Rising Darkness

Chapter Twenty

GRATEFUL FOR THE chance to let his tired body go lax, Michael fell into a heavy sleep.

If asked, he would have said he was so unconscious that he didn’t know a thing, but there was a part of him that went deeper than unconsciousness, that was more buried than his bones. That part was aware of the warm slender body curled against his side, and the bright energy that lay over him like a silken blanket.

The sensations sent him on a strange journey. He crossed a border into an exotic country filled with comfort and easement, and for the first time in centuries, he enjoyed a nourishing peaceful rest.

When an entity began to probe at the corners of his mind with a subtle, delicate dexterity, he roused.

He met it head-on. When he recognized it, he managed to stay the daggerlike psychic lash he had almost flung in its direction.

He said, Astra.

Michael. Amusement colored Astra’s words. Always the stronghold.

Naturally, he told her. It’s what I do.

I’ve never once managed to get all the way inside your head, she mused. Or touch your dream images, not even when you were a child.

He said nothing. He remembered it well, how she had probed at him, trying to get in.

I wish I could figure out how you do that, she continued. It’s a hell of a talent. I can get into anyone else’s dreams, human or otherwise, even the Deceiver’s, although I do not like going there. But not you. You do dream, don’t you?

Of course I do. He pulled an image around him, the mental gesture like donning a cloak.

A great hall in an early Norman castle appeared, with a long scarred wooden table, a massive fireplace standing cold and empty and suits of armor displayed at various points around the room. The castle was from that first, strong memory he had recovered, their home in a previous life. The life that had taught him the simple, powerful lesson of happiness.

He had never let Astra see any other mental image but this public arena where he had once ruled as warlord. It served as both message and reminder to her.

After he had formed the great hall, he created the mental construct of his physical self. Soon afterward, Astra’s small dark, feminine shape appeared. She never appeared as an old woman in dream or psychic sendings. Instead, she wore the appearance of the young woman she had once been so long ago.

She looked so delicate and innocent, in the first blush of her youth, and that, he knew, was one of the most dangerous illusions anywhere in the world.

“What do you want?” he said, his tone truculent. He stalked over to the head of the table and sat. “I’m busy.”

“Are you? Busy doing what?” she asked. She studied him with large, expressive eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to reach you if you hadn’t been sleeping. Why don’t you want to visit with me?”

She still probed along the edges of his awareness with delicate little touches, rather like a cat lapping at a bowl of cream. He had lost count of how many times he had endured it before. He had always been faintly repelled by the sensation.

“I was resting,” he snapped. “Which is entirely different from just sleep. Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”

She ignored that. “How long will it take for you to reach me?”

“We’ve stopped, so it will be a couple of days.” His foul temper prompted him to add, “If we come.”

“What?” The single word hit him like a slap. Fury suffused her features. “You would never seriously consider such a thing. Why would you make such a threat?”

“Because you’re pissing me off,” he said. “Seriously. I am sick to death of your constant questioning and testing. Now quit screwing around with me, and tell me what you really want. Are you trying—again—to see if I’ve been corrupted?”

Anger vibrated through her. “I have seen it happen.”

“I’m sure you have,” he said, regarding her with weariness.

“You of all people should know why I do the things I do!”

“Should I?” His voice turned hard. “There’s a huge difference between someone who refuses to be controlled by you, and someone who’s been corrupted by the Deceiver. I know you’ve always been freaked out that you can’t get inside my head. You think I’m not aware of how often you’ve wondered whether or not I might be too great a risk for you to handle? Get the fuck over it, Astra.”

“You forget your place,” she hissed. “How dare you speak that way TO ME.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything. My sense of autonomy doesn’t mean I’ve been corrupted, and I don’t want to play this game right now. Be straightforward for once in your life—if you can—or I swear Mary and I might just walk away, because I’ve earned better from you over the years, and I’ve had it.”

Silence fell. Underneath the illusion of imagery, her energy roiled with anger. He remained as still and obdurate as stone.

Finally her energy calmed, and she approached to sit at the table near his right hand. She asked, “I could sense when Mary stopped bleeding in the psychic realm. You don’t have the skill to heal something like that, and she couldn’t have healed herself. That wound was too severe. I want to know who healed her, and what happened to her.”

He drew on his reserves of patience. “She summoned one of the Eastern dragons. It was a very old, powerful one. It remembered her from a former life and looked on her kindly.”

Quick suspicion chilled her features. “She knew to call a dragon?”

He pinched his nose. “Mary is not faking. She’s not twisted, and she’s not controlled by anyone either. Once I found her, I haven’t left her alone for any discernable length of time. I watched when the dragon breathed fire on her. It burned her clean.” He paused then added slowly, “It was quite a miraculous sight, and I don’t say that lightly, because I’ve seen a hell of a lot.”

“Why have you stopped moving? You know he’s going to redouble his efforts to find you.”

He had to quell another upsurge of irritation. He told her what Mary had said earlier. “We made the best decision we could under the circumstances. We’ve had a complicated, dangerous and exhausting couple of days. Mary was attacked by two of his drones, and we’ve both had traumatic memories surface. Yes, stopping is a calculated risk, but it’s a necessary one, and I’ve taken every precaution.”

She searched his expression. “You’re sure?”

He knew that the closer they came to confronting their old enemy, the more paranoid she had to feel about the possibility of being deceived, but he thought she was beginning to be mollified and reassured. He replied, “Of course I’m sure. You know as well as I do that there are no guarantees, but I’ve set sentinels in place. If he gets close, we’ll be warned.”

“I don’t like it,” she muttered, her delicate brows drawing into a frown. She spread her hands on the table, running her fingers along the scars on its surface.

“You don’t have to like it,” he said, crossing his arms and propping his feet on the edge of the table. “You just have to live with it.”

Her mouth tightened briefly. “At least she’s healed—she’s really healed, and she knows who she is? That is so much more than we dared to hope.”

He smiled. It creased his lean face and lit up his eyes, an expression proud and savage at once. In a soft voice, like velvet sheathing steel, he agreed, “Yes, it is.”

Her glance lifted to his face and lingered on the smile as if it were a strange sight. “You said you both recovered traumatic memories. Do you know what happened to her, and how she got wounded? Were you there?”

The smile vanished, leaving only the savagery. “Yes.”

Her gaze dropped to her hands. After a moment, she said, “I see. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what—that you couldn’t help me remember? Don’t be,” he told her. “We didn’t recover anything of that lifetime because I couldn’t stand to remember. Now I know, and I needed to know. But I also wish I didn’t.”

She took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“I’m not going to talk about it,” he said. “I can’t speak for Mary, so you’d have to ask her what she’s willing to discuss. But my experience isn’t relevant to the present. That’s all you need to know.”

She nodded and stood. The illusion of the young woman wavered and grew thin. “I will see what I can do pinpoint his location,” she said. “Don’t take too long to rest.”

He said, “We will see you soon.”

“Creator willing.” She faded.

He did not echo the sentiment. He doubted there was a God, but if there was, Michael had no use for him.

He had no reason to linger after Astra left but he did anyway. He let his gaze roam over the scene. The only items that were anachronistic to the great hall were the suits of armor on display. At one time or another he had worn each one. He had added them to the hall image over the years, as he had recovered memories of different lifetimes throughout the ages.

He walked toward the oldest sets of armor and let the memories from those lives unfold. The armor was from one of his earliest lifetimes, soon after the group’s arrival on earth. His earliest lives were also his most public. He had only fallen into the habit of stealth much later. This one; yes, he remembered this one well. It had been a time of almost constant war, but then so had most of his lives.

They’d had the Deceiver cornered and had laid siege to the city that sheltered him. The siege had been a long, filthy, brutal business. He remembered the blood and the dust and the sweltering, crowded life of the army.

Gabriel and Raphael had been there. In that lifetime some quirk of destiny had seen them born as identical twins, inseparable as always, vivid and reckless and brilliant as two firebrands. They had loved to switch places and pretend to be each other, but they could never fool anybody from their group. Their birth mother had named them Castor and Pollux.

They had burst into his pavilion late one night, laughing drunkenly over some stupid escapade. Now he couldn’t remember what they had done. He had met the twins just inside the flap, naked, with sword and knife in hand, while Mary had scowled from the pallet of furs where they had slept.

What had been her name? He frowned, unable to grasp it. Members of their group had fast become the stuff of legend, until the stories took on a life of their own. In that culture and time gods and demons mingled freely with kings and ordinary men. The group hadn’t needed to cloak their abilities, which was refreshing in retrospect.

He had fast earned the reputation of being an invincible warrior, gifted by the gods. Whatever her name had been, he smiled to remember Mary’s obstinacy. She had insisted on dogging his heel everywhere he went, no matter how many times he had shouted at her to stay behind in safety. It became well known throughout both armies that she was his only point of vulnerability.

Astra had asked, in equal parts amusement and uncertainty, whether or not he dreamed, and he did. But what he dreamed was none of her business nor was it anyone else’s, except perhaps for one other person. In all four realms, physically, psychically, spiritually and emotionally, he was a fortress. He might be destroyed but he would never be conquered.

Except, perhaps, by or through one other person.

The long-dead people from those days had said that to strike at his heel was to strike him down.

After all this time he supposed that it was still true.