duties. That was almost ten years ago. I've branched out a bit since then.

Dream stalkers are human. They are not demons, unless you were to qualify demons by the amount of darkness in the soul. But they usually appeal for the aid of some demon to get them to the state of getting their yayas off without getting caught. Chaz's father was one of those. He made a pact with a demoness. She wanted a kid that was half human. He wanted access to the power the dreamscape offered him. It was a match made in hell.

The way the whole thing had gone down was also what made him so hard for me to catch. He wasn't accessing the dreamscape through his own dreams, he figured out that controlling his kid's dreams and using him as a channel gave him a lot more power. By the time I caught up to him, Chaz was ten years old and almost completely broken.

The man kicked my _ass_ ––several times, if you want to get technical about it. For the short term, he managed to really piss me off. In the long run, he did me a favor. Father David had to open my world up even further into areas the church officially refuses to acknowledge exists.

With a new and broader awareness of what was going on around me, I did the one thing Chaz's father, and probably the church, never expected me to do––I tracked down mama. I was hedging my bets. Most demons will only propagate the species with their own kind. I figured there had to be something more here, if this demoness had chosen to bring a half-breed into the world. My bet paid off. Now mama was pissed, too.

I never had to deal with Chaz's father again. Chaz's mother took care of him. She had not been appreciative that he had tried to break the boy. It wasn't pretty. It also wasn't my problem any more. I did track the boy down to his physical location, though. That was my part of the bargain with the demoness. She wanted him out of that place before the cops were alerted to what was left of Chaz's father.

I took Chaz to Father David and let the priest work with the kid. It took years to repair what daddy had done to him. But Father David was good. I stopped in and checked on Chaz from time to time over the years. When Chaz turned eighteen and left the orphanage, he showed up on my doorstep. The kid burned with the desire for stopping crap like what he had been through.

There was nothing I could've said that would have turned him away from it. Well, there might have been one thing, but Father David and I had discussed it and had come to a single decision between us. We never told Chaz about his mother. I'm sure it will come out some day. I hope it never has to come from me.

Chaz works with me, although I try to keep him from the worst of it when I can. That's kind of like trying to hold back a river with a sieve, since the worst of it is all I seem to deal with any more. But I keep a close watch on him. Mama didn't bring him into this world without a purpose in mind. Just because I didn't happen to know her reasons, I wasn't stupid or naïve enough to believe it was because she wanted to be saddled with a half-breed kid. It was better to keep him close so that when she did decide the time had come, I'd step on her clock.

A couple more turns took me into a strip mall parking lot. I rolled the address Chaz had given me through my head. It wasn't a house like I'd been expecting. My face broke into a smile. Chaz had set up the meeting at a coffee shop. Like I said before––he's a good kid.

I pulled into a space and set the bike into park position. My headset was dropped to hang loose around my neck and I pushed back some of the strands of long, black hair that had pulled loose from the thick braid that hung to my waist. Before entering the coffee shop, I stopped to get a peek at my reflection in the outside window.

Dressed in black leather from boots to chaps to jacket, with my exotic features framed in black hair above it all, I looked like a pretty tough chick. I guess I was for the most part. Over half the battle in my line of work was a firm belief in your strength and the ability to overcome anything. I wasn't the only one that had to believe in it. Those I worked to help had to believe in it, too. They had to believe I was stronger than whatever it was they were dealing with. I had to _make_ them believe it, or the battle was lost before I even started.

I shut down the tiredness in my eyes that came through sometimes when everything seemed so overwhelming. I donned my "business" face, specifically designed to mask the loneliness––the one that also tended to separate me even more from the rest of the world––and I stepped inside to deal with the next of what I'm sure is a long line of troubled days to come.

## Chapter 3

[Back to Top]

The earthy aroma of ground beans mingled with the more full-bodied tang of fresh-brewed coffee, flooding my senses with a taste of pure heaven. I could close my eyes and die a peaceful death, right here, right now. Some health buffs may argue the dubious attributes of my caffeinated beverage of choice. They can keep arguing. Coffee is my nirvana, ambrosia––nectar of the gods. Sacrilegious? Perhaps, but the attribute is nonetheless fitting in my book.

I spotted Chaz. He was young. Too young to have seen the things he has in his lifetime. We all have our paths in life. His blue eyes twinkled with happiness at seeing me, set in a pale face that probably saw as little sunlight as my own. Cropped, blond hair was gelled to stand up straight in spiky disarray on top of his head, the tips of those spikes dyed black to leave an overall impression of short porcupine quills.

He waved me over to where he was sitting. The woman with him had her back to me. I held up a finger and gave him a look that said first things first, and turned to the girl at the counter.

"Triple mocha with a shot of hazelnut."

Hey––I make no excuses for my beverage choice comprising over ten times the daily recommended intake of toxic, refined sugar dissolved in a triple dose of concentrated caffeine. Things are the way they are and that's the way I like it. If you think that's bad, I was only getting started. If things held true to form, I'd probably have another before I left.

While the girl took time to make my order, I took the time to check out the woman sitting with Chaz. She had strawberry blonde hair that fell forward in a semi-messy curtain around her head and shoulders. Her arms were crossed in front of her out of my sight, with her shoulders slumped in toward her body. The body language told me she was feeling vulnerable, defeated and closed off. She was feeling the need to protect herself from outside influences. Yeah, no kidding. If Chaz was right, she should definitely be feeling a little of all the above. I opened my secondary senses and probed a little further.

The backlash was instant. It was as though I had stuck my hand into a slightly opened door and had it slammed on my fingers. The woman turned and glared at me, the heat of her gaze sparking a warning in her green eyes. Fair enough. I deserved that.

Sometimes I forget. Most people I come across––okay, _most_ people, period––are unaware of the metaphysical side of reality. There are a few out there that not only sense it, but have a pretty fair handle on it. She was one of those select few. And she was strong. I'll give her that. Better yet, she wasn't going to take invasion of her personal space lightly. It gave me hope.

Number one, if a dream stalker _was_ at the root of this woman's problem, she was far from broken. Two, she still had a lot of fight left in her. These were both powerful points in my favor. They were factors that would make my job a lot easier. It also meant I had to start out our "getting to know you dance" with apologies on my side. Not the best position to begin from, but I could deal with it.

"Whipped cream?" The girl behind the counter had the pressurized canister poised above my waiting cup of pick-me-up.

"Of course," I smiled and laid eight bucks on the counter. The coffee would come to about six. "Keep the change."

I was feeling generous this morning. She handed me the coffee with my receipt, which I stuffed into my pocket. I had an expense account with the church. Father David and I had argued over "frivolous" expenses. He didn't agree with my patient explanation of coffee as a necessity, until I pointed out that the bottle of scotch he kept hidden in the lower left-hand drawer of his desk probably wasn't, either. I get paid for my coffee––but he rarely offers me any of his personal stash any more. It was a trade-off I could live with.

Armed with coffee in hand, I headed over to the table, taking my time. The woman was urgently whispering to Chaz. She didn't seem happy. I fought the urge to sigh and sucked in a mouthful of whipped cream with my first taste of heaven for the morning. This was going to be a rougher start than I had hoped.

Chaz stood up to offer me the interior position at the table. I looked at him with patience over the top of my cup. The heat flushed his face and he sat back down, moving to the seat he had offered to me. I didn't like to be blocked in by anybody. It was a force of habit. Ms. Green-eyes was watching my every move from across the table, her wariness emphasized with sullen resentment.

"Pietra, this is the woman I've been telling you about." Chaz tried to break through the wall of tension permeating the air around us. She wasn't budging.

"Yesh," Chaz tried again. He had the audacity to give me a chastising look, the little snot. "This is Pietra Wells. Pietra, this is Yeshua Star."

I winced. I hated the pretentiousness of my name. My father had given it to me. It wasn't his surname, but he had made it mine. In this case, it helped. A ghost of a smile crossed Pietra's face. She was satisfied with my discomfort.

"Pietra," I nodded my head with politeness and assumed my best look of sincerity. "I will start right off with an apology for––"

"Miss Star––"

"Yeshua."

"Yeshua," she hesitated with a small frown. There was indecision in her face. She wanted to reprimand me without offering offense. That was okay with me. I could sense her need to exert a modicum of control into unfamiliar territory, so I waited with what I hoped appeared to be patient expectance.

"What you just did is wrong by my beliefs."

Her words were carefully chosen. I was betting Wiccan of some variety.

"Such things should not be done without permission."

I nodded acceptance of her statement. It was my turn now.

"Pietra, I apologize for causing you any level of discomfort. It was not my intention. However, you should be aware that with the nature of the things I am often called upon to deal with being as they are, permission is not a nicety I often have the time to deal with. This is especially true in the early stages of determining what is going on. An invitation at that point is a flashing neon sign that screams _trap_. While I apologize for your distress, I won't apologize for the action itself."

The first stages of introduction aside, I'm not going to dance around political correctness with fear of stepping on the toes of someone else's beliefs. I come from an acceptance of all manner of beliefs. That courtesy is not often returned. If someone needs the kind of help I may be able to give them, I don't have time to worry about giving them the warm fuzzies. In the end, they're probably not going to be happy about how I do things, regardless. I do whatever is necessary to bring the bad guy down. And let's face the real facts. If it could've been handled in a way that made the person involved comfortable, then they wouldn't have needed me in the first place.

Pietra nodded recognition of my words, although I could tell she wasn't happy about it. There was a visible struggle going on within her to put together a politic response. I avoided any indication of the impatience I was feeling and took some time to absorb myself in the cup of coffee cradled between my hands. Chaz took his cue from me and looked out the window to count cars in the parking lot.

"Miss Star," she hesitated with a frown. "Yeshua. From what your friend has intimated, you may well be one of the few people in the world who can help me with––my problem."

A slight exaggeration on his part, but okay. This was the hardest part to get past––the admission, not only to herself, but also to other people, that there was a real problem.

"My abruptness with you stems from my own feelings of vulnerability to outside influences tapping into me without permission." The tears created a bright shine across her eyes, which to her credit went unshed. "Make no mistake––I am passing no judgment. I am in full approval of doing whatever it takes to stop this monster from continuing what he is doing."

Good girl. The hardness of her voice on the last gave me free reign to move forward. In consideration of the delicate nature of her problem, I took another sip of coffee to give her time to absorb what she had just said before jumping in.

Looking at her a little more closely now, I could see she was somewhere in her mid to late thirties, about the same age I was. She had a spray of freckles dusting her nose. Combined with her fair complexion, it told me her hair color was probably real and not some dye-job. She was well rounded in form, perhaps a little overweight, but she carried it well and in all the right places. Her overall appearance was very attractive, but slightly unkempt, probably due to the stress she was under. As though she had heard that last thought, nervous fingers went to push her hair back behind an ear and then stopped to let it fall forward again. My hand came halfway across the table, but I held back at the last minute and looked at her with question.

"May I?"

She faltered. A look of panic flashed in her eyes, quickly shifting to pain and then resignation. Her fingers moved her hair back again to better display what she knew I was asking to see. Just above the neckline of her shirt a deep, blackened bruise surrounded a set of teeth marks.

My hand dropped to the table, the fingers curling into a fist that I pulled back to drop in my lap. I wanted to touch it, probe it––but I already knew what I'd find. It took everything I had to keep a reign on the outraged anger that I was feeling on behalf of this woman and what she was being subjected to. I could probably even give her some relief from the pain and disconnect her from her torturer, but it would've only been a temporary fix that could alert the dream stalker to my presence. I needed for him to _not_ know about me yet. Pietra sensed my inner struggle and dropped her hand to let her hair fall forward again.

"How many of these do you have on your body?" I was finally able to ask, but not without a lot of tightness in my voice. Her eyes dropped away from me in shame. My anger deepened.

"Several––in various areas. That's the only one with teeth marks." The hesitation was back and she almost choked on her words. "There are more––ones like finger marks––but just as dark––they are on my thighs." The tears welled up again. "He––it––and there are others––"

"Other marks, or––?"

"No––other women. From my coven."

"Let me guess––ten others?"

She nodded.

My dreams rarely led me wrong. They actually helped clue me into upcoming things. But, as usual, they had left out a few important details. I couldn't wait to see what else was going to come to light.

"A coven."

"Yesh––"

"Shit, Chaz––do you have any idea what this means?"

The confusion in his eyes told me that he didn't.

"Is there a problem?" Pietra looked up at me, her voice rising with the levels of her anxiety.

"Yes and no."

Both Chaz and Pietra were waiting for me to elaborate. I wasn't sure how to proceed so I bought time by emptying my coffee.

"Who brought him into contact with the coven?"

The waves of shame that rolled from Pietra were so strong that she didn't have to answer, but she did, in a very low voice.

"I did."

"And your High Priestess––?"

"Is me."

Damn and double damn. So much for being easy.

"Let me guess––he has done ritual with your group as a twelfth member to raise the power level of your works?"

A nod this time.

"Oh, shit." Chaz had finally caught on.

"And where is this man staying––or do I need to ask?"

Her lack of response was my answer.

"How aware are the other women of what is happening?"

"Peripherally, Yesh. That's how Pietra figured out something was up."

I blew out a long, slow breath.

"When is your next coven gathering for ritual?" I already knew the answer, but I needed time to think and Pietra needed to engage herself fully into the task of getting rid of this guy.

"Tonight––but we were going to cancel. Some of the girls have already called off."

Just as I figured. Tonight was the full moon. Pretty much a standard for most rituals. I needed time to think about this and plan out my next move. That wasn't an option, so I did the next best thing. I jumped in with both feet. The details could be sorted out later.

"Okay." I firmly set the empty coffee cup at the center of the table and waited for Pietra's eyes to meet mine. I captured her gaze with the seriousness of my tone and I wouldn't let go. No allowances for uncertainty––I needed her undivided attention.

"When you leave here, take Chaz with you. Go and visit the members of your coven and tell them––tell them a watered down version of what's going on. Explain to them that they _will_ be at ritual tonight––no exceptions. Let them know you are taking back the night. But you need to make them aware that it probably won't go down tonight. Under no circumstances are you to mention my involvement at the level that it is. For now, that is your knowledge alone, and even you need to pretty much forget the same thing in your conscious mind. Can you do that?"

"Yes." The High Priestess in her actually responded with strength. Good. "But how––?"

"That information I am not going to give to you." She didn't need to know that I hadn't figured it all out yet. "What you don't know, you can't give up to him. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but he is expecting me back––"

"When you go home, you will explain to him that you have taken time today to meet with a twelfth potential for the coven, bringing your number to thirteen. That should mollify him. You need to let the other ladies know that, too––but nothing about the truth of what I am really there to do."

Her relief at knowing that I would be there was evident.

"Yesh, no––you can't––"

"Yes, Chaz. I can." The gaze that I turned on him was firm. There was no other way––not if I wanted to get this over with. Which I did.

"But, Yesh–"

"Chaz, you will be with Pietra when she goes to meet with each lady of her coven. She needs to give them reassurances without backing her words up. Do you understand?"

Chaz nodded. He wasn't happy about it, but neither was I. High Priestesses needed to be strength for their coven. But I couldn't afford to have her let my part in this slip out just to bolster the courage of her girls. Chaz would keep her on the right path. I trusted him.

"When you are done, Pietra––you can head back and start your regular preparations for tonight. Chat me up to him, if you'd like. Let him know that I'm a good find, you think I'll do well and so on. It will whet his appetite and he should pretty much leave you alone."

"Chaz––when Pietra is done with the coven, head back and meet me at my place. I'm going to need your help."

I started to get up from the table.

"What will you be doing?" Chaz asked. "Are you going to stop by and see Father David––let him know what's up?"

"Nope. No time." I gave him a pained smile. "I'm going to see a man about a dream."

## Chapter 4

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Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Those with the greatest awareness have the greatest nightmares."

If that's the case, I must have my eyes wide open because the nightmares I deal with do not always come when I'm asleep. And if it wasn't bad enough that I had to deal with my own nightmares, I went out of my way in seeking out others' nightmares to champion. I did have nightmares––ones that didn't even have a connection to events going on around me. Or at least I didn't think they did. It wasn't anything that had manifested yet, like the one I had of the dream stalker last night.

One in particular had haunted my dreamtime for years, for as long as I could remember. It only came through in bits and pieces, which made it even more frustrating. Wings, a gate, a big fight, and an explosion. That's pretty much all I've been able to get a handle on. What I _do_ know is that I wake up in a cold sweat every time I have it. Thankfully, it only comes on occasion. The all-encompassing feeling of dread that follows in its wake will leave me on edge for days. I'd much rather chalk it up to normal, everyday nightmares that normal, everyday people have. The problem was that I was well ensconced in abnormality, so it still makes me twitch.

After Father David "opened" the doors for me to the realm that "doesn't exist" as far as the church was concerned, I hunted down someone to help me get a handle on my own little nightmare troubles. My search introduced me to a bizarre side of reality that I'd never imagined existed. It also took me to the doorstep of Morpheus and his two brothers, Phobetor and Phantasos.

An interesting aspect of my early studies with Father David was that he walked me down a path of classic literature and mythology. You have to admit, it's a pretty strange focus for a dedicated man of the church to instill in his protégé. Then, when I was dealing with Chaz's father, he turned my world upside down. When you stop to think about the world I was already privy to, that was pretty hard to do. The most illuminating point that I've ever come to learn and accept is _everything_ happens for a reason.

A patient Father David had led me through the old classics––Ovid, Homer, and so forth, and then on into a deep study of religious mythology––Greek, Roman, Norse, Sumerian, Celtic, Japanese––you name it. The list goes on. The stories were like candy to me. Why do people lose themselves in these fantastical stories? I found out it's because those stories, to the book lover, are in actuality the pre-cursor to reality television.

There is an element of truth to be found in every mythos––more than you might think. For example, when I talk about going to visit with Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos, I'm not talking about three wannabes. I'm talking the real deal––Morpheus, the Greek God of Dreams––the King of Sleep himself––and his brothers and partners in the dreamscape, Phobetor and Phantasos. It was a lot to swallow for someone like me, but the experience of it definitely made me a believer.

A ringing from the headset sounded in my ears. Without even thinking, I reached down and flipped the switch from radio to phone and opened a connection. You have to love hands-free technology.

"I'm here."

"Yeshua? This Father David."

Speak of the devil.

"Hi Father. I was going to ring you up today."

"Oh?"

"Yeah––Chaz hooked me onto the trail of another DS. From all indications, this guy's managed to get to some pretty high level bull––er, stuff."

"Do you need help, or back up?"

"That's where I'm headed now."

"Morpheus."

"Yeah. He sent me a dreaming last night, so I know he has a line on this guy."

"Well, if you need anything more––"

There was a tone to Father David's voice. Just because he had to accept what other members of the church wouldn't acknowledge, it didn't make him any more comfortable with it. He didn't care to have dealings with any of the immortals outside his own religious purview. I understood. Having had numerous occasions to mix with them myself, they were an arrogant lot, each with their own quirks that were often far from endearing.

"Thanks, Father, I'll let you know how things progress."

I thought that was the end of the conversation, but there I go thinking again. Before I could switch off, Father David stopped me.

"Yeshua, it sounds to me as though you are pretty busy right now. But do you think you might have some time to spare to come over?"

"Today? Not likely. Maybe tomorrow, but I can't make any promises as to what state I might be in."

"Tomorrow––?" There was a long pause. "Yes, tomorrow will do, if that's the earliest you have."

"It is."

Something was up.

"There is someone I'd like you to meet."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

Okay, something was definitely up and I wasn't going to get any clues.

"All right. I'll give you a call tomorrow and let you know where I'm at."

"I'll talk to you then."

"You got it, Father." I went to switch off again.

"And Yeshua?"

I gave a mental sigh. "Yes, Father?"

"Take care."

"Thanks, Father."

I was able to disconnect without any further interruption.

Believe it or not, Father David was one of the few people I have connected to in my life, for whom I hold nothing but the highest levels of respect. It's possible he's the only one. I just wasn't feeling chatty today. When I was on a mission that tended to happen. He accepted that about me. Since he hadn't offered to wait until I had finished with the dream stalker, it told me he had some heavy stuff of his own for me to deal with. So be it. But I couldn't afford double duty until I knew what was up with the first problem. Thus my visit to Morpheus.

All of the legends and myths handed down through the centuries have a grain of truth to them. At least I haven't found one yet that didn't. That includes all of those fun stories about ancient gods. They weren't actually gods, per se, but they were immortals.

Now just to be clear, immortals will live forever, as long as they're not killed by outside influences. A few of them weren't around any more. Take Ares, for example, known to be the Greek God of War. He was killed during the fall of Saigon back in the seventies. It served him right. He was the one who kept stirring the pot so he would have a playing field in the first place. Tengu, the Japanese God of Mischief ran afoul of the President's secret service during World War II––bad timing for prank pulling on his part, as far as I'm concerned. From what I hear, there wasn't a whole lot left of him. And Venus, known as the Roman Goddess of Love, was taken out in a murder-suicide two years ago in Manhattan.

Most of the immortals had been around for centuries. If they didn't learn how to adapt to the changing moods and rules of the world around them, they didn't last long. Many of them were still around.

The reason for their so-called immortality, was that they had learned to tap into the source of the magickal life force of the earth. A lot of people didn't accept the theory of the earth as a living, breathing entity. If they were to accept it, that would reduce mankind to a parasitic infestation. Well, call a spade a spade.

The earth _is_ a living thing, and the human race lives in a symbiotic, but parasitic relationship with her. I really don't know whether it's a he or a she, it could be asexual for all I know. It just seems to me that only a woman would have that much patience with destructive children.

Of course, there is the whole magickal energy field she is imbued with as well. It is the ultimate source of life-giving and creative energy. Once again, that seems to be a female trait. Women lean more toward the whole "life-giving" thing.

The immortals are nothing more than humans who have learned to draw from and use the magickal energies of the earth. That energy running through them as they direct its use gives them, in essence, immortality.

The human race has pretty much forgotten how to connect, once the advent of technology rose through the ranks of popularity. Not to go all biblical or anything, but even in the Old Testament it mentions people who lived for hundreds of years. That tells you which is the true power. Technology can barely keep us functional past a hundred. Humankind has disconnected and often works to destroy the very thing that adds to their existence. And then they wonder why we're so messed up as a species. Go figure.

I pulled down the alleyway that took me to Morpheus' front door. It was well hidden––he didn't care a lot for unwanted visitors. The ones that did visit were a special breed. After parking my bike, I waited. I didn't have to announce my presence to Morpheus. He already knew I was there. The lair-king of an opium den couldn't afford to not keep track of who was at his door.

The door opened to let me inside. A tall man, unspeaking, stood back in invitation. The sickening sweet smell of opiate-laced haze wafted toward me. I really hated this part. Traversing the narrow, dark, curtain-covered hallways of Morpheus' drug-sustained lair of dreams was not my idea of a good time. You couldn't walk those halls without falling victim to at least a subtle fog over your awareness. I certainly wasn't immune.

When dealing with the immortals you had to come to them on their terms, or they won't play. Most of them had a twisted sense of humor. They all had a code of honor. That's why I could so easily meet Morpheus on his terms. I knew he would never turn me away. As far as he was concerned, he _owed_ me.

"Hey, Lurch, how's it hangin'?"

I don't know if that was the doorman's name or not, but it had stuck from my first, nervous flippancy of day one and he never spoke to correct me. So Lurch it was. Before entering, I took a deep breath of alley stench and kept my breathing at a shallow minimum. I hated having my senses dulled. But that was Morpheus' little quirk. I passed through the narrow hallways as quick as possible, the curtains fluttering behind me as I went, but never exposing the interiors of the private rooms of the lair. Or if they did, I wasn't paying attention.

I had a misstep at the last corner, stumbling at the foot of the stairs. Damn. The haze was working its numbing toxicity on me already. A partially opened curtain of an alcove-sized room revealed an older man, round in body with white hair surrounding a bald top. He gave me a dreamy smile and saluted me with the twisted hose of the hookah stem before placing it to his lips. As I went to turn away, a flash of clarity drew my attention back to his pale, crystal blue eyes. I was startled by that gaze and looked away. It was far too clear for the amount of opiates he was drawing in. When I looked back, his eyes were glazed and dreamy again. It had to have been the drugged smoke playing tricks on my mind.

I tried to step quietly up the stairs, but that wasn't possible at this point. My feet felt leaden and my movements slow. The sound of each thump echoed through the narrow stairwell twisting in front of me, ringing hollow in my ears. I will say this much about Morpheus. Of all the immortals I have met, I trusted him––or at least I trusted his sense of honor the most. If I didn't, I would not allow this kind of drugged invasion of my body. I wouldn't come to any harm in Morpheus' establishment. It was a good thing the church didn't require piss tests for my particular "employment" arrangement with them.

As I reached the top of the stairs, the large wooden door blocking my way opened of its own accord. Without hesitation, I entered the dimly lit room and moved forward to let the door close behind me.

## Chapter 5

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I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head a bit with the fresher air in Morpheus' antechamber. He didn't need the opiates to induce dreamtime. Morpheus stepped in and out of that world with ease––and with no drugs. He had told me once that opium had been his original "way in", and what he offered to the people below was the chance to take hold of immortality as he had. I didn't buy it, but I also didn't argue.

Phobetor and Phantasos were lounging on an array of jewel-colored pillows, seemingly as oblivious to the world around them as the people downstairs. I sometimes wondered about those two. Every time I saw them, they were in the same spot, with the same dreamy look. They rarely spoke, and if the air weren't so clear up here, I would have sworn they were dosed.

While they might not actually be twins, many people mistakenly thought they were. It was easy to see why. They were almost identical in looks––blond hair, blue eyes, classic "Greek" profile with wide lips, and hints of fully sculpted bodies that peeked out in places beneath the robes they wore. If they were in as good of physical shape as they appeared to be, they had to be getting up from their cushions from time to time. I'd never seen them anywhere else.

Phobetor, the older of the two by a year, patted the empty spot next to him in invitation. I declined with a polite smile and a shake of my head. He responded with a pout and a shrug. It was a ritual we repeated every time I came.

"Ah, the lovely Yeshua Star. What brings you to our palace of delights?"

Morpheus' voice was smooth, sliding across me like a caress. I don't know how he did it, but he always made me shiver with its touch. And it was as though I could feel it touching me, leaving me longing for the real thing. He knew the effect it had on me. That's why he did it.

I shook off the feeling and turned to face him. Where his brothers were archetypal images of light, Morpheus was shrouded in a look that exuded darkness. It wasn't a sinister darkness, but the tantalizing darkness that screamed _dangerous_ , while at the same time drew you hypnotically into his arms. His shoulder-length hair was almost a blue-black, absorbing any color reflected in the room. He had the same, almost golden skin tone that his brothers had, but where it brightened their look, it darkened his. Morpheus sported a black goatee-mustache combo that framed full lips and added to, rather than detracted from the perfected sculpture of his face.

I let the heat smolder in my eyes to match the intensity of the gaze he turned on me. To do anything else would've been an insult. Morpheus was an immortal and had been worshipped as a god for many centuries. It wasn't hard for me to do. The man was _hot_.

His face split into a smile that displayed beautiful, even white teeth. "Only you, of all mortals could make me feel such heat, Yeshua. By the gods, I miss that." He opened his arms and I crossed the room to step into his embrace.

"Only you, of all _immortals_ can bring out such heat in me, Morpheus."

It was a lie and he knew it. Morpheus and I had once been lovers, but now we only danced at the edges of heavy flirtation. As sensitive as I was to energy, it was hard for me not to become intoxicated with power when in the presence of most of the immortals. But I didn't play with them as I did with Morpheus. He was safe to me. I couldn't be that sure with any of the others.

He let me free of his embrace and stepped back to examine my hands. "He _is_ a nasty one, isn't he?"

"So it _was_ you who sent the dreaming."

Morpheus put on an affronted look. "You don't honestly believe I would let the guy get this close to you without my protection, do you?"

"It was a little too real for comfort."

"He rode the dream web and touched into the dreaming. He caught me off guard."

Morpheus was embarrassed and looked away, offering me a seat next to him on the scattered pillows at out feet. The deep blue of his eyes turned to chiseled ice. "It will not happen again. I hate that I keep placing myself further in debt, even to someone as lovely as you, Yeshua."

I put a gentle hand on his arm. "Your debt is no larger, Morpheus. I've never felt that there was a debt between us in the first place."

"I know." He wrapped his fingers over mine and looked at me with sincerity. "Which is why I have no problem being in your debt."

Morpheus' debt to me was based purely on his pride. I had come to him years ago, asking for insight into my repetitive nightmares. He couldn't give me any. My dreamscape, past and future was blocked to him in ways he had never encountered before, with either mortals or immortals. He could step in and send the dreaming to me to help aid me in my work, but he couldn't actually step into my dream world. The dreamings he sent were the price he paid for the debt he felt he owed me. He had answers for everyone else, except for me. While he hated to be reminded of the one failure in his immortal lifetime, he continued to look for an answer to absolve his debt. I was his greatest failure and his greatest challenge, all rolled into one.

I could feel the trace of his fingers as they slid up my arm to the back of my neck. Morpheus leaned in and murmured against the place on my neck where his fingers rested. "You never want to play any more."

The warmth of his breath sent shivers of delight through my body. Combined with a self-enforced celibacy and the hazy edges of the opiates, the heat began to rise. I pulled back to break the connection to the energy that surrounded him like a cocoon.

It was hard for me to focus. "Morpheus–"

He sighed and shielded me from his touch.

I breathed with relief. He could have taken advantage of me and I would've been pretty much helpless to stop him. At one point in my life I hadn't wanted to stop him. We had been lovers for three glorious months. There was something to be said for being lovers with someone who had several millennia of experience at his fingertips––literally. The memory sent shudders through my body. But for those three months, I was incommunicado with everyone. That was part of the reason Father David thought of Morpheus with distaste. I had accomplished nothing more than a pleasurable––okay, I admit, a _very_ pleasurable––vacation. Reality had finally crept in and I had cut myself off from him and had gone back to work.

I hesitated, but brought my hand up anyway to caress his cheek. He closed his eyes and moved into the touch.

"Thank you."

He laughed. "Most women thank me for what I do _to_ them, not for stopping."

I had to join his laughter. Morpheus wasn't any more in love with me than I was with him. I only intrigued him because there was a part of me he couldn't access. That had never happened to him before. Immortals are no different than the rest of us. They even started as mortal human beings. Everyone always desires most that which they can't have.

"Chaz found the link to the dream stalker and hooked me up."

It was unnecessary to say. Morpheus had already known. That's why he had sent the dreaming. But I needed to create a separation between us, to draw the lines back from the realm of pleasure he assaulted me with, just by being in the vicinity.

"Yes."

"So what do you know? Or better yet, what do _I_ need to know?"

"This one has been working under my radar for sometime. There is more power to him than it first appears."

Morpheus didn't like admitting that he had not seen this guy crawl up through the ranks of controlling the dreamscape.

"How?"

He frowned, trying to puzzle it out loud. "I am not certain. There is a true duality to him that hid his face from me, I think. I sense both great good and the depths of darkness from him. It is hard for me to do a true seeing, because he shifts from one to the other so easily."

It was my turn to frown. That didn't sound good. "What does this mean?"

"That you need to be very careful with this one, Yeshua."

"I'm always careful. What makes this one any different?"

"You are _rarely_ careful." Morpheus chided with a knowing look. "And the power that he calls upon is stronger than I have seen in a millennia. There is more to this one than meets the eye."

"And you don't know what it is?"

"I have my suspicions."

"But you won't share."

The look that he gave me was troubled. "Not yet. I am hoping that I am wrong. If I am right–"

"Then what?"

He shook his head and looked away, avoiding direct contact with my eyes. Morpheus was spooked––and he didn't want me to see how badly. A sick feeling started to tickle the pit of my stomach. This was going to get ugly.

"Okay, what _can_ you tell me?"

"Don't go for a direct attack. Not yet. I need a little more time."

Yeah. It was going to get _real_ ugly. I pushed up from the pillows cushioning me.

"You got it."

Morpheus held me back by grabbing my arm. "I mean it, Yeshua. Take care with this one."

His concerned look was so sincere I had a hard time swallowing past the fear he passed onto me.

"I promise, Morpheus. I will be careful."

I leaned in to kiss his cheek and then pulled myself up from the floor. I left without looking back, because his words disturbed me. There were times when I could put on a front of arrogance that even I believed. This was not one of them. If Morpheus, revered as the god of dreams, felt fear from something in the dreamscape, I would be a fool to feel anything less.

The door to the antechamber opened as I walked toward it. I took a good, deep breath of fresh air before heading down to the twisted halls of darkness below.

## Chapter 6

[Back to Top]

Just as Morpheus had told me, I _was_ careful. Or at least I was careful on the ride back to my apartment. There was nothing I enjoyed more than riding the major roads and back streets of the city at top speeds. Whenever I left Morpheus, I tended to tone it down a bit. Operating heavy machinery does not mix well with opium. It left me wishing I had scored a second cup of coffee before I left Chaz and Pietra to their devices. But even if I had managed to get it to Morpheus' place without spillage, it would only have made me drugged _and_ wide-awake. So I took my time on the way home and was extra careful.

I left my bike in the unofficial parking garage of my apartment building and went to take the elevator to the second floor. It was unofficial, because as far as the city was concerned, the space leased by the occupants of the warehouse was strictly for business use. No one _officially_ lived here, yet all of the spaces were actually apartments. I wondered how much of a pay-off the landlord had to make to inspectors each year. It wasn't my problem. I more than covered my share of the bribe money with the exorbitant prices I paid on my lease.

It was my lucky day. The elevator was functional. It was a crapshoot as to whether it worked from one day to the next. I frowned as I stepped inside and the doors closed behind me. There was a tangy, metallic taste to the stale air of the freight box lumbering its way to the second floor. It was subtle, so I barely noticed it at first. I knew the smell for what it was. The doors opened on my floor and the smell was stronger. A look down verified what I already knew. Blood.

It was streaked in spots across the floor, drawing a trail around the corner up ahead. My apartment door was around that corner. I stepped out of the freight elevator and moved forward slowly, reaching at the same time to the middle of my back where my weapon was tucked into my belt. I didn't carry a gun. The things I dealt with were not the type to be taken down with bullets––not even silver ones.

Before I hit the corner of the hall, my fist was gripped tight to nine inches of layered carbon steel, its blue-black, wavy pattern glinting iridescent colors in the faded light of the hallway. It was a special blade given to me by Father David. The grip was smooth oak from an ancient, lightning-struck tree. A band of interlaced silver and gold circled the handle, carved with runes from a language so old that he couldn't even tell me what they said. Silver crosses made up the guard, protruding between the blade and the grip on either side. At the cross point on both sides, a Seal of Solomon gleamed gold in contrast to the cross.

Father David told me it was one of a set of ancient blades specially made by the church for their elite demon slayers. I just called it my "Companion" and left it at that. My Companion has taken good care of me over the years.

I paused at the corner, preparing myself for whatever I might find. The edges of the opium still tickled a fog across my mind. That irritated me. This was no time for my senses and reflexes to be dulled. The sound of the freight elevator kicking into slow gear made me jump, as it started to move its way back down to the first floor. I didn't know whether or not it was headed back up to my floor, but I couldn't take the chance of being sandwiched between two unknown and potentially unfriendly fronts. I had to move now.

I did look before I leapt. A quick glance around the corner gave me a clear shot of a semi-conscious man leaned up against the wall across from my door. It seemed okay for the moment. I stepped cautiously around the corner, my Companion held in front of me. My eyes checked the shadows. There was nothing. I went to reach out with my other senses, when the man turned his eyes toward me. They were glazed with pain and I could tell he was hanging onto to consciousness by a thread.

The blood trail stopped where he sat and was coalescing into a small pool beneath him. There was a pleading in his eyes that called out to me. I was still leery. People in my line of work didn't stay alive as long as I had by not playing it safe. The sound of the freight elevator moving again reminded me I might not have a lot of time.

I edged toward the man with caution, sending out my feelers as I went. It almost knocked me to my knees when I connected with him. I don't recall the last time I had felt such power. He didn't _feel_ like an immortal. He also didn't have that tarry, slimy feeling of evil, either. I wasn't sure _what_ he was.

He lifted a hand to me and tried to speak, nothing came out. The man slumped forward, unconscious, without a sound. A trick? Maybe, but I didn't have time to work through it all. The elevator stopped at my floor. With my luck running the way it seemed to be at the moment, it meant another somebody headed my direction.

I worked my way around the man, but he didn't move. Taking up a crouching, defensive position several feet past his immediate reach, I faced the direction of the new threat and waited. My heart was pounding in my chest and the adrenalin started pumping through my veins, helping to metabolize the remaining opiate haze in my system. The sound of footsteps crept slowly to the corner. Whoever it was, they moved with caution. That's all right––I was ready for them.

Blond spikes tipped with black showed around the corner before the rest of the face. The tension fell away. It was Chaz. I stood up and took a few deep breaths to slow my pounding heart. When I looked up, the kid was coming around the corner with a concerned look on his face, his eyes darting from my Companion to the bloodied man and back again.

"Yesh, did you––?"

I shook my head and took a step closer to the unconscious man. "No. I found him this way."

"Who is he?"

"Now _that_ seems to be the question. I've never seen him before."

"Then how––?"

"How about holding back on the questions while I check him out?"

Chaz opened his mouth and shut it again without another word.

Since the man was unconscious, I took advantage of a full probe with my non-physical senses. The level of power I had first sensed was still evident. There was nothing evil about the man, not in a demonic sense anyway. But there was definitely something wrong. It was nothing I could put a finger on. He felt familiar, but not. There was a struggle going on between his physical and metaphysical self––like they kept wanting to separate, and yet stay together at the same time. I had been around death before––that last moment of life where the spirit separates from the body and leaves to wherever it may be headed for the afterlife. This wasn't the same. My confusion must have shown in my face.

"What's wrong, Yesh?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, kid. Let's get him inside and see what we can find out."

"Are you sure it's okay––?"

I stood up the rest of the way and tucked my Companion back into place. "No. But it's probably the only way we're going to get any answers without having the guy die out here in my hallway."

I unlocked the door to my apartment and swung it open. Chaz and I turned as one to get the man situated between us. We worked well as a team. At least I got a clue on where all of the blood was coming from now. It was oozing out from beneath the jacket covering his back. Chaz moved toward the couch once we got inside the door, but I shook my head.

"No––I want him in the bedroom. There's more room to lay him out."

The kid looked at me like he didn't agree, but he didn't argue.

Once inside the bedroom door, I moved to hold the guy up against the wall. "Run and grab the extra shower curtain from the bottom drawer in the bathroom, will you?"

Chaz helped me get the man propped into a place where I could hold his weight up by myself, and then ran to do what I had asked. Just because I wanted to lay the guy out, didn't mean I wanted to ruin the sheets and mattress of my bed. Looking back across the apartment, I winced at the trail of blood we had left behind. That was going to involve a bit of scrubbing. I hoped the blood came out of my living room throw rug.

The kid was back quick, ripping open the box and shaking out the plastic curtain as he came. He tossed the box on the floor and spread the curtain out on the bed. It didn't cover the whole surface, but it was enough, as long as we were careful about it. He came back to help me move the man the rest of the way into the room.

"I need him sitting up first." I told Chaz as we juggled the dead weight between us to the bed. "We need to get his clothes off so I can see what the problem is."

"You got it."

A few minutes later, we had the guy lying face down on the bed in nothing but his briefs. We were both staring at his back, perplexed.

"I don't see––" Chaz started and then moved in to look closer. I sat down on the bed, just as confused as he was. Blood was seeping slowly out of the man's back, but it looked more as though it were oozing out of his pores in strips. There were no physical wounds that broke the surface of his skin that would give cause for the bleeding.

"What's happening to him, Yesh?"

I shook my head and leaned closer, running my hands just above the surface of his skin. "I have no clue. Get me some wet cloths to clean this up?"

Chaz was back out of the room in a flash. He was good that way. He might be annoying sometimes, but he was the best I could have asked for in an assistant. Especially a self-appointed assistant I had never asked for in the first place. He kept a cool head in a crisis and did what I asked without question. It was the in-between times when I couldn't always get him to shut up. But I dealt with my issues. It was a small price to pay for good help.

The man moaned and turned his head toward me. His eyes were still glazed with pain. I tried to put on my best face of reassurance, but I really wasn't good at it.

"Hold in there, fella." I tried for a smile. My bet was that it looked more like a grimace. "We'll see what we can do for you, but I need you to keep still."

He stared at me for a long moment before nodding. Even that small movement seemed to cause him a lot of pain. I adjusted my position to get closer to his upper back, where the majority of the blood seemed to seep out of his skin. I heard Chaz in the doorway behind me and I went to reach without looking for the cloths I knew he would have ready.

Something caught my eye and I moved my hand instead toward the neck of the man on the bed. With his face turned toward me, it had brought a raised mark into view on the right side of his neck. I looked closer. It appeared to be runes of some kind, but not quite. The markings looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place them. I frowned, reaching out to run my fingers over the surface. The man jerked as though burned and his voice rasped a warning in my ears.

"Don't––"

But it was too late. Blackness slid across my vision, the room fading away around me.

## Chapter 7

[Back to Top]

The sound of the man's warning was muffled to my ears, distorted. It sounded far away from wherever I was now. And wherever I was, I didn't like it. The terrain had a vague, familiar feel to it. Damn. It was a dreamscape. Is that why the guy had felt so familiar? Was he the dream stalker I was after? Morpheus had mentioned separate and distinct personalities––was that the separation I had felt?

Somehow the answer didn't feel right to me. This was––different. I wasn't ruling it out, but dream stalkers were generally cowards in their physical form. They didn't walk up to a tracker and bleed at their doorstep. I really didn't need these kinds of complications right now.

I looked across the dreamscape. The sun was setting as a backdrop to an incredibly delicate, impossibly real crystalline city. The buildings were all dark. The last rays of dim light peeked over the rim of the horizon, ready to cast the city into the dark of night. It wasn't a complete darkness. A pale shadow of indigo blue washed the dreamscape around me in an ethereal glow. It was just bright enough to keep full darkness at bay, but not the sick feeling in my stomach. I knew this place. And I was pretty certain I wasn't going to like being here.

A slight tug at the edge of my conscious awareness tried to pull my attention in another direction. I wanted to avoid looking, but knew I had to. I turned my head and there it was. A gate. It was amazing, and intricate. It was beautiful, and yet it sent a stab of fear rushing through me. I _did_ know this place. It wasn't just any dreamscape. It was the place I returned to time again. The place that left me sitting up in bed with a cold sweat covering my body. This was the place of my nightmare, the one I'd had for years. But it wasn't in bits and pieces. This was the full deal. Only this time I wasn't living it, I was watching it, like looking into a fishbowl.

To look at the gate as an object, it was as ethereal as its setting. It was a large, slightly elliptical, mirror-like surface standing vertical and flat. The frame surrounding that surface was a bas-relief of soft shapes and colors. It reflected everything––the last light of the sun, the indigo hue of the twilight world, and it was constantly moving and shifting––reshaping itself in front of my eyes. It made my head hurt to watch it, but I couldn't turn away. The surface, by contrast, was flat and motionless. It reflected nothing and showed nothing.

But something was there, just on the other side of the deceptive, calm surface. A chill went through me and I shivered. I didn't have to know what it was. What I did know, and felt with every fiber of my being, was that it was wrong. It was very, very wrong.

My attention went to the base of the gate––in part because there was something moving, but mostly because I didn't want to look at the wrongness beyond the surface of the gate. I could feel it reaching out, sensing and probing. I didn't want it to notice me.

Two figures stood before the gate. Both were facing each other. And both had wings––amazing, delicate, beautiful feathered wings that spread from their backs.

The smaller of the two was using those wings to hover off the ground, bringing her to eye level with the one standing in front of the gate. She wore a dress of many layers, deep oranges, reds and golds. It was almost like the color of fire, but not quite. The many pieces of material didn't so much move like flames as they did the petals of a multi-colored marigold wrapped around her body. Her wings were the same color, the hues weaving in and out to display a picture, like feathered butterfly wings. Her long, loose golden curls framed a cherubic face that was animated with playful pleading.

The other one stood with pride before the gate. Long, dark hair was braided over one shoulder to hang almost to her waist. The delicate feathers of her white wings took on the subtle hue of the indigo light around her. They contrasted the color of her clothing––dark, fit and tight, the dress of a warrior. It was her face that really caught my attention. It was a strong face, marred with tiredness.

I knew that face well. I looked at in the mirror every day. My face stared out from the form of the winged creature. Of course, I should have known that. In my nightmare, _I_ was the one that stood before the gate and dealt with what was coming. This was the first time I've ever watched what happened from a distance. If I had a comfy chair and some popcorn, I could sit back and watch the show. Only this wasn't a popcorn-type movie. It was a lean forward on the edge of your seat and call out to warn the dumb, blonde cheerleader not to go into the basement-type of movie. As though my thoughts cued the sound guy, the voices faded into my awareness, the curtain rising on the middle of the opening scene.

"So do you think you can come with me to the observatory tomorrow?" The cherubic girl was dancing in the air with restrained excitement.

"We'll see, Arianna. But it looks doubtful."

"Please, Ithane. Puh-leease––" Arianna's wings were twitching back and forth anxiously. "The Council makes you work too much. You never get to do anything any more."

For the first time, since I'd never had the chance to watch from a distance, I saw what I never did when the pieces flashed through my nightmare. A ripple appeared on the surface of the gate. It was so subtle that it was easy to miss. The winged warrior standing guard in front of the gate missed it. The annoying little cherub distracted her. If I had been sitting in a theater seat, this would've been about the time I'd be digging my fingers into the armrests.

"I know, Arianna. But the timing is not good. The Council seems to think––" Ithane stopped, shaking her head. "Never mind. It does not matter. I cannot go anywhere until the Council gives me leave."

The cherub crossed her arms with a petulant pout, stomping her foot ineffectively in the air.

"They'll never let you take a break. Not as long as _he_ ––" Her eyes widened. "They really think Lucifer's gonna try again, don't they? And soon—or else they'd let you go."

"Stop, Arianna. You know we no longer speak the name of the Morning Star. And you know I cannot tell you anything—"

Lucifer? As in the big, bad, himself? This was getting weird. Maybe that's why I never remembered the whole sequence of the nightmare. It was a little too surreal to wrap my mind around.

From my vantage point, I could see what Ithane didn't at first. The cherub had stopped paying attention to the guardian. Her attention, as was mine, focused on the surface of the gate. The ripple had grown, a repetitive constant movement starting to push forward, bulging from the flat surface. Ithane caught the look of horror on Arianna's face and looked behind her, catching sight of the mass trying to push its way through.

"Holy Mother—" the guardian cursed, whipping around to face the gate.

I knew my own look of fear matched Ithane's. I could feel it. I had experienced this many times before from the viewpoint of the guardian. And I knew what would come next.

Ithane regained her senses quickly. She set her stance, preparing to fight against the enemy coming through the gate. Her feet spaced solidly apart at shoulder width, she raised her arms and spread her fingers, calling for the power.

Two energy nodes, set on pillars half the height of the gateway, sprang to life. Violet-white lightning energy crackled in the air, rapidly building in strength. When the nodes could not contain the power any longer, it shot out, directly at the heart of the guardian. Ithane's body went into spasms with the force of its entry, but she held her ground. She swayed as it filled her, bathing her body with the light of its power, glowing from the inside out. Wow. She was _good_.

Her form filled with the violet-white light, spreading its way through her body. Multiple lines of the energy shot out from the palms of her hands and fingertips. Her fingers immediately started curling and she moved her arms and hands, weaving the separate lines together. The flows took form with her intent, a woven pattern of energy. It was as though a cloth were being woven of light, a blanket to cover the surface of the gate.

"Arianna, sound the alarm!"

Ithane didn't take her eyes from the pattern, working to tighten the weave. She couldn't see the look of horror on the girl's face. But she sensed the cherub's fear, holding her frozen in place, unable to move.

"Arianna, snap out of it! Sound the alarm!"

The girl was still unable to move, caught in horrified fascination at the sight of the gate. I watched Ithane shift one of her hands, pulling out of the weaving pattern for a single instant. A bolt of lightning flew from her palm, headed directly at Arianna.

"By all that is Holy, cherub, moved your winged backside and do as I say, or we are all lost!" Ithane's words gritted out her threat between clenched teeth as she struggled to work her way back into the weaving of the energy.

That's the way I would've handled it. I watched Arianna reel under the force of the energy blast, tumbling away from the gate with a squeal. The cherub shook it off, momentarily dazed. I could see her trying to clear her head, her eyes darting from the gate, to Ithane, and back to the gate again. Realization finally hit the annoying little twit and she gathered herself together, flying to the gong set a pace away from the gate. Arianna picked up the hammer hanging on a tie to the side and started pounding on the gong, frantically, repeatedly.

I closed my eyes to the scene, mouthing the words simultaneously as Ithane spoke them out loud.

"No—it's going to be too late—"

I heard the sound of footsteps and the whispering sound of what had to be wings. The sounds got louder as they came closer. But I knew what was still to come. I couldn't stop from watching, from reliving the horror of the nightmare over again.

Ithane struggled to tighten the weave of the energy pattern across the gate. The surface of the gate bulged outward, pushing back against the weave, stretching it in places. Ithane's expression was one of intense concentration. It was also one of a struggle against a battle she knew to be lost.

I saw a single angelic figure reach the scene. He was dressed similar to Ithane, his dark fitted clothing that of a warrior. Before, when I played the part of Ithane, I knew him. Upon waking, he was always a mysterious figure, only a part of the elusive nightmare. Now, looking on from the sidelines, I knew who he was. The winged creature was the same stranger who had arrived wounded at my door.

Ithane knew him and welcomed his arrival, although she didn't acknowledge him. There was no time. The man stepped up to her side, took his stance and tapped into the gateway nodes. A different color, blue-white lightning, flickered at the nodes and shot out to him. Just as Ithane had embraced the violet light to her heart, the man did the same with the blue. His fingers and hands worked as hers did, weaving the blue light with her violet energy, strengthening the weave.

I started to shake my head, feeling the horror of what I knew to be coming. The end of the nightmare was moving toward its conclusion. The surface of the gate pulled back, and Ithane worked with both colors of light, trying to reinforce the weaves.

The surface of the gate bulged out forcefully, not pushing through, but just enough to break the pattern, to unravel the weave slightly at the center. The expression of both guardians changed to shock and then fear. The blue color of light within the node started to flicker and fade.

I could feel the tear rolling down my face, the same one mirrored on the face of Ithane, catching the light of the nodes. I could hear the echo of her voice in my head.

"We are lost."

The surface of the gate pulled back again, and I knew it was for the final time. The end was coming. I could feel Ithane's resolve grow to determined anger.

The guardian straightened from her position of defeat and retook her full warrior's stance. She drew a deep breath and pulled the energy from the nodes, no longer waiting for it to come to her. The violet lightning surged outward in full force, bathing Ithane in its light. It flared brighter, drawn to her, changing her form to that of a being of intricately patterned light, woven directly into the web of life she drew her life force from.

I saw the man's light flare to its own intensity, bright blue-white. The look of surprise on his face said it all––he was no longer in control of it––she was. The violet light flared outward again, growing brighter, until Ithane was nothing but a being of almost pure white light.

A solid wall of energy formed where Ithane's hands had been. With a burst of brightness, it spread outward, away from the gate. The light enveloped the Crystal City, blocking the new arrivals from reaching them. It surrounded the gate, at the same time setting it outside of the barrier with the two guardians.

I could see the angelic hosts of the Crystal City arrive. I watched them in all their multiple forms, pounding at the barrier, trying to reach the gate. But Ithane held the weave. They could not reach her.

The surface of the gate surged outward again, this time shattering it. I knew the nightmare was at its end. The formless plane exploded outward, sending pieces flying. But it didn't stop, not like it always did before. The scene continued to play itself out. For the first time, I watched beyond the explosion, although part of me wanted it to end here. I didn't want to know any more. But the choice wasn't mine to make.

A huge, dark amorphous shape emerged from the gateway. Its blackness heaved directly at those pounding against the wall of energy. It bounced off. It could no more get through the barrier to reach the denizens of the Crystal City than they could get to it. It tried again, with the same result. Another spot was attempted with no success, and its howl of frustration started a roll of thunder that hung in the air, rumbling in the background.

With blind fury, the darkness turned on Ithane, throwing itself at her. The contact created an explosion that shook the barrier, and the gate, yet they remained standing. So did Ithane. The dark form backed off, regrouping, stopping for a moment to think for the first time.

I noticed the man off to the side, trying to gather his energy from the nodes where Ithane had brought them back to life. The female guardian's attention was also turned his way. More violet light erupted from the nodes, to flood the man's energy matrix with hers, combining the two. A portal opened between them, created of the two colors. It looked to be a gate of its own, separate from the guardian's gate, but created of the combined essence of the gate and the energy.

I could tell the man was in shock. Ithane had full control over the energy. He could do nothing more than to stand there and feed what he could into the pattern. I was betting he didn't even have that much control any more.

Without warning, Ithane moved the light of the created gate to envelop the darkness of the hovering monstrosity that had broken through the guardian's gate. The black entity realized her intent, too late. It threw itself against the light that wrapped around it, but couldn't break free. Repeated struggles went nowhere. It was trapped, with no recourse for escape.

The light surrounding Ithane began to flare, growing brighter. My head began to throb with pain. The intensity of the light was too much to look at. But I still couldn't look away. With a final burst of brightness, Ithane forced the form of darkness into the created portal. The man seemed to come back to himself at the last moment and he sealed the portal with a matrix of his own energy, drawn from deep within his essence.

I finally had to close my eyes against the light. The pain in my head was throbbing to horrific proportions. But I had to see it all. I couldn't stop now. When I opened my eyes again, the light was subsiding, leaving residual spots of brightness across my vision, like the flash of a camera that flared and died out, leaving me to readjust my focus.

Ithane was gone. So was the portal. It was as though neither had even existed. The protective barrier keeping the others out dissipated, and the residents of the Crystal City stumbled toward the gate. Everyone was in a state of shock. I could see their dazed looks, the confusion in their faces as they tried to absorb what had just happened.

Arianna was the first to come to her senses. The cherub launched herself to the space where Ithane had stood and threw herself on the ground, pounding at it, sobbing for the loss of her friend.

I looked away from her and met the gaze of the man. He was staring directly at me, as though he saw me standing there. The intense look on his face frightened me, but I couldn't make myself look away. Instead, I gave into that intensity, allowing myself to be swallowed by the hunger in his gaze. I could feel my body start to fade away, as though melting into his, becoming one.

A trumpet sounded, hollow and far away. Just as the darkness started to overtake me, I could've sworn I saw a rider on a white horse burst through the gate that still stood as a backdrop to the scene of tragedy. But I couldn't be certain. Lights flared in the gateway, like a thousand meteors illuminating the surface, blinding me to the sight. The sound of the trumpet faded as I slid into the darkness, welcoming it.

## Chapter 8

[Back to Top]

My head felt heavy and my body sluggish. But when I opened my eyes and found myself back in my apartment––well, let's just say I don't recall ever having moved so fast in my life. I jerked my hand back from the man's neck, lost my balance and fell off the edge of the bed. My hands and feet found the floor and I scrambled backwards away from the bed, not taking my eyes from him.

Chaz dropped the rags and was at my side by the time my back hit the wall. "Yesh, what happened? Did you get zapped or something?"

I shook my head. "How long was I out?"

"Out?" He sounded confused. "You just touched him, and then fell off the bed."

"All that in the blink of an eye?"

Literally, from the sound of it.

"All what?"

I shook my head again, not trusting myself to talk about it yet. Pulling my feet up under me, I used the wall for balance to get up off the floor. Chaz reached to help, but I didn't want him to touch me. I'm pretty certain the incident was isolated to the man on the bed. At least I had never heard of some dream jumping from one person to the next like a metaphysical virus. I didn't want to take any chances until I knew what was happening.

"Are you going to clue me into what's going on?"

I ignored Chaz in favor of keeping my focus on the bed. The guy hadn't moved through the whole thing. He had tried to cry out a warning to me. Chaz said it all happened in a single instant. Was he still conscious?

His breathing was ragged. I could hear him laboring through the pain as I leaned in close. With a tentative finger, I reached out and touched his shoulder, making brief contact before pulling back. The incident didn't repeat, so I put my hand to rest on his arm. It seemed okay––no flashes of winged creatures wearing my face, no gate, and no sunset fading to blue twilight.

My eyes were drawn to the mark on his neck. The whole thing had been set into motion when I touched that spot. I wasn't about to repeat the same mistake, but I did want a better look. The markings look so familiar––

"Don't touch it again."

The voice whispered close to my ear, making me jerk back in surprise. The man's eyes were open, the deep, golden chocolate brown color radiating his pain.

I bent back close and hissed. "Who _are_ you?"

"You should not have done that."

"No shit. Now tell me something I haven't figured out yet. Who are you? How did you do that with my dream?"

"Dream, Yesh? What dream?"

Poor Chaz. I didn't have answers for him right now, not ones I wanted to give. Heck, I didn't even have answers for _me_ right now.

"Ke––My name is Ke."

I could tell that it took a lot out of him to talk. He closed his eyes again. That nice part of me, the part that helps people and on occasion even works to heal them, knew I should drop it and see what I could do about fixing the guy up. But the pissed off and irritated part of me was looking for some answers and I was feeling pretty determined about getting them.

"Okay–– _Ke_ ––Onto the next question. How did you open my dream up for me? Was it some kind of trick? Who _are_ you?"

I was getting more agitated by the word. He was giving no response.

Chaz peered over my shoulder. "I think he's out."

Damn. I wanted to scream. I settled for kicking the bed. Ke didn't move. It wasn't enough to get out the full extent of my frustrations, so I turned around and walked over to kick the wall. That didn't help, either, but it felt good to do something. I stood staring down at the black scuffmark left on the wall by my boot, trying to sort everything out in my head.

"So are we talking about _the_ dream?"

My shoulders slumped. "Yes."

"Wow, Yesh. How? I mean, this is _big_. What happened?"

I gave him my most pointed look. "Now that would be what I am trying to find out, wouldn't it?"

"I'm sorry." Chaz took a step back. "I didn't mean–"

"No. I know you didn't, kid." I rested my eyes against the palms of my hands, rubbing the frustration and tiredness away. I looked down at my watch and blew out a slow breath. The nice part of me had to step in whether I liked it or not. "Look, I'm going to try and do what I can for the guy. But I have a coven meeting to get to after a bit. Keep an eye on me and make sure I don't go into overtime, will you?"

Chaz nodded. "How long?"

"An hour, an hour and a half, tops. I don't have time for much more than that right now."

"Yesh?"

I released a sigh. I'd be pushing as much as he was, if our positions were reversed. Chaz was right. This _was_ big. I just wasn't sure what to do with it yet. He was being a lot more patient and polite than I would have been.

"Listen, Chaz. Will you hold off if I promise to fill you in when I'm done here? And I promise, if there's not enough time before I have to meet up with Pietra, then I'll sit down with you when I get back."

Chaz accepted it with a nod––not that he really had any other choice. "Sure, Yesh."

The look I gave him was grateful––and I was. Grateful, I mean. I needed some time to sort through the jumble of my thoughts. Time wasn't something I had right now.

I took off my leather coat and tossed it on the other side of the bed. Rolling up my sleeves, I sat down on the edge of the mattress next to Ke. Chaz handed me the wet cloths he retrieved from the floor by the door. A few minutes of wiping the blood away, carefully avoiding the mark on his neck, showed me exactly what I expected. There were no wounds on his back. The bleeding had slowed a bit, for whatever reason. I had no clue as to what was going on. But there was only one way for me to try and get a handle on it.

Holding my hands out steady, a few inches above his back, I connected to the metaphysical energy of the space around me. The warmth started to build at my heart, slowly creating a reservoir of power. When I felt that I had enough stored to start working, I allowed it to travel down my arms and out my hands.

My eyes were closed, but I didn't need to see to know what Chaz was seeing right now. it would be similar to what I had watched in the nightmarish dreamscape I had just witnessed. I brushed away the image of the woman, Ithane––the one who wore my face, calling the energy to her heart center and then using it to fight against the creature at the Gate. I had only ever called the energy for sensing and healing. It never dawned on me that the energy could be used in the way she had. Or was that in the way that I had?

Either way, it didn't matter. I had a job to do, and little time to focus on the other. I followed the flows of energy out my hands and got to work.

* * *

A gentle hand touched my shoulder. "Yesh. Come on back, Yesh. You have to get ready to go to Pietra's."

Chaz's voice continued to coax me back into a conscious awareness of my surroundings. I let go of the energy slowly, letting the warmth fade with the subsiding glow. Exhausted, I pulled my hands back and let them drop in my lap while I waited for enough of the tingling to go away that I could feel my fingers again. I leaned back into Chaz's body and let him help me to my feet and over to the chair at the foot of the bed.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded.

"Well, whatever you did, it worked. The bleeding has stopped."

My eyes went to the man on the bed. Chaz was right. No more blood was coming from his back.

I shook my head. "It's only temporary. I need to go back in for a more permanent fix––I just haven't figured out how yet."

"What do you mean by temporary?"

"The whole thing with this guy is strange, Chaz. It's as though he is two completely separate people on the inside, crammed into a single body. That separation is what's causing the bleeding, and his pain, for that matter."

"Like a demon possession or something?"

"Something like that––only it doesn't have that wrong feeling like a demon possession. It's more like the two separate parts need to come together, but there's a big gap missing in the middle to make the pieces fit right."

"So what did you do?"

"I put a bandage on it."

I had to chuckle at his look of confusion. I didn't have enough energy to laugh.

"You know––like those butterfly bandages that doctors use to hold the pieces of skin together long enough to heal, or until they can get the stitches in."

"Oh. I get it."

"The problem is that I don't think it will hold for very long. Stitches are what is needed, so to speak, but I haven't figured out how to go about it yet."

An image of Ithane flashed through my mind, and of how she wove the energy she had drawn, as though knitting a blanket. "Hey––from the dream––"

"Not now, Yesh. There's not enough time. You have to hop in the shower and get to Pietra's."

A glance out the bedroom window told me that the kid was right. The sky was taking on that late afternoon tint that meant dusk wasn't far behind.

"You're right. I have to get moving." I winked at him while pushing to my feet. "What would I do without you?"

He grinned at the compliment. "Your own cleaning, for starters."

I looked around the bedroom, and then peered out into the living room. While I had been working on Mister Mysterious, Chaz had cleaned up the mess we had dragged through the apartment. He had even washed down the walls inside the bedroom door where I had propped Ke up for the time it had taken him to run to the bathroom and back. Even my leather was cleaned and softened, the blood gone.

I was amazed, and turned to let him know how grateful I was. "Chaz––"

He held up a hand to stop me. "Time, Yesh. You don't have any. Besides, I still have the hallway to take care of, and I couldn't get the blood completely out of the living room rug."

A better look at the faint, stained outline on the rug showed the truth of his words.

I shrugged. "Nothing to be done about it. It's just one more reminder of what our lives have become."

Chaz grinned and sat down to take up watch duty over Ke, while I got ready to hop in the shower and head out.

## Chapter 9

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By the time I pulled up to Pietra's house, dusk was just starting to settle. That was good. It meant a lot less time to deal with small talk. It also meant a lot less time to play a role I wasn't well suited for––that of a woman who was less than sure of herself.

Maybe it wasn't such a far stretch, considering what I was dealing with back at my apartment. But I had to be convincing in a more general way and that was a little tough for me to swallow. What I really wanted to do was to go in there, kick the guy's ass and then go back and deal with the other stuff.

_Careful_. Morpheus' warning echoed in my head. I wanted to scream. So be it.

Before I reached the door, I took a few minutes to brush down the crumpled folds of the floral print skirt I was wearing. Did I mention that I hated playing this part? The black leggings I wore underneath had protected my legs from the sting of the wind on the ride over. The skirt came to just above my ankles, and the bottom laced edging of the leggings peeked out from below the hemline.

Slipping off my leather, I pulled a plain cream-colored knit shawl to wrap over my bare shoulders. The black, sleeveless tee that I wore fit tight to my torso from waist to neck. The epitome of soft femininity. Blech. The jacket was jammed into the straps of the small pack I carried and I stepped up to the door. It was show time.

Only a moment passed before the door opened to show a woman who was maybe in her early forties. She was petite, with short black hair, a shy smile and troubled brown eyes. She held the door wide to invite me in, but didn't offer her hand to touch me. "Hi. You must be Yeshua?"

"That's me." I gave her my own shy smile in return, with a little uncertain shrug of my shoulders. I thought it was a nice touch. Her smile warmed, but it still didn't touch the uneasiness in her eyes.

"Welcome. Come on in, we're already setting up in the back." I stepped inside and she closed the door. "I'm Theo," was all that she added before she led the way to the back of the house. I had expected to be bombarded with questions, but I guess it wasn't coming from this quarter.

The house was pleasant, very homey. Several nice articles caught my eye in passing. A goddess shrine set in the front entry wafted the sweet smell of Jasmine incense to greet new arrivals. Huh. I wouldn't have pegged Pietra for aligning herself with the lion-headed Sekmet. She seemed too demure for chaos, and the goddess certainly hadn't given her the heads up on the dream stalker until it was too late.

Sekmet didn't really have a lion's head, but from what I've heard, she does tend to focus on chaos––or maybe chaos focused on her? She was one of the immortals I hadn't met. As I recall, she was last living in Las Vegas somewhere. It was a good hub of chaotic energy for her to draw from.

In contrast, the living room leaned more to a Native American motif. A beautiful, but haunting rendition of the Cherokee Trail of Tears hung over the back of her blanket-covered sofa. Theo led me through to the back door in the kitchen. Fairies decorated a small natural altar just inside the door. Okay, maybe there was a little more chaos to Pietra than I had first suspected.

On cue, the High Priestess came hustling up to us as soon as we stepped into the back yard. She had on a deep purple robe, belted with a knotted cord at the waist. With a huge smile and a genuine look of relief, she embraced me tightly.

"Yeshua––I am so glad you made it!" In a lower voice, she whispered with urgency, "he thinks I have been talking with you for a while now––just in case it's mentioned."

My face didn't register her remark. I pasted on a big smile of my own. "Pietra. Of course I made it. I have been so looking forward to connecting with your group. I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

"Wonderful." Pietra linked her arm in mine and turned to face the people scattered around the fenced-in yard. "Let me introduce you to the rest of the group."

She took me around and a string of names floated across my subconscious mind. I made vague, generic remarks at the introductions, but my conscious mind filtered it all out and took in the subtle details of my surroundings.

There he was, across the circle sitting with two women of the coven. I could feel his energy reaching out to touch me, even while talking to the women at his side. He sat as though he were some kind of royalty, with two followers holding simpering positions of homage, doting on his every word. Okay. So not all of the women were as affected by his dream antics as the others. Interesting.

An uncontrollable shiver shuddered through my body at the unwelcome touch of his probing energy. It took every ounce of the ability I had to not slam it shut on him, and at the same time, to keep the look of revulsion off my face at the slimy trail his touch left behind. Pietra was looking at me with concern.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine. I'm sorry, I just felt––" I pretended to look around, confused. "Nothing. I'm sure it was nothing."

I emphasized it with a convincing shake of my head while Pietra turned back to continue her introductions to two of the women, sisters. What had she said their names were? Oh right––Jane and Joan. I hoped that the generic words coming out of my mouth were as sincere as I wanted them to be. My focus was back on the dream stalker.

Amusement was the feeling I got from him––all wrapped up tight in a bundle of unbelievable arrogance. He was a lot stronger than I had anticipated. That wasn't good. For the first time, I started to take the warning Morpheus had given me to heart. The immortal was right. There was more to this guy than what was on the surface. I was glad I had made the promise not to tackle this guy tonight. After what I had expended on trying to heal the mysterious Ke, I didn't have the energy left to fight.

More introductions floated through my sub-conscious, the names flowing from one to the next. I tried to lock a description for each one in my mind. Andrea the redhead, Philipa the skinny, Bertie the not-so-skinny––who named their kid Bertha any more? Tammie the shy, Simone the sultry. And this was it. Pietra was leading me over to the creep and his mirrored bookends.

"Yeshua, this is Jamie."

I nodded my head to the mousy little dishwater blond on the left.

"And Judith."

Bored, disinterested gray eyes flashed my way from a pretty, blond with a fake-looking, rub-on tan sitting to the right. She put a possessive hand on the arm of the dream stalker and went back to ignoring me. That's fine by me, lady. You can have him. _He_ , on the other hand was ignoring her, and the darkness of his almost black-colored eyes turned his full focus on me. Oh yeah. This was the guy from the dreaming all right.

"And this is Mack Black Wolf, the only male member of our group."

I held out my hand to shake his. "How _can_ you deal with so much female energy, Mr. Black Wolf? I don't think I know any man who would be willing to put himself in such a position."

A little laugh for emphasis, a quick look in his eyes and then away. Had I been demure enough? Uncertain with a little charm to cover the nervousness? Was he buying this?

His laugh was deep and throaty as he leaned in to take my hand and kiss the inside of the wrist. "I am at the mercy of them all. And now at yours, as well." His kiss burned my skin and it was all I could do to hold my hand steady without tearing it away.

"I see why they keep you around." I gave him my best flirting smile. Judith wasn't happy. I could feel her annoyance boring into me without even having to look. It didn't matter to me. I wasn't here to mollify her. I was here to save her ass.

"So I hear you will be taking initiation rites with us tonight."

"Pardon me?"

He looked at me with the smile of a patient parent indulging a slow-witted child. "Initiation rites? Pietra had indicated that you were to be joining our coven as a thirteenth member tonight."

I looked to the High Priestess, who was keeping careful control over her expression. "I thought it would take time to see if I meshed with the rest of the group."

"Ordinarily, yes––"

Mack interrupted her. "Pietra has been telling the coven of the amount of time she has spent with you. She indicated you would be a perfect fit, and the rest of us agreed."

"She is way too generous––" I tried to argue and find a way out of this. The last thing I needed was to link my energy to a coven group. I couldn't afford to spread myself that thin. Besides, I worked alone and I wanted to keep it that way.

"Nonsense." Pietra gave me a warm hug. "You are a perfect fit. I think the rest of the coven, now that they have had the chance to meet you for themselves, would agree with me. It's the only reason they all could make it tonight, even those who had others plans."

In other words Chaz had known about this and hadn't given me a heads up. I was going to be having a talk with that boy when I got back to the apartment. Father David certainly wouldn't be pleased that an employee of the church, even an unacknowledged contracted one, was a member of a coven. The church had some pretty strict rules on that stuff. I guess that I'd have to leave that part out of my report. I could break the link when this was all done and he'd never be the wiser for it.

The High Priestess pulled back and looked at the women who were drawing close, all with approving nods and smiles. Judith didn't seem so approving, but that's okay. At least she and I agreed on one point. I was angry enough to pinch the underside of Pietra's arm before I stepped fully out of her embrace.

My features moved into a look of overwhelmed humility. Inside, I was pissed off down to my toenails. She had left me with no options. If I backed out now, I would never be able to help this group to form a cohesive, united front against the smug man sitting on his canvas throne. And since he had linked to the energies of the coven, I would have to do the same.

I would've much preferred to have reached that conclusion on my own, and certainly wasn't looking forward to having myself linked in my current drained and weakened state. Pietra must have figured it out and made certain I would take up the challenge to protect her girls whether I wanted to or not. When this was all over, the High Priestess and me were going to be having a little chat, too. For now, I played the part. What choice did I have?

"I am honored." My guess was that only Pietra knew my response was choked by my anger and not by humility.

The women came around me with warm hugs. Even Jamie got up from her seat next to Mack to welcome me. Mack and Judith remained seated. I was hustled into the house to prepare myself for the initiation, while several women stayed outside with Pietra to light the central fire and finish the preliminary set up of the circle and the altar.

When I stepped back outside, I was clad in nothing but the white robe of an initiate. The two sisters, Jane and Joan took up positions, one in front of me and one behind. Judith stepped into place behind them. Mack and Pietra stood to either side of the altar, within the circle.

The remaining women filed in ahead of me, taking up positions around the inside edge. Judith closed the circle behind us, after we were all in. The ritual started with Mack and Pietra calling for the blessings of the Lord and the Lady upon the circle, and then stepped to the quarters of each direction to invoke the protection of the watchtowers. I never could understand why people took such time and painstaking effort to make a perfect circle, only to turn it into a square by invoking the watchers at the four directions. But hey, this was their thing, not mine.

After some initial time spent on invocations and prayers, Pietra called for the petitioner to come forward. I was lost in thought, and it didn't even register that it was me she was referring to until Jane and Joan nudged me from both sides at the same time. I was up.

I took my time with small prayers to the four directions as I worked my way around the circle to the altar. It was expected of me. Just because it wasn't my thing, that didn't mean I was ignorant of what to do.

At the last, I stepped up to the altar, taking up a position between Mack and Pietra, the altar at my front, the fire at my back. Words were exchanged in ritual greeting and I stepped out of my robe, to bare myself as the symbolic newborn child to the rest of the coven.

Someone gasped behind me, but I didn't recognize the voice. I wasn't familiar enough with the group to single it out.

"Pietra, look––she's a Gatekeeper."

Gatekeeper? I wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but I closed my eyes, knowing what they saw. I had a set of birthmarks on the back of my body. Few people had ever seen them. It was too late now to either keep them hidden or to feign ignorance, so I shifted my feet apart to give them the full show. There were seven, almost perfectly star-shaped, deep red blotches; one on the back of each shoulder, one at each ankle between calf and heel, and three that created a belt at my waist. When I shifted to stand with my feet spread apart at shoulder width, it was easy to see the constellation _Orion_ laid out in perfection on my backside. It was why my father had given me the ridiculous surname _Star_.

Pietra stepped around me to look, as did Mack. When they came back to the altar again, her look was one of disturbed surprise. His was unreadable, but I thought I saw a flash of hunger. I stared straight ahead, acknowledging neither.

"A Gatekeeper––" the High Priestess whispered.

A memory sent a subtle chill washing over me, raising bumps on my skin. Ithane, the woman of my dream––hadn't she been a Gatekeeper? My thoughts wandered back and forth between dream and ritual as Pietra and Mack stepped forward in unison to anoint my body. The ritual binding to the coven went on around me, but I was barely aware of it. My thoughts kept wandering to a place far away, trying to make all of the pieces fit together.

At some point, the ritual was complete and each woman stepped up to greet me with a hug followed by a kiss on each cheek. I responded properly to their ritual greetings, but my mind was elsewhere. Mack gave his greetings, and finally at the last, Pietra stepped forward to give hers.

When she turned me around to face the rest of the coven and announce my acceptance, the sky lit up in brightness. We all looked up. How could we not? Across the constellation of _Orion_ , high above us, lights streaked their way from one end of the sky to the next. I wasn't sure what I was seeing at first. Then I knew. Just like the dream, a shower of meteors lit up the sky, streaking their way to places unknown. What it meant, I didn't know. But I had a bad feeling I was going to find out, whether I wanted to know or not.

## Chapter 10

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Tired does not even begin to describe how I was feeling by the time I reached my apartment door. No one could tell me much about the whole Orion-Gatekeeper thing, other than that there was some sort of obscure belief about Orion being the symbolic gatekeeper to not only the heavens, but to other worlds as well.

One of the girls, Andrea, had mentioned something about remembering an old story about Orion and the scorpion. But her version wasn't the Greek myth about the scorpion chasing Orion. It was actually the other way around, where the warrior chased the monster to keep him from settling in the heavens.

I made a mental note to ask Morpheus about it. He was almost as old as dirt. I figured he might remember something. If nothing else, maybe he could ask around for me. After all, he traveled in different circles than I did.

I entered my place as quietly as I could manage. The living room light was on. Tossing my pack on the couch without ceremony, I crossed to the bedroom. A low lamp was lit there as well.

Chaz was asleep, lying curled up on the small love seat that sat in the far corner of the room. It was my reading nook. I fell asleep there as often as I did in my bed, usually holding some obscure text that would later fall to the floor to wake me. Ke was settled in under the covers of the bed. Chaz had taken away the shower curtain and cleaned up the rest of the room while I was gone. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he had taken care of the hallway, too. It just hadn't registered at the time.

With caution, I walked over to stand at the side of the bed. My mind drifted to the dreamscape Ke had pulled me into. I don't think it had been intentional. He had tried to warn me. I also don't believe in coincidences. There were far too many similar pieces to this puzzle that obviously fit together. But how? For the first time, I couldn't see the larger picture and it disturbed me. Especially since I had that gut feeling that when they all fell into place, my face would be smack dab in the middle.

But what did it all mean? I stared down at the man on the bed as though trying to will the answers from him. I wouldn't get any, but it gave me something to occupy my mind.

His head was turned into the pillow, so only half of his face showed. I studied him for a time while my thoughts ran circles around today's events. It was a rounder face, but with firm lines that defined his cheek and jaw. The nose was a little wide, but straight. The lips were full, but it didn't look like a mouth that smiled much. I don't know where _that_ thought came from, but it felt right. Long, dark lashes brushed his cheeks in sleep. I already knew his eyes were like golden chocolate.

His hair looked to be all one length and was a deep brown, almost black, with auburn highlights that gave a glint of red in the warm light of the bedroom. It was also streaked with gray in places throughout the length that went past his waist. There was still some dried and matted blood in the strands, but there could be no help for that until he could get up and into the shower.

All in all, he was a good-looking guy. I'm sure that would be even more improved when he was cleaned up. The irony of him being there wasn't lost on me. The only good-looking guy I've had lying near-naked in my bed in a couple of years, and it's only because he's too injured to be elsewhere.

"You're back." Chaz's soft voice cut through my thoughts.

"Yeah, here I am."

It saved me the trouble of choosing between letting him sleep or waking him up to keep my promise to talk when I got back. I gave sleeping beauty a last glance and walked over to the kid. He sat up, still a little groggy, to make room for me to sit next to him.

"So when were you going to mention the initiation that Pietra had planned?"

There's nothing like a splash of cold water in the face to shock you into being awake. I could tell that he had forgotten about it.

"Shit, Yesh. I'm so sorry––"

"Save it. I was pretty pissed at first, but then I realized we had a few other things to deal with by the time you got back." I tipped my head toward Ke. "I just don't like being blind-sided."

"Man, I didn't mean for that to happen." He was mortified into silence for about the space of a heartbeat. "How'd it go?"

I filled him in on the events that had taken place at the coven meeting.

"I knew about the marks," he was looking at me strangely. "I mean, I've caught glimpses of them here and there over the time that I've worked with you. But I've never seen them all together, so I guess it never dawned on me that they were part of a bigger picture."

He was eyeing my back, trying to visualize the marks through my leather.

"Maybe someday, kid. But I'm not baring myself for anyone again tonight." I clapped a hand on his knee and sank back into the plush softness of the love seat.

"So––?"

I frowned. "So what?"

Chaz looked at me. Topic jumping. The kid was good for that. He wanted to know about the dream deal, so I told him. I didn't leave anything out. I needed an extra brain wrapped around the details. Maybe he would see something I was missing. By the time I was finished, he was leaning back into the sofa with me. He had a dazed look on his face.

"So what does it all mean?"

He wasn't so much asking me, as he was sort of letting the words out to hang in the air. I knew how he felt. That was pretty much where I was at, too.

"I don't know, kid. This has me stumped. Somehow, it's all connected, but I can't make the pieces fit."

"Do you think maybe it's a past life thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know––past life, reincarnation––"

I started to laugh. "I was an angel in a past life? I don't think the whole angel thing goes hand in hand with theories of reincarnation."

Chaz shook his head. "Not nowadays. But there's the whole school of thought that the theory of reincarnation was removed from biblical texts by Constantine back in 313 A.D."

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him. "Does Father David know where you're devoting your study time these days?" He blushed and I shook my head. "There's also plenty of supposed proof that doesn't mesh with that timeline, Chaz. But let's just assume for a minute that you're correct and reincarnation is for real. Angels don't have physical forms to begin with, so how can they die and become reincarnated? It doesn't make sense."

"It should." The voice came from the bed, surprising us both.

I jumped up and Chaz sat forward. Ke was awake. He labored to roll over, but only managed to lift himself partially to his side.

"You're awake."

"Yes."

"How do you feel?"

He moved a little and winced. "Like death warmed over."

"Well, you don't look much better."

He managed a grin. "Thanks."

Okay, so the guy _did_ know how to smile.

"You want to clue me into what's going on?"

"Do I want to? No." He shook his head. "I don't think that you're ready to hear what I have to say. Is there any other option? No, again, or else I wouldn't be here."

That sounded pretty arrogant in my book.

"Who are you to say what I am and am not ready to hear?"

Ke closed his eyes. He was still dealing with the combined strain and pain of whatever his body was doing to him. "I'm not ready to deal with it either, Ithane."

I frowned. He was delirious. "My name is Yeshua."

Ke opened his eyes and looked at me. I was partially right. There was a cloud of pain over his awareness. But there was also a light of clarity. My frown deepened.

"You––" he started and then shook his head. "Yeshua."

I could see him struggle for focus. My whole body was guarded, inside and out. He wasn't going to hold onto consciousness for long. That was apparent. Going over and shaking the answers out of him wasn't an option at this point, so I waited for him to work through it on his own. My expression was closed and calm, but I was wound tight with a desire for answers.

"Ithane. That was the woman from the dream." I tried prompting him back to clarity.

"No."

"Her name wasn't Ithane?"

He looked surprised and then frowned, shaking his head. "No. It wasn't a dream."

"Then what––"

"It was a vision, an imprint of a past life on your subconscious."

I may have been wound tight, but this guy wasn't wrapped tight enough. Shrugging my shoulders, I decided to humor him.

"So I was an angel in a past life." My voice was flat and devoid of emotion.

"Not just an angel," Ke was trying to focus. His clarity was slipping and I could see the struggle to pull his thoughts together. "A Guardian. Ithane watched over the Thirteenth Gate."

"A Gatekeeper?" Chaz was almost bouncing in his seat with excitement.

Great. I frowned, shaking my head. "No. Angels aren't physical. They don't have bodies. _You_ were in the dream. _You_ had wings. You're not looking all that angelic to me right now."

Ke didn't answer. His body slumped in the bed, rolling back to his original, unconscious position. My eyes went to his back. There was a slight reddening at the shoulders, where it looked as though the blood was starting to come to the surface again.

My frown was back. That's where the strips of blood were showing up. It was the exact place where wings would have been attached to his back if he had them. Maybe that's what was going on. Psychosomatic production of physical trauma brought on by an internally fractured psyche? That had to be it. I wasn't buying the other answer he was trying to sell. There were too many holes.

"Yesh––"

"I see it, kid." I took off my jacket and tossed it to the empty spot next to him. "I knew it wouldn't hold, but I thought it would've lasted longer than this."

"What if he's right?"

I didn't even bother to look at him. "He's not."

"But what if he is?"

This time I did look at him as I settled myself in to sit next to Ke on the bed. "He isn't, Chaz. Hey, it's a cool theory. This guy just has his reality and theologies all mixed up in a nutball shake. He's over the edge of tolerance on the pain scale and it's confusing his brain."

"If you say so––"

"I do." My response was firm. I waited a minute, dreading to call the energy right now. My levels were tapped and I wasn't sure how much I had left to pull on. "Chaz–"

"Yeah?"

"Keep a good eye on me, will you?" I hated admitting the weakness, but I wasn't going to be _totally_ stupid about it. "If I start to drop, put me to bed, okay? I'm not sure how long I'll last."

"Be careful, Yesh. Don't push past your reserves."

"I'm already past them." My smile was rueful. "But we all do what we have to do."

"I'll watch over you. But if you look like you're fading, I'm pulling you out."

"Fair enough." I nodded and called the energy. The dream fragment of Ithane leaped into my mind. This time, I was going to try a different approach.

## Chapter 11

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It's one thing to wake up groggy and disoriented. It's a whole different thing to wake up groggy, disoriented, and with hands roaming all over your body. I gave into the sensation of warmth for a brief moment, wrapped in a cocoon of unawareness. Then the hand slid lower, moving to a place at the top of my inner thigh. I went to brush it away, but found I couldn't move my arms. They were pinned above my head.

Awareness comes back to you quick enough when it starts to sink in that things maybe aren't how they should be. There was no maybe about it. This was all wrong.

I struggled against the entrapment of my wrists. My eyes flew open at a sharp, burning sensation at the top of my right breast and the pain of fingers digging into my upper thigh. Cold dark eyes stared into mine, filled with determination. It took me a dazed second to figure out that those eyes belonged to Mack Black Wolf.

Shit. I had forgotten to ward my dreams. So much of my energy and attention had been focused on Ke that I had lost myself in the shuffle. As drained as I was of energy, this was not the time for me to be unprotected. It was too late now. All I could do was to try and fight him off and send him packing from my dreamscape. Or did I need to leave his?

My struggles increased to make his access to me more difficult. I needed to buy a few moments to sort it all out. While my body wiggled around to avoid having him get a solid hold on me, I took a quick look around.

The dreamscape was my living room. That's where Chaz must have put me to sleep after my work on Ke. And it _felt_ like my living room, not strange and distorted. Good. That meant he was in _my_ dreamscape and not the other way around.

Black Wolf leaned in close to whisper in my ear. "This could be good for both of us."

"Not likely." I spat in his face.

My ears rang with the force of his slap across my face. Morpheus had been right. There was so much more to this guy than what was on the surface. It was one thing for a dream stalker to come into your dreamscape and insinuate himself into the subconscious acceptance of his presence by the victim. Knowingly or not, the victim became an active, accepting participant. I was not accepting, and worse yet––he was beating me on my own turf. Even Morpheus couldn't beat me on my own turf. No wonder this guy had disturbed him.

Tracker or not, playing into this guy's twisted need for domination wasn't on my agenda. I pulled on the depths of my outrage and let it build inside of me. When I couldn't hold the overflow, I let it escape in a chilling scream of raw, primal energy.

The look of Black Wolf's face might have been comical if the situation had any humor to it. But it wasn't funny––not in the slightest. It made him pause, though, and that's all I was after. His hesitation loosened his grip on my wrists for the split second needed to exert all of my energy to ripping my arms from his grasp.

His eyes narrowed, and his other hand came up to my throat. I could feel the blackness swimming across my vision as his grip tightened. I went to pull the hand away, but a second set of hands grabbed my wrists and held them at my side. Did he have a partner in the dreamscape? That would explain his extra power in here.

But I didn't feel the need to struggle against the hold on my wrists. Another body stepped up to my back, and warmth enveloped me, infusing me with power. My vision returned to clarity and I met Black Wolf's eyes with renewed strength. His grip on my throat loosened and he started to fade from my dreamscape. Just before he vanished from sight, he gave me the _look_. It was that look of determination, the one that said he would be back. All of the bad guys give that same look. But that's okay. I'd be ready for him next time. I certainly wasn't going to make the same mistake twice with him.

I let my body slump against the person at my back, thinking maybe it was Morpheus. But it didn't feel like his energy. This was different. My body began to tingle and I could feel the empowering glow of violet light build and fill my emptied reserves. It was an incredible feeling.

The rest of the dreamscape faded away, and I found myself standing before a great tree. The branches of the tree created a canopy overhead that stretched out of sight into the heavens. Somehow I knew the roots beneath the surface of the earth stretched as far and wide is the upper branches. There was a well near the base of the tree, with a large, giant of a man standing next to it.

The sound of a trumpet rang through the air, its note lingering as a rider on a pale horse rode up to the well. The giant bowed before the rider, a look of deep sadness in his expression. He looked at me and shook his head. The rider turned to leave and the giant followed.

It felt to me as though they were disappointed in something. Was that something me? Had I done or not done something to elicit their disappointment? Normally what happened in the dreamscape wouldn't give me cause for anxiety, but for some reason this did. It felt important in the scheme of things, and I didn't understand why.

I wanted to understand. I took a step toward their retreating backs, but the person at my back held me in place. My attention turned toward the well. The water levels had risen, spilling out of the stone basin. It stank of raw sewage and I wanted to step back from the black, polluted substance pouring out like a waterfall over the edges of the well walls. I couldn't move back from that, either. Whoever held me, kept me rooted in place.

As the foul water hit the ground at the base of the tree, it turned to the color of blood. This dissipated into the ground, as though being absorbed by a sponge. The roots of the tree must have been sucking it all in, because the same color red––blood red––started to seep up the base of the tree.

In minutes, the color covered the height of the main trunk and began spreading out toward the branches. Where it touched the leaves, they yellowed and withered, falling from the tree. The pollution worked quickly through the branches, and the leaves were falling all around me. When they hit the ground, they turned to snow.

The cold was building in the air, but the warmth at my back was sustaining. A deep sadness came over me, and I felt a tear slide down my face to crystallize in the frozen air. I knew what the tree was. I just didn't know what it meant.

I closed my eyes. "Yggdrasil––"

"Yes, the World-Tree."

My eyes flew open at the voice caressing my ear. Dreamscapes could be so disorienting and so real. It was sometimes hard to discern reality from the stuff of dreams. I was back in my living room, sitting on the couch. My hands were held to my sides and the body was still pressed against my back. It took me a moment to realize what was different. I was no longer in the dreamscape. This was my apartment, and I was wide-awake.

I pushed away from the person at my back, scrambling to get away. The hold on my wrists was released. I turned to face the one who had held me. It was Ke. I was at a loss for words, still sorting through the confusion of what had happened. Had he brought the dreaming, or had he saved me from the dream stalker?

He pulled back even further, giving me space. "I heard you scream in your sleep."

I was still confused. My thoughts went around in circles, trying to sort through everything. "What happened?" The words were meant to come out a lot stronger, but it hurt my throat to speak.

He stared at me long and hard before answering. "Your screams brought me out of the bedroom."

"And?" I asked when it looked as though he would leave it there.

"And I came to wake you, to calm you down." He added with a frown, "I thought it was because of what had happened earlier––"

He seemed as unsure as I was as to what had happened.

"So you didn't do that to me?"

Ke looked as though I had slapped him. "I don't touch women. Not in the physical, and certainly not in their dreams."

"Oh." I was surprised. "You're gay?"

I could see the confusion in his face as he rolled the thought around in his mind.

"You know––gay. You prefer men to women?" Who was this guy?

The look on his face was pure shock. "No. I wouldn't––I don't––"

I almost felt sorry for him, but not enough to stop pushing forward. I needed answers, and I was betting dollars to doughnuts that he had at least a few of them in that pickled brain of his.

"Okay. So you're not gay, and you didn't send the dream."

"No. On both accounts."

"You helped me, then." My throat felt raw and scratchy.

"I didn't know what was happening at the time."

I got up from the couch and wandered into the kitchen area, which was open space to one side of the room with appliances, all closed in by a bar of counters and cupboards, above and below. "It was a dream stalker that I had just started tracking when you showed up at my door. After working on you, expending as much energy as I did, I forgot to guard my dreams against him."

"What did you do to me?" His face was puzzled. He kept looking down at his body, examining it.

"Uh-uh." I shook my head. "This is _my_ turn. You don't get to show up at my doorstep and get everything without giving something back in return."

"Isn't that what you do?" His look was unreadable, but I was definitely his focus now.

"What do you mean?" I pulled a glass out of my cupboard and filled it with cold, filtered tap water. At the last minute, I thought to offer him some. "Water?"

He nodded. "You know what I mean, don't be obtuse. You give of yourself to help everyone else around you without thought or consideration for yourself or your own well being."

I frowned, bringing two glasses of water out from the kitchen and handed one to him. "I don't know. I'm pretty selfish."

"No, you might be careful, guarded, unwilling to share your emotions, impatient with politics, and certainly not worried about stepping on the feelings of other when you need to get something important done. But selfish? I don't think so."

I stared at him over the rim of my glass. The protective barrier that kept the world out was sliding into place. Where did this guy get off thinking he knew me so well? The fact that he was far too correct for my comfort zone was irrelevant. Or at least, that what's I was trying to tell myself.

I held the glass between my fingers and looked into the water for focus. When I met his eyes again, my shields were in place, and the emotion gone from my face. He was definitely right about that part. I didn't like to share my "emotional self" with anyone.

"So––what? Are you going to spend time convincing me you know all of this because of a past life together? As angels?" It was laughable, but I wasn't particularly amused. "People _do_ change, you know. Isn't that what reincarnation is supposed to be all about?"

"You haven't changed at all."

"So this other place in the dreamscape––with Yggdrasil. Was that another supposed past life experience together?"

"No." He looked away. "I don't know what that was."

My eyes narrowed. That last part had been a lie. It was obvious. But if he had such a hard time lying, then he obviously believed the other. I leaned across him to put my glass on the table in front of the couch.

His hand reached out to take my wrist. He turned it over, closely examining the marks that were just beginning to show from the dream stalker's attack. Without letting go of my wrist, he looked up to meet my eyes. His were full of concern. His other hand came up to touch my cheek and then gently tip my head back. Gentle, probing fingers caressed the place at my throat where Black Wolf had tried to choke me. I flinched, but not because it hurt. My reaction was to the gentleness of his touch. I could deal with pain.

"Humans never cease to amaze me, with their capacity to inflict pain upon others."

"And you're not human?" My head moved back to look him in the eye. His hand fell away from my throat.

"No, I––" His eyebrows came together, furrowing his brow. He looked confused, and then panicked. His hand dropped away as though the touch burned him. "What have you done?"

"What––?" It was my turn to be confused. I didn't get it.

Ke was touching his body, poking, probing. He turned frantic eyes to me––almost angry eyes.

"What did you do to me?" The words came out as a harsh demand for an answer.

"I––I don't know." Wow, this guy was tweaked. "I healed you while you were sleeping?"

"How?" He grabbed for me, but I was too quick for him.

"I don't know!" My words came out as a shout. "I just did what that woman in the dreamscape did. I pulled the pieces of the two separate energies together and combined them into a single weave."

His face went white. "Undo it."

I was shaking my head.

"Undo it." His voice was stronger, rising to a level of barely controlled hysteria.

"I can't. I don't know how I did it in the first place."

My words to a while to register. He stared at me, begging me with his eyes to tell him that I was lying. I saw when he finally realized that I was telling the truth. His composure crumpled and he sank back into the couch, with the look of someone who had gone into deep shock.

"Yesh, is everything okay?" Chaz was stumbling out of his bedroom, his voice groggy from just waking.

"Evidently not."

"What––?"

"I don't know, kid. Mr. Gratitude here doesn't seem to like the way I healed him."

Chaz raised his eyebrows with question.

"You don't understand." Ke said in a voice soft with shock.

"No, I don't. So maybe you should clue me in."

He didn't respond. I'd had enough.

"Fine. Whatever. Tell me. Don't tell me. I need a shower to wash the slime off me."

Chaz had come closer and was just noticing the marks on my neck and wrists. From the heat on my face, I was betting there was a good red mark there, too. "Yesh–"

"Dream stalker. Caught me off guard. I'm hitting the shower."

"But––"

I kept walking.

"You have doomed us all." Ke's voice made me pause, but I was too pissed to deal with him right now. I liked him better when he was unconscious.

"Whatever you say, pal." I stepped into the bathroom, calling back before I closed the door, "It would be great if there were some coffee ready when I'm done."

## Chapter 12

[Back to Top]

I don't ask for a lot out of life. Some alone time, good coffee, and a hot shower––it all works for me. But what I really want is for people to stay out of my way and let me do my job. It was what I knew, and I was good at it.

If Ke hadn't gotten in my way, I wouldn't be scrubbing my skin raw trying to get off the feeling of layered slime, tenderly probing bruises along the way. The dream stalker had gotten me, but good. The bruises on my wrists, the marks on my neck from his choking fingers, bruised teeth marks above my right breast, and almost a perfect blackened handprint on my inner left thigh. The slap to my face still tingled, but I didn't think it was going to leave a mark.

Okay, so maybe Ke had stopped him from doing worse. I was grudging with the admission. But if I hadn't expended all that energy to help someone who didn't seem to want it anyway, I would've remembered to shield myself like a good little tracker should. That improved my mood. I could put the blame back on him.

I didn't understand what the big deal was. It was one of the most incredible pieces of healing work I'd ever done. I guess what they say is true. Pride goeth before the fall. I decide to take a little pride in what I thought was a major achievement, and I get the rug yanked out from under me.

My body still didn't feel near to clean enough, but the hot water was starting to lose its sting. Since I wasn't in it for the cold shower, it was time to get out. The length of my hair was towel-dried and left to hang while I wrapped another towel around me and tucked it tight.

I went straight to the bedroom without bothering to look in the living room. Not yet. When I was ready, I'd meet them on my own terms. I was done playing around. I grabbed my big, over-sized robe and threw it on, belting it snug at the waist.

Barefoot, belted and with wet hair, I walked out. Chaz was on the couch where I'd sat earlier. It didn't look as though Ke had moved. I was still trying to grasp what the deal was with him, and I planned to find out.

I followed the aroma of brewing coffee to the kitchen area and helped myself. Chaz had set out the sugar and creamer. Smart kid. After diluting it with enough sugar and creamer to leave only a residual bitterness that still marked it as coffee, I went and sat across from the couch in a big chair, curling my feet up under me. I took my time staring at Ke over my coffee. After a while, I set it off to the side and folded my hands in my lap.

"Okay, angel boy, start talking."

Ke raised his eyebrows at my flippancy. "And where would you have me start? With the overall picture? There's too much to even begin to comprehend. With the angels and the role you played? You don't believe me anyway. How about the part where you brought doom to us all?"

Good. At least he wasn't in shock any more. I didn't have to be so gentle with him.

"How about the overall picture part? You can segway into the part about angels and leave the doom thing for last."

Chaz heard the sarcastic irritation in my voice. "Maybe if you agreed to listen with an open mind, he wouldn't have such a hard time telling you what's going on. He's tried before and you shut him down."

My lips curved into a mocking smile. It was directed at myself, but I'd let them take it however they wanted to. The kid was calling me to task on my behavior for the second time in two days. Good for him.

"Fair enough." My head tipped in acknowledgement. "I will listen with an open mind to what you have to say. I can't promise I'll accept it, but I will listen."

Ke nodded. "It's a start."

He was quiet for a while. I took another sip of coffee and set the cup back down. "So go ahead––start."

"Yesh––"

"Fine."

Ke shifted in his seat and looked at the ceiling. "There is a balance between light and darkness in this world. It has been that way since the beginning of creation."

"Okay."

"But light and darkness doesn't have so much to do with perceptions of good and evil, as they do with letting things happen in the natural order, or whether you choose to force things to happen because you want them to."

I held back a sigh. This was going to take a while.

"Most of your stories handed down through the ages have a grain of truth to them. This is particularly true of your religious stories and texts."

No kidding. I knew this part.

"As with any story that is passed along, it changes from telling to telling until the end result only holds a grain of the original truth, altered by the perception of whomever was telling the story at the time."

"I'm with you so far." And I was. He had said nothing yet I didn't already know, and most of which I'd had firsthand experience with.

"Even the texts that define most of your major religions were written by men, mortals, long after the telling of the stories had been diluted through the years."

"Like the angels in the Bible." I saw where he was going with this, and wanted to move it along into territory not so familiar. A thought occurred to me while he was speaking. Why was I having such a hard time accepting the whole angel concept, when I dealt with ancient gods in the form of immortals such as Morpheus on a regular basis?

"Yes."

"So they are just stories."

"Yes––no." He found, as he tried to regain the focus I had interrupted.

"They are stories with a grain of truth to them." I offered to get him back on track.

"Yes. Even more so than you might think." He took his eyes from the ceiling and looked directly at me. "You can tap into the energy of the web, so you know what it is?"

"Yes." I nodded. "It's the seemingly empty space, filled with energy, that surrounds the physical."

Ke shook his head. "Not quite. The energy web is the physical, the non-physical and everything in-between."

I shrugged. "Okay, I can see that."

His look became intent. "Do you? It is a very important point for you to understand. Physical existence isn't just created from the web. Physical existence _is_ the web––but separate from it."

I thought about it for a moment and then sighed. "Yes. I get it. I also get that this is going to be drawn out way too long."

His frustration was almost tangible in the air. "Mortals don't understand the true meaning of _too long_."

I was irritated. "Okay. You brought it up. Back to that mortal thing. I thought that angels didn't have physical form. Yet here you are, claiming to be an angel. You feel pretty solid to me. Are you like the other immortals?"

"Angels don't have physical form. They are pure energy tied directly into the web. But they can _possess_ physical form."

I heard the emphasis and my face went blank, my voice flat. "Like demon possession.

"It's the same thing, except we do not force possession, we are usually invited into a human host."

My eyes narrowed. "But that's not what happened in your case, is it? You _forced_ possession and that's what was going on when you came here. The human host was _rejecting_ you."

"Yes." He couldn't meet my eyes.

It took me a moment. Maybe I hadn't had enough coffee yet. But it finally clicked.

"I tied you to the human host on a more permanent level." I had to laugh at the irony.

"Yes." He was not only unhappy––he was _very_ grumpy about it.

"So you are an immortal being trapped inside a mortal body. It serves you right."

"Yeshua––"

I held up a hand. "No, Chaz. Not this time. All this talk about darkness and light, letting things happen naturally or forcing them to be the way you want them to. Everyone has revered the angels and cursed the demons in religions throughout the centuries. So if this guy really _is_ an angel, then it makes the supposed good guys no better than the bad guys."

"You don't know what you are talking about."

"Oh don't I?" My feet came out from under me and I leaned forward in the chair, my hands gripping the armrests on either side. "I've been fighting the likes of you for years. You all think you're so superior to us _mortals_ , as you so condescendingly choose to call us. But if we are so damned inferior, why do you choose to possess our bodies, or control our actions? There must be something we have and you don't, and it just chaps your ass."

Ke glared at me without speaking. Chaz kept silent alongside of him.

"So what is it then?" I leaned back in my seat. "Is it that you can't feel without being in physical form?" From the look on his face, I was getting warm. I paused to think about what I'd heard about angels. A thought tickled the edges of my awareness. "The Grigori."

Ke's look was wary.

"That's it, isn't it? The only angels that really had any direct contact with humans and lived among them were the Grigori––the Watchers sent to keep tabs on humans and protect them. But who was there to protect them from _you_?" Another light bulb turned on inside my head. "Oh, it's even worse, isn't it? You couldn't protect yourselves from the mortals––they made you _feel_."

He looked away. There was more to it, but I had sort of snored my way through the Old Testament scriptures, much to Father David's dismay. But there was something about––

"The Nephilim."

"What about them, Yesh?" Chaz was trying to work this through his head, too.

How did that go?

"What was it––the sons of God seduced the daughters of man and from their union was born the Nephilim, an abomination to the heavens." I shook my head in disbelief. "This isn't all about sex, is it?"

Ke laughed, but it was bitter. "Don't be so crass. Mortals have a tendency to focus so hard on the physical that they lose sight of the bigger picture."

"Oh yeah?" I gave him a pointed look. "We'll just see how your perspective changes the longer you are stuck in your new, _mortal_ body."

"One way or another, I won't be in it for long." His voice softened. But it was a softening based on sadness, not on anger.

"What? Planning on leaving us so soon?" I wasn't done being irritated. "How? Suicide?"

"Destruction of any of physical creation is against the laws of existence itself."

"Why should _you_ care?" I snapped. "Weren't the Grigori set aside from the heavens and the rest of the angels for their sins against humanity? It's not like suicide would prevent you access from heaven, or whatever else it might be. You're already banned from there."

"The Watchers didn't sin against humanity." Ke's voice has regained its condescending irritability again. "We taught humanity how to save itself. We _saved_ both humanity and the heavens from destruction. And to put things in perspective, not all of the Grigori ran around mixing their energies with the humans. Some of us abstained and worked at a higher level to stop what was happening."

"And just what was it that was happening?"

"There was only one entity, above all the rest, who could create physical matter from the web. The rest of us could affect changes on the physical level, but we couldn't create physical form from nothing but energy."

My look dropped into guarded mode again. "You're talking about God."

"God, the Creator, or whatever else you humans use to manifest it as an entity you can wrap your minds around."

"Okay."

"When something is made physical, it becomes disconnected to the web. If it stays connected to the web, it loses physical form and reverts to being part of the web again. But there are those of us, not in physical form, which are connected to the web. You call us angels. We are a part of the overall pattern of energy, and as with any pattern, we have to follow the flows where they lead us, or else everything begins to come unraveled."

My brain was starting to hurt. "How about a simple translation?"

"Angels are connected to the web. We have to follow the flows of energy. We have no choice. Humans, as physical creations, are disconnected from the web. They can tap into it, but if they stay that way for too long, they lose the part of themselves holding them to the physical."

I thought about some of the people I had met who _connected_ to the metaphysical energy for whatever reason––psychics, witches, healers, and so on. If they didn't disconnect from time to time to participate in the world around them, they started getting that "airy-fairy" quality to them––as though they were out of synch with reality. They weren't losing touch of reality. They were actually _more_ in touch with reality, just not at a physical level. But it did mean letting go of that part of them that made them human––the physical part.

"Okay, I think I'm beginning to get it. But why is this important?"

"There was one other non-physical entity that was able to create matter from energy, but he couldn't replicate what he had done. He didn't create a mortal creature, he created an immortal creature of physical substance, one still connected to the web."

"I don't get it––"

"Yesh, think about it for a minute." Chaz's eyes were wide with understanding. "What one angel thought that he was powerful enough to challenge God, himself?"

"Lucifer." This was a new twist to the story I'd been taught.

"The Morning Star." Ke nodded. "He created a creature of energy in a physical form. The creature in turn, tried to replicate his "father's" experiment. But you can only have one or the other. If you have form, you cannot be connected to the web. If you are connected to the web, you cannot have form."

"But why?" I was still missing something.

" _Free will_ , Yesh." Chaz was bouncing in his seat. "If you are in the physical, you have free will. If you aren't physical, you don't have free will––you have to follow the flows of the pattern. But if that physical form were to be connected directly to the web, and _didn't_ follow the energy flows, it would most likely tear the web apart, having the free will to mess with the flows in whatever way it wanted."

Ke closed his eyes. "Exactly. And that's what happened. Abaddon began to tear the pattern apart at the very source. The first thing to go in a disruption of the flows is the physical. So he was beginning to tear apart everything that had ever been created, and there was a lot of chaotic energy floating around, causing even further destruction."

A thought occurred to me. "But that's what the Grigori did too, isn't it? That's why the Nephilim were considered to be such an abomination. The essence of the physical attributes of a human combined with the power attributes of the angels."

"Abaddon messed with the natural order of things and used the Grigori's natural affinity with the physical to create those children. It wasn't intentional on the part of the Grigori. They were unwitting pawns in Abaddon's plan. He used them without their knowledge. There should have been no possibility of children."

"So it wasn't just Lucifer and his creation that mucked things up. The Grigori had a big part in it. And it started to unravel the fabric of existence."

"And so the war began between the angels and the Fallen Ones." Chaz added with a frown. "But why? Why didn't they just band together to put a stop to the whole thing?"

"Because there was only one safe, intermediate place between the physical realm and the ethereal access to the web. And the angels blocked the Fallen Ones, and the Grigori, from entering."

"The Crystal City." I knew it without question. Did that mean I was beginning to believe this guy? I wasn't entirely sure yet. But what he was saying rang true. And it certainly wasn't any more bizarre than immortal Greek gods running opium dream dens, or even dream stalkers. He was leaving some things out. I knew that for certain, too.

Ke nodded, looking back up at me again. "In the final days, just before the physical world would have been torn apart, Abaddon tried to break through one of the gateways that accessed the Crystal City."

"The Thirteenth Gate."

And Yeshua was the Guardian for that gate." Chaz slapped his hand down on the arm of the couch.

"In her past form, Ithane." Ke's eyes held mine. There was something else I wasn't getting, and it had to do with the intensity of the look he was giving me.

"So Yeshua was an angel?"

"She was one of the Grigori."

"Okay. This is the part I don't understand. How can a spirit with no mortality, die? And what's more––how does it then _reincarnate_ into a physical form? It doesn't make sense."

"Ithane didn't die." Ke shook his head slowly. "She gave herself to the web. She _fixed_ the breach that no one else could, by using her own essence. Everything stopped, right then and there. Together, she and I locked Abaddon into the web, but disconnected him from it."

"And the beast was locked into the pit for a thousand years–" Chaz mumbled.

"There was fallout on the physical realm." Ke continued as though the kid hadn't spoken. "An energy wave, of both physical and metaphysical energy blanketed the earth, restoring everything to where it should be. It removed the things that didn't belong."

"The Great Flood." Chaz said with awe.

"And it destroyed the Nephilim." The pieces fit with what I knew from biblical texts, for the most part.

"The pattern was restored. But as with any pattern, it eventually repeats itself. The entire angelic realm has been watching for the pattern to repeat. Some would try to stop it. Others feel we need to let it flow naturally to its conclusion."

"Which is what?"

"We don't know."

"And Ithane?"

Ke looked away again. "Ithane's signature never fully dissipated into the pattern. It steadily reformed, taking time to regroup for all these years. Those of us who reached out and felt for her knew she was still there. Then one day, she just vanished from the web."

"How do you know she didn't just let go? Or maybe it was too strong for her?"

"Because I searched outside the web and found her anyway." He looked at me, the intensity back in his expression. "Besides, the pattern repeats. This time it is the Fallen Ones who traffic with humans and breed their own version of the Nephilim. They are demon spawn who could ultimately learn to twist the web to their own purpose."

It took everything I had not to turn and look at Chaz. I knew mama'd had bigger plans in store.

"The Morning Star is active again, and we suspect he is trying to make way for Abaddon's return. There are only two beings who could set him free. And only one of those cold stop him if he gets free on his own."

I stared at him, my eyes about popping out of my head. This couldn't be happening. Then I started to laugh. It started out slow, but built to near-hysteric proportions within seconds. It was a while before I could get it back under control.

"Look, Ke." I took a sip of coffee and almost spat it out as another burst of laughter threatened to erupt. "You had better start looking for another solution. Even if I were this Ithane, and your story were all truth––" I tipped my head up and held out my wrists to display the bruises. "I just got my ass kicked by a dream stalker––a _human being_. How can you expect I'd be able to handle something as big as Lucifer? It's ridiculous."

Ke was shaking his head again. I definitely liked him better unconscious. "You only need to remember––"

"Remember what?" I slammed the cup down on the table, sloshing coffee over my hand. I shook it off with anger. "Remember how to use my energy in a way I'm not sure is possible in the first place? Remember how to be a protector for a bunch of arrogant fools you admitted to kicking the Grigori out from the higher realms? Wasn't this Ithane supposed to have been Grigori? And she was the one who saved their asses? I'm sensing a theme with the whole angelic gratitude thing going on here. Or maybe you mean for me to remember how to be a self-sacrificing fool?"

I started to get up from my chair. I'd had enough.

"I'm selfish. Remember me telling you that? You may not want to believe it, but I am. I selfishly want to _not_ die in some fight that's not even mine."

"But––"

I held up my hand. "No _buts_. Even if you are correct in everything you're telling me, let me remind you of one of the principles of reincarnation. People reincarnate, not angels. They were not _incarnate_ to begin with, but that's another story. Even if I am, somehow, Ithane reincarnated into flesh, then I'm thinking I didn't learn my lesson the first time. So here's me, choosing not to make the same mistake. Look elsewhere for your savior. Ithane has left the building."

My words were punctuated by my leaving the two of them sitting in silent amazement while I went into my bedroom and slammed the door. I got dressed and headed out, slamming the apartment door for good measure. I needed space and time to think.

## Chapter 13

[Back to Top]

The chasm was right in front of me. I moved to the edge and stopped. The women of the coven were there, just as they had been the first time I had been drawn into this dreamscape. Black Wolf was absent. It didn't make any sense. I had been stalking the dream stalker for what felt like hours.

You could never be certain about the passage of time in the world of dreams. It was a true non-linear framework, which is why people could seldom remember their dreams come morning. They couldn't wrap their minds around non-linear time. I reveled in it. To me, it saved in-between, wasted time. You could jump from point A to point B and cut the non-essentials out from the middle.

This time it didn't seem to be working. Black Wolf was playing a game of Hide and Seek. He kept leading me back to this place––his _lair_ , for the lack of a better word. I knew that this was where he wanted me to be. Each time he circled back to this place, another member of the coven was wrapped in the web. The last time only Pietra had been absent. Not any more. She was tied into the webbing that stretched across the chasm with the rest of them.

Where was he? Maybe it was my thoughts that conjured him. Maybe he was just ready to make his move. I don't know, but the feeling was there, a tickle at the edges of my awareness, and I just _knew_. I spun around, bringing up a right cross sucker punch. It didn't connect with his face the way I had intended. He caught it in his left hand, bringing his own right cross in to connect with my jaw.

He let go of my fist so my weight would carry me backwards. I dropped like a rock, my back connecting to the web. I held still, very still, knowing from before that the more I struggled, the more ensnared I would become. It didn't matter. Either way, I was trapped.

Black Wolf stood at the edge of the chasm, at the edge of the webbing, his dark eyes triumphant with satisfaction. He stood with gloating pride over my spread-eagled body, caught in a state of immobility. But I wasn't done yet. My body started to warm and I could feel the tingling of building energy. The only thing I saw wrong, was that I wasn't the one calling it.

The dream stalker's look passed from gloating to surprise and then onto determination. He didn't want to let me get away. He went to take a step toward me, but the light flared into intense heat, pushing him back from the edge of the chasm. It also burned away the webbing that held me.

For obvious reasons, that was both good and bad. It also set free the web to fall with me into the chasm below. The women were no longer in the dreamscape. I was grateful for that, at least. On the other hand, _I_ was plunging rapidly into the empty darkness.

A trumpet sounded across the space, echoing off the chasm walls. With its sound, the webbing burst into flame, and the heat of the violet intensified even more. I could see the ground beneath me now, coming up fast from the black emptiness. The webbing to my right, looking like a fireball hurtling toward the earth, connected first, and then the one to my left. Both left huge, gaping holes in the ground. Smoke curled up from those holes, spreading out to cover the ground and air. It burned my eyes and nose, but it also made me sleepy. Just before I hit the ground, the unconscious darkness of sleep settled over me and I knew no more.

My fingers were entwined with those of someone else when I opened my eyes to the more familiar darkness of my bedroom. It was just starting to get light outside, and a darker gray, not quite black, filtered past the edges of my blinds. Ke was sitting next to me on the bed, his eyes closed in concentration, his grip on my hands gentle, but firm. He must have sensed my awakening, because his eyes opened to stare down into mine.

I lost myself in his eyes for the space of time that it took me to come to full awareness. Without forcing it, I pulled back on my hands and I could tell that he was reluctant to let go, but he did. Pushing myself up into a sitting position to face him, I finally looked away. He looked a lot better cleaned up than I had expected he would. I wasn't going to deny the attraction, but I also wasn't giving into it. Right now, I had to admit that I was way out of my depth and I certainly didn't need any added complications.

"Thanks." It was all that I could say. I knew he had just saved my ass _again_.

He nodded without speaking.

I was on uncertain footing here. For most of the day, I had spent my time riding around, thinking through everything that was happening, everything that had been said. The problem was that I couldn't find any real holes in the laid out scenario.

Oh, there were some pieces missing, I'm sure of it. And I was just as sure they were big pieces. With the surrealism and danger of the world that had become my life, I was used to not always getting the answers I needed, no matter how much frustration it caused. The one thing I had learned to rely on above all else was my gut instinct. My gut might be doing handsprings and cartwheels, but it was also telling me that what Ke was saying had a strong sense of truth at its base.

But _my_ truth stood out above his. If I had to buy into the possibility that I was some angel incarnate, I was still going to hold on to my selfishness. After all, how many times could a person be expected to sacrifice themselves for the greater good? Maybe as an angel I hadn't had a choice, but as a human I did. That had to count for something, right? Was my wanting to live such a bad thing? I didn't think so. So why did I feel so crappy about it?

Ke cupped his hand to my jaw, tilting my head up to look at him. I flinched at his touch, but this time it was because of pain. I reached up with my own hand to check out my jaw, pushing it, moving it. The good news was that it wasn't broken. The bad news was that I'm pretty sure there was going to be a sweet little bruise there after a bit.

"I want to help you with this guy." Ke's voice was harsh with anger, but his offer was sincere.

I shook my head, moving to get up from the bed.

"I have another way I'm going to try next. Besides, you have already been a big help." I turned back to look at him after I crawled off the bed. "What are you doing in here, anyway?"

Ke moved to the edge of the bed. "There is someone here I wanted you to meet."

There it went, the emotionless mask slipping back into place. "Who?"

He wouldn't look at me. "Another of the Grigori."

I threw my arms up in the air. "Why not? Bring him on. It's looking like old home week."

"She."

"What?"

"It's a _she_ , not a _he_."

I shrugged. "Fine. Whatever. Lead the way."

It wasn't that I didn't like people or being around them. I was just more of the loner type. Okay, maybe that meant I really _wasn't_ fond of people or being around them. But I think it takes it to another level when an unwanted houseguest starts inviting all of his friends over for a party. It may not be to that extreme yet, but if you let one in––

Ke led the way out into the living room. The smell of cooking bacon and eggs filled the air. Chaz was in the kitchen making breakfast for everyone. The corner of my mouth twitched, an ironic thought slipping into my mind. I wondered what Father David would say to my presenting him with a grocery bill to feed a host of Grigori. After all, they were angels, right? That made them part of his group.

An older woman, I'd guess mid to late fifties watched Chaz do his thing. There was a lot of gray to her hair, but I would've guessed she was once a brunette. Some of the darker color still showed in her short, curly, stylishly cut hair. She was dressed in long beige shorts, and over-sized t-shirt with a Native American theme printed on the front, and bright green flip-flops. My overall impression was far from angelic.

Chaz noticed me and smiled. The Grigori woman looked up, examining me with her gray-green eyes. She had that eccentric aunt feel to her. The kind that looks you over, smiles and then moves in to pinch your cheeks. I must have passed her scrutiny, because she smiled and started to come around the counter. If she pinched my cheeks, I was going to deck her, angel or not.

"Ke, you were correct." Her eyes danced with excitement. "You _have_ found her." She stopped short of actually touching me, but I still felt tense.

"Sariel, this is Yeshua Star." Ke stepped up with a nod of his head. "Yeshua, this is Sariel of the Grigori."

She gave him a look of mock exasperation, batting her hand to swat at him. "Pshaw––there's no need for formalities. You've been on your own for too long, Ke. It'll probably do you some good to be locked in that body for a bit. Maybe it will help you to remember a little about humanity and how to not take yourself so seriously."

Ke frowned. "But this is serious."

"Yes, it is, dear." She patted him absently. "But if the Grigori had always had your kind of defeatist attitude, there wouldn't be much left of anything any more, would there?"

I tried to keep my mouth from twitching. This woman made me want to smile. I was prepared to be irritated with her based on the effect Ke seemed to have on me. It hadn't dawned on me I might actually like her. I was obviously going to withhold judgment, but if nothing else, she irritated Ke, which made her an amusing distraction at the very least. I guess angels came in as many diverse personalities as humans and immortals did.

When Sariel turned back to look at me, I noticed the same type of raised markings on her neck that Ke had on his. She saw where my attention was focused and put a hand up to her neck to touch the mark.

"I tilted my head. "What are those?"

Sarah looked at Ke. "It's our signature––all angels have them. When we inhabit a human form, it is the part of us that is still connected, yet not, to the web."

"Sort of like an energy signature?" I frowned, trying to understand.

"Yes." Sariel nodded. "It's as though our energy reaches outside of the human body to maintain connection. The longer we remain in human form the less pronounced it becomes, but it never goes away completely. It can also help us to identify others of our kind in a human host."

"And when you leave the body?"

"The mark fades away." She shrugged. "Some of your ancient texts call it _angelic script_. It is the unique identifier for each angel. Even the Fallen Ones have them."

That was good to know.

"Sarah came here to see if she could help you to remember how to use the energy. "Ke interjected.

I could feel my irritation level start to rise.

"She is the best teacher to the humans of all the Grigori," he added hastily, hoping it would make a difference.

It didn't. "I never said I wanted to _remember_. In fact, I could've sworn I specifically mentioned _not_ wanting to remember."

Ke and Sariel exchanged looks. There was some _serious_ concern being swapped back and forth between them.

"What?" I demanded, crossing my arms.

"Yeshua––" Ke tried to start, but couldn't seem to find the words.

"If you choose not to help in our struggle, that is your choice." Sariel held up a hand to stop Ke from interrupting. "No. It is her right. She has the choice available to her."

"Thank you." I tipped my head up with a bit of attitude. This was a Grigori I could get to like. She made me feel vindicated.

"However––"

Why was there always a catch?

"––What you have done in binding Ke to his human host needs to be undone."

Oh yeah. _That_.

The sound of Chaz setting out dishes on the table made me feel guilty. The kid might be there to help me out, but he didn't need to act like my personal servant. He had been picking up a lot of domestic slack this week. I'd have to do something special to show my appreciation.

"That," Sariel smiled, "is why I am here. I'm pretty certain Ke doesn't possess the social skills to get across to you the seriousness of our predicament."

"Now there's an understatement." I muttered under my breath. It gave me a small amount of satisfaction to see his face turn red with angry embarrassment.

Sariel ignored me. "And from what your friend has been telling me of your temperament, you'd be too pig-headed to listen to him."

I raised a questioning eyebrow to Chaz. So much for doing something special for the little rat.

" _Stubborn_." He insisted with a trace of panic in his voice. "I said you were _stubborn_."

"He did." Sariel acknowledged. "I figured out the pig-headed part on my own."

I shrugged, stepping around her to grab a cup of coffee. "And just what is it I need to understand?"

My tone was flippant, but I was beyond irritated. Pig-headed. Chaz didn't meet my eyes while he finished setting the rest of the table. It was probably a good thing. I was saving a special look meant for him alone.

"We have another battle coming with the Fallen Ones."

"Which would be my problem, hmm, let's see––wait, _why_ was that again?" I gave her a mocking look and went back to fixing my coffee.

Sariel sighed and shook her head at Ke. "You really didn't start this out in a good way, did you?"

Ke scowled and looked away. I smirked.

"Because you, my dear, are human."

"Yeah, which means that I have the right to choose not to get involved."

"Which means," Sariel sighed, that if the fabric of the web starts to unravel, you will be one of the first things to go. All physical matter will. The angels will survive it. Humanity and the world you live in will not."

I frowned and took a sip of coffee. Okay. That had my attention. But I was also sensing a dwindling number of options on my part, and I wasn't like that at all.

## Chapter 14

[Back to Top]

Chaz announced breakfast was ready. It gave me a few minutes to organize my thoughts while everyone shuffled around the table. I took my time filling my plate and took a bite of scrambled eggs. They were a little overdone, but I wasn't much of a breakfast person anyway. I was using it primarily as a distraction for the moment.

Neither Sariel nor Ke spoke. I would have rather that they did. The first one to break the silence in a situation like this usually lost the upper hand. Until a few minutes ago, I had thought that position was mine. Now I wasn't certain. Sariel was good. I'll give her that. She was waiting for me to jump in.

The sigh I had been holding was released. Fine. I'd let her have top dog position until I could figure out how to regain control.

"Okay, I'll bite. Is it because I bound Ke to the human host that this whole unraveling business is going to start?"

The two Grigori exchanged glances. Somehow, I was getting the feeling that they could communicate without speaking. Or maybe that comes when you have known another person for several millennia. Either way, I didn't like being kept out of the loop.

Sariel was the one who finally looked back to me, shaking her head. "No. By binding him to the host in the way you did, it only dissipated his link to the web. He has a modicum of free will now, but his connection to everything else isn't at a level high enough to that kind of damage."

"All right, then how is this all supposed to go down?"

"The pattern is repeating itself." Ke shrugged.

My patience was wearing thin. "How about explaining what that's supposed to mean for those of us who don't remember being around the last millennia or so ago that this happened?"

Ke looked frustrated. "If you would let us help you to remember, we wouldn't be wasting our time with––"

"It's _my_ time to waste." I snapped back.

"Do you really think––?"

Sariel grabbed Ke's arm and squeezed. "Enough. We have time. The signs are just now starting to present themselves."

"Signs?" Chaz frowned. "Are we talking about the signs of the apocalypse, end-of-the-world-type of stuff?"

"Yes."

"Like the trumpets blowing in the Book of Revelations?" Chaz was speaking to her, but he looked at me.

"Yes."

Damn. The trumpets. Why hadn't I made that connection? But they weren't matching up with catastrophic world events, so they didn't count, right? Ke was watching me, and Sariel was watching him watching me. I was trying to avoid looking at either of them.

Sariel raised her eyebrows. 'What am I missing here?"

"The trumpets have begun to sound." Ke said without taking his eyes from mine.

Her eyes darted back and forth between us. "Explain."

"Every time Yeshua and I have come together in the dreamscape, the trumpets have sounded."

The color drained from the face of the female Grigori. "How many––?"

"Three." I think we were swapping rounds of confusion. It was my turn. "But there haven't been any catastrophes or any other stuff matching the predictions of the Bible, except in the dreamscape."

Sariel closed her eyes. "It doesn't always work like that. Tell me what happened each time the trumpets sounded."

I described each of the scenes that I had witnessed, and added the part about the meteor shower on the night of the coven initiation. Sariel listened without speaking, except to interrupt and clarify a detail here and there. When I was done, she sank back into her chair with a look of shock.

"We have less time than I thought."

I set my fork down on my plate and looked at her with skepticism. "You really need to help me understand this, because I am way out of my league."

"The Crystal City is more than just a staging area between the physical and non-physical realms. It is a reflective tie-in to the entire web and all of the planes of existence. That includes the dreamscape."

"Okay."

"Have you ever heard the phrase _as above, so below_?"

I nodded. "It's a standard premise in most belief systems. That which happens in the heavens is mirrored on earth and vice versa."

"Yes. Well, that is most true where the Crystal City is concerned. The Crystal City was created as a solid state of awareness into the intricate patterns of the web. It is used as a symbolic measuring stick for everything that happens everywhere––including in the dreamscape. The dreamscape, for all intent and purpose, is a manifestation layer for all connected consciousness."

"Translation?"

She pointed to the bruises on my wrists, throat and chin. "The dreamscape is not physical, but things that happen in the world of dreams can be made manifest on the physical plane. The Crystal City is sort of an in-between state between the dreamscape and the physical, but it is not physical at the level where you could touch it without special assistance or abilities."

I shrugged. It made sense, in a bizarre kind of way.

"Things happen on the physical plane in a very slow manner. Because the energy has solid form, it has a slower moving frequency. The dreamscape, having no actual solid form, moves at a higher frequency and things manifest more quickly."

"And the Crystal City?"

"It varies, because it is both and neither at the same time."

"So what you're saying," I worked my way through the thought, "is the trumpets blowing on the dreamscape with the events happening there, could be signaling the start of the apocalypse?"

"The events will eventually manifest in both the Crystal City and on the earth. Depending upon the magnitude of the event, they could happen now, or years from now. They may or may not occur in the same order that they did in the dreamscape, but they will happen. The chain of events has been initiated."

"But it's not happening like it says in the Book of Revelations," Chaz pointed out. "It's all over the map as far as religions go."

Sariel raised her eyebrows. "Is it? The first trumpet blows in Yeshua's dream and the meteor shower happens. According to Revelations, the first trumpet coincides with hail and fire that will burn up a third of the flora on earth. The second trumpet sounds and she sees Yggdrasil and the Urdh well spilling foul water that turns to blood and kills the World-Tree. A Norse religious comparison, but Revelations speaks of the seas turning to blood. The third trumpet sounds and she sees signs of the Qiyaamah, the Islamic apocalypse. Revelations tells of a great star, burning as a torch, falling to the earth. Humans tend to take their religious texts far too literally. It is a mixture of religious symbology, but the underlying pattern exists and is beginning to unfold."

"And it's all leading up to the end of the world." My voice was flat, but it held a note of disbelief that I couldn't have kept out of it if I'd tried.

"By the sound of the fifth trumpet, Abaddon will be released from the pit." Ke said quietly.

"Abaddon––that big, ugly black thing I saw come through the Thirteenth Gate?"

"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to earth, and unto him was given the key of the bottomless pit––and the Fallen Hosts had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon–" Chaz was quoting Revelations.

"Apollyon. That means _Destroyer_ in Greek." I said automatically. Maybe I wasn't the best at recall on biblical verse, but I did have a knack for languages.

"But if Abaddon needs a key to get out of the bottomless pit, which is where I'm going to assume is whatever place it is Ithane locked him up at, then that would mean––" My forehead was wrinkling, my eyebrows scrunched up in thought. The thought was there, I could feel it. Then it came. I looked at Ke, who was watching, waiting for me to put the pieces together. "You said only you or Ithane could open the place where Abaddon was locked up. So why not choose _not_ to open the pit? Or are you guys on the side of the Fallen Ones?"

Sariel's smile was sad. "It isn't that simple. The pattern repeats. If we put a knot in the pattern to prevent it from going forward, then it sort of works like a kink in a water hose with the tap open to full. The pressure will build and sooner or later burst. It may just undo the kink and go forward the natural way, or it could explode at the knot, starting to unravel the pattern of the web, regardless."

"You want it to happen on your terms, rather than wait to see what may or may not happen and try for damage control after the fact."

"Simply put, but yes."

"And Ke can't do whatever it is he needs to do in his present form."

"Yes. I can." Ke said, his face emotionless.

"Then what's the big deal?"

"Yesh, they're talking about releasing the _Beast_ from the pit."

I looked at Chaz. "Yeah, I caught that part. But they're also not telling us everything, kid."

Sariel was uncomfortable, as though trying to decide what to tell me––or maybe it was how much to say? She looked to Ke with concern, and he stared at me for a long moment before closing his eyes and nodding.

"There are those who would do everything in their power not to have Ke release Abaddon."

My look was one of mock, sarcastic surprise. "No––really? I can't imagine why."

Chaz scowled at me, but didn't say anything. Maybe I had gone a little over the top on that one. Sariel blushed, but I couldn't be certain whether it was from anger or embarrassment.

"Ke can die in his current state. You have made him mortal."

I didn't comment on that. Chaz gave me a warning look that I ignored. The opening was there, but even _I_ wasn't that heartless. I didn't even bother pointing out that they were asking for the same sacrifice from me. Why shouldn't it be someone else's turn to take one for the team?

"If the others wanted to stop the pattern from unfolding, they could find some way to make sure he never made it to the site."

"Didn't you also say there are only two of you capable of locking Abaddon back up again?" Chaz had his wheels spinning again. It showed in his eyes.

"Yes."

"But what happens if Abaddon is released from the pit and turns around and kills Ke?"

A chill washed over me. Shit. Why was the kid so much more on top of this than I was?

Sariel's smile was tight. "Now you start to see our dilemma."

It was a nice trap, neatly set. I had to give her that. She played the game a lot better than Ke did, without a doubt. I toyed with the food on my plate, pushing it back and forth into messy little piles. I was trying to find a loophole.

My voice was dry and without emotion when I finally looked back up. "So where does my free will enter into this?"

Ke shrugged. "As Sariel has said, you can choose not to do anything. You have that choice."

My eyes sparked with anger, though the rest of my expression stayed hidden behind the mask. "Sure, let's see––I can do nothing and hope by some freak chance, the whole rest of existence will stop its forward momentum, roll over and play nice. Even if I weren't a cynic, I'm not buying it as a viable scenario. Or I can let you try to handle it all by yourself in mortal form, hoping you don't die before you do what you have to, or even the instant Abaddon pops out of his hidey hole. Oh wait––there's option number three. I can jump in with both feet, and since _I'm_ in mortal form, it pretty much cinches how the end will turn out for me. Door number one, two, or three? Death, death, or maybe even death. Don't try to feed me any free will crap right now. I'm getting pretty full from your crap the way that it is."

The funny thing is that I wasn't sure what I was going to do at this point. None of it was real enough for me yet. I was beginning to feel that everything they were telling me was true. I just couldn't accept it as _my_ truth yet.

A reprieve from the confusion came with a knock at the door. Chaz started to get up, but I needed the movement, so I motioned for him to stay put. It only took me a few moments to get to the door. I peered out the peephole to see the distorted face of Father David. Damn. I was supposed to have called him yesterday.

The chain came off in a flash, followed by me unbolting and opening the door. Father David stood there with a light look of reprimand that didn't last long once he spotted the bruises I was sporting. My encounters with Black Wolf managed to help me stave off a solid lecture from the good Padre.

"Yeshua, I was concerned when you didn't show, or didn't even call yesterday."

I winced. Okay, maybe I wasn't going to get a lecture, but he managed to get a dig in anyway. Let's face hit. Catholic priests held the secret recipe on guilt trips.

"I apologize, Father." My best contrite look slipped into place over my mask. I moved my hands up so the sleeves of my robe fell back to show the bruises on my wrists, and tilted my head up a little to give him a better view of my neck and jaw. I'd lived among the priests for enough years to pick up a few secrets to guilt trips of my own. "As you can see, my thoughts have been a little focused elsewhere. I didn't mean to let our meeting slip through the cracks."

Father David raised a single eyebrow in amusement. It was the twinkle in his blue eyes that gave him away. He knew damned well that I was playing him. Just as he knew that I knew that he was playing me.

A chuckle erupted, giving warmth to his freckled, older face. His hair was white and thinning on the top of his head, but I remember a time when it had been thick and full, and a deep Irish red. I smiled in return and stepped aside to let him in.

Another figure entered behind the priest. It was a man, a very tall man, with an older, aristocratic face surrounded by a full mane of silver-white hair that fell past his shoulders. His green eyes were super intense, taking in every inch of my appearance. I didn't like his superior attitude, and opened my mouth to make that clear. Then I caught site of the mark on his neck. My eyes narrowed in angry suspicion. It was another angel. Was there some kind of convention in town that I didn't know about?

Father David saw my look and turned. He was almost embarrassed when he met my gaze with a sheepish one of his won.

"Yeshua, this is the person that I wanted you to meet–"

"An angel." My voice was flat.

He looked surprised. "Yes. How did you––?"

"Gabriel." Sariel's voice held a strong note of distaste. She pushed up from the table to face the new arrivals.

The new guy's eyes narrowed when they caught sight of her. I thought he'd spit tacks when Ke stood up next. Chaz was getting up from the table, too, but I saw Gabriel give him a quick, dismissive glance before turning his attention back to the other two. That pissed me off. How rude and arrogant and––shit.

I looked at him with dawning realization. "Gabriel. As in _the_ Gabriel, the _Archangel_ Gabriel?"

"Yes, Yeshua." Father David was uncertain about what was going on, and he was trying to sort through matters to sort things out. "He came to me, asking about you." He frowned, looking over at the two who were stepping closer with caution. "Who are your guests?"

I had to laugh out loud at the ludicrous situation unfolding in my apartment. Nudging a disgruntled Gabriel aside, I closed the door.

"Father, meet Sariel and Ke. I'm fairly certain they've met your guest before, so no introductions are necessary there. It's turning into old home week for the choir of angels. Sariel and Ke are both Grigori."

I watched him chew on that.

"But the Grigori––"

"Father, Father." I chided, shaking my head. "You taught me yourself that there are layers to the old stories we aren't aware of at the human level. Well, meet layers two and three. I think Gabriel qualifies as a layer one––since the Archangels do outrank the Grigori in the hierarchy, don't they?"

The priest nodded. He was speechless. Good. I didn't have to deal with recriminations for the time being.

"What are you doing here, Gabriel?" Sariel's voice was tight.

"The same thing as you, I would imagine." Gabriel lifted his head.

His arrogance was overwhelming. I guess angels did come in all sorts of personalities. Well, I didn't do arrogance. I didn't care if he _was_ the Archangel Gabriel.

"What––trying to get me to enlist for this little war that you have coming up?" More likely he was getting ready to implement a draft in my case, but I was getting tired of being pushed. I needed some space to work through all of this.

"No." Gabriel shook his head. His expression was a mixture of distaste and confusion. I'm pretty sure that whatever he had been expecting, I wasn't it. "The Thrones have asked me to bring you to the Crystal City. They wish to speak to you."

I rolled my eyes upward, throwing up my hands in exasperation. "Why don't they just show up at my door like everyone else?"

"You cannot bring her to the Crystal City," Sariel snapped, "unless the ban has been lifted on the Grigori."

"She is no longer Grigori." Gabriel announced. "But if she were, in her case it as been repealed."

"Yeshua––?"

Poor Father David. I knew how he felt. But I couldn't give him answers when I was still confused myself. And I certainly didn't want to be the one to turn the older priest's world upside down.

"You cannot––"

"It is the Law––"

"We _are_ the Law––"

All three angels started in at once, arguing amongst themselves. I looked at Father David and shrugged, shaking my head. While they were at it, I left them, going to my bedroom to get dressed. Then I went into my closet and opened a chest I had stashed in the back. From inside, I pulled out a carefully wrapped bundle, checking to make sure I had the one I wanted. I tucked the bundle into the front of my leather jacket, closed the chest and closet, and went back to the living room.

The three so-called _higher beings_ were still at it. Chaz and Father David watched on in confusion, trying to catch what they were saying. I didn't bother. They could fill me in later. I needed to get out and away. I also had some work to do. A quick glance back told me that no one even noticed my leaving. Well, maybe no one. Ke's eyes flicked my way for a brief instant of contact, but he kept his focus on the argument. He got a few brownie points for that one. He wasn't going to give me away. I slipped quietly through the apartment door and headed out.

## Chapter 15

[Back to Top]

My mind wandered as I waited patiently in the plush outer waiting room of an executive office suite. I had phoned ahead to make sure the person I wanted to visit would have a moment to see me. She did, and so here I was. You didn't drop in on the behind-the-scenes mogul of the world's largest software company without an appointment. I was lucky she'd even take a moment to talk with me.

A hand came up to press against the wrapped case inside my jacket. Maybe it wasn't so much luck as it was in knowing the right buttons to push. I'd been waiting for close to an hour before a gorgeous young man came out to escort me in to see his boss. He looked like one of those social-climbing professional types who did whatever it took to reach the top. It was sad how they never seemed to realize until it was too late that they were nothing more than a diverting little _perk_ for the powerful.

He opened the door to let me into a dark office of black and chrome. Heck, even the windows were tinted black to complete the image. The woman was the only splash of color to the entire setting, if you could count her deep purple outfit and lipstick as a contrast to the black. She was beautiful, but in a cold way, with her expression very aloof and unreachable. Every inch of her was perfectly assembled into place, even each black curl pinned to her head in a professional coiffure.

Erishkigal was one of the immortals. I had met her at a party during my brief affair with Morpheus. She used to be worshipped by the Sumerians as a death goddess, the ruler of their underworld. There was some sort of scandal in the Sumerian mythos about her killing her sister. The whole thing is pretty graphic and ugly. But that just goes to show you the distortion of the facts through the years. Her sister, Inanna, was now running some sort of health resort for the rich and famous outside of Miami. I was pretty certain Erishkigal was a major backer in that enterprise.

Everyone thought the powerful CEO of the world's largest software company was some dweeb who had never managed to graduate from college. Yeah, right. And they say people didn't believe in fairy tales any more. Erishkigal was the true, hidden power behind the throne. She was also known once as a goddess who had control over the demon world. She had just expanded from demons to daemons. It wasn't that big of a stretch.

I also knew what Erishkigal's little quirk was among the immortals. She liked to make people jump through hoops, even to come and see her. Trying to get an audience with Erishkigal could take weeks, or even months. The only reason I was standing in front of her right now was because I had something that interested her more than games.

"Ms. Star." The dark immortal acknowledged me with a nod of her head.

"Yeshua, please." I smiled. "It is good to see you again."

Her eyes gave nothing away, but she pointedly looked at the watch on her wrist. That was fine with me. I took the prize out of my jacket and set in on the desk in front of her. A raised eyebrow was her only indication of curiosity. She took a moment to unwrap the cloth from its contents. Without even picking it up, she put a possessive hand on the clay cylinder and looked up to meet my eyes.

"How much do you want?"

My smile was small, but it was there. I knew that I had her at any price. The clay cylinder was covered in ancient Sumerian text. It was an obscure relic holding an ode to the goddess of the underworld. Priceless in museum circles, I knew it was worth whatever I wanted from Erishkigal. It was a vanity thing.

I told her about my problem with the dream stalker. Erishkigal had many contacts among the Fallen Ones of the demon world. I wanted to know who was working with him and how I could get around the pact between them to shut Black Wolf down.

I saw a flash of fear in her eyes that was quickly hidden. I hadn't imagined it. Who could bring fear to a death goddess?

She shook her head. "I'm afraid that is something I am not able to help you with, Ms. Star. That pact is beyond my ability."

I was surprised. She didn't like admitting it. That was pretty clear. But she was a realist, and I respected that. By the way her hand subtly caressed the cylinder, I knew that if she could have given me assistance, she would have.

"Do you know of someone who might be able to help me?"

"Perhaps––" She stared at the prize on her desk a long time before answering. I could see her trying to judge its value to her. "The only one I know who might be able to help you is Lord Marduk."

Damn. "I haven't met him yet." My face wrinkled with a frown. I also didn't know a lot about him. There was something about demon control, but there was a lot more––

Erishkigal lovingly stroked the cylinder. "I might be able to arrange a meeting––"

"If you can set it up for today, the cylinder is yours." I cut straight to the point.

She looked at me for a long moment, and then nodded sharply. "Done." She reached for a piece of paper and jotted down an address before handing it to me. "By the time you arrive, he will be expecting you."

I stared at her, trying to judge the weight of truthfulness to her claim.

She flashed me an irritated look. "He owes me. I will be calling in a favor. He will be happy that it is such a simple thing to fulfill his obligation."

By the way she possessively stroked the cylinder, I could tell she didn't consider it a bad bargain, so I accepted her assurances.

"Thanks."

"Most certainly." She acknowledged, but she was no longer paying any attention to me. Her focus was completely on the cylinder. "Good luck to you, Ms. Star."

I hadn't even reached the door when I heard her keying into the office intercom system.

"Stephen, get me Lord Marduk on the phone."

That was good enough for me.

The address Erishkigal had provided took me into one of the most exclusive areas of town. You had to hand it to most of the immortals. They hadn't squandered away immortality without planning ahead for their creature comforts. The wide gate to Marduk's estate swung open at my arrival. Erishkigal had kept to her part of the bargain. I was satisfied.

I parked my bike at the edge of the driveway that swung into a circle at the front door. That door, too, opened as I stepped up to it. It must have been some favor Marduk had owed. I just hoped the value carried over to what I needed. A solemn, well-dressed man offered to take my coat, but I declined. He nodded acceptance and led the way through an incredible maze of rooms to an indoor pool area.

On the diving board of the pool, about six feet up, the most beautiful man I had ever seen was launching himself into the water. With perfect form he sliced the surface and shot into the crystal clear depths below. Only seconds passed before he crossed half the length of the pool and broke above the surface. He hit the far end and went to push off.

"Lord Marduk." The servant's voice rang out to catch the attention of the swimming immortal.

He turned and waved acknowledgement, climbing out of the pool. A servant I hadn't even noticed as being there stepped up with a robe to wrap around his master. The pure, stark white of the cotton contrasted sharply with the chocolate-caramel color of his skin. What a shame to cover a body like that. His was the type of perfection to make a nun reconsider celibacy vows. And I certainly wasn't a nun.

He toweled his hair and handed the damp cloth back to the servant. His deep brown eyes caught and held mine as he smiled and walked toward me. Every step that brought him closer tightened the response of my body to his. It wasn't until he was standing directly in front of me and I was swaying on unsteady feet that I realized I was intoxicated with the power he put out as naturally as he breathed.

Damn. He was mesmerizing. His damp hair framed a stunning dark face of angles and lines blended to perfect symmetry. His long, waist-length hair was a gorgeous deep brown, tied back in multiple braids from his face. He watched me with amused curiosity, studying my reaction. He _knew_ the effect he was having on me and was enjoying every minute of it.

I put my hand up to cover my eyes. It didn't do any good. His power was singing through every inch of my body. "L-Lord Marduk, please––"

The vibration lowered, slowing ebbing away. Its loss made me feel so empty that I almost reached out for him, wanting the feeling back. The urge was so strong that it took all my concentration to stop myself. I didn't even have enough to spare for irritation. That would come later, when I was far, _far_ out of his reach.

"Ms. Star," his voice interrupted my thoughts. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, taking my hand away from my eyes, but I couldn't look at him. Not yet. "I will be."

"My apologies. I do not often come across someone in the mortal world who is as sensitive as you seem to be."

He sounded sincere. I opened my eyes. His look was innocent, but there was still a trace of amusement. I wanted to be irritated, but it was hard to divert my energy from controlling myself in the face of his power. No wonder immortals had once been worshipped as gods. I had met a few, and they all had that affect of intoxication on me, if they turned it up. But even Morpheus hadn't affected me the way Marduk did. I would have to tread carefully around this one.

"Please, have a seat." He offered his arm to escort me to a conversation pit at the edge of the pool, and then obviously thought better of it. Instead, he let me walk ahead of him and choose my own space.

He didn't let me have too much space of my own, though. The immortal took a seat less than arm's length away. He leaned back in a comfortable position, the robe falling open to display the solid, nuscular lines of his body. My eyes narrowed a bit. He wasn't even trying to play fair.

The servant who had waited with his robe and towel was back again, holding a tray of beverages. He poured several fingers of dark, golden liquid from a crystal decanter into matching glasses, handing one to each of us. I close my eyes and inhaled, catching the full-bodied, peaty aroma of scotch. Good, scotch too, from the smell of it. An appreciative sip melted into an almost airy, smoky taste that evaporated on my taste buds without any burn. _Very_ good scotch.

"How can I help you, Ms. Star?"

I looked up to find Marduk watching my every movement. It was a little disconcerting. Instead of setting the glass down, I clung to it, using the solid feel of it as a focus.

"Yeshua."

"Erishkigal mentioned a dream stalker."

"Yes." I nodded and launched into the details.

"And you have been unable to handle him by yourself?" It was as much a statement as it was a question. "Interesting."

I frowned. "Why interesting?"

Marduk smiled and reached over to run a light finger across the bruised part of my chin. A spasm of energy rolled through me at the contact. I narrowed my eyes and jerked away. _That_ had been on purpose.

He laughed, throwing back his head. "Sometimes, Yeshua, the longevity of being immortal brings with it power and knowledge. Sometimes it brings joy, and sometimes sorrow, but it becomes rarer as time goes on, for it to bring surprises. You have brought surprise to me, and I'm trying to figure out what it all means."

His look was intense, but I had no clue as to what he was talking about. He reached over and set his glass on the table. He pushed a button on the wall behind him, and immediately a servant showed up at his side. The man leaned in to listen to his master's whispered instructions, looking at me with a blank expression. Then he left the room.

Marduk shook his head. "None of it matters–– _yet_. I have the answer you seek, but I have the feeling you will not like it. The dream stalker has made a pact with a demon beyond my control. You might even be familiar with his name. He was once an angel of the heavens, but no more."

My heart dropped. "Lucifer."

"That is the name he is called by some."

It didn't make sense. "Why would Lucifer traffic in something so far beneath him? I thought he kept his eye on much bigger things."

Marduk shrugged. "Maybe what he is working on has nothing to do with the dream stalker. Sometimes smaller events are only a means to an end."

If his look wasn't so watchful, I might have been led to believe he was speculating. But he wasn't. He knew something more. Fine. He wanted to play? I'd oblige him––to a point.

I put on a look of confusion. "What kind of an end could a dream stalker give that he couldn't achieve on his own?" I took a sip from my glass, watching him over the rim.

He picked up his scotch again and took a generous portion before replying. "I cannot say for certain. Who knows? Perhaps he searches for someone in the dreamscape. Or maybe he is setting up a trap for someone there––a test of abilities."

The cold that washed through my body was absolute. Not even a sip of scotch offered any warmth. Tossing back the remaining contents of my glass didn't do any better.

I set the glass down and leaned back to look him in the eye. "You mean he might possibly be testing the abilities of someone who, say, oh, I don't know––messed up his plans way back when by locking up his power player?"

Marduk laughed. "So you _do_ remember who you are––or once were."

I shook my head. "No, not really. I have a few people hanging around that are trying hard to convince me. But how do you know this?"

He would have spoken, but the servant came back carrying a small bronze box on a tray. Marduk put down his glass, took the box and held it in his lap, saying nothing until the man was gone again. I was reminded of Erishkigal stroking the cylinder in her office. He was caressing the box in the same way, as though touching something precious. It was hard not to think of those hands caressing me in the same way. I shook the thought aside.

The look that he gave me was a bit unsettling, but it held a strong impression of sadness. "We knew each other well, once before. It was literally a lifetime ago for you, but it feels as though it were yesterday to me––no matter how much time has passed in between."

"How did we know each other?"

"It does not matter for now. I have given you your answer, which absolves me of my debt to Erishkigal. To defeat Lucifer is a task that is beyond my abilities. And from what I can tell, it is a task beyond yours––for now."

He was right in his earlier assumption. I didn't like what I was hearing. So how did I get past all of this?

"However," he added, looking down at the box, "I may be able to help you break the bond between your dream stalker and the Morning Star for long enough that you can at least deal with shutting him down."

I looked up with hope. He had my full attention.

"But it doesn't come without a price."

I wanted to laugh, but settled for a cynical smile. "Nothing ever does, especially when dealing the immortals. What is it that you want?"

He let his energy reach out and touch me again, sliding over me like a caress. "You."

My eyes felt like they were popping out of my head. I swallowed, hard, before I spoke.

"In what way?" I whispered.

His energy pulled back again, leaving me feeling its loss. He chuckled, brushing the back of his hand gently across my cheek.

"There was a time––" He shook his head to clear away the thought, but held his smile. "I know what is to come. There may be a time in the future that I will need you, no questions asked. No matter what my need, I would have your promise to be there."

Warning bells went off in my head and I stiffened. "Not a chance. That's too vague. I can't agree to those terms."

He shrugged, still holding his smile, his eyes dancing with laughter. "You cannot blame me for trying. If you have retained any part of your old self, you would never have agreed to that either. _I_ would not have agreed to it. How about this?"

Marduk leaned in close to me, his finger coming up under my chin to lift my face to his. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my lips as he spoke, his eyes staring with purpose into mine.

"You will hold yourself to this promise for the future, as long as I ask for you to do nothing that goes against who you are or what you believe to be right. I will not ask for anything you would not willingly give to me, without reservation."

He was making it hard for me to think, but I could find nothing wrong with his words. "Agreed.

His lips brushed mine, leaving warmth tingling through my body when he pulled back. Damn. I knew what I was hoping he asked for at this moment, but I had a feeling that's not what he had in mind. Sometimes I resented the feeling of helplessness I felt when touched by the power of the immortals, at other times I craved it. Hey, I was only human.

A short time later I left the house of Lord Marduk with the box he gave me, a mind full of confusion, specific instructions, and some very conflicting thoughts. It was time for me to go back and deal with a houseful of arguing angels. I supposed it was too much to hope they had decided to leave me alone. This was only the beginning, and I knew it.

## Chapter 16

[Back to Top]

It was late afternoon by the time I got back to my apartment. There's nothing like walking into your own place and having a group of uninvited people stop talking and stare at you as though you didn't belong. It was _my_ apartment–– _they_ were the ones who didn't belong. That's not how they were making me feel.

Father David was trying to give me his best priestly disappointed look, but he wasn't quite pulling it off. Chaz grinned and rolled his eyes to the ceiling when he thought no one else was looking. Sariel and Gabriel were both glaring at me, but neither said a word. Ke watched me with the same kind of emotionless mask I liked to wear.

"So, have you all come to a decision yet as to what the plans are for _my_ life?" Attack was the best choice for breaking the ice. They'd had all day to work through their details. I still had to work through my feelings on the matter.

Father David coughed, hiding his mouth behind a cupped hand. The old devil was laughing. I didn't give him away. It must have been exactly what the angels were trying to do, and the good Padre was fighting for me. He'd obviously had enough of the pompous righteousness of these _higher beings_. As long as he was on my side, I'd be okay.

Chaz got up to make some coffee, but I asked for water instead. I couldn't hit the dreamscape with a caffeine buzz trying to pull me out of it. What I wanted to do before dealing with this mess was to go and put away the box Marduk had given me. Judging by the tension in the air, I think if I made a move to leave the room again, I'd probably end up on the bottom of a tackle pile. So I chose my comfy chair off to the side, slipped off my boots and curled my feet up under me.

"Where have you been?" Gabriel asked, his voice tight and demanding.

I raised an eyebrow at that. Poor Gabe, he'd obviously never learned about the top dog rule. I guess when you've been a top dog for as long as the earth had existed, you don't think it applies to you. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sariel smirk.

"Why, Gabriel," I tilted my head and gave him a charming smile, "I don't believe it's any of your business."

Do angels swallow toads? Gabriel looked as though he had. I accepted the glass of water from Chaz. He gave me a look that said I'd missed a bit of fun while I was gone. That's fine by me. The kid could fill me in later.

Gabriel tried again for aloof arrogance. "The Thrones are expecting your arrival."

"No."

He looked shocked. "No?"

"No. I haven't said I'd go yet."

"Yeshua," Father David interjected with quiet patience, "you _are_ considering it aren't you?"

I laughed. "The chance to play Ezekiel and head on up to heaven to get a look around without having to die first? Sure, Father, I'm considering it. But I have a job to do first."

He nodded.

Gabriel wasn't happy. He tried yet another approach. "I have been told that what you are doing here is helping people against the dark side of existence. What the Thrones wish to discuss with you is something that will help the entire world––it is much more than just a handful of humans."

I might have even bought a touch of sincerity in there somewhere. But maybe it was the way he seemed to relegate a handful of humans to a place of non-importance. It was the same way that he had dismissed Chaz's presence earlier. It pissed me off.

I pretended to think about it. I took a sip of water and set it down. I folded my hands in my lap. What I was really doing was tamping down on my anger, but he didn't have to know that. I did go for semi-insulting, because it was beyond my ability to resist.

"You know, _Gabe_ , I am not a religious person. Would you like to take a stab at a possible reason for that?"

The Archangel looked at me with his cold haughtiness, but there was suspicion in his eyes. It was good to know he wasn't that inept when dealing with humans.

"Because religion requires _faith_ , Gabe. Faith is something I don't have outside of myself." I shrugged. "To be fair, I don't have to have faith that there is truth to religious stories or supernatural beings, or even in the ultimate manifestations of good and evil. I _live_ them each and every day. So the only thing I have to have faith in is knowing I will always try to do the right thing, and that I _can_ make a difference when it is needed the most."

Father David was smiling with pride. Even though I screwed up from time to time, the good Father had faith in me. There were times that he had more faith in me than I did.

"Then you _will_ come with me to the Crystal City." He made it a statement, rather than a question.

"That is what _you_ believe to be the right thing to do, Gabriel." I held up my hand to stop him when it looked as though he would argue. "And you're probably right. But for the moment, the trumpets have only sounded three times. That means your situation has time. The _handful of humans_ I have been working to save do not have the luxury of time. And it may be my fault they are in the trouble that they are."

I told the group what Marduk had clued me into about Lucifer. Father David and Chaz were both shocked and immediately concerned for my safety. It was good to know that someone was. Ke and Sariel exchanged glances. I'd give anything to know what was going on inside the heads of the Grigori. Gabriel was quiet. He had gone into brooding mode. I didn't know if that was good or bad, but at least I wasn't fighting off his persistent nagging to drop everything and go hang with even _more_ angels.

"Yesh, what can I do to help?" Chaz was the first to break the silence.

I looked down at the bruises on my wrists with a cynical smile. "Stand by with a first aid kit? It could get a bit bumpy tonight."

"No, really, Yesh––"

"Really, kid. There's not a whole lot you can do. And I certainly won't risk starting you out on this one."

"I want to be there to help." It was Ke who spoke.

I nodded. "I'm not turning the offer away."

Sariel stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her clothes. It didn't help. They had been setting in for hours until my return.

"I have a few things to attend to." She announced. Another look passed between her and Ke. "I'll be back later, if not, then in the morning."

Father David got up and came over to me with open arms. I unwrapped myself from the chair and stood up so the older priest wouldn't have to bend to reach me. He hugged me close, whispering a prayer of safety in my ear. It made me smile.

"Thanks, Father."

He nodded. "I'll be back in the morning. Be safe, Yeshua."

Gabriel remained seated. His expression was unreadable. "I will remain here."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, Gabe. I'll let you have my decision in the morning." _If I survive_ , I added the last part to myself.

He frowned, shaking his head. "No. I will stand watch over you from here––in case the Morning Star decides to try a different approach for attack."

That made my stomach churn. Damn. I wasn't just tackling a dream stalker. I was dealing with a being that could take solid form––a bad angel––and the worst of the lot. It never dawned on me to think in terms of an attack on the physical. Dream stalkers were too cowardly to act that way. I'd have to readjust my thinking if I was going to be working on this level.

"Thank you, Gabriel. I hadn't considered that." The honesty went over well. There was no arrogance from him, no attitude at all. He simply accepted it with a nod. It was so much better when we could all play nice.

"So what's the plan?" Chaz asked while Sariel and Father David headed toward the door.

I pulled out the bronze box from the inside of my jacket and stared at it with a smile. "I'm bringing in reinforcements."

* * *

Black Wolf was waiting for me this time when I entered the dreamscape. It was a simple matter for me to head straight to his web-laden lair. He even had the women of the coven bound in place. He had gotten an early start tonight.

I'd taken a little extra time before slipping into the dreamscape. Marduk had given me a specific set of instructions in order to pre-activate the amulet in the box. The amulet would come with me into the dreamscape. I had to be precise in the timing of its use.

Ke had my back. I could feel his energy tapped into mine. I had to admit, as much as I preferred to work alone, it gave me a strange sense of comfort to know he was there. I waited a few seconds and then stepped up to the edge of the chasm.

"You're late." Black Wolf smiled. "We had to get started without you tonight. Why don't you come in and join us?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't think so."

He vanished from the center of the web. I tensed with readiness, expanding my secondary awareness. Even knowing that he would pop in behind me, I was still caught off guard. I hadn't even felt him. He was definitely hooked into some powerful mojo.

The warmth of his breath on the back of my neck gave him away. Too bad he had never gotten the hang of the fact that you don't need to breathe in the dreamscape. Most people never got the hang of little things like that. You can do anything, be anyone. People went with what was familiar with them in the physical. It worked to my advantage.

I was able to dodge the push Black Wolf intended for me, to try and force me into the web. That put him off balance, and I carried through by turning and sending him to his knees. Before he could react, I grabbed the bronze medallion in my hand and yanked the chain from my neck, breaking the delicate links.

" **M** ALAH!"

The medallion started burning in the palm of my hand as I invoked the name of the spirit bound by the engraved seal. I grabbed a fistful of Black Wolf's hair and shoved him down to bare the back of his neck. He finally regained his senses enough to struggle, but I wasn't taking any chances. I slapped the seal to the base of his neck and activated it.

" **B** ACH **A** CHA **D** UGGA!"

Black Wolf twisted, trying to get away, but I wasn't about to let that happen. The seal was burning me as much as it was him. Wisps of smoke started to escape from the point of contact.

A bright light flared from the seal, blinding me. It took a moment for the spots to clear from my eyes. When they did, I was again caught off guard. Around the web, hovering just above the edges was a circle of angels.

I had no idea that would happen. Marduk hadn't mentioned anything about angels. A secondary glance gave me my answer. I saw Sariel in the circle, at a position close to me. The seal of Marduk didn't release these angels. They were the Grigori.

Black Wolf must have sensed my hesitation, because he used my distraction to twist away and scramble to the center of the web. It didn't matter. The connection was broken. I only had a few minutes time to do what I needed to do.

Calling on the energy, I pulled it in. Ke already had it waiting, holding it ready in reserve. I felt him at my back, heart center to heart center. We fit to each other like a single being. His arms wrapped around and held to mine. As one entity, we sent the lines out to strike Black Wolf, to envelope him in a solid glow of violet and blue energy.

From the dreamscape, we drew on the webbing that held the women of the coven in place. It fell away from them and snaked its way to the light. The strands of the web began to glow with the infused power that we controlled. It wrapped around him like a cocoon, tightening to fit him like a second skin.

The women began standing up one by one. The web no longer had its sticking ability to hold them. Black Wolf noticed and struck out at them. Nothing happened. He tried again, with the same result. There was no more power in the dreamscape for this dream stalker. He was done. The ladies caught on pretty quick. Emboldened by his inability to harm them, they inched closer to the man who had tormented them for all this time.

I raised a hand to stop them, but the words stuck in my throat. With a shrug, I let it drop. It was their turn. They needed this. I turned my back as Pietra delivered the first kick and Jane and Joan were taking their swings, and I walked away to leave them to their task. Black Wolf couldn't stop them. Heck, he couldn't even leave the dreamscape until he woke up on his own. As far as the dream world was concerned, he had been neutered like the dog he was.

When I turned, I found the Grigori in front of me again. It was that disconcerting surreality of the dreamscape. At the center of the circle of angels was a huge chalice. I took a step forward and found myself sitting within the curved cup.

It began to spin, but the rotation was gentle. The Grigori surrounded me, and the chalice rose to lift me to the stars. Or were the stars coming down to meet me? It was both and neither at the same time.

When I would come close to a star, one of the Grigori would break away from the circle, fly to the star and grab it out of the sky to drop it into the chalice with me. It was like some bizarre game of celestial basketball. The essence of the stars turned to liquid power at my feet. My body absorbed it, and began to glow with the light of the stars. The magic of it created a charge in me the likes of which I have never experienced. Every part of my body––my skin––my hair–– _everything_ glowed with the power.

Eventually, the sky was empty. Only blackness remained, except for the light of a single star, one that began to glow to blinding proportions––like the light of the sun directly in front of me. Sariel went to the star and brought it to me, as the Grigori had brought the others. Her eyes met mine and she let the star fall into the cup, causing it to spill over with the excess energy. A trumpet sounded through the darkness and I closed my eyes to the sound, letting it carry me away from the dreamscape.

Sariel's voice echoed in my head with a single word. "Baktun."

It was a few minutes before I came back to my body. The power of the celestial bodies still soared through my body, energizing me as I rode the wave to stillness. When I finally opened my eyes, it was to the darkness of my bedroom. I looked down at my body, half expecting it to still be glowing with the energy. It didn't, but I could feel its power inside of me. I could also feel Ke's arms wrapped around me, as they had been in the dreamscape. Our bodies were molded together, his front to my back.

It felt good to be held that way. I didn't want to move, but knew I had to. Pulling away, but gently, I felt him loosen his hold. Instead of moving the rest of the way out of his arms, I turned over so he still held me, but now we were lying with our faces inches apart.

"We did it." He whispered with an uncertain smile.

There was a flash of longing in his eyes. I knew it matched my own. I lifted my hand up to touch his cheek. My eyes searched his for––something––but I wasn't sure what.

Ke moved forward and captured my lips in his. The kiss was tender at first. His taste was rich, intoxicating. I could still feel our energy entwined, and now our bodies were entwined to match it. The kiss deepened, became more demanding. I gave into it freely, full of demands of my own.

Then he stopped. He turned his head away, groaning into the pillow while he tried to push back to create space between us.

I was confused. "Is something wrong?"

" _This_ is wrong." He pushed himself up to sit at the edge of the bed. He wouldn't even look at me. "We can't do this."

"Why not?"

"Don't do this, Yeshua." He shook his head. "I would not be able to hold out against your desires, and my own, for long."

I shrugged. "So don't."

"You don't understand."

"Then make me understand." The irritation came into my voice with my rising frustration levels.

He shook his head again and left the room. I lay there for a while, still feeling the celestial power from the dream, still feeling his energy intertwined inside of me, and worse, still feeling the way his lips felt against mine.

I heard the shower start up on the other side of the bedroom wall. _Good job, Yesh_ , I chided myself as I curled up and tried to relax enough to sleep. Having turned down blatant invitations from two separate immortals in as many days and here I was, trying to entice a Grigori into my bed––angels known for their sexual liaisons with humans––and he preferred a cold shower. For me, the energy singing through my body combined with the thrill of victory was a powerful aphrodisiac. I drifted off to sleep, reconsidering the possibility of paying Marduk another visit tomorrow to thank him for his help tonight.

## Chapter 17

[Back to Top]

While drifting somewhere between the state of waking and sleeping, I started to become aware of my surroundings. The burnt orange color inside my eyelids told me it had to be mid to late morning at the very least. That surprised me on two fronts, the first being that I was an early riser. Sleeping late was not my style. The second was that I was pretty certain my living room was full again with my 'guests'. As much as everyone seemed to want a piece of me, I hadn't expected they'd give me the courtesy of sleeping in.

That made me grimace. Okay, so maybe not _everyone_ wanted a piece of me. Ke had turned down a big piece of me––one I hadn't offered to anybody in a very long time. I guess it was his loss. My mind wandered to Marduk and the thought of going over to thank him today. It was a pleasant thought, but one that was going to have to remain a juicy diversion in my mind for the time being. I would never get past the angelic militia camped in my apartment without giving them an answer.

I didn't want to think about it, but I had finally reached the point of decision. More time might have been bought if that fourth trumpet hadn't sounded. What was it Sariel had said? Oh yeah––Baktun. The thirteenth vessel in the Mayan prophesies that heralded the end of the world. I had no idea when the fifth trumpet would sound, which meant I had run out of time.

With a low moan, I rolled over and opened my eyes. I think a small part of me hoped the Grigori had changed his mind. There was a small dash of disappointment at seeing the empty space in the bed next to me. I had to scold myself for that bit of wishful thinking. He'd already made it clear he didn't want me in that way.

That wasn't true, either. I continued the roll that took me to the edge of the bed. Ke seemed to want me as much as I wanted him––or at least as much as I had wanted him last night. So what was the deal then? I had no clue and a morning haze over my thought processes. It didn't make for a good combination to puzzle my way through to answers.

The smell of coffee filled the conscious part of my brain when I finally got around to leaving my room. But that's not where I was headed yet. I needed to take a page from Ke's book and hop into a cold shower.

After brushing my teeth, I stared for a long time in the bathroom mirror. It was a vanity thing, one of my morning rituals. Look for wrinkles, check for grey hair––I wasn't any different than any other woman out there in that regard. In some ways, maybe I was worse. I hung out with beings that were thousands of years old and didn't show their age. How fair was that? Whenever I had to deal with these things, the thought of what immortality would mean always slipped into the recesses of the mind, whether consciously or sub-consciously.

There were days when the thought of immortality was a craving. I mean, who wouldn't consider the possibility of living forever, growing and watching a changing world? Then there were days like today, when I looked into the mirror at the bruises on my chin and neck, the dark circles under my eyes, and the worst part––the tiredness of it all that stared back at me. Those were the days when I prayed reincarnation was a certainty and that I'd paid off enough karma in this lifetime to come back as something a little less complicated––like a tree frog. I'd settle for being a bag lady.

Now I had some pretty strong evidence that reincarnation was a reality. Look at the amount of karma Ithane had bought off with her deeds. Yet here I was, and I had to do it all over again. It makes me wonder what she had racked up over the years in karmic debt, to end up coming back as me.

I pushed away from the sink, hopped in the shower and turned it on full cold. It made me jump at first, but soon my body numbed to it. I wish my mind were that numb. I stared at the soap for a long time before picking it up and starting to scrub away. I was procrastinating and I knew it. The time had come for me to make a decision and I knew already what it had to be.

Once I set my mind to it and the plan began to form, I was able to throw myself into getting ready to face the inquisition squad. It was time. I wrapped my bathrobe snug around me, and headed out into the living room. I almost giggled, imagining what must be going through the minds of those who waited for me. They stared in silence, watching me cross the room in bare feet, wet hair and an oversized fuzzy bathrobe––the perfect picture of the person who was their ideal savior to humanity. What a joke.

Chaz had a cup of coffee waiting for me by the time I got to the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows in question, and I managed a crooked smile, before turning around to face the rest of them. Gabriel, Sariel, Father David, and Ke all watched me closely, trying to judge what state of mind I was in this morning. Okay, so Ke wasn't so much looking at me. Or at least he wouldn't meet my eyes. It didn't matter to me any more.

I leaned back into the counters that framed the kitchen and took a sip of coffee.

"Okay Gabriel, you got it. I'll go to the Crystal City with you today."

Gabriel nodded without speaking, as though he expected my answer. But I wasn't done yet. I held up a warning finger to stop the protests I saw forming on Sariel's lips.

"Uh-uh." I waggled the finger at her. "Don't even. Did you think I wouldn't guess what it was you did to me in the dreamscape last night?"

She had the grace to blush. Good girl. There was no denying it, and she knew it.

"What happened, Yesh?"

"The Grigori decided to reawaken the energy inside of me last night. What that means, I'm not sure yet. But they took matters into their own hands, when I wasn't jumping the way they wanted me to."

Father David was frowning at Sariel and Gabriel was in full glare mode. The Archangel wasn't happy about what the Grigori had done, that was obvious. It was okay by me––I was with him on this one.

"It is still your choice whether to use it or not." Sariel sniffed. "And you could have chosen not to allow it. But you didn't. You accepted it, because whether you realize it or not, it is as natural to you as breathing."

"You are messing with the Natural Order, Grigori." Gabriel was hot, his anger teeming in words issued through clenched teeth.

" _I'm_ messing with the Natural Order?" Sariel laughed, but the sound was bitter and full of accusation. "Oh, that's _rich_ , Gabriel."

"Both of you stop right now." I ordered and pointed to Ke. He wasn't going to sit on the sidelines and not involve himself. He had gotten me into this mess in the first place, as far as I was concerned. " _You_ ––explain."

He looked up at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since I walked into the room this morning. I saw sadness there, resignation, but also a bite of anger. Directed at me? Or directed at them?

"Sariel told you the Grigori believed the natural flow couldn't be stopped, or havoc would ensue."

I shrugged. "I suspected as much. She never specifically mentioned which side the Grigori took in all of this, or who the _others_ were that wanted to put a kink in the hose. But yeah, I had figured that much out."

Sariel was giving Ke a warning glance. I turned on her. "Look, lady, you want me to even consider the part you guys are putting forth in all of this? Then I need some answers––straight and clear. If you can't do that much then get the hell out of here, because I've had it with being moved around like a pawn on a chessboard." I turned back to look at all of them. "As far as you're concerned, this pawn has made it to the other side and has retaken the queen. I've figured out I can move in any direction I want, as many spaces as I choose or don't choose to take. This choice is supposed to be mine to make and you'd better start treating it that way, or your piece will be the next to be removed from play––got it?"

I didn't get any assents, but I wasn't hearing any arguments, either. It was a start. I looked back at Ke. "Straight from the hip––no crap."

Ke nodded. To his credit, he didn't even bother looking at Sariel before continuing. "The Grigori anticipated you would go with Gabriel to the Crystal City. That is why they reawakened the energy within you, so you would have defenses."

I hadn't expected that answer. "Defenses from what? The Thrones? The Archangels? Are you trying to tell me I would be in danger if I went with Gabriel?"

"You would suffer no harm at the hands of the angelic host." Gabriel's eyes with glittering with suppressed anger. He wasn't telling all, though, and he didn't look happy at Ke's revelations.

"But it doesn't have to be harm at the hands of the angelic host now, does it, Gabriel?" Sariel was a bit testy.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" I asked in a low voice.

Ke wasn't meeting my eyes again. "It means that if you went with Gabriel to the Crystal City, they wouldn't have to harm you. All they would have to do is to keep you there. That would effectively stop you from participating in any way they didn't want you to."

The look I turned on Gabriel was cold. "Is this true?"

He wouldn't reply, which gave me my answer.

Okay. I had moved into the realm of pissed beyond belief. I took another sip of coffee, not trusting myself to speak. Father David was glowering at Gabriel. The good Padre was in about the same state I was. I don't blame him. Gabriel was a part of what his whole religious belief system was based upon, and he wasn't happy with how that element was moving. Chaz came around the kitchen counter to stand by me. He gave my arm a little squeeze for support.

"Fine." I set my cup of coffee down on the kitchen counter. "I will still go with you to the Crystal City."

"What?" Sariel was in a state of outraged shock.

"Yeshua, are you sure––?" Wow. Even Father David was concerned now about my going.

Ke's expression was unreadable. Gabriel's look was smug. I was about to wipe that smugness right off his angelic face.

"But only on the condition that the ban on the Grigori is lifted. I will not go without backup."

Gabriel didn't even bat an eyelash. "No. It is not possible."

"Then I guess you can tell the Thrones that my visit is not possible."

"You cannot be serious."

I leaned in toward him, my eyes glittering with the full force of cold anger. "Do I look like I'm kidding, Gabriel?"

"I cannot authorize it. I do not have the authority."

"Then come back to me when you can, because nothing less will make me go with you."

"They will never allow it."

"Why are you doing this?" Ke asked, trying to read my expression.

I held fingers up, ticking off my points. "One, because I will have the power to make my own decisions. I will not have that right taken away from me, as much as it would be great to put the blame solely on the angelic hosts if everything goes to pieces. Two, because I now have this excess crap running through me that I have no clue on how to control. It doesn't do me a whole lot of good to have it and not be able to use it if it's needed. So I need the Grigori there to teach me how––or help me to remember how––whatever, it needs to be done."

I turned to Sariel. "And don't think this pushes me over to your way of thinking. You have pissed me off in ways that no one else has ever managed to do before. I'm not asking Gabe, here for a permanent return of the Grigori, and certainly not for the entire host of Grigori to show up en masse at the Crystal City. I wouldn't buy it either, in his position."

My eyes met Gabriel's. "What I am asking is for ten Grigori, Chaz and Father David."

The Padre started shaking his head. "No, Yeshua, it is not my place to join you." His expression was wistful. "As much as I would love to make the trip, I don't feel that's where I need to be. My place is here, making other preparations."

I nodded. "Fair enough, Father. I trust your judgment." I looked back to Gabriel. "Eleven Grigori, then, plus Chaz. That gives me a full complement of thirteen. I think that's a fitting number for the fallen guardian of the Thirteenth Gate."

Gabriel looked at me, studying my intent. I think he fully understood at this point, that I wasn't going to back down.

He nodded. "I believe I can authorize that much. It will not be pleasant, but I am willing to put myself on the line for that request."

I shrugged. "Works for me. If it helps, you can place the blame fully on my shoulders. I'm willing to accept it. Let them know right up front that it wasn't a request, it was a demand––a non-negotiable one."

Sariel was frowning. "Only eleven––?"

"Don't push it. You and Ke are two of those. Pick the other nine from the group in the dreamscape last night. Don't switch your players in the middle of the big game. It's not a smart move."

"Me, Yesh?" Chaz was looking at me with concern. "I can't do a lot to help you. Maybe you should consider an extra Grigori?"

I gave him a smile. "Don't you want to go, kid?"

His eyes widened. "Oh no––I want to go more than anything. I would just rather make sure you're safe."

I nodded, in full agreement. "That's why you're coming, Chaz. Out of everyone here, whom do you think I would trust to be straight up with me? Gabriel? The Grigori? Not a chance. Especially since Father David's not coming, I want you there. I _trust_ you, kid. Maybe more than I trust myself right now."

"Sure, Yesh. I'll be there for you."

I turned back to the rest of the room. "So, when do we leave?"

"Now. Too much time has passed already." Gabriel stood up, firm in his decision.

I laughed, looking down at my bathrobe and morning state of disarray. "How about I go throw some clothes on first?"

* * *

I wasn't sure what to expect when I came back out from getting dressed. I had on full leather, as usual. I wasn't going to get dolled up for this meeting, no matter how important the Thrones were. And I'm pretty sure they were at the top of the angelic food chain. I just couldn't recall the exact order of the hierarchy. It had been a while since those studies.

Sariel was gone by the time I was ready. I assumed that meant she was handpicking the Grigori who would be going along. I had a pack thrown over my shoulder, with a few things gathered that I might possibly need. But since I had no clue as to what I was getting myself into at this point, it might not have even been worth taking along. I didn't even know how long I would be gone, but I suspected it was at least an overnight trip.

Chaz must have thought the same thing, because he had a pack sitting next to his feet. The kid looked almost shell shocked, and it made me feel bad. I almost told him he didn't have to go, but I really _needed_ him there with me. He had a way of being my eyes and ears, and sometimes my thinking cap when I went off half-cocked. Looking around at the others gathered in the room, and thinking back to the interactions of the last couple of days, I knew Chaz's level head would be needed to help me sort through things. I guess that doesn't say a whole lot for my temperament, if I felt the best thing to keep me in line was a twenty-year-old kid.

Everyone stood up when I entered the living room. Father David came over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders and holding me at arms length. He stared at me a long time with compassion in his eyes.

"Be safe, Yeshua. Come back to us."

I gave him a lop-sided smile. "I plan on coming back, Padre. I'll let you know what you're in for when _you_ finally make the trip."

His return smile was warm and genuine. "You do that." He pulled me into his embrace, holding tight while he whispered a prayer for safety in my ear. "Don't forget, Yeshua. You have free will. They do not. Make your decisions wisely––I get the feeling you hold our fate in your hands."

I pulled back. "No pressure, eh, Father?"

But the unsettling feeling of the truth of his words sank to my stomach like a stone. What was I thinking? I had no right to be making this kind of decision for the rest of the world. The enormity of the thought made me want to throw up. But I swallowed and steadied myself, giving a nod to Gabriel.

"I'm ready."

Gabriel answered by stepping forward and holding his hand out in front of him, away from where everyone else stood in the room. A slight shimmer rippled in the air, and then grew to brightness. Within seconds, a mirror-like surface resembling the Gate I had seen in my dreams reproduced itself in miniature in the middle of my living room.

I tried to cover my nervousness with flippancy. "What? I don't rate a chariot of fire like Ezekiel?"

Maybe I was a little disappointed outside the sarcasm. Here I had thought I might get my once in a lifetime chance to fly. Oh well, things were the way they were. I stepped to the Gate. Gabriel held out his arm in an indication that I should step through. I shook my head.

"Uh-uh. You first, and then Ke––Chaz and I will bring up the rear." I wanted to make sure that I wasn't stranded in angel land without at least one of the Grigori. I wasn't trusting Gabriel to hold to his word. Maybe it was overly suspicious on my part, but I wasn't taking any chances.

Gabriel gave me an unreadable look, but did as I asked. Ke glanced at me with a touch of nervousness before stepping through the Gate. I guess he had a right to be nervous. He was going home after how many years of exile? I'd be a bit edgy about the whole thing, too, if I were in his place.

I looked to Chaz, who was dancing nervously from foot to foot. "Ready, kid?"

He nodded. I turned back and gave one last look to the priest.

"Goodbye, Father. See you on the flip side."

Father David smiled. Chaz and I gave each other one last confirming glance that we were ready to do this, and stepped into the Gate.

I'm not sure what I had expected, but it was as simple as walking through a doorway. It was almost anti-climactic. One second I was in my living room, the next, I found myself staring out over the Crystal City. Of course, that was a climax all its own. The sun was bright overhead, yet the City was bathed in the familiar indigo light I was used to seeing in my dream. The whole thing was just as surreal as the dreamscape, though. And I knew the view well. A nervous glance over my shoulder confirmed the feeling. We had just come through the Thirteenth Gate.

A shimmer on the surface of the Gate told me something else was coming through. I stepped back quickly, almost bumping into Ke. Sariel walked through the Gate, followed by ten other angels, that I assumed were Grigori. I thought some of them looked familiar from the dreamscape last night, but I couldn't be sure.

Everyone was crunched into a single crowded space, and it took a moment for me to realize why. A host of angels circled around us, stopping us from moving further into the City. The expression on their faces, and on the faces of the Grigori matched each other in stone stubbornness. Gabriel went to speak with the angels blocking our way. He'd better do this right, or I was throwing myself back through the Gate. I grabbed onto Chaz's arm, just in case I had to pull the kid back through with me.

A high-pitched squeal echoed through the air, bringing surprise to all the surrounding faces. The next thing I knew, I was being driven to the ground under the weight of a body. Arms wrapped tightly around me in a big hug. I wanted to push away, but I was afraid of hurting the wings that flapped rapidly in front of my face.

It was a minute before the pressure eased up and the person holding me pushed back to smile at me with her cherubic little face lit up in delight. I frowned, trying to remember––

"Arianna?" The name came from out of nowhere, but I knew I had spoken it right.

"Ithane!" She squealed again, and threw herself back into a hug, as though not wanting to let go.

For what it was worth, I guess I had come home.

## Chapter 18

[Back to Top]

Someone actually took pity and helped to pull the way-too-hyper cherub off from me. It was Sariel. The Grigori female now had Arianna to one side of the Gate and was talking to her in soft, gentle undertones. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but it seemed to settle her down.

Gabriel was talking to the gathered angels in undertones, too. I could tell his tone wasn't as gentle as the one Sariel was using with the cherub. To each their own, I guess. It didn't matter one way or another to me, as long as it worked.

Chaz edged in a little closer. I didn't blame him. Looking around, I could see all these beautiful winged beings. And yet, there was coldness to that beauty. These certainly weren't the creatures of love and light I grew up seeing depicted in pictures and statues. There was an underlying darkness to them that was a bit unsettling.

Come to think of it, I seemed to recall the images of heaven being all light and fluffy, too. This place was not shrouded in either light or dark. It was a lot more somber than I had ever imagined it as being. But the surroundings seemed fitting for the beings that stood around me. Creatures of neither darkness nor light, they just _were_.

Chaz leaned in to whisper in my ear. "This place is a bit creepy, don't you think?"

"Oh yeah." I whispered back.

Then I stopped to think about it. This wasn't heaven. Who was it––Sariel? Gabriel? One of them had said something about this being an _in-between_ place. If that were the case, and the Crystal City was in place the last time the Angels had their war where Lucifer led the rebellion of the Fallen Ones, then some of the upset of the angels made sense to me.

Humans were given free will, where the angels were not. Obviously there had to be some amount of free will going on with them, or the rebellion of the Fallen Ones would never have taken place. That was an interesting thought to ponder. Humans were also given the plush, light-laden place to hang out in for eternity, if the stories of heaven were to be believed. The angels were given the dusky streets of the Crystal City. If this were the reflection of the principle of _as above, so below_ , then some of the hell on earth manifested itself here on these streets.

No wonder there had been a rebellion. The thought hit me with amazement. It matched up with the constant civil unrest that was a mainstay of the earth plane. Not to mention the continual struggle of the upper class to keep the lower class in its downtrodden place. I shook my head. I couldn't believe I was actually feeling sympathy for _Lucifer_. I must be out of my mind. This place was having some kind of an effect on me. It was the only thing that made sense.

The angels blocking the way to the Crystal City were starting to stand down. They weren't going away, but at least they weren't preparing for a street brawl here and now. The looks on their faces were unfriendly, and I saw a few hostile glances sent my way. Hey––I was asked to come here, and not given much of a chance for refusal. I'd be gone as soon as I was done. I didn't want to be here any more than they wanted me here. A mutual bond of dislike was formed in those early moments.

Gabriel came back over to me, but his look was not a happy one. "Let us go. The Thrones will be expecting our arrival."

I raised an eyebrow. "Whatever you say."

Gabriel stared at me for a long moment. I'm not sure what he was looking for, or if he found it, but he finally turned and led the way down into the Crystal City. Following along behind him, so many thoughts raced through my mind, that I didn't even pay attention much to the city around me. For instance, all of these angels had wings. Where were Gabriel's wings? Was it because of his still being in human form? If so, why had he not shed his human form before entering the Crystal City? Sariel must have, she had a full set of wings flowing down behind her shoulders. They were not the beautiful white color of most of the heavenly host that met us at the gate. Her wings were a soft, powder grey, tipped in black. That was the same for most of the Grigori. Their wings were varying shades of white to grey, but none of them pure white.

The other angels, those from the Crystal City, had wings of white, but every once in a while you could see a flash of color in their wings. I had a feeling that it meant something, but couldn't imagine what that could be. Arianna walked along side of Sariel, holding the hand of the Grigori. She kept staring at me with those wide, child-like eyes. It was disconcerting and heart wrenching at the same time.

Part of me wanted to scoop her up and hug her. The other part of me was creeped out. This was the being from the nightmares that had haunted me from my earliest memories. If what I had seen in the full version through Ke were true, she was also the cause of my demise as a Grigori. I'm still trying to decide if maybe she hadn't done me a big favor. Looking around at these so-called higher beings, I couldn't help but be glad I hadn't spent the last millennia or so having to deal with them. I'd been around them for less than a week and they were already getting under my skin.

"How big do you think this place is, Yesh?" Chaz asked with quiet awe as we walked for what seemed like forever through the streets.

"If I had to guess, I'd say it was huge."

He cracked a smile. That was good. After being met with such a warm reception, I was beginning to regret having dragged the kid along to wherever _here_ was. Another idea struck me and I almost kicked myself for not having thought of it earlier. What was I thinking, bringing Chaz to the Crystal City? If they found out he was one of the Nephilim from the Fallen Ones––I shuddered, not even wanting to finish the thought. I stood up a little straighter, showing as much strength as I could muster. The kid was under my protection and anyone that wanted to get to him had to go through me first.

My thoughts continued to wander until we arrived at a large, even colossal structure. I was betting it was close to dead center in the city. Outside the enormous ornate double doors that barred entry, Gabriel finally stopped. Without turning, he stood there for a moment. While I watched, his form began to blur. I thought it was a trick of the light at first, but then a second Gabriel moved away from the first. The second Gabriel had wings––full, beautifully pure white wings, the tips of the feathers seeped in blood red.

The winged Gabriel turned to the first Gabriel. But the first one no longer looked like the Gabriel I had seen. He was still about the same size in body, but his hair was shorter, his shoulders a bit more stooped, and his face bore no resemblance to the Gabriel that had been with me this whole time. The mark was gone from his neck.

It dawned on me that this was the human host that Gabriel had taken. The over powering aura of the Archangel must have changed the outward appearance of the man to fit his own image. Interesting. The thought had never occurred to me.

The human looked up at Gabriel with confusion in his eyes. Gabriel looked down and met the man's gaze. He placed the palm of his hand against the man's forehead, holding out his arm to catch him when he sank into a blissful, unaware state of sleep. Without even straining himself, Gabriel lifted the man gently into his arms and laid him down on a bench outside the doors.

Back in his form as the Archangel, he was a lot more intimidating than he had been in the human host. Past all the bravado I had been wearing like a shield, it finally sunk in that at any given moment, Gabriel could have squashed me like a bug. Any of these angels could. I wouldn't go down without a fight, but I'm not sure how much damage I would mete out against the power that surrounded me.

I also realized I hadn't done the Grigori any favors by letting them come _home_ for a visit. Within the Crystal City, they were now eleven to tens of thousands of angels. Their belief in me must be pretty strong to put themselves in the hands of those kinds of odds. This whole thing took on a different level of meaning. I was sinking fast into the harsh reality of what I might be up against and it was almost too overwhelming to comprehend.

Gabriel nodded to the guards at the doors and they swung them open to allow us passage to the interior of the building. We entered––me, Chaz, Gabriel, the Grigori, and all the other angels that had met us at the Gate. At first glance, I didn't think the hall could hold us all, and yet everyone kept filing in. There seemed to be room to spare.

It was like a processional, with Gabriel leading the way to the far side of the hall where a raised dais held seven very large and very intimidating angels sitting on Thrones, overlooking the rest of us. Gabriel went straight to the dais, and went down on one knee before the Thrones. As the other angels poured into the room and found places to stand, they too went down on a single knee of respect. Chaz started to mimic their postures, but I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw the Grigori still standing. I chose to stand with the Grigori. Somehow, I felt that to kneel before these beings was to acknowledge their superiority over me. They might be powerful, but I wasn't feeling in the mood to be intimidated. Chaz stopped halfway to his knee, looked at me with uncertainty and stood back up at my side.

"Insolent." That single word came from the female angel on the center throne.

She looked at me with distaste, and I wondered whether I should have played along until I had gotten the lay of the land. It was too late now. The angel in the center, obviously the leader amongst the seven Thrones, lifted her hand to allow the angels in the hall to come back to their feet.

"What is the word, Gabriel?" She decided to ignore me and go straight to her champion. That didn't bother me.

"This is the one, Delphia. This is the incarnated Grigori, Ithane." Gabriel spoke with respect to the angel in the center.

"So our assumptions were correct, then."

"It would appear so."

Her eyes narrowed, looking at the circle of Grigori behind me. "Why have the Guardians returned?"

The Guardians? Did she mean the Gate Guardians? Was that how Sariel had chosen the Grigori who stood at my side? They were all past Guardians of the Gates to the Crystal City?

"The woman, Yeshua, would not come without them." Gabriel's voice gave away a little of his frustration.

"She always was insolent, acting above her station in the hierarchy." This was from the male angel who sat to Delphia's left.

I frowned. Evidently my past self was as much a rogue as my present self. Maybe that's why I was the way that I was. I would really have to learn more about this Ithane.

"This is more than insolence, Sardis." Gabriel spoke with quiet dignity. "Sariel and Ke have returned her full power to her, though she knows not yet how to use it."

There was a lot of mumbling among the Thrones. They weren't happy about that little tidbit of information. Delphia narrowed her eyes and looked past me to the two Grigori Gabriel had called attention to.

"So you mean to _try_ and see this through."

There was an implied threat to her tone I didn't care for. Obviously Ke and Sariel didn't care for it, either. Neither one responded to the question. They made their intent clear without words. Delphia said nothing, but her gaze became thoughtful. She was staring directly at Ke. Her head tipped and a questioning look crossed her face. From out of nowhere, her laughter erupted to fill the hall. I jumped at the sound. For some reason, I got the feeling her amusement was not a good sign.

"Oh this is _rich_." Sarcastic irony dripped into the tone of her voice. "You are bound to a _human_ form."

I watched the rest of the Thrones scrutinizing Ke, and judging the same for themselves. It left them all amused. I didn't have to look at the Grigori to know he was unhappy about being the subject of their amusement. I could _feel_ the angry embarrassment rolling off him.

Delphia let her laughter die down, and her look was speculating. "I guess it will remain to be seen as to how much of yourself you are willing to give to see this through, then."

She looked back to me, dismissing Ke with her action. "And you, human. What are your intentions in this affair?"

I shrugged, deciding to play it straight. "I haven't made up my mind yet."

"Do you not realize what is at stake?" The female to Delphia's right spoke this time. She seemed amazed that I wasn't falling into their plans.

"I––"

Gabriel cut me off before I could respond. "She knows very little as of yet, Thyatira. And there is more that must be made known to the hosts that has happened since I left."

_I_ could have told them that much.

"Such as––?"

"The Morning Star has hosted, and yet has not made his move." Gabriel frowned. "But he has sought out the human female to test her strengths."

"This _human female_ has a name––" I scowled.

"The trumpets have begun to sound." Gabriel continued over the top of me.

"How many?" Delphia leaned forward in her seat.

"Four."

More muttering was heard from the Thrones. Good. Let them be a little off balance for a change. I didn't particularly like their attitude at this point. Even the Grigori had been less obnoxious.

Delphia sat back, looking thoughtful. Then she turned her look back to me.

"So, human, I guess it is time for you to make a decision."

"Yeshua." I said softly. "My name is Yeshua."

Delphia shrugged. "Regardless––"

"Regardless, my ass." I was over this whole thing. Chaz put a hand to my arm, but I shrugged it off. He probably saw the look on Delphia's face turn cold and was trying to give me warning. I saw it too, but I'd had enough.

"You're right. I _do_ have a decision to make." My voice was hard, and my expression could've probably matched Delphia's in its coldness. "But guess what? _Newsflash_ ––it's _my_ decision to make. Not just _how_ I make it, but _when_ I make it."

"How dare you––"

"How dare I?" I laughed, throwing her words back in her face. "I dare because I am an insolent human. I dare, because for all your supposed superiority and all your power, I have something you don't. I have the free will to make my choice. I dare, because while you sit up here judging those you consider being lesser beings, and possibly condemning them into non-existence by your action or inaction, I care enough to realize that lesser beings or not, we were created with a purpose in mind. What that purpose is, I don't know. But I do know that because we were created, we have as much right to existence as you do, and we have as much say in this whole thing as you do."

"Don't try to tell me what to do or when to do it." I turned to push my way back through the angelic crowds. I was feeling pretty sick of being surrounded by all this compassion right now. If I didn't get out of here, I might just haul off and sock the smug look off Delphia's face. I didn't know what repercussions that might have, but the thought in itself was gratifying. Before I left, I turned back again to Delphia

"You might want to think about something. Four trumpets have sounded. The fifth, whenever it may happen, will happen sooner or later. It's not even a matter of _if_ any more, is it? It's a matter of _when_. The longer I take to make up my mind about what I may or may not do, the better your chances are that I might just miss my opportunity to do anything. Isn't that what you want? For me to sit back and do nothing and hope this whole thing will go away?"

"I never asked for this. I certainly don't need this kind of headache. If you all had just left me alone, you might have been able to let this pass and I would've never been the wiser––and you would have had what you wanted. _You_ dragged me into this. You want a decision? You'll have it when I make up my mind."

To their credit, not a single angel said a word. I left, dragging Chaz with me, and the crowd parted silently to let me through. I had no idea where I was going, but I needed to not be _here_ until I had the chance to calm down.

## Chapter 19

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Sometimes life could be pretty unfair. Take right now for instance. I had just finished a job where I didn't get a lot of sleep thanks to the whole creep beating the crap out of me every time I had tried. You would think a person in that situation would get a little rest and relaxation before the next gig started. But no, I have to deal with a bunch of creatures that want me to play Solomon to their Hundred Year War. Only, their war has gone one for a lot longer than a hundred years.

In the essence of fairness, after I had cooled down from my meeting with the Thrones, I had sepnt the rest of the day with the Grigori trying to learn how to deal with the overwhelming magnitude of the power they had thrust upon me. The argument could be made that none of these guys were playing fair with me. But we're talking about me having to make a decision that doesn't just involve a handful of people on a piece of land, it involves the whole human race. I owed it to humanity to at least give it my best shot. My best guess at this point is that if I had to be relied upon to save humanity, the world was in for a big hurt.

Maybe under other circumstances, I could look at my lack of control over the energy the Grigori had instilled in me as a lesson in patience and humility. But I didn't have that luxury. It frustrated me to no end that I couldn't grasp the concept of the energy and how to use it. Every flow I drew on was so much wild energy. Every weave I made came unraveled. Was it simply because I was under pressure? Well, what if I was in the middle of a big battle––wouldn't that constitute pressure? I couldn't afford to think of it in those terms.

Was it because the Grigori looking on while Sariel taught me to control the energy running through my body, calling out their individual tidbits of advice and whatnot weren't so good at hiding their looks of disappointment and disgust with my every failure? Maybe, but I was pissed enough to call them on the carpet for that. Let them try to be in human form and deal with something outside of human comprehension.

All I really wanted to do was go back to my normal life. Well, okay, maybe my life wasn't so normal in the first place, but at least it was _mine_. Right now it seemed everyone expected me to do what he or she wanted me to do. Had anyone ever asked, in all of this, what it was that _I_ wanted? Maybe, just _maybe_ , I wouldn't be so irritable and pissy about every little thing. That probably wasn't true, but I took comfort in my small little piece of denial.

The angelic host had put me up in a nice little place with all the comforts of home––literally. The room I was in right now was an exact duplicate of my bedroom on earth. I mean, it was almost as though they had picked up my apartment and moved it up to the Crystal City for my use. It was identical. Okay, there were no piles of laundry at the foot of the bed, no stains on the rugs and furniture from the dirty and sometimes bloody messes that came naturally with my line of work, but it was the same. I guess it was sort of like being in a permanent dreamscape state. Everything was familiar, but with a touch of surrealism that left me feeling a bit out of sorts.

I certainly was not feeling at home by any stretch of the imagination. I also wasn't feeling good right now. A splitting headache is what had called me from my sleep. Headache, thick tongue, unclear thoughts, heavy limbs with slow movements––all of the things that added up to a hangover. It had to be a side effect from running all the energy through my body. Great. I get juiced with energy, with none of the false euphoria that alcohol briefly instills, and I get a hangover. How fair was that?

So I did what I might have in a drunken situation––I decided to walk it off. Chaz was in the next room sleeping. That kid was a trooper. He had stuck by my side the whole time the Grigori had tortured and berated me, not saying a word. He even gave me small looks of commiseration and support. I'm not sure what I did to deserve someone like him wanting to hang out with me and share in both good times and bad. Maybe he was my reward for all the misery I had to suffer in this lifetime. He and Father David were the closest things I had to calling friends.

I slipped out the apartment door, feeling a little disconcerted that it led straight to a street rather than the dark hallway of the warehouse where I lived. I would give anything for my bike right now. Somehow I didn't expect the angelic hosts would want me polluting their airspace with the toxic emissions from the tailpipe. So I just started walking.

The Crystal City was actually very beautiful in a dark, cold way. It was night time, or at least what passed for night in this realm. The night was only slightly darker than the day. The indigo light bathing the city was a constant. I wonder where it came from? It was sort of everywhere, not seeming to originate in any one place.

It did make me curious as to whether the angels' moods were dictated by the absence of a true night and day. In the mortal realm they had a term for it––SADD––Seasonal Affected Depression Disorder. It usually happened to humans during the long dark periods of the winter months where very little sunshine appeared to give a break from the darkness. If angels really were beings of light, wouldn't this constant depressive hue of indigo have a serious effect on their psyches over several millennia? Is that what made them into the cold creatures I was being subjected to now?

It was worth some thought. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? If the concept of as above, so below applied to the denizens of the Crystal City, then were the angels falling into darkness over the years because humankind was slipping down that slope? Or was humankind headed in the direction they were because the angels had slipped into the darkness first? Was humankind nothing more than a gauge for the temperament of the angels? Or were the angels moving further away from the light because their world imitated that of the mortals? It was a curious question. And one I would probably never have an answer to.

Detached from the pain throbbing an irregular tempo in my skull, I was only peripherally aware of my surroundings. I'm not sure why the angels even bothered with the illusion of night and day. They never slept anyway. They didn't need to. All around me, everywhere I looked, angels moved through the streets of the Crystal City. Some flew while others walked. I don't know why they bothered. If I had wings, I doubt my feet would ever touch the ground.

Most of the angels I encountered paid no attention to me. Others looked and glanced away. But there were those that offered stares, some cold and impassive, offering no clue as to what they were thinking, while others were openly hostile. I liked those the best. At least they were honest with how they felt. I could respect that.

But I also didn't want to deal with it right now. All I wanted was some alone time. I tracked my way through the city without any clue as to where I was headed. Maybe at some level I did, but I certainly wasn't aware of it and until I was there. By _there_ , I mean that when I finally stopped to think, I found myself face to face with the Thirteenth Gate.

It really hadn't been my intention to come here. Maybe it was because it was the only part of this weird place that had a sense of familiarity. It could be because it was the beginning and the end. Or quite possibly, it was the one thing in this entire place I could link to my life on earth. I didn't know, and I really didn't care. I was here, and in a very odd way, it brought me a sense of comfort. At least there were no angels around.

Wrong again. A movement across from the Gate caught my eye and I turned to see Ke sitting on a bench, staring at the Gate. He had been the one Grigori that hadn't stuck around to watch my multiple failures during my lessons with Sariel. I'm sure he'd been told about them. After all, he was the champion of the Grigori and what they wanted. I could be that, too, or, if I decided, I could take on the position of his and their nemesis.

I was torn for a moment between slipping away before he noticed I was even there, and walking up to sit next to him. His eyes turned my way and the decision was made. I could have still walked away, but I chose instead to take the empty space on the bench.

We both stared at the Gate for a while. I'm not sure what was going through his mind, but I know there was nothing in mine. My thoughts were a cross between jumbled and numb. Nothing really came to the surface, but there was a bunch of stuff running around in there. One question leaped into the forefront of my thoughts and wouldn't go away.

"Why?"

Ke didn't look at me, but his tone was leery. "Why what?"

"Why do the Grigori care about what happens to humanity? The rest of the angels don't seem to care."

"They _do_ care." Ke said softly. "We all care. It is more that we have a different perspective on the dangers being faced."

"So give me a little Grigori perspective."

He frowned, working through a place to begin. "The angelic hosts are bound to the pattern, as are the Grigori."

"Well you are part of the host, aren't you?"

"Yes, but we have learned to think beyond the immediate and look to the future. We have learned to take possibilities into account, and calculate probabilities. We have been taught fear, and hope, where the rest of the hosts have no such concepts. Hope, as much of a powerful sounding word for beneficial possibilities, carries with it the negative connotation of the possibility that what you hope for will not come to pass."

I thought about it for a moment. "But why are the Grigori so different from the rest of the angelic host in this? I mean what makes them so special that they have figured these things out and see them where the others don't?"

"The humans."

Okay, that surprised me, but I didn't know what to say.

Ke shook his head, releasing a long sigh. "While the angelic host do, on occasion, take human form such as Gabriel did when he came to see you, for the most part they do not. When you take on a human host, you need to bond with the host in order for the joining to work. If you do not, the results can be disastrous."

"Like what happened to you."

"Yes."

"Why did that happen to you? I thought you guys were experts on the whole taking over human body thing."

"We were at one time." He nodded. "But humans have reached a new age in their evolution, one of science and doubt––one of disbelief."

"Ah, I see. It's not see easy to fool the lesser beings into letting you come in and take over their every action any more. Humanity has gained a back bone along with their lack of faith in the unknown."

"Yes." Ke frowned. "I mean, no. It isn't like that."

"Isn't it? Then what happened with the host that you tried to take over?"

Ke's look was sad. "He was a soldier once, in your wars on the earth. Do you know how your wartime soldiers are sometimes treated?"

"Our government takes care of them."

"Do they? What about the ones that contract diseases or conditions caused by the very government they were sent to represent, serve and protect?"

"I don't get what you mean."

Ke sighed. "No. You don't. Let me just say that in wartime, people will do anything to gain the ground, or to win. This includes harming the same people who are there to win that war for them. The host I took on was one that had contracted a condition his government refused to acknowledge they caused through their desire to win the war. Normally it is not a fatal one, but in his case it escalated and is now the cause for his early demise. When I found him, he had nothing, not even hope. They refused to treat his condition, because to admit he had one was to admit their part in the wrong doing against him. He was walking the country, seeing for himself, one last time before he died, what he bought and paid for with his life."

"And you decided to take away what little time he had left, using him just as badly as you claim the government did?" My voice was harsh with indignant anger for the man.

"Do you know why he became a soldier, Yeshua? _To make a difference_. All he wanted in your world was to make a difference. I am giving him that opportunity."

"But isn't that what he thought when he joined up as a soldier, that he would be making a difference, only to be so casually put aside after he did? Isn't that what you're trying to tell me? What makes your fight so much better than the one the government wanted to win?"

"Because wars on earth are primarily about power and greed. Some are actually about the people they are fighting for, but that is rare in most cases. Let me tell you this. If the human host had not found my cause worth the fight, there is nothing you could have done to bind me to him so permanently. It would have been a continuing struggle, even now."

"So you're saying he has come to see your side of things."

"Yes. And he willingly let you bind me to him so I could do what was necessary."

"Except in the binding, the situation has now been created to take you down with him."

"Yes."

"So how can you be so certain it wasn't a kamikaze dive?"

"What do you mean?"

"How do you know that he figured out he wasn't going to get out of it alive, so he allowed himself to be bonded to you in order to take you out with him at the right moment?"

Ke shook his head, frowning. "No. It isn't like that."

"And I know this _how_?"

He finally turned to me, his eyes dark with intensity. "How badly do you want to know?"

Okay. That made me hesitate. But it sounded too much like a dare. "I want to know. If he is privy to your thoughts, then maybe I'll get some truth from a different perspective." I frowned. "But if I bound you to him permanently, how could I speak to him?"

His look softened. "Will you trust me?"

I hesitated. Of course I didn't trust him at this point, but I really did want to know. It might help me in making the decision that I was facing, if I knew how another human being, one privy to the thoughts of the angels, was looking at the whole thing. I nodded, but with reservation.

"Turn to me." Ke ordered, as he shifted his position on the bench so we were face to face. He brought his hands up to cup my face and pulled it close to his.

I jerked back for a second. It was too much like moving in for a kiss. He raised an amused eyebrow. I took it as a challenge and let him guide me closer until our foreheads touched.

My eyes stared into his, until they closed. I did the same. A warm feeling filled my mind, like a soft touch, a caress. There was only darkness, but in that darkness was warmth.

"He is right, you know."

The voice was deep inside my head, almost echoing within the space I found myself in. I jumped, but Ke held me tight. He must have expected it. I tried to relax into the warmth again.

"Who are you?" The voice didn't sound like Ke's.

"Sergeant Daniel Padgett, ma'am. First Marine Division, Seventh Regiment."

"Okay Daniel––so what's the deal?"

"Ma'am?"

"The angels, Daniel, can you clue me in? It might help with the decision I'm going to have to make here soon."

"You can call me Sarge, ma'am. I think Daniel was lost a long time ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not. I've had my good days and my bad. But life didn't really mean a whole lot to me until I became a soldier."

"So you would rather have someone calling the shots, telling you what to do. Is that why you let Ke host in your body?"

He gave a bitter laugh. "There was no letting at first. I fought that SOB with everything I had. You saw him. It wasn't pretty."

"Did it hurt?"

"Hurt like hell. I apologize for my language, ma'am. I reckon some habits die hard."

"Then why did you let him do that to you?"

I could hear his mental sigh. "It's sort of like he said, ma'am. He told me what he was needing me for, and I felt his need was a good one."

"Only sort of?"

"Well, ma'am, it's like this. I've seen a whole lot of humanity in my lifetime. The conclusion I've come to is that humanity isn't humane at all. But the reason I became a soldier was not to make others believe the way _I_ do, but to give them the right to believe in the things important to them."

"Okay, I'll buy that. But how do you feel about what Ke is doing?"

"I think he believes he's doing the right thing, ma'am. As near as I can figure, these other angels are more along the lines of ostriches––sticking their heads in the sand and hoping the thing they fear the most will go away. But it doesn't. I mean, look at your perimeter defenses here in this angel city. They don't even have the guardians at the gates any more. You want to know why? Because they can't think enough past what they _want_ to happen to prepare for what _might_ happen, and probably will. That's not good planning for the future as far as I'm concerned."

"So he's got you convinced his cause is a just one?"

His laugh was full of humor this time. "See, there's the thing. That's why I let you bind me to him, ma'am."

"Was it a kamikaze move, like I suggested?"

"In a way. But it's not my play at being a kamikaze. I wanted to make sure he had something on the line to fight for, that's all."

It took me a moment to realize what he meant. "Oh––if he isn't willing to sacrifice himself to make this happen, then he obviously doesn't feel as strongly about the right of it as he should."

"Yes, ma'am. Everything I've seen and heard about these angels reminds me of some government bigwig calling the shots and moving their soldiers around the field like some board game, never realizing that the pieces they're moving are actual human lives. They never go down into the field and get dirty, or even to let the realization sink in that their game pieces are living, breathing human beings. I'm just making a better commander of him, that's all. If he believes in his cause so strongly that he's willing to risk his life to save a bunch of playing pieces he can't even call by name, then he must be telling the truth."

"And is he, Sarge?"

"Is he willing to go through with what he feels needs to be done, even if it means dying? Yes, he is. And I'm pretty damn certain he will if given the chance."

Okay. That was about as honest an answer as I've gotten. "You do know the Grigori are trying to teach me things to help undo the binding."

"Yes, ma'am. And I figure that's your call. If this big bad does get out and kill this angel guy, and me, then from everything I'm hearing, you will be the last line of defense for humanity. So I'm not going to tell you what to do. I don't have the right, because I'm not in your position. But you need to think long and hard, because I think your options have run out. You don't have the luxury of signing on to fight this war. You've been drafted. The only choice I see you have left to you is whether to become a good soldier or a bad one."

"Yeah, but which choice makes me which?" I said the last to myself, but Sarge still heard it.

"I don't know, ma'am. I guess you can only pay close attention to what's happening. People are going to die in this. It's a war, and that's real nasty business. You can't save them all. But you can do your best and save as many as you can."

"What would you do, Sarge?"

"Me? I'm just a soldier, ma'am. I do what's right and follow orders. I'm not a commander. I'm just glad I'm not in your place. No matter what you do, people are going to die. You seem like a nice gal and that's not going to sit well with you at any level. I just hope whatever decision you make, it's the right one."

"Me, too Sarge. I just wish I knew what the right decision was in this case."

"Wish I could be of more help, ma'am. I believe you'll make the right choice. I don't think any of the angel people are as sure of it, but I am."

The laughter erupted form me. "So they're not sure which way I'm going to jump? Well I'm right up there with uncertainty."

"The ones on the side of this guy, they have a little more faith in you, only because of who you used to be."

"I'm not that person, or being any more, Sarge."

"I think there's more of her left than you know."

"Oh really?"

"This guy's been tracking you for thousands of years, betting on just that. I think he––"

It felt as though Sarge's voice were yanked out of my brain. There was a flash of pain, and I opened my eyes in shock. Ke was staring at me, our faces still close together.

"What happened?" I asked through the disorienting feeling that made me a little dizzy.

His eyes looked downward and mumbled. "I couldn't hold the link any longer."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a terrible liar? He was about to say something to me that you didn't want me to hear––what was it?"

Ke pulled back and stood up from the bench. "Nothing. It isn't important anyway." He looked down at me. "Did you get the information you wanted?"

_Obviously not all of it_ , I wanted to shout at him, but didn't. "Enough for starters." Is what actually came out of my mouth.

Ke nodded. "I need to get going. I have a few things to attend to." He started to leave, and then stopped, without turning around. "He was right, you know."

"About which?"

"About all of it. There is a lot of Ithane left in you. And no matter what happens, people are going to die, and you will blame yourself. You have to learn not to do that. It will not be your fault. Either way people are going to die, no matter what your decision."

"Unless what the other faction of angels say is true." I had to point out. "What if this whole mess does just go away if we do nothing?"

"Then that's your decision. Just be prepared to live with it."

And then he left, leaving me alone with the Gate. I thought I caught a ripple on the mirror-like surface, but when I tried to focus on it, it was gone. Great. Now I was jumping at shadows. But why hadn't the angelic hosts replaced the Grigori Guardians? No matter what the scenario, it didn't seem like a smart move to me.

## Chapter 20

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I watched Sariel carefully, the weaves she was working, the way they flowed together. It was an amazing dance of intertwining colors. So far, that was the extent of what Sariel had been able to ingrain into my brain. I finally grasped the ability to see the weaves. I had always been able to see my own, the way they flowed and how they fit together. For the first time, I could see the way others worked the weaves. In my opinion, that was a huge step. In the Grigori's opinion, it was obvious they only considered it to be a baby step. They didn't seem concerned with holding back their feelings of disappointment in my progress, or at least in the lack of it.

The Grigori teacher held a rock in her hand. It wasn't even a pretty rock. It was a bland grey with no smooth edges, sort of resembling a chunk of broken granite. Her weaves wrapped around the stone surface, creating a blanket of interlocking colors that started to permeate the outer layers. The rock had its own pattern of energy that made up the solidity of its composition. The energy Sariel created was seeping into the pattern of energy that made up the rock, and was changing it. The energy of the rock would push back against the change, but Sariel's energy pushed it gently back into place, taming it to her will.

It was incredible, the shifting energies blending into one, changing and morphing into something different while I watched. The jagged edges of the stone smoothed and pushed outward in places to form an entirely new shape. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It started to look like a miniature, winged angel. It took me a moment to realize it was a butterfly. The colors filled the wings, changing from the stone grey color of the rock.

When the transition was complete, Sariel tied off the energy. The creature sat still for a single breathless moment, and then the wings began to move, gently flapping in the palm of her hand. The movements were slow at first, and then picked up in speed. Sariel held her hand up and let the creature go. It hovered briefly, and then started to fly away, moving in the erratic flight pattern of a real butterfly. Incredible.

"Now it is your turn." Sariel turned to me with a ghost of a smile at my look of amazement.

Now I was even more surprised, and I'm sure it showed. "You're kidding, right?"

She shook her head. "No. You saw what I did. You know how to weave energies, we are all too aware of that. Now it is time for you to learn precision control over the power held within you."

I started to shake my head. "I can't––"

"––is the first phrase you can use to make sure it will never happen." Sariel gave me a pointed look.

The look and the tone were familiar. It was the combination used by the nuns used when they weren't going to take any arguments. Father David had a pretty good handle on that look, too. It meant that no matter what _I_ felt or said, I at least had to give it my best shot.

Sariel reached down and picked up another rock, similar to the one she had used. Without a word, she put it into my hand and stood there, waiting for me to begin. There wasn't any getting out of it, so I squared my shoulders, focused on the rock and called the energy.

There is a feeling of surprise and then euphoria when you can tell you are doing something right for the first time. That was the feeling coursing through me. I watched, amazed at myself, as the energies folded naturally into the same pattern Sariel had just demonstrated. They wrapped around the stone, creating a cocoon of colorful light that danced on the surface and then started sinking down to merge with the energies of the rock. I both saw and felt the rock's struggle against the change, but I pushed back, forcing it to take the shape I was trying to achieve.

And it happened. The edges began to smooth, protruding and contracting in all the right areas for it to take on the form of a butterfly. The euphoria reached a different height, moving into the realm of smugness as the colors settled into the stone, turning it into the complete form of the creature I was trying to bring into being. I tied off the energies when the transformation seemed complete. The wings started to move, just as had happened with Sariel, slowly, and then faster. With a grin of triumph, I held my hand up and let the creature go. It hovered in the air for a brief moment and then fell to the ground, shattering into multiple pieces, none of them moving, but all still holding the color of the butterfly.

"You didn't tie off the weave at the right spot." Sariel shook her head. "You needed to tie it off to the life essence of the original stone, but instead you tied it off at the surface. Try again."

I looked over at Chaz, who had watched in as much awe as I had.

"She got really close this time." He spoke up in my defense.

Sariel turned her pointed look on him. "Yes, because of course Abaddon will wait around for her to get it right."

Chaz blushed. I was a bit miffed. The kid was right. I had gotten close. It didn't seem to count for much with the Grigori woman. And she was the best teacher they had for connecting to humans? How did they manage to teach us anything way back when?

Several hours and a dozen failed attempts later, Sariel let me take a break. I think the Grigori was actually taking pity on me. I was bound and determined to get it right, but it was developing into a big headache, one that had started as a nagging ache and moved into thundering proportions. With each try at weaving the energy, the headache grew more painful. I think it was when I was grimacing more than weaving and the attempts were going downhill, that Sariel had decided to let up a little. That was a good thing. I wasn't going to give up, but at this point I was doing more harm than good. The pile of broken stone shards at my feet were evidence enough of that.

The rest of the Grigori faded away, as they always did when we took a break. I wondered where they went during that time. Catching up with old friends, perhaps? Starting subversive efforts within the angelic hosts, hoping to win more support for their cause? I was hurting enough not to want to give it much thought.

Sariel came over and put a soothing hand to my forehead. Her touch was cool, and that coolness merged with the heat in my head to calm the throbbing tempo of pain. It didn't go away entirely, but it did come back down to a more manageable thought level. I wondered if she could've taken all the pain away, or if she wanted to leave a residue for punishment. At least my eyes weren't crossing any more, so I didn't bother to ask. I did ask the same question of her that I had asked of Ke.

"Why?"

"Why what?" She seemed surprised.

"Why do the Grigori care about what happens to humanity?"

She shrugged. "Because we do."

I shook my head. "Not good enough. Wasn't humankind the downfall of the Grigori? Why would you care so much about saving them? Is it because you _have_ to, or because you _want_ to?"

Sariel walked over and sat down on the grass. I didn't feel like sitting, so I paced a little to get rid of some of my tension. Chaz came over and plopped down next to the Grigori. I'm sure he was as interested in the answers as I was.

Sariel shrugged. "Either way the end result is the same, isn't it?"

"No. You're asking me to take your word on faith. I've never been much on faith. I want to hear why it's so important to you. The other angels don't seem to be in line with your way of thinking, so I want to hear what makes the Grigori so different."

"The whole subject of free will and the angels is a bit complicated."

"Enlighten me. Make it less complicated."

She sighed, plucking a blade of grass and focusing on it. "All of this disagreement, all of these seemingly different points of view between the factions of the angels, they're all the same part and parcel of the pattern."

"How?" Chaz's face was scrunched up in puzzlement. "As you just said, the view points are so different. How can they both be part of the pattern?"

"Because this war between the angels is _supposed_ to happen, isn't it Sariel?" I asked softly.

"It is destined to happen." She admitted with a nod. "You couldn't stop that part of it if you tried."

"Why is it supposed to happen?" Chaz asked in surprise.

Sariel looked uncomfortable. Good. It meant we were finally getting somewhere.

"Spill it, Grigori."

She looked away. What would make her so uncomfortable about––Oh shit.

"It's a cleansing, isn't it? That's what happened the last time around. This isn't about any Day of Judgment or anything like that. The _worthy_ among the humans have nothing to do with faith or belief in God, it's all about survival of the fittest."

Sariel nodded. She looked unhappy.

Chaz was staring at the Grigori female in horror. "For real?"

She didn't reply.

"Why do the Grigori care, then?" I asked softly, but the anger was tight in my voice.

"Out of all the angels, we spent time among the humans." Sariel finally responded, just as softly, but hers was more of a touch of sadness.

"What? And we were so damned wonderful you decided we were getting a bum wrap and wanted to help us out? I'm not buying it."

"No. We just learned to think a little differently by being among the humans, sharing their thoughts and ideas."

"Because you would take human form?"

"Which lessened our connection to the web for the duration."

"That would give you a taste of free will, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, but not so much as you think. We were still bound to the pattern."

I had to stop and think about it for a moment. I was still missing something. Chaz's mind was heading in another direction. The whole faith thing really disturbed him. It would've disturbed me early on after I had just left from spending all that time being raised by the church. It didn't bother me so much any more.

"If the whole faith in God thing doesn't really matter in the end, why is it such a powerful influence in the mortal world?" He was watching the Grigori female closely.

"It does have a powerful influence, does it not?" Sariel looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Chaz nodded.

"Maybe it works as a tool to keep humanity in line so they don't fall in so easily with the Fallen Ones?" She seemed to be hinting at something, trying to make the kid work it out for himself.

"Is it because whichever side has the strongest influence when the war starts will win the war?"

"In a roundabout sort of way."

That damned light bulb was back on in my head again. "The pattern isn't set for a particular direction past this point, is it?"

Sariel shook her head slowly. "No."

"That's what the angelic host is so afraid of––that the onset of this war will change everything."

She nodded.

"What are they so afraid of?" It was there, right at the edges of my thoughts, but I couldn't grab onto it.

But Chaz did. I saw his face light in sudden understanding. "They're afraid of _us_ , Yesh."

My face scrunched up, trying to grasp what the kid obviously already had.

"Think about it. What has been the attitude toward humans that has stuck out most with the angels?"

"What? Arrogance? The fact they consider us to be lesser beings? What's so frightening about that?"

"What is one of the main things that is supposed to happen in the war, Yesh? According to Revelations, I mean?"

"I don't––"

"New Jerusalem, Yesh. New Jerusalem comes down to earth."

Okay, now I saw where he was going and my heart did a little jump. "The Crystal City–– _that's_ New Jerusalem?"

I laughed. "Oh, _that's_ rich. The angelic host will be forced to live among the humans––like the Grigori did a long time ago."

"In essence, yes." Sariel confirmed.

"And Lucifer," Chaz continued, "what was the one thing he hated and fought against for all these years?"

"He didn't like that the humans were lesser beings and given what the angelic host was not––free will?" I was still trying to grasp all of this. "But then––oh shit. He would rather see humankind destroyed then to have to live among beings that had something he didn't."

"I'm betting some of the angelic host feel the same way." Chaz nodded.

Sariel nodded. "They do."

"And the faith thing really does play a part, doesn't it?" Chaz looked at her curiously. "When the cleansing happens, the only humans who will survive the cleansing will be the ones that will join the angelic host in the Crystal City."

"Yes."

"And if the Fallen Ones can make this whole thing go down without the angelic host lifting a finger to stop them, then humankind gets wiped out, and the angels get to enjoy eternity in the Crystal City without humans running around mucking up their plans."

"Yes."

"So why do you suppose I got tossed into the pattern like this––to muck things up?"

"Of course, Yesh. That's exactly it. You are the one thing that belongs to both worlds, once an angel, now a human. There had to be someone that would take both sides into account and make the decision for the rest. Without you, humans would have no say in the matter at all."

"That is what we suspect." Sariel agreed. "It is also why we feel that humankind is meant to survive this, or at least have a chance at surviving it. Why else would they return Ithane to us in the form of a human? She was the most powerful among us. Because of her ability to work the weaves of the web, she was once offered a position among the Archangels. She chose to stay with the Grigori."

"Well that was pretty bright of her, wasn't it? Couldn't she have done more good by becoming an Archangel?"

"No." Sariel shook her head. "She would have disconnected herself from humanity and eventually became as the others of the angelic host are now––cold and unfeeling. That is why the Grigori care. The humans taught us the true meaning of compassion. And if she had accepted the position, no one else could have stopped Abaddon the last time around. Humanity would already be long gone."

"So I––I mean Ithane––used to do this body snatching thing, too?"

"No." Sariel's smile was wistful. "But Ithane used to go among the humans and learn from them. She used to really listen to what they had to say. They were a source of curiosity for her from the very beginning."

I didn't know what to say.

"Wow, Yesh." Chaz commented with amusement dancing in his eyes. "It's really hard to imagine you as an angel."

A short bark of laughter escaped from me. "Thanks kid, I love you, too."

Sariel was getting up from the ground, brushing off her robes, although they didn't really need it. Nothing seemed to get dirty in this place. I think she did it more out of habit from being in human form, down on earth playing amongst the dirt.

"I think it is time we got back to our lessons, don't you?"

The groan came without my even realizing it was there. Sariel smiled knowingly and picked up a rock, handing it to me.

"Okay, now this time––"

## Chapter 21

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"So where are we going?" I asked the little cherub.

Arianna was pulling me forward by my hand, urging me along at a fast pace. Chaz grinned beside me, finding amusement at my annoyance. Ke was following along, his look somber. His look was always somber. Other than the one time he had smiled at his own expense back that first day in my apartment, I don't think I had ever seen him in anything other than the stone-faced look he wore now.

I had spent the morning with the Grigori. I was starting to get a better handle on the whole rock butterfly thing. At least I wasn't shattering any more butterflies. I still couldn't make them fly, but I'd get there. I was determined. Or was that stubborn?

"It's a surprise." The little cherub giggled "I had to get special permission to bring you here. No human has been allowed here since almost the beginning of time."

She couldn't mean––

"Here we are!" She announced, clapping with delight at the look of shock on my face.

The gates were closed, but I could see beyond them into the lush foliage beyond. Maybe it was the hint the cherub had just given, or maybe it was the two winged angels with swords of flame standing guard at either side of the gate, looking similar to angelic replicas of the Queen's guard, but I knew what this place was. My heart jumped into my throat. This place really _did_ exist.

"The Garden of Eden." Chaz whispered in awe when I couldn't find my voice.

"No shit."

One of the angels frowned at my blatant comment. So maybe they weren't so much like the emotionless guards of the royal palace. But wow––the Garden of Eden.

"Can we really go in?" Chaz was dancing back and forth between both feet.

"Of course." Arianna laughed again. She looked pointedly at the guards in emphasis. "I got _permission_."

They didn't seem too happy about it, but Arianna must have gotten the permission she claimed because they grudgingly stepped aside and the gates swung open. I took a step forward and stopped, eyeing those flaming swords.

"It is as the cherub said," Ke put a gentle hand on my arm. "The gates would not have been opened to you otherwise."

It was reassurance enough. I stepped inside. Wow––imagine that. I was the first human to set foot inside the Garden of Eden in thousands of years. I don't know if it was because of the years of imagery shoved down my throat by the church, or if it was because this was the version of Eden set within the confines of the Crystal City, but it seemed to have an edge of beauty I had never witnessed before. It was the one place inside the Crystal City not covered by that strange, depressing indigo hue. The light here was bright and warm, casting the garden into a relief of colored brilliance. It was so bright, so breathtaking, that it almost hurt the eyes to look. Father David would be green with envy. I couldn't wait to tell him.

We wandered through the Garden for a bit, with Arianna taking us to this place and that, showing off the natural settings of the Garden. And it was, natural I mean. Nothing on earth could have grown in this way, so perfect and raw, yet still so sculpted and perfectly placed. But it had once been on earth. Or had it?

"Is this the _actual_ Garden of Eden, or is this the Crystal City version of the original?" Hey, I had to ask the question.

"There was only ever one Garden of Eden." Ke replied, looking into a pond at our feet. "It was one of the earliest contentions among the angels, that the humans were given just one more thing the angels never had."

"Chaz, come on over here." Arianna called to the kid. "Let me show you something."

Chaz looked at me and I shrugged. "Go ahead kid, you're not tied to me. I think I can manage without you for a bit."

He grinned and headed away to follow the flighty little cherub. It left Ke and me alone again. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I had so many conflicting emotions where he was concerned. Part of me wondered how much was from the time I spent as Ithane. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt, so I decided to take pity on him.

"So what's the deal with the Garden, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

I sighed. Why did I always have to clarify my questions for the angels? "Well, there are so many stories about it, and legends past the biblical texts. What's the real scoop?"

Ke nodded, finally understanding what I was asking. "The Garden was the original site created for the humans. It was sort of a test site for physical creation."

I smiled. "A prototype?"

He frowned, rolling the word over in his mind. He finally nodded. "Yes."

"So give me the inside scoop––was the Garden really created in six days, or did it take thousands of years, like some of the more scientific types theorize?"

I must be hitting the tough questions, because he seemed to have to work through each thought in his mind before answering.

His frown deepened. "That is not an easy question. The answer to both is yes."

"How––?"

"Time is not linear in our realm. It is only linear in the human realm, because it is the only way humans can grasp the mortality of their lives. If they could wrap their minds around the idea of non-linear time, they would be as immortal as the angelic host."

"I see. So that is why the immortals are the way they are. It is not just because of their ability to connect into the energy the way that they do, but they have also grasped the concept of non-linear time."

"Yes."

"There are scientists who have built theories on non-linear time. Does this mean they will become immortals, too?"

"No. They grasp the concept, but they do not accept it as part of their reality. If they could, then they would become immortal, yes. But it is not likely."

"Okay then, how about the whole mystery surrounding the forbidden tree?"

"The Tree of Knowledge?"

"Does it really exist?"

"Yes, would you like to see it?"

"No kidding?" He was looking at me with expectation. "Why not? As long as I'm here, I might as well get the full tour."

Ke turned and led me down a path to the other side of the pond, away from the direction that Arianna and Chaz had gone. I followed along, but I was full of questions so the silence between us didn't last for long.

"So the whole thing between Adam and Eve and Lucifer really happened?"

"In a sense."

"Meaning?"

"When humans were first created, they were given free will. But they never used it. They saw no need to. Everything was provided for them, they had no real choices to make. Life was very simple and the so-called paradise that humans purport was a reality."

"I don't know." My look was skeptical. "It all sounds pretty boring to me."

"It would not sound so boring if you were not of aware of your own potential."

"And that's what the apple did? Make them aware of their potential?"

"Yes. The apple was pure symbolism in physical form, if that makes sense. What the apple was in reality was a direct connection into the web."

"So the apple linked the humans into the web so they could see what their true potential was?"

"Sort of. It allowed them the essence of grasping the difference between linear and non-linear existence. It was this grasp, and seeing the far-reaching future potential of man, that drove them to behave in the way they did. To the first humans, who knew nothing except paradise, the exposure to human potential both good and bad would be a bit overwhelming."

"Talk about sensory overload." I whistled.

"Yes." Ke nodded. "Ironically, it was the exposure to both linear and non-linear time, that also made humans aware of the possibility of linear time. The understanding of it is what made them mortal."

"So before that, humans were immortal?"

"Yes. Those first humans chose the path of mortality."

"And that's what Lucifer was counting on when he tempted Eve to eat the apple?"

"We believe so. No one can say for certain."

"I bet I can." I snorted. "Old Lou was already working on his own prototype––Abaddon. If he could make the only creations of his rival out to be lesser beings, then he could complete his bid for leadership over all the angelic host."

"Pretty much." Ke admitted. "That was the point he was trying to use until Abaddon started tearing apart everything. Up to that point, there were quite a few of the angelic hosts willing to agree with him."

"But here's the other part that is puzzling to me. Adam and Eve weren't the only creations, were they? I mean the whole concept of humanity being descended from two people––what about the folks Cain ran into later on?"

"Adam and Eve weren't the only ones. They were the prototypes. And actually––"

"What?"

"Eve wasn't the first woman, either. Lilith was."

I frowned. "I think I read that somewhere. But wasn't there something about her not being able to reproduce––?"

"Yes. Humans were meant to be self-replicating. Lilith could not reproduce _human_ children."

" _Human_ children––? So she could reproduce, but only Nephilim?"

"Lilith was the first consort to Lucifer, when she was replaced with Eve."

"So is she still around?"

"Eve?"

"No, Lilith."

Ke frowned. "Yes. She is one of the immortals. Her presence appears throughout the religious texts of human history. I think the most accurate portrayal of her was through the Sumerian mythos."

I let that one run through my mind until it snagged on the thought. "Tiamat."

Ke nodded. "In the myths, she was destroyed. But she is supposed to come again, just like the biblical Revelations."

"The whore of Babylon?" When Ke confirmed the concept, another thought came to mind. "Wait––Tiamat. Wasn't she taken down by Marduk?"

Ke's look became very guarded. "He had the help of another who was not named in the stories."

"Ithane." I knew the answer without his response. So that was what Marduk was hinting at. He had known me in my past form. Which meant Ithane had not only hung out with the humans, she may have taught them some of the same things that brought them to immortality.

"Marduk and Ithane locked Lilith away in much the same way as we did with Abaddon. She actually put Abaddon into the same pit with Lilith. It was how Ithane could work the weave so fast to open the space to lock Abaddon away. She had done it once before."

"Does that mean Marduk is also capable of unlocking the pit?"

Ke shook his head, his voice bitter. "No, that was an honor reserved only for me. Ithane didn't lose herself to the web when she worked with Marduk against Tiamat. She gave herself to the web when she worked with me. I wasn't strong enough to carry my weight, and we lost her because of it."

I shrugged. "It all works the way it's supposed to, I guess. Maybe Ithane knew that and it wasn't your fault. It was just what needed to be done."

"She chose that way to do it so she could take human form. She would not go against the restrictions against combing angelic essence with human energy."

I laughed out loud. "You're telling me Ithane gave herself up so she could come back and have sex with Marduk?" I thought about the strong attraction that was there when I was with the immortal. Maybe there was something to it.

Ke looked angry, and he wouldn't respond. Realization struck. Okay, maybe I was a little slow.

"You're jealous."

Ke pointed to a spot in front of him, ignoring my statement. I looked to see an apple tree, with full, bushy branches laden with succulent red fruit––apples. I looked back at him with skepticism.

"This is it? The Tree of Knowledge?"

Ke nodded. It didn't look like much to me. That must have been some con job Lucifer had pulled on Eve. I had seen better looking trees on our way here. This one didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary.

I shrugged. "You never answered my question."

Ke was testy. "You did not ask one."

"Fine. I'm asking. Are you jealous of Ithane's relationship with Marduk?"

I could almost feel his teeth grinding to avoid giving me an answer. I thought back to my earlier conversation with Sarge.

"That's why you shut him down, isn't it? Sarge was about to tell me that you were in love with Ithane."

His shoulders slumped. "Yes." He whispered.

Wow. How about just a little more confusion thrown into the mix for me? This couldn't be happening. The look of misery on his face told me it was. The angel was in love with me. No, wait. He wasn't in love with _me_. He was in love with _her_.

"I am not Ithane." I told him softly.

"You are." Ke said, finally looking at me. "You are very much like she was. The only difference is that you have free will now. But you are just like her."

"But I'm _not_ her. I am a different person with a part of her inside me. That doesn't make me Ithane. It makes me who I am."

Ke said nothing, but he took a step closer. There was such a hunger in his eyes that my breath caught in my throat.

"Even if I were Ithane," I searched his face for answers. "You've had your chance. I offered myself to you and you turned me down. But if I were to be honest, I probably wouldn't turn you away if you tried again."

I watched the emotions play across his face, from hunger and desire to frustration and sorrow. It was frustration that finally won out.

"I cannot," he groaned. "You are still in human form. Our joining is forbidden."

"You are in human form now, too." I pointed out, reaching up a hand to touch him.

He backed away as though my touch would burn his skin. Maybe it would have, I was feeling pretty heated right now. I should have let go of the celibacy thing a while back. It was causing me some big trouble right now. What had I been thinking?

Ke shook his head and stepped further back. I dropped my hand. Hey, I'm not going to offer again. The ego can only take being turned down so many times. Without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the middle of the Garden of Eden. It was as I thought. Paradise seemed to be a pretty boring and lonely place.

## Chapter 22

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Now, I have a pretty good imagination. But there are times when you wonder whether or not your imagination has crossed over into stages of delirium. This was one of those times. Here I am, standing in the middle of the Garden of Eden, staring at the Tree of Knowledge. My thoughts are focused on the guy walking away from me. And what do I see? A huge snake is slithering a slow, winding pace down through the apples from the upper branches of the Tree. This couldn't really be happening, could it?

The real question I should've been asking my self at this point was that if there were any chance at all this was not a hallucination, then why didn't I turn and run? Silly me. By the time that thought came to the forefront of my mind, the head of the snake was on a level even with mine. While the rest of the body followed behind it, the head turned to face me. The voice that rasped its lispy words was reminiscent of a pervert tracking down its next target.

"Want some apples, little girl?"

It wasn't until the slitted eye winked my way that the ridiculousness of the situation struck me. I laughed, the sound full, rich and genuine. With all I had experienced up to this point, it felt good to laugh.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

The snake's chuckle was rolling, almost musical. While I watched, it dropped from the lowest branch to the ground, its body winding into a thick pile of coils. Those melted together, and then pushed upward into another shape. When all was said and done, one of the most gorgeous men I had ever laid eyes on stood before me, in blond, masculine glory. His eyes were deep, piercing blue, yet filled with warmth and amusement. But it wasn't a man. It was another angel, one with wings the blue-black color of a raven, the tips of the feathers seeped in blood red.

"Lucifer, I presume?"

"At your service, beautiful lady." His sweeping bow was regal and flowed with the natural movements of his body. "Although I do go by the name Lucien these days. So much less harsh sounding without holding the negative connotations of the other, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "You could call yourself Princess Sweet Pea for all that it mattered to me."

"Cheeky." He tilted his head in amused deference. "I will take that under advisement."

I looked around curiously, to see if any alarms had been raised, any angels were running to deal with one of the Fallen Ones, correction, the _original_ Fallen One. Nothing. Sarge was right. They should have been watching their perimeters.

"They are not aware of my presence." Lucien held his arms out openly. "This is the one place within the Crystal City where I am allowed to return. I come back from time to time when I'm feeling a little––nostalgic."

My head was shaking back and forth in bemused wonderment. It dawned on me that I should probably be afraid of this guy, but oddly enough, I wasn't. That was pretty stupid of me. Come on. This was the epitome of evil, the ultimate father of everything I had fought against all my life. Some of those things had seriously kicked my ass. They were pansy-wipes compared to this guy.

Lucien leaned in close to whisper in my ear. "You have nothing to fear from me, beautiful lady. Not at this time, anyway."

His voice wrapped silken threads around my senses. Wow. No wonder they claimed he was the most beautiful, the most seductive among the entire angelic host in his time. He certainly hadn't lost his touch. I'm betting he'd picked up a few tricks of the last couple millennia.

I stepped back from him, suddenly unsure of myself. "What do you want, Lucien?"

His smile was the picture of innocence, his movements fluid as he tipped his head and shrugged his shoulders. "What does any man want? Power, control, the love of a good woman."

Okay, that helped me snap out of it a bit. He was mocking me now. "First of all, you aren't a man. Second, you already have a woman at your back––Lilith."

"But you have locked my consort away from me." He sounded almost petulant. I noticed he didn't deny the first charge.

"I am not Ithane."

He tilted his head to study me curiously. "You are, but yet not. What a strange dichotomy your life is. The duality of power and the endless ages of time wrapped up in a powerless human shell that dies a little every second that you take a breath. How sad you must be."

I grinned. "Oh, I don't know. Being human has its perks, too. Take the whole free will thing, for example."

Lucien actually hissed at me, his composure broken for a brief second before it slipped back behind his mask of charm. "How perfectly _human_ of you to bring up such a distasteful subject in the midst of our pleasantries."

"Pleasantries?" My laugh was bitter. "Is that why you dropped by, Lucien, to exchange pleasantries? Or was it to check out the enemy?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps I do not consider you to be an enemy."

"Let's see, I lock up your girlfriend, I lock up your wasteful son. There are those around here that hope that I will be the savior to humanity. How does that not qualify as your enemy? I stand for everything you fight against."

"Ah, so you are willing to admit that you and Ithane are one and the same."

That stopped me cold. I had admitted exactly that, hadn't I? Maybe my mind was starting to go. These angels had a way of rattling your senses.

I sighed. "Why don't you cut to the chase, Lucien? What do you want from me?"

He reached up above his head and plucked an apple from the Tree. With deliberate care, he held it in his hand, moving it this way and that to catch the light of the Garden. Separated from the Tree, it now seemed enticing, beautiful, a luscious fruit made to be eaten. Maybe it was an illusion cast by the dark angel holding the apple, but it was a mouth-watering illusion.

"It is not so much what I want from you, Yeshua, as what it is I am prepared to offer."

I looked from the apple into the calculated sincerity in his eyes. Damn, this guy was good. No wonder Eve had fallen prey to his enticements. My mouth had gone dry and I licked my lips, trying to swallow at the same time. Neither helped.

"And what are you offering?"

He held out the apple, his hand flat, like a platter of flesh holding forth a delectable offering. "Answers. That is what you are looking for, isn't it? Answers to the many questions running through your mind? Answers to help you make the decision that is coming up?"

Okay, now _that_ didn't raise my suspicion level. My eyes narrowed. "And what makes you so certain that if I had those answers I would jump the way you wanted me to?"

He laughed, and the sound was genuine. "Oh, you will do exactly what it is that I want. I have no doubt of _that_ in the slightest. Humans always have a way of doing the wrong thing in the name of what they feel to be right. I am only offering you a chance to go into this whole upcoming struggle with your eyes wide open. You don't honestly believe the angelic host will give you any more information than they want in order to make you see things their way?"

"So why don't you just tell me what you think I should know? Why offer me this opportunity?"

The amusement danced in his eyes. "So you would believe anything that I had to tell you from my own lips?"

He had a point there.

He shrugged, tossing the apple up and catching it in his hand. He held it out as though examining its perfection. "Besides, the pattern repeats. Who am I to break the pattern? I only offer to you what was once offered to another. I would not want to blow your perfect image of me, now would I?"

"But that's just it, isn't it?" I looked at him quizzically. "You are all about feelings of perfection. You feel that humans do not measure up to what your ideal image of perfection is."

"Does it matter to you so much what I think?"

I laughed. "Hell, no. Pardon the expression. But it does make me very curious as to why this is so important to you."

He held out the apple. "Why do you not take the opportunity to find out?"

I took the apple from his hand, rolling it between my fingers to catch the light as he had. Talk about temptation. If the legends held true, everything I wanted to know and then some was only a bite away. What had Ke said? That it was a direct connection into the web. Then another thought struck me.

Hadn't he also said the apple had shown Eve the potential of humankind? If that was the case, wouldn't that mean she had been shown endless possibilities, both good and bad? But they were all just possibilities. The pattern hadn't been woven yet. No wonder the woman freaked out. Not all of those bad things had happened. She just saw all of the limitless potentials of what could happen. Talk about sensory overload. And in a mind that couldn't comprehend the concept of evil before taking that fateful bite, what horror she must have experienced.

Sometimes too much knowledge was a bad thing. How would you know which decision to make? You didn't know how every single person would react in any given situation. You couldn't predict human reaction. To even suppose you would––

I handed the apple back to him. "Thanks, but no thanks. Talk about having your hands tied, second-guessing every move you make. Uh-uh. I have enough confusion going on in my head without throwing everyone else's confusion into the mix."

Lucien laughed, holding his hands up, refusing to accept the deadly fruit. "You are a lot smarter than the first one. But the fruit is yours now. You may choose to use it later on."

I shook my head. "I don't think so. I may want answers, but those are not the answers I am seeking. That fruit is deadly poison to the human mind."

I looked down at the apple and shrugged. Holding it in hand, I turned and started to walk away. The cynical laughter in his voice stopped me.

"You will give into temptation sooner or later, Yeshua. It is a human trait. You cannot deny it."

There was only one thing I was tempted to do at the moment. I turned and saw the smug look on his face, took in his arrogant stance. All pretenses were stripped away. He was no better than the rest of him. He was right. I am human. Giving into temptation is second nature. I tossed the apple in the air a couple of times, getting the feel of it. Then I threw it at him, letting it bounce off the side of his head.

His eyes glittered dangerously, but he didn't say a word. It probably wasn't the smartest thing I had ever done in my life, basically spitting in the face of the devil, daring him to come after me. But it sure felt good.

## Chapter 23

[Back to Top]

"I can't believe you pegged Lucifer in the head with an apple, Yesh."

Chaz was staring at me, shaking his head in disbelief. Now that I had time to think about it, I couldn't believe I had done it either. What had I been thinking?

I shrugged, trying not to let any of my discomfort show. "What's done is done, kid. That's what I get for being impulsive."

"I wonder if Father David is going to turn white, or if he's going to laugh?"

I laughed. "The church should pin a medal on me for that one."

The kid giggled. "I can see it now––Saint Yeshua of the Apple."

I shook my head. "Nope. Not yet. There's the little thing of having three miracles under my belt before they'll even start to consider a sainthood package."

Chaz nodded sagely. "Don't forget the part about having to be dead first."

I laughed. "I don't know, kid. From everything that's unfolding, I don't see it as being too far off."

"Don't, Yesh." He sobered up. "Don't think like that."

I took in the serious look on his face, and found myself saddened by his support. "Come on, kid. We both have a clue as to what we're up against. Don't go all stupid on me now. I'm a realist. I know what could happen and probably will. And that's whether I fall in line with what the Grigori want, or the angelic host. Either way, there's a pretty grim outlook for a limited future."

He didn't say anything. What could he say? He knew the odds as well as I did, and all the wishful thinking in the world wasn't going to change that.

"So were you tempted?"

I knew what he meant. "Of course I was tempted. You know me, always wanting answers. I had the answer to questions I probably haven't even asked yet in the palm of my hand––how could I _not_ be tempted?"

Chaz nodded. "Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be normal, Yesh? You know––to not know the things we know, to not have experienced the darkness the way we have?"

I sighed. "All the time, kid. Neither of us had the luxury of choice. Both of us were born into this life in one form or another. Now we just have to figure out what to do with it all."

A polite knock on the apartment door before Arianna came bursting through brought an end to our conversation. I got up to close the door behind her while she fluttered around Chaz, bugging him. Poor kid. I think Arianna felt as though she had found a new playmate. Looking at the little cherub, and her child-like exuberance, it was hard to remember she was actually thousands of years old. Heck, I didn't get a couple of years to be a child, so I guess she made the time up for the both of us and then some.

The indigo light from outside made me squint a bit while closing the door. I couldn't get used to the fact that it opened to the outside instead of my dark hallway. I wanted nothing more than to shed this realm of the angels and get back to my not so normal life. It wasn't going to happen any time soon.

"What's up, Arianna?" Chaz was pulling back away from her. Angels never seemed to get that whole personal space thing, either. It was a bit unnerving.

"Sariel said she was going to give Yeshua a break. She told me that I could take you to the observatory, if you wanted to go."

Her eyes were lit with a pleading look. Hey, I knew the cherub was a little on the annoying side, but didn't she have any other friends to bug? The observatory. It was the place where Arianna had wanted Ithane to go that fateful day––

"Okay, let's do it. Show me this marvelous place you want to share so badly."

Arianna did a mid-air somersault that made me smile. Her enthusiasm was certainly contagious. Chaz and I exchanged amused looks as we followed the cherub out the door.

It only took us a few minutes to get to the observatory, which was near the center of the city by the Hall of Thrones. Then again, I don't know what it was, some sort of odd physics going on, or whatever, but it seemed to take nothing more than a few minutes to get to any part of the Crystal City, no matter where you started and where you were going.

We stepped inside a building that was completely black. You couldn't see anything. While we stood there in the dark, wondering what to do next, a dim light flooded the floor around us. When it reached full brightness, I could see forms taking shape from out of the misty cloud that covered the floor.

As I watched in wonder, those shaped became planets. When the light show seemed finished, Chaz and I were standing on an indigo-colored disk, set amidst what appeared to be the galaxy where the planet Earth was located. At the peripheral edges, the entire universe stretched out into an infinity of stars, planets, and multiple other shapes and colors.

"Look!" Arianna smiled at our awe, pointing to the planet I recognized as Earth.

I peered closer, leaning over to get a better look. The indigo disk moved toward the planet, as though drawn to it by my desire to see. If I focused hard on any one particular place, it moved in closer and I could see the blue and green colors become waters and trees. As it came closer, the grey-white areas became cities, and then buildings. Eventually people became distinguishable, down to their facial expressions.

I stood up a little too fast, disoriented by what I was seeing. "What–?"

"It's the eyes of the angels." Arianna laughed. "Want to check out the rings of Saturn?"

Talk about overwhelming. Arianna moved the disk with expert control around the galaxy. So this was how the angels kept track of everything that was going on. I'd always wondered about the claims the church made. Now I knew. It wasn't what I had expected.

Another disk came up next to ours and I saw Ke. The guy seemed to show up wherever I went. It was starting to get a little weird. I was frustrated by him, and angry with myself for being glad when he did show up. It always ended up with him walking away and leaving me alone with a lot of confusion. Yeah, I always managed to pick the real winners.

Arianna came up close to my ear and whispered, "Why not go with Ke? I will take Chaz on a cruise of the universe."

I looked at the cherub with suspicion. She was trying to look innocent, but I could tell there was more to his showing up than she was letting on. The little snot was setting us up.

Ke held out a hand to offer assistance for me to step over to his disk. Arianna took off with Chaz before I had barely stepped off their disk. As they pulled away, I could hear Chaz asking questions of the cherub.

"Are there any planets out there that have alien life on them?"

"Of course." I heard Arianna's fading reply as they sped off. "You cannot possibly believe, with this whole playground, that Earth is the _only_ populated planet in the whole universe––"

Then they were out of hearing range. The disk shifted and I fell against Ke. Embarrassed, I pushed away from him, but he didn't let me get far. What, another round of sexual tension torture from this guy? It was getting old in my book.

He was staring down at me with those golden chocolate eyes, and I wanted to melt into him. Instead, I tried to gently push away. He still wasn't letting go.

"The time is coming close."

For what? For him to finally come to his senses?

"I can feel the events changing, the pattern drawing to the point."

Oh. Duh. _That_ time.

"So what does this mean?" I tried to focus on what he was talking about, even though that was not where my mind or my body wanted to take me.

"It means that you have to make your decision soon as to what you are going to do."

_That_ brought on a bit of a panic attack. No pressure there. My mind started working through everything all at once. It was overwhelming. How could I make this decision? Not only was I not ready, but I also didn't want to do it. What if I made the wrong one?

"You will make the right decision."

What, was this guy reading my mind now? "How can you be so certain? What if I choose not to do as the Grigori want?"

He shrugged. "Things will be as they will. Whatever decision you make will be the right one."

"I wish I could be as sure of myself as you are."

"I'm not sure of myself." Ke shook his head. "I am more sure of you."

"Why?"

He looked at me for a long time without saying anything. I was getting a little uneasy under the scrutiny. The look wasn't so much longing this time, although I saw that there, too. It was something different––trust? Belief? It bordered on worship, which frightened me more than anything else. I was _so_ not ready to deal with any of this.

"Because I know you. I know who you are, I know what you are capable of."

"I don't even know what I am capable of, how can you be so sure?"

"I haven't waited for you, searched for you over all these years because I was unsure of you."

"Why did you search for me? If you had just let me be, you would never had to deal with the possibility of my interfering with the plans of the Grigori. Now I am an unknown factor that could screw up everything you have worked toward all these years."

The look of longing was back in his eyes, along with some else. But I didn't have time to figure out what that something else was, or maybe he just decided to show me, rather than to waste time with words. He brought me in, holding me tight to his body while his lips claimed mine. My senses were reeling under the onslaught of the passion he threw into that kiss.

All the time I had spent with Sariel, opening up my energy, tapping into it, didn't prepare me for this. I hadn't shut it down. Now it interwove with his energy, blending and meshing together in heightened awareness. And boy was I aware. I could feel every ounce of emotion, every inch of pleasure, not only of my own, but of his as well. Talk about playing with fire––my body was a raging inferno, hitting heights of heat I had never experienced before. Even power drunk around the immortals, I had never reached this feverish level of desire.

Then he stopped, pulling back. I could see the inner war being waged within him, the struggle between desire and morality. Why the heck did he have to find that spark of morality in him _now_?

"Please tell me you are not going to do this to me _again_." I think it is the closest I have ever come to begging for something in my entire life. But I could see by the look in his eyes, the angst displayed so openly, that it would still not get me what my body was craving right now. I started shutting down before I did something completely stupid. I was tired of this teasing game.

"Yeshua––"

I pushed away from him and held up a hand. "Save it. I am done with the game you are playing, Ke. I can't take it any more. I won't take this from you."

He was hurt. I could see it in his eyes. Right now, I was beyond caring.

"Get me out of here." I looked around, searching for the exit.

Ke's shoulders slumped in defeat. The disk started moving, but apparently it didn't have far to go. I went to step off, to leave him behind for a change, but he grabbed my arm and held me back, forcing me to look at him. He had gone into guarded mode, but I could still feel the residual of heightened energy between us.

"Of all the Grigori, other than you, there were very few of us that abstained from taking pleasure with human women. I was one of those few, as were you."

I looked away from him, not trusting myself to speak. What did this have to do with anything?

"I abstained because there was only one I would have shared anything with, and she wouldn't even do that much."

"Ithane." I made it a statement, rather than a question. I was pissy enough at this point to let the thought cross my mind that if Ke had played these kind of games back when Ithane was around, no wonder she didn't share that part of herself with him.

"I loved her, Yeshua, beyond anything else. I––"

"Save it angel boy. I am _not_ Ithane."

"No, you are not. You hold a part of her, but you are different on many levels. Not so different on others. But so help me, I find myself feeling the same way about you that I did about her."

I turned to look him in the eye. "Really? Is it just because I share a part of her? Or is this something separate? I'm having a hard time buying all of this, Ke. Now you are claiming love." I shrugged. "Okay. So what? I have offered myself over and over again to you only to be pushef away. What kind of sick, twisted idea of love is that?"

He closed his eyes, but not before I saw the pain there. I wanted to reach up and soothe it away. But I didn't. I wasn't dealing well with this at all.

"I cannot. You are human. Not only is it not right, but it is forbidden to the angelic host."

"You are human now, too. Unless I can figure out a way to undo those weaves, which I am pretty well failing at, you will die as a human. What about this is forbidden? Or am I missing something here?"

"There is the possibility I will not live out my life as a human. I will not––cannot break that taboo."

"Is it the free will thing?"

"Yes."

"But you are feeling that free will now, aren't you? That makes you human, and all your words are meaningless."

He shook his head. "No. If we were both in angelic form right now, then I would never have turned you away from me. But we are not."

"No." I frowned. "We are both in human form. Which makes it no more taboo than the other."

"But it does, can you not see that? My body may be human, and pushing me beyond the limitation of very human desire, but my mind is still that of the angel that I am. I am not truly human––I am only trapped in a human form. It does not make me any less an angel that I am."

He had a point there. I felt some of my irritation slip away. This whole situation sucked rocks. I moved my hand up to touch his cheek. I thought he would flinch from my touch, but he didn't.

"I understand, Ke. But you have to realize that this game of pushing me around like emotional play dough _has_ to stop. I _am_ human. You have me falling for you one minute and then pushing me away the next. I can't take this any more."

"You care for me?" There was a look of hope in his eyes that I tried to ignore.

"It doesn't matter, does it? Whether it is some residual part of Ithane within me that holds onto feelings for you or something of my own––there is nothing to be done about it, is there? I choose not to dwell on it. But I won't play this game. My very human emotions will not take it. We'll just call it friends and move on. Deal?"

"I––"

My hand moved to cover his mouth. "No. I don't want to hear any more. Can we just leave at this and move on?"

He hesitated, and then nodded. There was definite unhappiness in his eyes, but what else could he say? I really couldn't take any more. I wasn't kidding. Father David's hidden stash of scotch was sounding pretty good to me right now.

"Fine." I took my hand away from his mouth. "Then I'm going to count on you as the one friend out of this whole angelic host thing. I sure as heck don't think I will ever consider any of the others in that way."

Without saying anything further, I turned to leave. I figured it was the best move for both of us. He had opened up something inside of me I never thought I'd feel. And just as quickly, he slammed the door on the feeling. Or was I the one slamming the door? I didn't know, and really didn't care one way or another. I just wanted to get away.

## Chapter 24

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One of the benefits of having spent a lot of time in the dreamscape was that it became easy to discern when I was in the middle of a dream. I often felt sorry for those who couldn't. Take this dream for instance.

I was in the middle of the angel observatory, the planets doing a fancy little dance reminiscent to one of those movies scenes taking place in a grand ballroom. There were angels standing on the planets and stars, whirling around me in some kind of bizarre, unaware dance. Now that I thought about it, maybe it was more like the Sufis, who worked into a trance-like state by twirling around in circles, confusing their senses until they reached a place of altered awareness. Either way, it was creepy.

Other people didn't have the advantage of understanding they were caught in the middle of the dreamscape. They'd follow the bizarre path of the dream and wake up feeling disconcerted, wondering what it all meant. Dreams do mean a lot. They are the hidden keys to the psyche. I could usually figure it out easily. Since I knew and understood the dreamscape on an intimate level, my dreams tended to be straight forward, for the most part. As I looked around me at the angels twirling around in circles on planets suspended by whatever force was used to keep them in place, I had to seriously wonder about the state of my psyche.

Ten planets lined up before me in an odd configuration. I frowned. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't put a finger on what it meant. Ke stood with challenging arrogance on the last planet, the one furthest away from where I was, his feet spread apart to shoulder width, his hands on his hips. What the heck was _that_ supposed to mean?

While I turned my attention back to the configuration of the planets, Arianna flew in low, diving toward the place where I stood. She stopped at the last minute and with her hands on her hips, started hopping her way through the pattern of planets. I finally understood. It was set up as a hopscotch board. No wonder it looked familiar, but I couldn't get a handle on it. Games were something I never had the luxury of playing as a child. I had watched others from a distance, but never got to play. That definitely had to have had some whacked effect on how I had turned out.

So, for the first time in my life I started hopping the hopscotch board. It was fun in an absent-minded, weird way. It was also a bit more challenging than the chalk-squared child version. The planets gave a little under my weight as I jumped to each one. Two of them spread apart slightly, making my eyes grow big as I thought of myself doing planetary splits. Ke was now only a hop, skip and a jump away.

Pulling myself together, I made the final leap that would take me to him. Somewhere at the edges of my awareness, I noticed he was standing on top of the planet Earth. I didn't get a whole lot of time to think that one through. As I hopped to the final spot on the game board, it moved away from me and I felt myself falling, dropping into the endless rift of space below.

It was ironic that I didn't feel any fear. Maybe it was because I didn't see any surface coming up fast to meet my body. Maybe it was because I knew I was in the dreamscape. Whatever the case, I let myself fall for what felt like forever.

As abruptly as my drop had begun, it ended. I was disoriented for a moment while I tried to get my bearings. I was caught in a pair of strong arms, cradled like a child. I turned, half expecting to find Ke. It wasn't him that held me. I stared into the devilish, twinkling blue eyes of Phobetor.

"I always knew you would fall for me eventually."

I laughed, indicating with my head that he should let me down. "So this is your dream work?"

He shook his head with a smile. "No, it was a team effort." He turned me to face his team.

Morpheus was there, and Phantasos. What I had not expected to find were several others in various states of recline among the pillows of Morpheus' antechamber. Erishkigal was one, Marduk, another. There were a few other immortals I recognized––Loki, who I had never gotten along with, Apollo, Osiris, and Kali––along with a few more that I didn't. I was betting they were other rankers among the immortals.

The god of dreams opened his arms to me, and I willingly stepped in to give him a quick hug. He pushed me back out to arms' length and studied me carefully.

"You have been decidedly hard to reach, Yeshua."

I shrugged. "I've been a little preoccupied."

Morpheus frowned and moved to sit, offering me a place next to him. I dropped into our natural state of familiarity and looked around the room again. Marduk was staring at me with intensity. Now that I understood what had gone on before between him and me in my past life form, I couldn't help but turn away from his scrutiny. Morpheus caught the look and frowned. I wasn't his any more, but he was never one to share. I wasn't ready to deal with any of it at the moment.

"I heard you were successful in your struggle against the dream stalker."

Okay, so he was going to force me to look at Marduk. I tilted my head in deference of the Sumerian immortal and gave a smile of gratitude. "I had some help, but yes, I won out in the end."

"Was there ever any doubt?" Phobetor was back to his flirty self again. I could deal with that a lot better.

My grin was rueful. "Oh yeah, plenty of doubt."

"There was more to that dream stalker than with the others." Morpheus made it a statement not a question.

"A lot more." I nodded, looking at him curiously. "How much do you know?"

"Not a whole lot." He looked disgruntled. "There has been some powerful shielding going on around you. A new trick you've learned?"

I laughed. "When does an old dog learn new tricks, Morpheus?" I shook my head. "No. It has been courtesy of the angelic host, I suspect."

Some of the others started murmuring among themselves. They were not happy at my announcement. Come to think of it, I wasn't happy about being shielded without permission. What if I had needed to get a hold of one of my allies? Would they have let me get through? Or were they blocking both ways?

"How did you manage to get through to me now?"

"It took a little combined energy." Morpheus nodded to the others in the room. "But I think also that your angelic host was distracted. I am not sure we have much time."

"Which begs the question–– _why_ did they feel it was necessary to shield me from you? What were they afraid I would find out?"

"What we _do_ know," Morpheus frowned. "Is that there are a series of events taking place, still on the subtle planes, but something big is going down."

"The biggest." I nodded and filled him in to what had happened so far.

"You cannot possibly mean to let the Grigori succeed in his task?" Erishkigal was giving me a cold look of disbelief.

"What if the Grigori are right and it happens anyway, whether by force or by design?" I countered.

Marduk was looking very grim. "It is not only Abaddon that would be released from the pit––"

"I know." My voice was soft. "It is also Lilith––Tiamat."

"You don't know how difficult this is going to be, Yeshua." Marduk was shaking his head. "We––"

He stopped, but I knew what he was going to say. "I know, Lord Marduk. I know of the history between us, what we did."

There was an odd look in his eyes. "All of it?"

I shook my head. "No. But I know that you and I worked together long before Abaddon came into the picture to put Tiamat away. I also know those two are not the only ones bound to that pit."

"Then how can you even think to release them?" Erishkigal was very agitated. I'm betting there was a whole lot more to the story between her and Tiamat that I wasn't aware of at the moment. I'd have to have Chaz look into it.

"Because she is deciding whether or not to have control over the situation when it happens, or to sit back and hope it doesn't." Marduk was staring at me, trying to read my mind. "As a warrior, I can understand what her dilemma is. I would not want to be in your place, making this choice, Yeshua."

"Gee, thanks, I think."

"What gives her the right to make the choice for the rest of us?" Erishkigal was starting to get on my last nerve. "She is only a mortal."

I shrugged. "So go ahead––you make the choice."

"What?"

"If I am so deficient, you make the choice. Hey––I'm only a lowly mortal. What do I know? Besides, it will be nice to have someone else to blame for the decision. When it all gets screwed up, I'd rather not be the one in the hot seat."

"I deal in the energy of death," the black-haired, dark-eyed Osiris spoke for the first time. "But even I will not survive the ultimate destruction, if it comes down to that." He smiled. "I'll be pretty damned powerful up to the end, but I will still perish. Not a choice I would like to make."

"From where I'm sitting," Loki piped up, his red curls swaying back and forth with his shaking head. "The angelic host seems to be pulling every stop, trying to trick our girl here into seeing things their way. But I don't see where they are showing any care for what happens to the rest of us."

"You are right, Yeshua." Erishkigal was cold, but gracious in her concession. "I would not want to make that decision."

I wanted to tease her, call her a chicken, but I didn't think it would suit the mood of the moment. I accepted her acknowledgement with a nod. Heck, _I_ didn't want to make the decision.

"So in which direction are you leaning?" This came from Apollo, his golden, honey-colored eyes almost the same color as his hair.

"To be honest, I'm not sure."

And I wasn't. But time had just run out on me. I felt it before it came, the sound of a trumpet reverberating through the room, echoing through the confines of the dreamscape. The fifth trumpet. My heart dropped, and I felt a cold chill wash over my body.

Morpheus gave me a grim look. "My guess is that the time has come." He reached out and out his hand on my arm, giving it a light squeeze. "Know this, Yeshua Star. No matter what your decision, I will be at your back."

There were nods and murmurs of agreement from all those present. A lump stuck in my throat. I was not going to cry here, in front of some of the most powerful people of my world. I wasn't going to do it. But my eyes filled with unshed tears, betraying my firm conviction. The room started to get fuzzy around me. Morpheus cursed, trying to pull the focus back in. I guess the angelic host had caught onto our little powwow.

Marduk stood up and crossed the room. He reached in his pocket, holding something out to me. It was an amulet. I hesitated only a moment before tipping my head forward to allow him to place the medallion around me neck. Hey, he had done right by me before, and time didn't seem to be a luxury afforded to me right now.

" **A** SHARDU."

" **B** AXTANDABAL."

He invoked the amulet and powered it by the word of control. I looked at him quizzically, feeling the warmth of the activated energy of the seal he had just called to life.

"Pay attention to your heart, Yeshua Star. This will only help to bring to the surface that which you need to know." He pressed his lips to my forehead. "We await your direction."

And then he was gone. They were all gone. I woke up in my apartment––well, my pseudo-apartment in the Crystal City, anyway. Great. More pressure. At least these guys believed in me. I wish I had that much faith.

The room was stifling. I needed to get out. This time I knew where I was headed. Within minutes I was standing in front of the Thirteenth Gate. For an inanimate object, the thing seemed to have a life of its own. And it wasn't a pleasant life force either. It was full of darkness and treachery. Images flashed on the surface of the Gate, something that hadn't happened before. It was a direct link to the Earth plane, and I felt all the negativity humankind had to offer with each horrible image displayed.

I shut my eyes against the horror. Was humanity worth saving? Why not give the world a clean slate to begin over again? But then who would be there to stand against the atrocities of Abaddon and the hordes of Lucifer? Okay––Lucien, I mentally corrected. A rose by any other name––

"Is all well?"

The voice came from behind me. I knew it without looking, but I turned to face him anyway. The Archangel Gabriel stood behind me, studying me closely. Why was everybody watching me with such intent? Did they expect to read my mind? Good luck. I didn't even know what was going on inside of there.

I sighed, turning back to the Gate. The pictures were gone, leaving the surface the same, flat, blank image I had always seen. What, was the Gate now trying to influence my decision, too? Or was it just another trick, courtesy of the angelic host? This whole game was getting really old. I didn't want to play any more.

"I'm fine, Gabriel." I lied, rubbing the tiredness from my eyes. "What do you want?"

"The Thrones have requested your presence."

"Yeah? Let me guess––the fifth trumpet has sounded and they want me to give them an answer." I dropped my hand and looked at him. He frowned. He hadn't been expecting my awareness of the situation.

"Yes."

I threw my hands up in the air. "So lead the way. Don't want to keep them waiting now, do we?"

Gabriel's frown deepened. I could tell he didn't trust my acquiescence. It didn't matter to me. He shouldn't trust it. I was over this whole game of chess. I was no one's pawn.

I was betting the vast sea of faces inside the Hall of Thrones pretty much combined every being that existed within the ranks of the angelic host. There were three other, very intimidating angels to either side of the dais where the Thrones sat. Gabriel took his place among those, so I'd also wager that I was getting to see the core of the Archangel tier for the first time, all members present.

Chaz was waiting near the front, with a very distraught Arianna. Whatever had the cherub all worked up couldn't be good. But she was the least of my troubles right now. I came up and stood next to Chaz, but didn't look at him. My focus was saved for the Thrones.

"The fifth trumpet has sounded." Delphia started in without preliminaries.

I shrugged. "I know. But how long do we have before it is reflected on the Earth plane?"

There was murmuring among the host, I could hear the unhappiness in their voices. Maybe they didn't care for my attitude? To hell with them. I didn't care.

Delphia worked to hold back her anger. I could tell it was some struggle. That was interesting. How angry were angels allowed to get?

"It reflects current events, ones that unfold now."

It took me a moment to realize what she was saying. I glanced around me, but I knew I wouldn't find the one angel I wanted to see. Ke was not present. I couldn't imagine he'd resign himself to the back ranks of the hosts for this meeting. He wasn't here. Shit.

"He went to unlock the Pit."

"Yes."

I sighed. "So what is my next move?"

Delphia tilted her head. "It is the time for choice."

"So what if he and the rest of the Grigori are right?" I looked the head of the Thrones straight in the eye without flinching. "What if this is the only way?"

"You do realize what has happened, do you not?" I didn't like the tone in her voice. Delphia had something up her sleeve.

"Yeah. The whole thing is the beginning of the end. It signals the start of Armageddon."

"The Grigori, Ke, has _used_ you. He has played you like the foolish mortal female that you are."

Okay, this lady was really starting to piss me off.

"You have thrown yourself at him repeatedly." Delphia stated, but I could hear the derision in her voice. "And he has not responded to your advances has he? He probably even gave you some kind of noble excuse, like he did not want to venture into forbidden territory."

Delphia was watching closely for my reaction. I could feel my cheeks grow hot with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. She had brought this up in front of the entire angelic host. I refused to give her any satisfaction, and I certainly didn't want to look around to see what everyone else was thinking. I'd never felt so degraded in my life. I maintained my stare, giving away nothing of the turmoil that raged within me.

"Ke is no different than the rest of the angelic host. He was one of the few among the Grigori that never touched a human. Why do you think he has pushed so hard for you to unbind him? Do you think he wants to be bound to human form? There was no restriction then on your coming together. Why did he still turn you away?"

I _knew_ it. But I didn't comment. My heart felt heavy.

"But most of all, why do you think he encouraged your advances, even while pushing you away?" Delphia's look turned to sly speculation. "Because if he could make you fall in love with him, you would not do what needed to be done to stop him from opening the pit."

"Oh?" I feigned interest. "And what could I do to stop him?"

"It doesn't matter." Delphia backed off. "The time has come for you to make a decision. But it has moved beyond the point of not doing anything. Ke will open the pit. He is on his way there even now. The decision now comes down to whether you will choose to stop him or not."

My laugh was bitter, but pointed. "You can't say it, can you? You are not even allowed to try and put the idea into words, but you would condemn me for making the decision if I did. It is against the natural order to destroy any life form. You can't even tell me that the only way to stop him is to kill him. And why? Angels have killed before. But only upon orders. You can't make that decision. So you want me to. You haven't been given the order to stop him at all cost, have you? Or else you wouldn't be sitting here trying to talk me into committing murder."

"That is not––"

I held up my hand to stop her. "Save it for someone else who might be taken in by your crap. I'm a realist. I'm also human. You have shown me exactly what you think of that, so excuse me if I put little weight in what you think."

That was that. I turned and walked away. I could hear Delphia calling to me. She wanted to know what I would do. Let her wonder. Let them all wonder. I still had no clue.

## Chapter 25

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All my life I worked hard and pretty much did what everyone asked of me. Maybe I would toss in a few embellishments of my own to the task, but hey, if you can't add your personal touch to a situation, then it's not worth doing. You have to feel personal involvement on some level, or you can't put enough heart into it to succeed. I never saw myself as being anything other than what I was––a fighter for the side of good. I didn't do it for the glory, or for some need to play the hero. My fight against the darkness was very personal and had some deep meaning, a driving need even I couldn't pinpoint.

People like Erishkigal, who could make decisions every day from her ivory tower that separated her from the heart of her company––never having to deal with the many people who performed the tasks she directed––it wasn't my style. I could never imagine being so cut off and separated from the people whose very lives and stability rested on the decisions I made. But I had gone and committed a cardinal sin in my profession. I had let it get _too_ personal.

Father David had raised me with the thought of not getting involved with others. It really had nothing to do with the feelings of the church in regards to having sex outside of marriage. It was more of a safety precaution for the safety of the individual I might choose. That was why I had pretty much relegated myself to a life of dealing with immortals on any kind of intimacy level. At least they could protect themselves. They'd been doing it for years.

Chaz was the first mortal to come into my life that brought the whole danger thing home to me. Heck, I wasn't even sure he _was_ mortal––were any of the Nephilim? It wasn't a question I could just come out and ask without having questions raised, so I let it go. But it did make me feel very protective of the kid. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to him because I slipped up. That's why Father David had tried to make that possibility very clear to me. If I had to protect someone else on top of trying to keep my own neck safe, it would hinder my efforts.

Ke was the first guy I had ever allowed to get under my skin the way that he had. To be honest, I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was some kind of past life thing. Maybe it was because he was so-called forbidden fruit. It could even be because he pushed me away. I'm as human as the next person. We always want most what we can't have.

But was it love, or just a strong attraction? I pondered this question as I walked through the gates of the Garden of Eden. Where I was going didn't even cross my mind. I was just walking with my thoughts. So was it a wish of suicide that drew me straight to the Tree of Knowledge? Maybe I hoped run into Lucifer––Lucien again? I don't have a clue, but that's exactly where I ended up.

As I stood there staring up at the Tree, thinking once again how unremarkable it seemed when standing as a whole unit, a voice from off to the side startled me from my thoughts.

"It's really not much to look at, is it?"

I turned to see an angel sitting on the ground a short distance form where I stood. I had never seen a full figured angel before. This guy was quite rotund. And he wasn't a cherub. He had twinkling blue eyes, an impish smile and a ring of white hair that fell past his shoulders, circling a bald spot. A matching, well-trimmed beard and mustache surrounded full, pouty lips. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place–

My eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Didn't I see you at Morpheus' place?"

He laughed, a full belly rumble shaking his frame. "Yes. You caught me by surprise there."

I raised an eyebrow. "An angel with a drug addiction? Or were you following me to keep tabs for the angelic host?"

He shook his head, smiling. "No drug addiction. It only affects me if I let it."

"You must have been letting it that day, you seemed a little glazed."

He never lost his smile. "Yeah. I was taking a rest day. We are allowed, but so many of the angelic host tend to forget that. They take themselves way too seriously."

I laughed. "Really? No kidding." Then I sobered. "So you weren't there to keep tabs on me for the others?"

"Nope. I was there for enjoyment. But I did want to get an up close look at you. I wanted to see how you had come out of the whole ordeal of being dispersed into the web."

I shrugged. "Another blast from the past of Ithane?"

He tilted his head. "You might say that. We had occasion to hang out."

This guy wasn't much like the other angels. He was more of a realist––more down to earth, if that was an appropriate description for an angel. I kind of liked him. Then a thought of Ke flashed through my mind and chilled any warm feelings I might be having. I had kind of _liked_ him, too. Look where that got me.

"What's the problem, child?"

"Child?" I laughed, the bitterness of my emotions bringing my cynicism out into the open. "I don't recall ever having been a child. That would entail days of carefree fun and innocence. I couldn't even begin to tell you what innocence feels like."

The look he gave me was commiserating. He nodded sagely. "I do understand that feeling. More than you might think."

I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. I wasn't dealing well with someone who agreed with me. I needed to snap myself out of this emotional state and resign myself to the task at hand. The thought made me suspicious.

"Are you here to make another play for the angels' side of things in all of this?"

He shook his head. "No. They've botched it up enough on their own. Besides, is there anything I could say that would sway you in one way or the other?"

I laughed. "Probably not, but that hasn't stopped any of them from trying so far."

"They have cut themselves off from the very thing they are trying to protect." The amiable angel seemed both sad and serious. "They match too well the people below, without even realizing how human they have become themselves."

"As above, so below?" I asked. Thoughts of Erishkigal came back. "It is a lot like the CEOs of the big corporations, isn't it? They sit up in their offices, disconnected from the people. Without those people, there would be no company, no production, and yet they give little or no thought to them except to think of them in terms being inferior––or worse, as only a number––not as the living, breathing, feeling beings they are."

"In your decision process, how much thought have you given to the people below? How much thought have you given to them in terms of being living, breathing human beings?"

"A lot in some areas, maybe not enough in others." I looked to the Tree. I had spoken to Sarge, and much in the sense to get the perspective of another human that was aware of the situation. But how much thought had I given to the millions of people whose lives would be effected by my decision, beyond the selfish thought that I didn't want to be the one to make the decision? I was as guilty as any of the others in that.

"Follow your heart, Yeshua Star. It will never guide you wrong."

I nodded with a wry smile, turning back to look at the angel. He was gone, just vanished without a trace. Could angels do that? I had only thought of them in terms of flying, or walking––not of disappearing into thin air. There I go again, trying to apply physical meaning to the non-physical. But he had given me a lot to think about. The problem was, I was past the stage of thinking. It was a luxury I could no longer afford. It was time for action. With a heavy sigh, I moved away from the Tree and headed out of the Garden.

My steps led me back to the apartment. I needed to find Chaz. He was right where I thought he would be. Arianna was there with him, looking even more miserable than she had in the Hall of Thrones. The cherub looked up with tears in her eyes and threw herself into my arms.

"Yeshua, I am so sorry. They made me do it. They ordered me to do it."

I froze, my thoughts turning to ice. "What did they make you do? Who made you do what?"

"The Thrones," she sobbed, holding me tighter. "They told me to make sure you and Ke got left alone a lot. They wanted you to have time to get to know him. They–"

_Oh they did, did they?_ But I didn't say it out loud. Chaz caught the look in my eye. It was my dangerous look, the one that glittered with promised retribution. His eyes grew wide. I loosened the cherub's hold on me and dropped down to one knee, bringing me to eye level with the little angel.

"Listen, Arianna." I used a finger to tilt her face to mine, making her look me in the eye. "The next time something like this goes down, I need for you to let me know. Don't ever become like those unfeeling creatures that mess with people's heads. Do you understand?"

She nodded, the tears still bright in her eyes.

"I'm not blaming you. My feelings developed of their own free will. No one forced me into feeling the way I do. Heck, I don't even know what I'm feeling right now. Foolish? Certainly. Betrayed? Most definitely. But I wouldn't be feeling that way if I hadn't let my emotions go where they did in the first place. They only put the bait in front of me. I could've have chosen not to take it."

I gave her a quick hug. It wasn't something I knew how to do, so my actions were stiff. But I think she got the idea. I came back to my feet, turning my attention to Chaz.

"Look, kid–"

"You're leaving." His tone was flat.

I nodded. "Yes."

"Are you going to stop Ke?"

"That's the plan."

"Do you think––?" He shook his head. "Never mind, Yesh. I know whatever decision you make it will be the right one."

"Thanks, kid. I'm glad that you've been in my corner." I blinked rapidly, trying to swallow past the growing lump in my throat.

"It ain't over 'til it's over, Yesh." He gave me a lopsided grin. "Don't talk like it's already over."

I tried to smile, but it probably didn't come out that way. "I'm a realist, Chaz. There's not much of a chance I'll be coming back from this one."

"You'll come back, Yesh. You're not done yet."

"What? You think I have more crap to live through?"

"Penance, Yesh. You haven't finished making up for all your mistakes yet."

My laugh was genuine. "Gee, thanks for giving me something to look forward to." But I sobered. "Listen, kid. After I leave, have Arianna here take you to someone who can get you back to Earth. Don't hang out here with these angels. No one deserves that kind of purgatory."

Arianna was nodding, wide-eyed, as though I had just issued her marching orders. Good. She'd take care of him.

"Go to Father David and tell him––" I frowned. "Heck, tell him to get ready, Chaz. He already has a clue. Let him be as prepared as he can. Stand by his side, Chaz. You're both going to need each other, whatever comes next."

"Stop it, Yesh." He snapped at me, but I could tell his anger was only a cover up for the pain reflected in his eyes. "Stop talking as if you're done. You are _not_ done. If you keep that attitude, you _will_ be done. Isn't that what you told me back when you found me? You made me fight for life, Yesh, when I didn't want to live any more. Well, back at you."

I had to turn away. The tears were starting to burn my eyes. Leave it to the kid to throw _that_ back in my face.

"Take care, kid." I said in a hoarse whisper as I headed toward the door.

"Back atcha."

I allowed myself the luxury of a few minutes of wallowing before I sucked it up and picked up the pace, going to the one place I had to be. I felt a presence fall in beside me, matching me step for step. I didn't have to look

"What do you want, Gabriel? Or are you my own private watch dog?"

"No. I am here on my own."

"Of your own free will?" My laugh came out as a sharp bark. "That's rich."

"Yeshua––"

"Save it, Gabe. I'm heading down to do what is necessary."

We were coming up the hill to the Thirteenth Gate. I could see it looming into view, my nightmare and my destiny all rolled into one. Even if it was my destiny, I can't imagine it would ever be more than an object of my nightmares. When we reached the Gate, there was a moment of silence while we both stood lost in our individual thoughts.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to face the Archangel with a sigh. "I'm going to ask you again, Gabriel––what do you want?"

Gabriel's face was twisted with emotion. If I didn't know better, I would've thought it was regret. I didn't know angels could feel regret.

"Yeshua, I do not agree with the actions of the Thrones and what they did to you." He looked away. "I wanted you to know that."

I sighed again, but deeper this time, taking a few moments to release my anger and all other emotions, blowing the air out slowly. "Gabriel, it has been brought home to me time and time again that humans have free will, while the angels do not."

He nodded, but still wouldn't look at me.

"Okay, so ask yourself this––If the Thrones have no free will, and have to act on following the flows of the pattern, does it not then stand that this was supposed to happen?"

He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

I nodded. "I know. What a concept. I would love to rant and rail against fate and the future, whatever other kind of mess is thrown at me. But the fact is, while they could've handled it in a _much_ better way, all of this was meant to be. They did nothing that wasn't against the pattern. They couldn't have––they don't have that capability."

Gabriel nodded, but he still looked unhappy. "You are very generous for a human."

I laughed. "Generous? No. I am very selfish. I keep trying to tell you all that, but no one seems to want to listen. But I am a realist, Gabriel. Whatever is meant to happen, will happen."

Gabriel turned back to me, his look intent. "But don't you see, Yeshua? _You_ can change what is meant to happen."

I shrugged. "Well I guess it's a crap shoot then, isn't it? No matter what I do, how will you all know whether it was meant to happen, or if I changed what was supposed to happen? My decision affects the outcome for all existence, as we know it. It sucks to be me, don't you think?"

"From what I have seen so far, Yeshua Star, I could not have chosen a better champion for humanity than you are."

"Thanks, Gabe." That was quite the compliment, all things considered. My chuckle was lost with anything more I would have said as the flat, blank surface of the Gate began to churn with blurred, swirling images. "What the––?"

The pictures became more distinct, becoming forms instead of blobs. When they took the final shape, my blood ran cold. I was looking at one of the largest metropolis areas on Earth. In the background, flames and smoke were billowing like grey-black cotton candy from a tower. While I watched, I could see a plane circling in. It was too evident, from this vantage point, what its intention was. I held out my hand as though I could pluck it out of the air, but it didn't stop the horror of what happened next. It slammed into an identical twin tower standing next to the first, adding more flames and smoke to the curling darkness that blanketed the sky.

The first tower began to collapse. I thought I was going to puke. All those people––

"It has begun." Gabriel's voice was hoarse with emotion and shock.

"But the other signs haven't manifested on the physical." I could feel the hysteria creeping into my voice. This couldn't be happening. "How can this one show up before the others?"

Gabriel shook his head. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the unfolding nightmare of tragedy any more than I could. "It does not work like that. The other signs may show up tomorrow, or even years from now. It is enough that they have manifested in the ethers."

My stomach churning, I squared my shoulders. "I have to go, Gabriel."

"I will take you––"

I shook my head. "No. I have to do this on my own."

"Yeshua, you don't–"

"Goodbye, Gabriel." Without looking back at the Archangel, I threw myself into the Gate.

## Chapter 26

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There are times when you take the time and think things through and then make the best decision you can with the information at hand. I had probably wasted a lot of the time I'd wandering around in a fog of confusion, whining the mantra of the victim in my mind, _Why is this happening to me?_

Then there are the times where you jump in with both feet to get wet and find the water is icy cold. This is compounded when you have grown so distrustful of those who might have tried to warn you that things might not be as they appeared. Those are the times when you look at your situation and realize you are in some deep shit. Not that the Angels had given me any real cause to trust them, but Gabriel had tried to extend the hand of, well, I wouldn't call it friendship, but it might qualify as a hand of truce. I'm pretty sure that when he called out to me at the last, it was in warning. I should have listened.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Isn't that the cyclic round of self-flagellation that strikes us when we realize we have made a big mistake at great cost? The stakes were pretty high on this one, and there wasn't a whole lot to be done about it now. There should have been a warning printed at the bottom of the Thirteenth Gate, one of those " _Objects in the rearview mirror may not be as close as you think_ " type of deals. I had thought that going through the Gate would be the same as I had arrived––just stepping through from one scene to the next. There I go thinking again. The Angelic Host had obviously neglected to give me the proper password.

As I tumbled through the air, all of these thoughts passed through my mind. Judging from the distance I had to go before I hit the ground, I probably had a couple of minutes. Then it would be a good solid, splat. I had to be tens of thousands of feet––miles above the Earth. As I keep trying to convince myself and everyone else around me, I am a realist. So I needed to get real. Gabriel knew I had thrown myself in Hair Kari fashion from the Gate. I guess I was going to find out just how much the Angels really cared about whether I succeeded in my task or not. He would either swoop in to spare me the inevitable end I was being faced with, or he wouldn't. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room on this one.

They say that when faced with death, a lifetime of memories will flash before your eyes. I didn't have that many memories that I wanted to revisit. Since I had had so little real joy in life, I decided to take a moment to relax enjoy the last few minutes I had, if that's how it was going to be. I had never been one to spend my life in worry, I just did. The one thing I'd always craved to experience was the feeling of flight. So be it. Here I was, miles above my impact point. If I could pass the issue of landing, I could at least try to enjoy the flight.

I closed my eyes, giving into the feeling of the air rushing against my face, cold and stinging, whipping my hair around. Spreading my arms, I gave in further to the illusion and felt them pushed upward in a fight against the force of the wind. It was exhilarating. The same thought crossed my mind as earlier when I saw Angels walking the streets of the Crystal City. If I had wings, I would never walk. This was the only true method of transportation.

Not one to give into make-believe, I allowed myself a flight into imagination. For one brief moment in time, while I was suspended in a free fall out of my control, I allowed myself to believe I really was flying, that I was in control with wings to carry me wherever I might wish to go. I felt a pull at my back and opened my eyes in a brief moment of surprise. My fall had slowed and seemed more under control. I was not just heading downward, I was moving forward, toward the smoke and destruction, toward my ultimate destination.

"It's good to know you've got my back." I called out flippantly to Gabriel. I knew he'd caught me, saved me from my headlong plunge into foolishness. "What took you so long?"

To his credit, he didn't respond. That was fine by me. I wasn't much in the mood for a lecture. But I was still flying. Maybe it wasn't under the power of my imagination, but I still allowed myself to indulge in the sheer freedom of it. I _knew_ it would be like this. Having the fantasy become reality certainly didn't disappoint me.

Just as the mirrored surface of the Gate had zoomed in to show the metropolis from a distance and getting closer, so we flew in, the haze of smoke and blurriness taking on the forms of buildings that reached upward like fingers into the sky. Gabriel took us on a flight path leading directly into the heart of blackness, the curling dark formless smoke that formed a catchall net to the surrounding city. Weaving in and out of the buildings in our way, we finally reached our destination.

The ground was coming up a little fast for my taste, but I trusted the Archangel knew what he was doing. I let my feet drop down, to catch the weight of my body as I felt the solid earth once again under my feet. Maybe I shouldn't have been that trusting. Maybe Gabriel was trying to teach me a lesson for my foolishness. But I hit the ground at a solid run, the force jarring my entire body with the pain of impact. The momentum was too fast for my body to compensate. I stumbled and fell. Pain struck me from several places at once.

When I rolled to a stop, I took a moment to draw a few deep breaths. Taking stock by flexing various parts of my body an inch at a time, I assessed the damage. My hands were scraped and bloody. They stung like hell. I had a couple of bruised, if not broken ribs. My left shoulder was definitely bruised, and I shifted it around a little to make sure it wasn't dislocated. Nope. I was good, relatively speaking.

My leathers were torn at the knee. Bringing it slowly into view, I saw that the knee was as bloody as my hands. I pulled at the torn edges of the leather. Damn. That was beyond repair. I wondered if I could bill the Angelic Host for a new pair? I tried to get to my feet. A sharp pain ran through my ankle and I almost fell again. Okay, maybe a sprain? I wiggled my toes. Yeah, it wasn't broken. But it hurt like hell to work my way to my feet.

By the time I was standing, I had also worked myself up to being good and pissed off. A lesson was one thing, but this was just plain cruel. I wasn't sure I had a chance to fight this fight at full strength. Being this damaged wasn't improving the odds. I turned to give Gabriel a solid dose of my temper, but he wasn't there. I whipped around and then started searching the sky for his retreat. I didn't see him there, either. That pissed me off even more. If I came out of this alive, I was going to track that arrogant Angel down and give him a piece of my mind. Maybe even a good solid thumping. I wonder if there would be any heavenly repercussions for kicking the ass of an Archangel?

I finally settled down enough to focus on the task at hand. My head hurt and my ears were ringing. It took me a bit to figure out that the ringing wasn't inside my head––it was coming from all around me. The devastation surrounding me was horrendous. I can't even begin to describe the level of tragedy. Sirens, alarms, bells, screaming, crying––that was what was causing the ringing in my ears. I couldn't even begin to take in all of the sounds at once, let alone sort them out.

Many authors throughout time have written of the pits of Hell, the crying, wailing, gnashing of teeth, the tragedy, and the sheer horror of it all. They didn't even come close to describing this Hell on Earth. I went to step forward, toward the center of the devastation and stopped myself. The meeting with the strange Angel in the Garden came back to me. The fight I was about to walk into was not just about me and getting the job done, it was about this––all these people around me, their pain, their suffering, and how much more they would be experiencing if I didn't succeed in what I needed to do.

The Angel was right, as much as I wanted to shut them out and head straight into the fray. I couldn't let them become just numbers in a battle against the darkness. They were real. They were what this fight was all about. So I took the time––time for them. I opened my senses to the devastation, to their pain, their terror, their sorrow and their confusion. For the first time in my life, I let myself feel from others what I never took the time to feel for myself––what it truly meant to be helpless, what it truly meant to be human.

It almost took me to my knees. I staggered back, blasted by the overwhelming waves of emotion that struck me, battering against my senses. And it overrode every ounce of determination I had. How could I fight the fight? I wasn't prepared. I was nothing. The fear wrapped around me, tightened down by the sorrow. I couldn't do this. What was I thinking?

Part of me already fought. It fought a losing battle against the overpowering despair of my own mortality, of my own humanity. I wanted to drop to the ground here and now and curl up into a little ball. I couldn't fight this battle. I didn't have the strength.

I tried to lock out the emotions, to shut off what I had turned on inside of me. But it was more powerful than I was, so instead I gave into the feeling. Closing my eyes, I let the tears of desolation stream down my face. I shivered in uncontrollable fear. I let it all come in, wash over me, take me deeper into the abyss that I knew I could never climb out of on my own.

But I didn't have to. Another feeling rose through the massive waves of fear. It was surrounded by fear, but it had strength at its core, determination. I clung to that feeling, following it where it would take me. It didn't only come from one source. It came from many. I gathered each one as I found them, pulled them together into a unifying whole to battle the waves of darkness.

There was a common thread running through them all. The fear was there, as strong as what I felt from all the others. But there was a determination, too, a struggle to fight for as many lives as could be saved. The fear was there for their personal safety, but riding the wave in top of that fear, overshadowing it, was the fear for the safety of others. It wasn't because they had to save others. It wasn't because a demand was there to put the lives of others before their own. It wasn't even because they consciously thought about what they were doing. They just did what needed to be done without thought, with only a driving need to do what was right.

These were the true angels, the best of humanity brought out in the midst of adversity. No higher being could touch the selflessness of humanity when it struggled to tip the balance of light back against the darkness. This was what free will and the true experience of humanity was all about. It warmed me, and I drew on it. They were fighting the fight, knowing the odds were against them. That was the same fight I needed to take to the doorstep of the Abyss itself. And I was ready now to do it, no matter what the end. This fight wasn't for me. It was for them. How could I show any less dedication to the salvation of as many lives as I could save from what was to come?

I filtered the emotions out, all except those that gave me the strength to see me through. Then I reached out with a different set of senses, feeling, probing, and searching for––there it was. It was a small feeling, but one enough for me to go on. I could feel the heart of the darkness. It touched me at the core, but I closed off the feelings of strength from its contact. That strength was for those who deserved it. No one else could be allowed to take that from them.

The feeling came from below the pile of devastation. Both buildings had crumbled into piles of burning rubble. The fighters, those who had the strength to make a difference were helping those without strength of their own to get away. Some went into the piles of debris to drag others out. Some went in and never came back. They knew the risk, and took it anyway. Now it was my turn to do the same.

I wouldn't be able to get to where I needed to go from where I was at now. Walking into those downed buildings was not an option. I looked around for another access and found it in the subway tunnels that ran under the city. It would be the only way in, if they weren't already blocked to allow me passage.

I walked to the nearest access point and stopped before heading inside. I spared a last single look for the devastation behind me. In the clouds of smoke that poured upward into the sky, I saw a face looking down. His wings spread out behind him, the Archangel Gabriel looked at me and smiled. It was a grim smile, but one meant to offer encouragement. I'd have to explain to him about bedside manners if I got the chance when this was all through.

Then it was down into the darkness for me. It wasn't as dark as I first thought it would be. The burning embers from crumpled structure blazed to life in various stages throughout my descent. The air burned my lungs. It was thick, acrid, and bitter to the taste. My eyes stung, too, the dust trying to settle in and take hold of my vision. When I reached the bottom, I wasn't sure what to do next. So many ways were blocked by fallen debris. Maybe this hadn't been the best idea?

I stepped over beams and concrete, working my way to the subway tracks. Looking down the dark tunnel I could see that it, too, was almost completely blocked. A light flared, another fire coming to life. It showed me the way, a small space, barely large enough for a person to get through, became visible in the dancing shadows cast by the light of the flame. I hopped down onto the tracks. A rumble shook the ground, another explosion going off somewhere above. Showers of dust, debris and chunks of stone crashed down around me, but none of them connected. I was lucky, or maybe some Guardian Angel was watching over me. Not likely. I'm guessing luck.

When the rumbling settled, I could see that the opening was still there, calling to me. I still had my senses open, and I followed the call further into the darkness. I'm not sure how long I walked before I came to a dead end. I looked at the wall of a crumpled building in front of me, hoping to see a way through, as I had before. Now what?

Another light caught my eye, this time to my right. It was a passageway, barely discernible in the darkness, but it showed me the way past the blockage. And the call was getting stronger with each step that I took. This tunnel was different than that of the subway. It was sculpted, not natural by any means. I'm betting that it was created eons ago and that I was probably the first human to set eyes on it since. Well, maybe not. Ke was in human form now––did that count?

The passage wound its way down into the darkness. It had held against the destruction above, and was lit with some kind of glow. I couldn't find the source of the light, but it reminded me vaguely of the indigo blue of the Crystal City. Maybe it had the same power source. I followed the sloped tunnel down, feeling the pull of the heart of the darkness reaching out to me. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, I don't know, but it was taking me to the place where I needed to be and that's all I had time to think about right now.

When I reached the bottom, the passage opened into a huge, dark, cavernous chamber. Best guess? I had reached my destination. The walls were of large cut stone, neatly built into a solid space to hold the earth above from crashing down and burying the opening. Ancient symbols adorned those walls, in glittering silver and gold. I thought I recognized some of them, but others were totally alien. It was the archeological find of the century––perhaps in recorded history. But that's not what I was here for.

Against one wall, at the far end of the room from where I stood, there was a Gate, much like the Thirteenth Gate of the Crystal City. The site of it made my throat close, and I found myself fighting for air. Where the Thirteenth Gate was a frame if interweaving, moving colors, this was pure black. It still moved, but it was more the roiling movement of an oil slick. The surface was the same. Unlike the flat, mirror-like surface of the Gate I knew in the Crystal City, this one matched the frame, the thick darkness oozing first one way and then the next, constantly flowing.

And in front of the Gate was Ke. He had his back to me, staring at the surface of the Gate as though mesmerized by the shifting patterns of blackness. I saw his head tilt, listening for the sounds in the room. He knew I was here.

"I wasn't sure whether or not you would come."

I took the last step down to the flat floor and started a slow walk toward the Gate. "You knew that I would."

"Have you made your decision, then?" He turned to face me. I think he wanted to see the expression on my face when I gave him the answer. I know that's what I'd be looking for if our positions were reversed.

I shrugged. "I'm here, aren't I?"

He was staring at me, but it wasn't to gauge my response. A look of surprise, maybe even shock was what I saw in his eyes.

"You're an Angel." He whispered.

That pissed me off. The Thrones were right. He was only playing games with me. As raw as my emotional state was right now, I couldn't deal with it.

"Cut the crap, Ke. I know what you've been trying to do, and it isn't going to work. I––"

He shook his head, pointing behind me. "No, Yeshua. You have wings. How––?"

That stopped me. Wings? I turned my head to look behind me, twisting my body to get a better look. He was right. I did have wings. How the hell did that happen?

## Chapter 27

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The wings folded behind me, tucked out of the way. They weren't the feathery wings of the angels, or even the butterfly wings that the cherubs had. These wings, though perfectly formed, were made of light. A dim glow emanated from the surface, casting the area around me into the shadow of an indigo light. It wasn't a light source from the Crystal City that followed me through the tunnels on my way down here––it had been my wings.

They were translucent to the point of not even seeming real. I reached out and stroked the surface of the left one. It was real all right, but it had an odd feel to it, soft but almost spongy. Huh. Gabriel hadn't caused that spectacular mess of a landing upstairs. It was my fault. A cold wave of thought washed through me. What would have happened if–?

I shook the thought away. I'd had enough of the shoulda, woulda, couldas. It was time for action. A movement caught my attention. Ke was moving closer. Another thought jumped to mind. Here was a guy used to seeing angelic wings. Heck, he had a set of his own. So why was he so mesmerized by mine? How was I going to be able to go back to living among my own kind? I'm thinking these things would sort of stand out at a coffee house or grocery store.

Did that mean I had to live with the angels in the Crystal City? Shit. _That_ was not on my agenda. Was I still human? I didn't feel any different. These wings were going to get me in a lot of trouble. Could I make them go away? As though on cue, I could feel a shifting at my shoulders. I turned just in time to see the indigo blue surface folding down into my back. I moved my shoulders, testing a little. They were still there, but were hidden from view. Cool. That could be handy.

Now it was time to deal with the other angelic issue confronting me. Ke had his hand out in front of him, as though to reach out and touch me. I took a step back, shaking my head.

"What? So now that I have an extra pair of appendages, you decide it's all right for you to touch me? Uh-uh. It doesn't work that way, angel boy."

Ke dropped his hand, looking confused. "No––I––" He stopped, shaking his head. "It is not like that."

"Oh?" I raised my eyebrows pointedly. "And how _is_ it like? Answer me this––is your eyes, is it now _okay_ for us to be together?"

Men were pretty dense sometimes when it came to women. Angelic males were obviously more so. He didn't catch the warning tone in my voice. Not my fault, I was giving him every opportunity. His own words buried him.

"Of course it would be okay––as long as you are of the angelic realm again, there is no taboo."

"Wrong answer, Ke."

I shook my head, seemingly to argue his words. For me it was a clearing action, trying to make the hurt go away. My eyes burned, but it wasn't from the dust any more. Damn it. I wasn't going to cry. This guy certainly wasn't worth it.

Ke looked confused. He really didn't get it.

"Yeshua––"

My eyes closed, to block out the sight of him. "You have become a lot more human than you realize Ke. And to top it all off, you managed to latch onto one of the ugliest of human emotions as far as I'm concerned––prejudice. All of you angels seem to be guilty of it."

He was frowning. "I am not prejudiced––"

"Really? You would take me now that you feel I meet your standards. But you wouldn't touch me before––I wasn't worthy in your eyes."

"Worthy?" Ke's voice held a bitter laugh. "You do not understand at all, do you? Angels may live in the higher realms away from all the dregs of darkness that humans have to deal with, but it is not because the _humans_ are not worthy. It is because the angels are less than humanity in many ways."

Okay. That caught me off guard. "What do you mean?"

"Humans are the ones with the hard job, Yeshua. They have to not only deal with the darkness on a continual basis, they have to fight it and survive amidst overwhelming odds, and they do almost every time."

I thought about the people on the surface, those ones whose strength called to me and gave me the courage to face my own ordeal.

"Angels are not equipped to deal with the darkness. That is why Adam and Eve were created. There is always a balance. Darkness and light. It has to stay in balance, without one side taking over the other. If either side takes a stronger hold, the pattern begins to unravel. When Lucifer gave Eve the knowledge, it gave humans the upper hand. They understood both darkness and light. Angels do not have that understanding."

"So you are on the side of Lucien, then?" I was getting confused.

"No. I am on the side of balance." He stopped, shaking his head. "I do not know how to make you understand, Yeshua. I only do what has to be done."

Ke turned away from me and started toward the Obsidian Gate that led to the pit of the Abyss. I was way too confused to deal with this. But when Ke reached the short set of stairs leading to the surface of the Gate, I had to do something to buy me more time to sort through it all. So I did what humans did best in the face of adversity. I panicked.

"No!" The shout came and I reached out my hand.

Violet light shot from my fingers and hit Ke, knocking him away from the Gate. I stared at my hand as though it were an alien thing. I felt a warming on my chest. It was the amulet Marduk had activated on my behalf. What had he said–? _This will only help to bring to the surface that which you need to know_. I guess I'd needed to know that. There wasn't going to be any warning with this thing, was there? It was handy, but I could see it being a dangerous bit of help.

Ke was picking himself up off the floor. He seemed as surprised as I was. But he also held a look of resolution. His eyes were dark with warning.

"Do not make me fight you, Yeshua."

"Then back off, Ke."

I didn't _want_ to fight him. I wasn't sure if I could pull that trick out of the hat again. Pressing my luck did not seem to be the best way to proceed. It didn't seem as though he were going to give me a choice. He started toward the Gate again.

I flung out my hand again and the violet energy surged outward, flying toward Ke. At the last instant, he turned. Blue energy flared from his hand, hitting my violet ball and ricocheted it back toward me. It caught me totally by surprise, flinging me back to hit the stone wall. My eyes widened in a mixture of pain and shock. _That_ hurt. It also meant the kid gloves had come off. The fight had begun.

Another blast of violet energy headed his way, a line this time instead of a ball. Ke was lifted from the floor to hang, suspended in the center of the room. Well, that was a new one. He recovered quicker than I did from the shock.

A blast of blue energy surged like feedback down the glowing violet line. I saw it coming, but didn't know how to stop it. I guess the amulet had a mind of its own as to what I did and did not need to know. The blue energy contacted my body, breaking the connection and sending me staggering for balance. Ke dropped to the floor. I saw him wince. Good. He was feeling a little pain, too.

The battle raged on between us––attacks, counter-attacks, ball, lines, and explosions of blue and violet energy all lighting the room like Fourth of July fireworks. I was hurting a lot, but I was also getting tired. The only redemption I found was that he seemed worse off than I was. It puzzled me at first, but then I finally understood.

I was used to dealing with this energy being flung at me from beings that knew how to use it. The creatures I had fought against over the years dealt me the same hurt. I was used to it. Ke, new to his human form, was not. I was actually winning the fight.

Once that realization hit me, I blasted him with everything I could. That was another advantage, perhaps for me. He was used to wielding the energy. I wasn't. Instead of draining me, it was making me as power drunk as I was in the presence of most of the immortals. I was high on pure energy.

It was a struggle, but I knew that I would win. It became especially clear to me when Ke dropped one last time to the foot of the stairs and didn't get back up. With a ball of energy in my hand, I advanced on him. My moves were cautious. I didn't know if he was faking it, or if he was really in that bad of shape.

I reached the place where he lay crumpled on the ground, his breathing heavy and ragged. When I stopped, just out of his reach, he looked up at me. His eyes held pain, but that old look of longing was still there. It dawned on me that the Thrones had it wrong. I finally understood what Ke was trying to tell me earlier. His prejudice hadn't been against my being a human. He loved me in either form. He kept himself from me because he hadn't felt worthy.

The light in my hand flickered and died out. I was back to being lost again. What was I supposed to do now?

"Why do you not finish it?"

I shook my head. I wasn't ready to answer that one. "Why do you feel this is the best solution for humanity, Ke?"

"Because humans are the only ones with the strength enough to fight against the darkness, Yeshua. If Abaddon is released, no matter what else happens, it will be humankind that will have to turn back the tides of darkness. The angels are not prepared."

I laughed, but the sound was hollow. "You don't get it, do you? Have you looked around you lately? There is darkness all over the world. Humans give in to that darkness _willingly_. They are more likely to side with Abaddon at this point."

Ke shook his head. "No. I do not believe that. They rise up against the darkness. It is what bands them together against a common enemy. The darkness makes them strong. They have the strength to fight this battle. It will come to them anyway, no matter what we do here."

"Isn't the Crystal City evidence enough for you that the darkness of humanity is taking over? The angels are beginning to act like the humans. Their darkness is coming out because they reflect what happens down here. Humanity isn't fighting the darkness any more, Ke, they embrace it."

"This will happen one way or another, Yeshua. I am only working to give us a chance in the upcoming battle. If we can control the breach, then we can mend it."

"You've got to be kidding me. If Abaddon and his hordes pop through that Gate right now, who is going to stop them? You? You can't even stand on your own two feet. Me? Not likely––I have no clue as to what I'm doing. It _frees_ them, Ke. They will be loose on the earth, and Armageddon begins. Is that what you want for humanity? It seems to me that means their destruction, not their salvation."

Ke was still shaking his head. "No. I do not believe that. They can win this battle–"

He was fading. I could see it. It hurt me to do so, but I turned my back on him. He had a lot more faith in humanity than I did. But he hadn't lived among them. I had. Oh, there was strength to be found, he was right about that. But there was also weakness, corruption, and darkness. This could not possibly be won. Maybe Abaddon would break free from the pit some day. When he did, humanity would have to deal with it then. I was just buying them a little more time.

I started walking away. "It is finished for now, Ke. There will come another time to deal with all of this. For now, the battle is over."

I should have been paying attention, but I wasn't. Through the silence, as I crossed the floor, Ke's voice was clear.

"This battle is over, Yeshua Star, but the war only now begins."

I froze in place, turning slowly back to look at him. Ke had crawled up the stairs to the surface of the Gate. He gave me a silent look of pride, and sadness. I think it was his way of saying goodbye.

I started to move again, but it seemed as though time had slowed to a crawl. I watched in horror as Ke lifted his hand to the surface of the Obsidian Gate. Blue energy built at the center and spread outward from where his hand rested. I lifted my hand to stop him, but nothing came out. I shook it, trying to get the damn thing to work. Nothing happened.

The blue energy had barely reached the edges of the Gate, covering it in a pulsating glow when the whole surface bulged outward, and then erupted. For a moment, the room was still and quiet. Then a humming filled the air, growing in intensity to a throbbing, beating headache of a noise coming from the shattered surface of the Gate. My mind idly found the biblical passage, _and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle_.

My eyes found Ke's and stared at him in disbelief. He had better be right in all of his assumptions. Abaddon was headed our way and he was not alone.

## Chapter 28

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Ke stumbled down the stairs, backing away from the oncoming hordes. Without taking his eyes from the Gate, he kept scrambling backward, propelling himself on his hands and feet until he backed up against a wall and couldn't go any further. The noise grew to deafening levels. I wanted to put my hands over my ears to shut it out, but I couldn't afford the distraction of tying up my hands.

Then it stopped. Silence blanketed the air in place of the noise. Nothing happened. I raised an eyebrow to Ke, who continued to watch the Gate. But it wasn't the kind of quiet that said "everything's over here, folks, move it along". It was the calm before the storm when even time seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of what was coming.

Black, oily smoke exploded from the Gate, pushing away any pieces left of the surface. The Gate was fully opened, with nothing to block the way of what had been held back inside for so many millennia. I recognized the blackness, if that made any sense. It wasn't the recognition of sight, even though I had seen it so many times before in my dreams in front of a different Gate. It was more of a feeling––a feeling of something very, very wrong. The essence of wrongness flooded the room with tangibility.

In this lifetime, I have encountered dark forces. Hey––I had even come face to face with Lucifer himself. He was supposed to be the big bad and yet he hadn't felt that different from any of the other Angels I had dealt with at that point. In fact, in some ways he had even been more pleasant, part of his overall mojo as the Great Tempter was my guess. But this _thing_ called Abaddon? There were not even words to describe what the heart of true evil feels like. It was oily and dry at the same time. The dryness chafed at your very core, rubbing it raw, while the oily slickness filled up every part of you, encasing it in a suffocating feeling of malevolence, bringing every dark emotion attributed to the nature of humanity to the surface.

Abaddon was quick to assess the situation. I guess you have a lot of time for figuring out all the angles of a great escape when you've been locked away with nothing to do but think for thousands of years. He probed me for only a fraction of a second, before dismissing me as an unimportant first step. It was obvious that he perceived Ke as the greater threat. Maybe my first clue was when he lunged directly at the Angel bound in human form.

To give Ke some credit in all of this, he didn't panic. He didn't even flinch. His head came up with pride and he gave me a quick, parting glance that said _goodbye_ from the depth of emotion in his eyes. It pissed me off. He had gone through all of the trouble to unleash this thing for the _benefit_ of humanity's survival, knowing he probably wouldn't be around to deal with the fallout.

That wasn't going to happen if I could help it. I didn't really stop to think about my motives. There were too many to really take the time to consider. I couldn't let Abaddon destroy Ke. I flung my hand toward Abaddon with instinctive precision. The huge, oily form of darkness was thrown back toward the Gate.

His focus came back to me with furious intensity. I must have changed his mind about the threat assessment he had gone through. But his attention was no longer on Ke. It was for me alone. It was common for me to be flippant at this stage of a fight. I loved to throw in a little sarcasm to piss the other guy off, and to encourage confidence in myself I wasn't really feeling at the moment. It wasn't there this time. I was on my own without sarcastic wit, without any really back up, or even any clue as to what I was doing.

The warmth of Marduk's amulet heated to greater levels at my chest. It suddenly dawned on me that the object had been given to me in the dreamscape. I had never even realized it had come with me from out of that realm and into the physical realm. The thought of the power behind that bit of work caught me so off-guard I almost missed the start of Abaddon's first rush in my direction.

My reaction was instantaneous, although I'm not sure I can claim total credit. Both of my arms came up at the same time with power flaring at my hands. He was flung backward from me, landing to coalesce into more solid form at the foot of the Gate. Energy flared from the amulet, a violet energy with interweaving colors of the rainbow mixed in to strengthen and solidify the force that surrounded me.

My surprise was overwhelming, but I didn't have time to contemplate the source. Abaddon's scream of outrage filled the chamber. It wasn't a noise to be heard by human ears, but it vibrated anger and hatred that resonated within me, bringing to life my own deep, dark feelings.

I was always the type to keep my emotions under tight wraps. Everything that had happened within the last couple of weeks had opened me to feelings I had never dealt with before. The feelings of my inner darkness being exposed had me really thrown. I'd never realized my capacity for such dark emotions. As a human, I had recognized the potential, but never imagined the primal energy this brought to the surface.

The big problem was that the feeling of it nauseated me and I lost control of the energy I was holding. It wasn't for long, but it was time enough for Abaddon to make his move. He swooped in toward me with full force while I was at my most vulnerable. Before I could bring my energy up to stop him, I was launched across the room with the impact of his form against mine. I hit the far wall halfway up the height and slid down the surface to land in a dazed heap on the floor.

Stars exploded in my head and a brief image of the Angelic observatory flashed through my mind, the planets swirling around me in the misty fog of unaware pain. Okay, _that_ had hurt. The breath was knocked out of me, and I was fighting for consciousness. There were definite disadvantages to fighting on the physical plane. I couldn't seem to rally to force as quickly as I did when I fought on the dreamscape. This was not pain I could ignore and jump right back up again.

The medallion heated up on my chest and brought me back to awareness, feeding me a surge of energy. I dawned on me that the medallion had come from the dreamscape and was helping to fight the fight on the physical. What was so different between the two realms? They were both just as real as the perceptions you allowed. I knew the dreamscape was insubstantial, yet I fought in it the same way I fought in the physical. I just needed a little carry over in my thoughts. The medallion was that carry over, my reminder.

Abaddon surged toward me again. The time for thinking was over. It was time for action. Instead of thrusting him backward, I met him head on, force to force. We both fell back against the connection. I wanted to smile. Good. He had felt that. I tried to ignore the part where I had felt it, too––like running headfirst into a brick wall, but you do what you have to do.

The game was on. Abaddon and I met again and again, pushing, slamming, pounding, and battering each other with energy. I was getting tired, but he was, too. How can you tell what strength a big ball of yuck had left to him? Maybe it was only wishful thinking, but I'd take whatever I could get. He slammed me back against the far wall more times than I could count. I wonder if he was keeping track of how many times I pushed him back toward the gate? I doubted it. There was nothing but the essence of pure rage coming from him. You didn't think clearly with that kind of raw emotion funneling through you.

Then again, he wasn't human. Maybe he was beyond the blind spot that emotion brought. Me? I was hitting the zone of heightened awareness that comes from a struggle of life or death. There are no emotions attached to the zone, it just is. It wasn't a matter of kill or be killed, it was a matter of fighting for survival. The only thing was that in this case, I wasn't just fighting for my survival. I was fighting for the survival of the existence of everything I knew and had ever known.

At some point Abaddon seemed to get beyond blind rage. He sat in front of the Gate, gathering his forces, waiting, maybe thinking. I gathered the power to me, not wanting to wait. I don't think I had the luxury of giving myself time, because I couldn't give him time to think things through. I flung everything I had at him, striking for what I felt was the heart of the dark form that hovered at the front of the Gate. This time I wasn't going for the push. I was going for the kill. But how do you kill something that isn't in physical form?

It did work on one level. Instead of the kill shot I was looking for, I dispersed the form he did have through the room. It was like an explosion of smoke, shadowing the room in blackness. While Abaddon worked to coalesce back into a more solid shape, I pulled in the power again, drawing on every resource I could latch onto.

It finally dawned on me what the rainbow lines of color were that ran through my violet energy. The immortals had tied their own essence into that of the amulet, allowing me to draw on their power. But I knew it wasn't enough. I was fighting against time. Abaddon was coming back together too quickly. I reached out above me, for the strength that had buffered me earlier, the strength at the core of humanity that was fighting its own struggle overhead, unaware of the battle that raged below their feet, not realizing the true fight was below the surface of everything they were already being put through on the level of reality that was in front of their faces.

My body flooded with light. It was like the dream, when Ithane became a creature of pure energy, of white-violet power. But it was different. The power that flooded me was not only my own, it was the light of everything and everyone around me I could connect into––the humans struggling overhead, the immortals sitting God only knew where, feeding me everything they had, maybe even the Angels. I couldn't tell where it all came from, I only knew it was there, flowing into me, filling me and spilling into reserves I never knew existed.

Abaddon must have felt the sheer power of what I was holding, of what I was becoming. He hesitated, back to full form. I could feel him probing, and I could feel the frustration that surged through him at the moment he became aware that he couldn't win against the force I had called into play.

I kept drawing the power, weaving it into form, ready to blanket him and send him back to the pit for another couple of millennia. I forgot the number one rule in a fight like this––a cornered animal makes for a more dangerous and unpredictable fight. Just as Ithane had done before me, I drew in the one last line of energy needed to complete the weave and lock Abaddon back into the Abyss from where he had just come. I pulled Ke's energy to life to create the final part of the barrier.

That caught Abaddon's attention, drawing it away from me. Hefinally realized he had been attacking the wrong opponent. I had been distracting him the entire time away from the one thing he should have destroyed first––Ke. Triumph rolled through the room on top of the other feelings surging from him. He lunged toward Ke, ready to finish what he had begun upon his emergence from the pit.

Ke sat up straight, accepting what he knew now to be inevitable. I had locked him into human form, and he would die as one of those he sought to save. But that wasn't in my plan. I threw the energy I had woven away from me like a net, sending it hurtling across the open space of the room.

To be honest, I couldn't really tell you what my intention was at that point. My actions were based on pure instinct. The energy net struck Ke, encasing him in a protective shield. Abaddon bounced off the protective force. But he was ready to go again, with no hesitation in his actions. He lunged at Ke, ready to break through the barrier, as he had broken the weaves of the Gate. Without thought, I tied the energy off and pulled back to gather more. Ke was safe behind the barrier. Abaddon bounced off again, this time with a howl of outrage. He had felt the lock go into place. He knew the feeling of it––that lock had held him bound for thousands of years. Without the key, he would never open it. For the time being, Abaddon was stopped from destroying Ke.

My own energy was gathering again, and Abaddon evaluated the situation with quick, decisive action. He lunged at me before the power could be called to full force, and broke the new web I was trying to build. But it was only a distraction. The humming filled the air again, and while Abaddon stood over me, battering against whatever defenses I could call into play, the Gate filled with shadows, all emerging from the place of darkness that had held them for so long.

I couldn't hold against them all. But that wasn't what was planned. There was only a slight hesitation before the Gate, and then the shadows surged outward, away from me, away from the Gate. They headed toward the tunnel leading to the surface. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I was holding off Abaddon's attacks. Maybe I wasn't losing, but I sure wasn't winning.

As the last of the shadows cleared the Gate, I felt a definite surge of hatred flung in my direction. The last shadow was headed my way. I drew on whatever reserves I could find to shield myself from the two creatures of pure darkness. I closed my eyes against the impact, ready to feel the hurt. It never came.

I opened my eyes slowly, peering out to see what was going on. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a movement. Abaddon and the other shadow were headed to the surface. I jumped to my feet, ready to run after them, but an explosion pulled me off balance. Smoke and rubble choked the air around me as the tunnel collapsed behind their passage. I was cut off from them with no way to follow. I also had no way to leave.

The fight was over. I had no idea whether I had won or lost. I was still alive, but I wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing. I was drained, tired beyond anything I had ever experienced. As the dust settled in the room, I sank to the floor.

I looked over at Ke, who was floating in the air, suspended by a web of rainbow color. He looked as though he was sleeping, resting behind the protective barrier I had created. How had I done it? I have no clue. Nothing made sense to me right now. I let the numbness take over my thoughts and closed my eyes against the pain creeping back into my physical awareness.

## Chapter 29

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When you are locked away inside of darkness, time can pass so slow as to be barely noticeable. I hadn't tried to leave the underground room yet. This was the first bit of downtime that I'd had and I was choosing to spend it in a little wallowing. From my perspective, I had earned it.

Wallowing is not something I'm good at. But accepting that the blame for whatever happens next in humanity's cycle is my fault, well, you can't help but throw yourself into a few endless rounds of self-doubt and worry about whether you did the right thing. Should I have stopped Ke? It wasn't in me to be a killer. I've destroyed demons in the past, but it wasn't the same thing. Maybe if he had been in full Angelic form I might have been able to, but not while he was locked away in Sarge's body––another bad on my part.

The question I was really trying get the core answer for had to do with figuring out why I had turned my back on him instead of finishing him off. Was it because he was in Sarge's body? I wanted to put the whole of the blame on ethical dilemma, but to be honest, I wasn't sure it was the true reason.

Was it because I had fallen in love with him? That was an option I didn't want to explore. What person in their right mind would want to admit they had chosen the existence of one person over all of humanity? Maybe some serious romantics might buy it, up until the time they were vaporized into nothingness, but it didn't sit right with me.

The only other real option left was that I knew what he was going to do and turned my back on him to allow it to happen without me changing my mind. Of course, there could be some small part of me trying to reason that by turning my back, it wasn't my fault. Years of fighting had taught me that unless you _knew_ the battle was over, you didn't turn your back to walk away. Not only had I not finished Ke off, I had left him sitting directly in front of the one place he shouldn't have been––not if I had been serious about stopping him from releasing Abaddon and the hordes from the pit.

I looked up at Ke, wrapped in his cocoon of rainbow light. I wondered if he could feel inside of there, if he was aware of what happened around him, or if he was in some sort of deep sleep. Testing the web holding, I poked at it with my finger. It was solid, and yet it had a little give to it. He didn't move. I tried peering past the fuzzy colors blocking him from full view. Was he even breathing?

"He is alive and breathing."

The voice echoed softly in the dimly lit underground chamber. I whipped around, my hand automatically coming up in offensive mode. It was the Angel from the Garden of Eden, the one I had spoken with before this whole mess had opened up. My hand came down slowly, but I was leery. The entrance to the tunnel was still blocked, which made me leap again to the thought that maybe Angels could just appear and disappear at will. Why didn't they do it more often, then?

He tipped his head toward Ke and the webbing. "Nice piece of work, that."

"Uh, thanks."

I was at a loss for what to say. Was he one of the Angels that had been dead seat against me, or was he okay with what had happened? Maybe he was the Angel of Death coming to finish me off? Somehow I couldn't picture the kind, somewhat amused face as belonging to the dark Angel.

"No, really, nice work. Have you really looked at it?" He walked over and examined it up close. "I don't think I could have orchestrated it better if I had tried."

The Angel was confusing. What was his game? I couldn't figure it out. Stepping in closer to look at the web, I had to agree. It was a beautiful piece of intricately woven colors. The pattern was delicate, but woven in such as way as to defy bulging or warping. Then I noticed the little rainbow threads that extended past the surface of the web and faded into nothingness. They were taut, as though connected to something, but I couldn't see what they were hooked into.

I frowned. "I thought I had tied those all off."

The Angel smiled. "That's the beautiful part of the work."

"I don't understand."

"Remember the discussion we had in the Garden about how the Angels kept themselves apart from humanity, never feeling that part of existence and yet passing judgments that have an effect on the whole?"

"Yes?"

"The energies you brought together here bound humanity's strength into the lock that protected our friend here."

"Okay." I had known that I was drawing on the strength of those above me, so it made sense, but I was missing something.

"Child, you have no idea what you have done here this day, do you?"

I looked at him suspiciously. He was looking way too happy for the Angelic Host. They were always grim-looking and dour––especially where the subject of releasing Abaddon from the pit was concerned.

"And I'm not talking about releasing Abaddon. That's only part of what needed to happen here today. The other part you handled quite nicely––and you have no clue what I'm talking about, do you?"

I shook my head in response to his bemusement.

"Let me try to help you understand. Since your incarnation on the earth plane, you have been something that has never existed before." He frowned. "No, that's not quite right. There have been others at a lesser level––"

He shook his head. "That's neither here nor there. You are human, but you are bound in Angelic essence. It was only on your near disastrous trip down here that you unleashed the last of that essence."

"The wings." I was embarrassed. Great. So, what? Had everyone been watching my spastic first flight? They must have gotten a bit of amusement from _that_.

"The wings are only a part of what was released." He reached out and picked the medallion up from my chest, flipping it over in his fingers. "It does appear as though you had some help. That wasn't something I had anticipated, but it all worked out for the best."

"I don't––"

He let the medallion drop gently back to my chest again and turned to look at the energy cocoon. "Now Ke, here, is something a little more common, although you made that happen at a different level than had ever been done before."

"We are the yin and yang to each other." I puzzled out what he was trying to say. "I am a human wrapped in Angelic essence and he is an Angel bound by human form."

"Exactly."

"I still don't get it."

"Patience, child, we are working our way toward your understanding."

I frowned. He reminded me of Father David when I was trying to leap toward answers in my studies instead of trying to understand the intricate layers leading to the final result. It would probably amuse the good Father to know that he had similarities to the Angels, or at least to this one. But I felt now as I did then, irritated. I was looking for the quick fix.

"See these tiny little rainbow threads?" The Angel brushed his fingers along the suspended edges that seemed to go nowhere. They gave a little under his touch, but held their tautness to whatever it was they were connected.

I nodded.

"These are the essence of the true strength of humanity."

I shrugged. "Okay."

"You tied humanity directly into the web."

I frowned, thinking of how humankind was specifically disconnected from the web. "But doesn't that mean––?"

He shook his head, as though knowing where my thoughts were taking me. "No. It is not the same as giving them full access. You only tied their spirit into the web, the best that humanity has to offer. What you have done is to give humanity more control over what happens in finalizing the weave to the pattern that was never allowed to complete itself before now."

Huh. I thought about it, but knowing the tendencies of humankind toward the darkness, I wasn't certain whether that was a good or a bad thing. It was still tough to determine whose side this guy was on.

"There is another thing that you did."

What––like the rest wasn't enough and totally beyond my comprehension?

"You bound Ke directly into the web, as well."

I looked where he was pointing, to the little blue energy lines that held the signature I knew to belong to Ke. "He's an Angel. Isn't he supposed to be connected to the web?"

The man shook his head, the amused smile back on his face. "Not while in human form."

"Shit."

The man nodded sagely. "Yes. What you have just done is to set into place the last piece. It is something that should have been done a long time ago."

"But doesn't that mean things will start unraveling now?"

He looked surprise. "No. I thought you understood––no matter. By wrapping everything together the way you did, you not only gave humanity more control over the weaving of the pattern, but by tying Ke into the web along with it in his human form, you have connected his essence to that of the rest of the Angelic Host. You have given something to the Host they have never had before."

"I'm not following––" The thought was cut off as it dawned on me what he was getting at. My eyes widened. "You mean––"

"Yes. The Angelic Host has free will now." He chuckled. "I would imagine things are going to be a little stressful in the Crystal City for a while. It will take them a bit to get a handle on this."

"Oh crap." The thought was distressing, but I couldn't help but catch a little of the amusement the Angel was passing along. "My guess is they won't be as high and mighty and _hands-offish_ , now that they have to actually share in some of the blame if things go wrong."

"It will definitely be a wake up call for them as to the true struggles humanity has to face on a regular basis. But they will need some guidance through all of this."

His look to me was pointed, and it took a second for it to register. When it did I looked at him with abject horror, shaking my head vehemently. "Oh, no. We've had to puzzle it out over the thousands of years of our existence. It's their turn to have to work at it for a while."

He shrugged. "That's your choice, of course."

"But I couldn't––they wouldn't––no." My lips pursed into a scowl. "I didn't sign up for any of this."

"In a sense you did. But that is a discussion for another time. I do want to make something a little clearer, because you are not aware of the entirety of the situation. Angels have had free will to an extent, throughout all these years of existence. But most have chosen to dedicate themselves to the natural evolution of the pattern. They _gave_ over their free will to the continuance of that natural evolution. They have forgotten that through the years and accept it as part of their existence."

"So let me get this straight. They chose to give up their free will and just go on their merry little way. They could have stepped in at any time to change things, make humanity suffer less, maybe make the world a better place, but they have chosen to pretend they've had no choice and then blame it on the humans when everything goes wrong."

He winced. "It's not _quite_ like that, but yes, that could be one interpretation of it."

"What a bunch of hypocrites."

"Yes, for the most part. But don't you see? Their free will was given up so humanity could choose to evolve their world in the way they will. Giving up their free will, in essence, is what gives humanity theirs."

"And none of the Angels have a problem with this?"

"One did." He frowned. "Well, there was actually more than one."

"Lucifer."

"Yes. But Lucifer wouldn't have done what he did if humankind hadn't been created."

"Right. Because Lucifer believed humans should not have more rights than the Angels."

He shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. "Lucifer did no more than exert his free will, and actually––"

"Yes––?"

The Angel seemed to be struggling with something he couldn't quite find the words to speak out loud. "There is the balance––"

I frowned. "I get that. Light, dark, good, evil––what does that have to do with––shit. You can't be serious."

He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"So you must be among the Fallen Ones."

"What––?" The look of confusion that he turned on me was real.

"The balance. Life and death. Creation and destruction. Isn't that what you're getting at? Aren't you trying to tell me that old Lou's not such a bad guy because all he was trying to do was tip the balance back against God himself?"

"Well, yes, that is what he was trying to do––"

"So, what? Now he should be applauded because he was doing the right thing and that humanity was a big _wrong_ on God's part?"

" _No_." The guy actually looked a little pissed. "What Lucifer did was to help restore the balance. _How_ he did it, and is _still_ trying to do it, is the wrong."

"Okay. So you're not one of the bad guys. I get that. But what happens now?" I rubbed my eyes tiredly. My head was beginning to hurt. It was too much for my very human brain to assimilate at this point.

"That could very well be up to you."

"You've got to be kidding. I've done my part."

"It's only the beginning, Yeshua Star. There is a lot more to do in the days to come."

I pulled my hand back from my eyes, to see his fingers coming up to my forehead. I jerked, but didn't step away from his touch. It was cool and soothing, relaxing my mind and body, drawing away the pain I felt at the peripheral edges of my awareness. His blue eyes held a look of sadness that went deep to his core. It would be easy to lose myself in that sadness, it touched so deeply into my own. I could see a curtain of darkness coming down across my eyes. The room faded around me––his smile, the Gate, and Ke in his cocoon all disappearing into the nothingness that enveloped my mind.

* * *

I floated in the darkness for a while, letting it wrap around me, healing me, relaxing me. It was a good feeling, one of comfort. I needed a little comfort about now. It would be a struggle to wake up, but I knew the time would eventually come.

A hand reached out through the darkness and caressed my cheek. It felt good, and I turned into it instead of pulling away.

"It is time for you to get up Yeshua."

The voice belonged to Ke. I opened my eyes to see him smiling down at me. His form was bathed in the glow of rainbow light, but there was no doubt that it was him.

"You're not real."

"I'm very real." He laughed. "I'm just not able to reach into the physical."

I looked around at the darkness and frowned. "Are we in the dreamscape?"

"Something like it, but not quite. We are in the web."

"How––?"

"He brought you here to heal before you had to face the rest of what is to come."

"He who?"

" _Him_. He brought you here."

Him? Who did Ke mean? Oh the Angel. Then his emphasis hit me. " _Him_? As in a capital _H_? The hookah Angel is _God_?"

Ke frowned. "Hookah Angel? I don't––"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. It might explain a lot, but it doesn't matter." I wondered idly if Morpheus knew who had been a visitor at his establishment. "So did He let you go?"

"No. Until you find a way to unbind me, I will remain in the web."

"But I don't know how I did it."

Ke sighed. "I know, but one thing at a time. There is a lot of work to be done to finish the pattern of the web. I am the least of your worries right now."

"But you are a big part of my worries––"

He laughed, but it held a note of bitterness. "I wish I could believe it was because of me, and not what I represent."

"Maybe it's a little of both." I shrugged. "There is still a lot I have to work through."

"I know." He nodded. "And it will all take time." His voice was fading into a whisper, and I could see his form starting to dissolve into the darkness of the web. "You can come here whenever you need me. But I can only stay for short periods. It takes too much out of me to hold this form for long––"

"Ke?" I called out to him, but he was gone. The darkness changed, and a warm glow filtered into the black. It was reddish in color, the color of early morning sunlight. It hurt at first, adjusting to light after the darkness and I shut my eyes against the glare. When I opened them again, I was in the bedroom of my apartment.

The door to my room was open, and I could hear Chaz and Father David talking in the other room. I couldn't help the sigh that passed my lips. If everything was so different now with the Angels and humanity, and whatever else might be thrown into the mix, why did it feel the same? Maybe it was and the whole level of concern on the part of the Angels had been for nothing. I wished that were the case, but somehow I knew that it wasn't.

Somewhere, far deep in a corner of myself that had been locked away for all these years, I could feel the taint of darkness that had been released upon the world. Just as I knew I'd have to deal with it in the end. What did it mean? I had no clue. All I could do was take it one day at a time. This day was only starting as I rolled out of bed to follow the aroma of coffee coming from the other room.

## About the Author

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Bo Savino uses different pseudonyms to keep her young adult genres separate from her adult ones, which she writes under A. J. Rand.

If you liked this book, the 2nd book in the series, _Broken Wings: Alpha_ is already out, and _Book 3, Broken Wings: Trials_ will be coming in 2012, along with a spin-off paranormal romance series, The Watchers, which will begin with _Wings of Thunder_.

If you'd like to sign up for updates and keep on top of what's coming out, you can sign up for the e-mail list at on the Contact tab at the top of Bo's website, or the E-mail Sign-up Button on the left at: www.bosavinosite.com.

To Friend Bo on Facebook, go to: www.facebook.com/bosavino

To Follow Bo on Twitter, go to: www.twitter.com/bosavino

Other titles out by Bo Savino/A. J. Rand:

The Yeshua Star Series:

_Broken Wings: Genesis_ (Book 1)

_Broken Wings: Alpha_ (Book 2)

The Nibiran Series:

_Sky Gold_ (Book 1 with co-author Carrassa Sands)

The Tapestry Series:

_Keeper of the Flame_ (Book 1)

The Reggie & Ryssa Series

_Reggie & Ryssa and the Summer Camp of Faery_ (Book 1)

_Reggie & Ryssa and the Scavenger Hunt_ (Book 2—Coming in December 2011!)

