Desired By The Archangel
(Book Two)
Braving Darkness
By
Scarlett Grove
***
Copyright © 2015 by Scarlett Grove
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table Of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
The group stood at the massive entrance to the mountain, peering over each other to get a better look inside. Magda followed Michael into the cave as the rest of the group pressed in behind them. When they stepped farther into the towering cavern, lines of blue light traveled along the walls. The lights twirled and twisted through the cavern and crystallized into intricate symbols covering the entire wall. As Magda looked closer, she realized that the entire thing was an elaborate computer system.
They moved deeper into the cave, and the group filtered in around them. Magda saw hallways leading off from the center cavern with the same strips of blue light along the walls and floors. A hush had descended over the crowd. A few soft voices murmured, speaking in wonder at what they beheld.
Emilia pushed through, holding Brigid’s hand. The genius wolf shifter gasped as she looked around. Magda followed Emilia through the cavern, watching her look at the alien technology with Michael not far behind.
“What is it?” Magda asked Michael.
“This is your salvation. This is how we elevate the human race.”
Chapter Two
“It’s an access portal to the fourth dimension,” Michael explained. “This was built millions of years ago when humans were first hybridized by the Anu. Intelligent races are expected to join the Galactic Federation. But the Anu wanted to use humanity as a slave race, and humanity seemed to want to comply. The Council of the Seventh House’s prime directive is to never interfere with free will. If a race wants to be enslaved, we cannot stop them. It is our most sacred law.”
“But we don’t want to be slaves,” Magda said, turning to Michael, desperation in her voice. They had found a chamber furnished like a comfortable sitting room. Magda sat on a soft couch while Michael made tea from the kitchen-like appliances across from her. He handed her a cup and she drank the sweet-smelling liquid. It was a foreign taste, but good.
“Your race has accepted the Anu’s rule unequivocally for hundreds of thousands of years. It cannot be argued that you do not. They have told you in the most obvious ways, all this time. Even in the modern world, the signs were there. I’m sorry, Magda. It must be difficult.”
“I’m not a slave,” she huffed.
“Let’s just leave that word out. Humanity has been in bondage and now is the time to break free. The way to accomplish this is for a large group of humans to enter the fourth dimension. It must be done in full knowledge of your past and in the knowledge that we are all interconnected as one to the universe.” He sat on the opposite couch and sipped tea from a white cup. Magda frowned. “I know this is a lot to take in,” he said. Michael’s wings had receded somewhere inside his body. Sometimes he looked just like a human man—a godly attractive man, but a man nonetheless.
“How are we supposed to enter the fourth dimension? Many of the shifters in our group were living like animals before they joined Xavier’s complex in New San Diego. They don’t know anything about The Program. Most of them haven’t seen a computer in six years, and I doubt anyone out there has ever meditated. You know, besides the witches.”
“None of that matters here. There are chambers within this mountain that were designed specifically to help large groups of humans enter simultaneously. It can be done. They will have guides. You, Cassie, Circe. You are each immensely talented in your own ways. Once we can show The Council of the Seventh House that the group can evolve, they have to help us defeat the Anu. It is our only hope.”
“I still don’t get why they didn’t help us in the first place.” Magda set her tea cup down on a table and sat back on the couch, crossing her arms. She’d been angry at the Council for a good long time. The fact that they’d let the Anu blow up the world with a fake nuclear war that caused the apocalypse didn’t sit well with her. Who did that? She had a hard time seeing them as the good guys.
“The complexities of Galactic political management may be difficult for you to comprehend. You are only eighteen,” he said with a half-smile. His flowing blond hair waved around his face as he seemed to shimmer.
“I might be eighteen, but I know right from wrong,” she countered.
“Unfortunately, these things are not black and white. But I do know that as soon as humanity crosses a certain level of development, the Council will help. It is a matter of critical mass, and that is what we are going to accomplish here. Critical mass.”
“All right. Where do we start?”
Chapter Three
The inhabitants of New San Diego settled into their new accommodations. There were beds and private rooms for everyone. The farther the group went into the winding corridors inside the mountain, the more chambers they found. It was estimated that at least three to four times as many people could live comfortably inside the mountain.
The advanced technology provided the people everything they needed, from comfortable beds to running water and food. Machines that used the energy present in the air around them created any kind of food imaginable.
The computers held indexes of data from before the beginning of earth, holding all the collective information of the entire human race in a small section of its immense hard drives. Long forgotten movies and books were available to enjoy in the many private chambers scattered throughout the mountain.
After a community meal, the leaders gathered in a central chamber and privately discussed the next steps for the group. Michael held back, not informing the leaders of what he had told Magda. She listened to Rave, Cassie, Xavier, and Circe talking about the group with the witches and dragon shifters who made up the main council.
Even with her involvement with Michael and the fact that they had brought everyone to the miraculous mountain, she still didn’t feel comfortable getting involved. She didn’t want to speak up in the middle of their meeting. Biding her time, she held back and waited.
After the meeting, she tapped Cassie and Circe on the shoulders and asked them to come back to her rooms. The two other women followed her to the chambers she shared with Michael, but when she got there, he wasn’t inside.
“What is it?” Circe asked. The older woman had always been something of a mentor to Magda. Cassie had saved her from the dome, and Magda idolized her.
“Well. As you guys know, my, um, boyfriend is a member of The Council of the Seventh House. He knows things abo
ut the history of humanity that no one else knows. He’s told me a lot of stuff. I wanted to share with the two of you because I can’t do this alone,” Magda said, feeling self-conscious. She hated leadership roles. All she had ever wanted to do since leaving the dome was play in The Program and create worlds of her own imaginings. She knew she’d never be as kick-ass as Cassie or as wise as Circe.
“What is it?” Cassie asked. The curvy blonde girl’s eyes grew wide. Cassie was always looking for adventure. She could fight. She could do amazing things Magda could only dream of doing.
Magda sighed, not knowing how to explain it. She bit her lip and crossed her arms. Finally she said, “You guys aren’t going to like this.”
“Come on, spit it out,” Cassie said.
“Give her a minute, Cassie. This is hard for her.” Circe sat patiently across from Magda on the long, cushy white couch against the wall, while Cassie paced the room, her hands on her waist, her guns still holstered at her hips.
“The thing is,” Magda started. “Humans were created by the Anu. We are a slave race. And apparently, we like it.”
“I heard something like this when I was with the dryad,” Circe said. Circe had communed with a dryad under an ancient redwood tree. The dryad had shown her and Xavier things about the meaning of life that Magda couldn’t even begin to understand. Circe had only shared it with Magda in passing back in New San Diego while Magda had been giving a report on her progress inside The Program.
“I’ve heard hints of this since I left the dome. Some Pyramid Corps jackass said something about how his kind had been in charge of the world for centuries. I didn’t believe it. I figured it was propaganda.”
“Well. It’s true. I didn’t want to believe it either. But I believe Michael. I don’t think he’s even supposed to be here. The Council of the Seventh House isn’t supposed to help us because we accept our servitude.”
“I don’t accept any damn servitude,” Cassie said, gripping her guns.
“It’s bigger than one person. It’s everyone. We have to evolve into the fourth dimension. That’s what Michael said. Then the Council will help us. It will prove we don’t want to be slaves anymore.”
“How are we supposed to evolve?” asked Circe, still quietly sitting on the couch.
“The meditation chamber in the mountain is like a giant Program terminal. We use chambers to enter the fourth dimension as a group. We’re supposed to find out we are interconnected or something. Michael says we need a critical mass.”
“Critical mass?” Circe asked, a pensive look on her face.
“We have to reach a critical mass as a percentage of the entire planet,” Magda said.
“I understand,” Circe said.
“How are we supposed to get these people into a deep enough meditation to enter the fourth dimension? I doubt any of them have ever meditated before in their lives, even before the war,” Cassie said.
“The chambers are like terminals,” Magda explained again.
“Have you used them?” Cassie asked.
“No, not yet. I don’t know how they work. I’m good at The Program, but I have no idea how to enter the fourth dimension without it. I’m probably not the one to lead this.”
“Of course you are,” said Circe. “Let’s all go down to one of the chambers now and try it out. I taught Cassie to hone her skills, I’m sure the two of us could help you. Who knows what we might do together. Maybe save the entire planet from our alien overlords.”
Magda giggled and Cassie grunted at Circe’s comment. “Let’s go then,” Cassie said.
Chapter Four
They entered the chamber and lines of blue lights spread out across the walls and floor. There were rows upon rows of chairs spreading out from a central circle where a glass podium rose to waist height. On the top of the podium was a clear round dome. Blue lights flashed like lightning under the glass.
The three women approached the central podium and peered down at the flashing lights. “Do you have any idea how to use this?” Cassie asked Magda.
“No. Do you?”
Cassie shook her head, but Circe reached out, her hand hovering right above the glass. Circe looked from Cassie to Magda and the others followed her lead. Slowly, all three women lowered their hands onto the glass dome.
The impact was instant. They were sucked through a dark tunnel and spit out the other side where they could see themselves standing in the circle around the podium. They looked at each other in their astral forms as they hovered behind their physical bodies.
“Wow,” said Magda, but the words didn’t form physical sound waves. They seemed to come from inside her mind and connect with the minds of her friends. “This is wild. It was never like this in The Program.”
“I think we have more control here,” Cassie said.
“Why don’t we try to connect with universal source?” Circe suggested.
“How do we do that?” Magda asked.
“Just focus on your heart and begin to feel the energy and vibration of the world around you. Feel how it connects and intertwines with everything else. Do you see how the aura of your astral body bleeds into mine?”
Magda looked at the colors radiating out from her astral form. They did bleed into Circe and Cassie as well. She could almost feel their colors as they bled into her. She took a deep breath and suddenly all three women were caught in a moment of complete understanding of each other. Magda didn’t know where she ended and the others began. It stunned and compelled her. She’d never felt anything so terrifyingly beautiful in her life.
They stayed suspended in that moment for quite some time, no one wanting to sever the connection. Michael walked into the room, his astral form showing clearly through his human form. It was as if he existed in both planes simultaneously, and needed no meditation, Program, or terminal to get there.
Magda lost her focus for an instant. They were sucked out of the fourth dimension and landed back inside their three-dimensional bodies. She looked up at Michael, questions running through her mind. Part of her could still feel Circe and Cassie and she knew that they could feel her too.
“Well done,” Michael said, walking through the rows of chairs. “That is only the beginning. When you bring the entire group into the circle, the effects will compound by many times.”
Magda couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have so many souls so close to her own. The brief moment she had been connected to Cassie and Circe felt like indescribable bliss. She wondered if Michael felt like that all the time.
She said goodbye to her friends and went with Michael back to their rooms. “I want to give something to you, my beloved,” he said, taking her in his arms. She imagined they might make love. They hadn’t been together since the dream. Technically, Magda was still a virgin, but Michael hadn’t brought it up. The whole thing made her nervous, so she didn’t bring it up either.
He took her hand and led her into the sitting room where they sat together on the couch. Looking deeply into her eyes, he smiled and then kissed her. She took a deep breath through her nose, inhaling his fresh scent. His kiss descended to her lips, his mouth brushing softly over her tender flesh. A tingle went down her spine and her body came alive.
Michael held her face in his hands and leaned back, looking at her with those same intent eyes. She smiled, wondering what he was doing.
“You know what you did in the meditation room?” he asked her. She nodded with his hands still on her cheeks. “I’m going to help you connect more deeply.”
She raised her eyebrows, wondering what he meant. “Close your eyes and breathe,” he said. She did as he asked and could feel heat radiating off his hands. Her breathing deepened as the energy radiating out of Michael’s hands into her face seemed to course through her body.
Her mind slipped through the void and regained its awareness on the other side. She looked around her, her astral form’s senses a thousand times more sensitive than her body’s. She could feel the energy Micha
el directed to her, moving through her physical body and flowing into her soul. Her own aura reacted, sending out tendrils of energy from her core that intertwined with his.
The feeling was more ecstatic than kisses or lovemaking. It made her feel she might peak at any moment. Simultaneously, she could sense her body and her astral form. Michael’s love energy penetrated her in both dimensions, and she wanted to cry out with joy.
As they merged, the totality of Michael’s being began to filter into hers. Magda didn’t know if she could take it, not even in her expanded awareness of her astral form. It was too much. Michael was an archangel, a being of the highest order, on a magnitude far beyond her own. She shuddered and tried to pull away.
Michael shook his head, both his physical and astral body moving, telling her it would be okay. She whimpered but remained still, trying to open herself to accept all that was him. When she surrendered herself, a flood of feelings, emotions, information, and memories penetrated her innermost being.
Magda screamed. She felt as if the ocean had just flowed straight down her throat. Panting, she tried to retain her sanity. She was expanding beyond herself. She and Michael were one. She had become immense. Knowledge beyond her comprehension swirled around the outer peripheral of her mind. She grasped at it as bits and pieces became clear.
She could feel him pulling her back to her body. “All in due time,” he whispered through the whirling vortex of thought. She didn’t want to leave until she understood something, anything. It had all blasted into her, but she couldn’t grasp it. Still seeking to understand something, Michael pulled her back to herself.
Looking up at him as he pulled his hands from her face, she felt flushed and sweaty all over. “What was that?” she asked, but she knew. She knew he had just connected with her. She’d shared the consciousness of a five-hundred-thousand-year-old alien.
“I’ve shown you myself. You know now what it is like to be connected at this level. It will make it easier for you to teach your people.”