He had to drive south to connect with a road that would take them back east toward U.S. 131. Even though they traveled on two-lane country roads and there was no other vehicle in sight, he still took no chances and pulled the car to a sedate halt at a stop sign. The last thing they needed was to call attention to themselves.
As the car rolled to a stop, the morning sun spilled at a slant through the driver’s window, stronger than ever as it hit him in the eyes. The light, heavy and gold, blinded him.
He disconnected from his body again.
The falling light.
He and his mate lived in a city topped with graceful white spires. Their sky was crowned with two suns, and the falling light turned their days endless and golden. They were creatures of power and fire, born at the same moment and destined to journey through life together.
She stood tall and slender, and her large, silver eyes were filled with the beauty and mystery of her soul. That mystery called to him. He could empathize with her but never truly fully understand her. The colors of her emotions were like a symphony. She was as fierce in her devotion to her healing as he was to his warrior nature. The rightness of that, the completeness, balanced and sustained him.
Their people did not die of old age. They did not know death, unless it happened by accident, through illness or by war.
Or until a criminal brought it to their city. He murdered innocents who stood in the way of his crimes before he was captured and imprisoned.
And then escaped.
When the call came to find those who would go in pursuit of the criminal, Michael didn’t hesitate to approach his mate about volunteering.
Are you sure? she asked. If we go, we can never return home.
The details of the transmigration spell had been explained meticulously to them. They would die. Their souls would leave their world, and they would have to transform in order to travel to an entirely new, strange place.
The spell was the only way they could reach the other world where the Deceiver had fled. There could be no return. If they chose to transform, they would literally no longer be the same creatures, while all the alchemy that made such an extreme journey possible would remain on their home world.
Still, the Deceiver must be stopped.
It is worth the price, he said.
At the time, he could not know that they would keep paying and paying.
“Michael,” Mary said.
As he blinked the sun out of his eyes, he got the impression that she had called his name more than once. They still sat at the stop sign of an empty intersection, the car idling quietly.
A tight band circled his wrist. He looked down. She had taken hold of his arm in a strong grip.
Mary’s expression was tight. “You blacked out.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “Not quite. I had a memory resurface, that’s all. It’s okay, I’m all right.”
He could tell by the doubt in her eyes that she didn’t quite believe him, but there was nothing she could do. They didn’t have any other choice. They had to get moving.
“Did you remember anything important?”
He smiled a little. “I remembered what you looked like a long time ago.”
Her tight grip relaxed. “Promise me that you’ll pull over if you have to.”
“Of course.”
With obvious reluctance she let go of him to settle back into her seat and close her eyes. He found his sunglasses tucked in the glove compartment of the dashboard. He slipped them on, blocking out the sun and the details of the events that had happened so long ago.
The past was no longer relevant. Their future was uncertain at best. The present was all they had.
It was time to make the most of it.
Accelerating gently, he turned onto the intersecting road. They traveled east until they reached the highway. Then they turned north.
They had to join Astra and combine their strength before the Deceiver got the chance to attack them again.
Then finally, finally, they would take down that bastard once and for all.
• • •
ALL TOO AWARE of Michael’s injuries and his grim, dogged endurance, Mary did as he directed and focused on healing her own gunshot wound so that she would be able to help him and take over driving. She was tired and in pain, and not thinking as clearly as she would have liked, so she fumbled the job at first.
When the Deceiver had shot her, she had a crisis-driven epiphany. Shock, pain and instinct had driven her awareness into her own body, and a floodgate of ancient memories had poured out, like golden treasure from a secret, inner chamber. Somehow she had staved off shock and started healing her own body.
How had she done it?
She remembered quite well the experience of having the epiphany, but replicating what she had actually done was a different matter. She needed practice before she could do any kind of healing very easily.
The color red had initially triggered the memories. As soon as she recalled that, it did so again. Her perspective shifted, and she saw the interior of her own body as a warm, glowing red vibrancy like live coals, except for the wound. That area was a dark, jagged hole.
She sank her awareness deep into herself. The entry wound was small and located just under her collarbone, but the bullet had flattened to inflict more damage where it exited than where it had entered. The scientist in her grew fascinated as she studied the area. She could see and sense where the initial healing had already begun.
The first time she had worked on healing herself, she had been in imminent danger as she confronted the Deceiver who had stolen her ex-husband’s body. She had shoved commands into her own flesh with all the finesse of a bulldozer. This time, she nudged more gently.
Once again, her body responded. Veins fused, and torn flesh knitted together. As she watched, she realized she was only accelerating what would have happened naturally over the course of time. It didn’t erase the damage that had been done to her, or cause her body to return to the state it had been in before she was shot. She would have to exercise her shoulder and arm carefully to stretch and condition the area, and she would retain the scar. . . .
Maybe there was a different way to promote the healing so that she erased the scar, but if so, she couldn’t remember it. Hopefully the more she used this newly recovered skill, the more memories would return.
For now, though, she didn’t care that her skin puckered in rough circles at the entry and exit points, or that her shoulder felt stiff and sore as the last of the wound knitted together. She also noticed other, less urgent imperfections in the glowing, scarlet landscape of her body—various scrapes and contusions she had collected over the last few, very eventful, days.
Those wounds were minor, so she ignored them. Michael needed help more than she needed a few bruises healed. As she studied her handiwork, she felt an immense satisfaction and a sense of completeness.
She had always known she was a healer. This was how she healed.
As exhilarating as the experience had been, it had depleted her body’s resources. She needed a quick nap before she was safe to take over driving. So she coaxed herself to sleep, and as she had done so often over the last few days, she drifted into another dream.
Chapter Two
ASTRA HAD SIMPLY done too much.
Somehow, nine hundred years ago, the Deceiver had injured Mary so severely, she hadn’t reincarnated for generations. Astra had spent that time playing cat and mouse with the Deceiver while she reconnected with Michael every lifetime she could, and she searched for clues to what had happened to Mary.
If Astra could have destroyed the Deceiver by herself, she would have done so long ago. But she couldn’t. They were too well matched in strength. She needed the others to fight by her side in order to overcome him.
In this lifetime, Astra and Michael had become c
onvinced that Mary had finally been reborn. They had searched for her for years, but they only managed to get the occasional glimpse of her in the psychic realm.
A few days ago, events had finally come to a head. Mary had torn that old spiritual injury wide open, and Astra had leaped into an astral projection in order to try to reach her. Then the Deceiver had drawn Astra into a dream to show her one of his executions. Only hours after that, she had thrown herself into another astral projection to join Michael and Mary as they fought off the Deceiver and his forces. She had fought in the battle for as long as she could before she finally had to drop out.
Now, after her prodigious expenditure of energy, Astra slept as her elderly, fragile body struggled to rejuvenate. The ancient, alien part of herself was always awake, always aware. It drifted patiently in the darkness of her mind.
That part of her could sense the rest of the battle that consumed the others. Even from a distance, their fight lit the psychic landscape. Astra watched and did nothing, because there was simply nothing more that she could do.
So she gathered her psychic resources. As soon as she had regained enough strength, she created the delicate web of imagery, illusion and desire that made up a dream sending. When it was complete, she loosed it in the direction of the one she targeted. Then she waited.
Some time after the battle, the one she waited for drifted into sleep. Astra felt her dream sending activate. She reached along the web she had woven. When she touched the mind of the sleeping one, the dream had already begun. She eased into it.
Her dream body found itself standing in the middle of a spacious, tiled hall. She walked down the length of it, passing rows of columns as she looked around with curiosity. The ceilings were high and vaulted, and thin sheets of carved marble covered the walls. There was no imagery anywhere in the carvings, just interlocking patterns of such delicate complexity that the cool, hard stone resembled lace.
It was daylight, and the dream carried a sultry heat. She could hear the silvery sound of splashing water nearby and followed the sound. She came upon a courtyard filled with a small, immaculate garden fragrant with a brilliant profusion of colorful flowers. A marble fountain carved with gracious dimensions spouted water in the middle of the garden.
A young woman, dressed in a simple homespun cotton tunic and trousers, sat on the edge of the fountain. She was too thin, her quiet face carved with stress, thick hair captured in a dark blond braid at the nape of her neck.
As Astra approached, the young woman turned wide, sky blue eyes toward her and said, “For some reason, I keep coming back to scenes from this lifetime. Even though I’ve healed, I must not be finished with it after all. You must be Astra.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I thought I recognized you. I’m Mary, if you didn’t already know.” Mary studied her with frank curiosity. “Michael said you were old, but you look like a young woman.”
“My body is old, although I don’t, thank God, have to be old in my dreams.”
“A few days ago, when you came to me, I was in the Grotto on the university grounds at Notre Dame.”
“I wondered where you were,” said Astra. “I knew you were some distance from me, but somehow still local, and certainly not as far as overseas. Of course things are different in the psychic realm than they are in the physical world. You were also too confused and distressed to be able to tell me anything concrete.”
“When you appeared, I actually thought you might be the Virgin Mary. I was pretty disappointed you weren’t.” Mary’s shoulders lifted in a wry shrug. “No offense.”
Astra laughed. “None taken.”
“Has Nicholas arrived yet?” Mary asked.
Surprised, Astra’s dream body stilled as her mind raced.
Millennia ago, when she had first been born on this earth, she had developed close ties with the people of the First Nations. She had taught them ways of the spirit in the hopes that they might become her allies in her fight against the Deceiver. PtesanWi, they called her. White Buffalo Calf Woman.
Over the years, she continued to maintain a connection with a select few of the First Nation elders. Nicholas’s father, an Ojibwa elder named Jerry Crow, was one of her most recent allies. Together she and Jerry had trained Nicholas, who for a human was unusually strong, both in mind and body.
The boy had fulfilled all their hopes. He had become a Green Beret and worked his way to the head of the Secret Service detail assigned to protect the President of the United States, where he stood guard against more than mere physical threats. Attuned to the spiritual realm, Nicholas had been their defense against the Deceiver attempting to make the President into a tool to enact his wishes.
A few days ago, Nicholas had been assassinated. Jerry and one of his grandsons, Jamie, had traveled to her house to give her the news. Even now, Jerry lay in one of her guest bedrooms, laboring for his life. After a life filled with too much smoking and stress, Jerry’s heart was finally giving out on him.
He needed to be in a hospital, but he had expended all of his strength in coming to tell her about Nicholas’s death. Astra’s place was in such a remote location, if Jerry tried to get to a hospital now, the trip alone would probably kill him.
While Astra was not primarily a healer, she had some skills. She knew that she could heal Jerry. It was, just barely, within the realm of her abilities, but she couldn’t afford to expend the precious energy it would take to save him.
Not when she was so depleted, and not when the Deceiver was so close and such a danger to all of them. And especially not when destroying him was the sole reason she had come to this earth.
But she couldn’t see how Mary could be aware of any of that.
Eyes narrowed, she asked, “How do you know of Nicholas? Did Michael tell you about him? If Michael is hoping that Nicholas might be of any assistance, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Nicholas was murdered a few days ago.”
“Yes, we know,” said Mary, surprising her again. “We don’t know very many details, but we do know that he was killed. His ghost came to help us—or at least he helped me, when I was running in the woods. We asked him to make sure that you were all right.”
Astra relaxed marginally. If Nicholas’s ghost had come here, he would have sensed Jerry’s ailing presence in her house, and he would have gone to his father.
She would check to make sure once this dream had run its course. For now, she sat beside Mary, on the wide edge of the fountain.
“If he promised to come, then I’m sure that he will show up soon,” she replied simply. “He is too canny to be caught by the Deceiver’s allies and traps.” She ran her fingers through the cool water as she looked around. “This is a lovely place.”
“For the most part, I think this was a lovely life until the end. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep coming back here in my dreams.” Mary looked at the rosebushes. “The woman who was my mother in this lifetime loved this garden. My father put in the fountain just for her, and this was her favorite place in the world.”
Astra smiled at her. “It’s not hard to see why. How did you heal yourself?”
Mary’s gaze returned to her. “Which time?”
She took a breath. “Ah. So you were hurt in the battle?”
“Yes. Michael and I were both hurt. Michael was almost destroyed.” Mary’s mouth worked. Then her thin, young face went carefully blank. She said, “We’re not doing very well right now.”
Astra said in a gentle voice, “I could sense that Michael had taken some damage. If I could do anything more to help you, I would.”
Mary’s wide blue eyes pinned her. “He said you ran out of strength.”
Astra showed her a mental image of her cold, frail physical self as she huddled on her narrow bed. “My body is very old. I am already working to prevent death as it is, and over the last few days I’ve expended a lot of energy.?
??
After a moment Mary said, “I see. I guess I still held out some hope that you might be able to help us. I’m sorry.”
While Mary struggled with her disappointment, Astra slipped with subtle dexterity into the illusion of the younger woman’s dream body. While Mary’s physical body might be some distance away, Astra could still examine her spirit, which looked whole and bright. She really did indeed seem to be fully healed. Astra slipped away again before Mary noticed.
“So how did you heal the first time?” Astra asked. “When I saw you in the Grotto, your spirit wound ran down the length of your torso.”
Michael had already told her how Mary had summoned an Eastern dragon for healing, but suspicion had become Astra’s oldest and dearest friend. She wanted to see for herself if their stories matched.
“I called for help,” Mary said, looking down as she pleated the edge of her tunic. “It was something that I had learned to do in this life.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I see. No wonder you keep coming back here in your dreams.”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward to put her hand over Mary’s. She sensed the younger woman’s inner withdrawal although her dream body didn’t move. “Mary, listen to me. I sensed earlier when you and Michael had stopped to rest at the cabin. I thought at the time that it was a dangerous decision, and then the Deceiver almost took you both. You must not stop again. There are things I can teach you, and things you need to help me do. We must not let the Deceiver keep the three of us from reuniting.”
“That’s what Michael says,” Mary said. She lifted her gaze. “We won’t stop again.”
“Good,” said Astra, sensing truth.
“I must go,” Mary said suddenly. “I meant to take only a little nap after I healed my shoulder. Michael’s still injured. He needs me.”
“Of course.” Astra stood. “It is so good to see you again, Mary. It has been far too long. I have missed you. Please come quickly.”