I: Awaken
The mirror haunts her bedroom. The storm outside the small house delays the moonlight, stroking it through the curtain’s cracks to bounce manically. Alyxa isn’t interested in moon or storm; her attention is on the blood dripping from her wrist onto the tiles. She speaks. Soft. Commanding.
“Morpheus: I invoke thee.”
The face in the moonlight grows clear; the ripples of pooling light smoothing back from the mirror like a page folding back.
“Morpheus: I call thee.”
He presses a hand against the silver glow of the mirror, pushing through from Réveille, the realm where he has waited, where he has reigned. The Dreaming slips away. Alyxa draws breath. She focuses, and she pulls.
“Morpheus: I want you.”
Tongue, against the tiles, lapping at the fallen blood; Alyxa watches the world reeling like some out of control child on rollerskates. He looks up, brilliantly green eyes, the unnatural shades of true fantasy emeralds, meet hers…
...and the world fell away from her. There was no more blood on the floor, the wound on her wrist was closing beneath his fingers. His dark blue hair swept itself back into an acceptably human shade of black, but she could not stop watching him. He is so different from her dreams, and yet, so familiar. He smiled at her, the calm collected smile of a creature who is content.
She watches him watch her. This is what they both wanted: he his freedom from a limitless world, and she his enigmatic presence. There would be a price, there always is for Crafting, but she would pay it, because there was nothing else left now.
“You are more beautiful here than in Réveille,” he said, and she could taste the un-granted kiss, “and here, you are my keeper. Is this not what you wanted?”
II: Acquaintence
There were things he did not understand. There were things Alyxa did not know how to explain. Like pain. There was something childlike in the way he played with sunlight, letting it run over his fingers like some acidic liquid. It left marks, like strings of red and yellow yarn tangled over his skin. They might have hurt – they certainly looked like they should – but Alyxa couldn’t tell; he did not seem to register things the way humans did. Time was alien in itself, perhaps pain was too?
She watches him now, from the corner of her eye as she turns the television off. She hadn’t been paying attention to the episode anyways. Morpheus stands, a statue of perfection, amber-pale skin glowing in the soft fluorescent lights that set alight the thrown open French doors leading onto the veranda.
“Morpheus?”
He turns his head, looks at her with that smile that both kills and resurrects in one blow.
“Are you alright?” Alyxa asks him, realising that she’s murmuring because she’s trapped in the emerald green of his eyes.
There are lights in those eyes, like an archipelago of stars afloat in some unfathomably green ocean. Alyxa realises that she is standing in front of him, but how she got there she doesn’t know. He presses her back against the open doors, he tilts her head slightly to the side. There is a soft brush of pain, timid almost, as fangs break open her skin. He feeds. She hopes vaguely that it will not scar.
“Too much...” she whispers, but he doesn’t heed, and she is too far lost to push him aside.
Darkness crawled into her vision, first in spots and then in strove lights, flashing. Pain. He cradles her, laying her gently on the floor, laying beside her, crooning.
III: Existence
The first time that Alyxa went out it was like the light had left the room. Morpheus hovered. One might have called it the pacing of a god, but since he did not understand impatience, he did not think of it as pacing. Everything was new. Everything was interesting. He made the fluorescent lights change colour, he made the fire in the stove dance around in circles. Everything was beautiful. Everything was real. The only trouble was, Alyxa was not in the house.
“I have to go out,” she had said.
“‘Out’?” he had asked, taking her hand lightly in his.
“Out,” she had repeated, “you know, out of the house? I have to visit with some friends.”
“Friends? As in other people with whom you share a human bond, connection.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Oh.”
So she had left him, to ponder the meaning of ‘friends’, and ‘out’. Humans were strange creatures, even the ones that had some small understanding of Réveille. Why was it that they bonded each other? He had seen their vast ability to love, to attempt understanding, but in reality they were all alone, each isolated like their own little pockets of dreams and nightmares, occasionally brushing past each other and sharing the most common elements of their lives: their hopes for roughly the same things, their actions of roughly similar lives. It seemed almost pointless, but at least here he could touch things, bend things, move things, be things. That he had to share this existence with humans, it was a small price.
Alyxa Fairchild had come into his world accidentally, but then Dreamwalkers were a rare commodity, for any deity. He considered finding her, to see what these ‘friends’ were like. Were they like her? Or he could avoid the humans altogether. He needed nothing.
IV: Wandering
The door was locked. Morpheus knew it was locked because Alyxa had said she would lock it on her way ‘out’. He had watched her apply her face powders and tints with expert touch in front of the hall mirror. Was this part of the process of going ‘out’? Or merely something that Alyxa did? He hovered in front of the mirror. What did she see? The blue-black hair – more blue than black – the viridian eyes that in her dreams Alyxa had told him reminded her of the feeling of the first vodka shot of the night. He had not entirely understood, Réveille limited certain experiences. He looked at what he was wearing, ideas borrowed from a young man’s dreams that Alyxa had said was appropriate. The ‘jeans’ were interesting. Enough of this.
He walked through the door.
Night air burn through his lungs. It is cold, he thinks. A woman walking a dog glances up at him, eyes curios, she looks away and keeps walking. What does she see? Morpheus shrugs his shoulders against the leather jacket. Did it matter? He can sense Alyxa somewhere far to his left, a distant glimmer of fleeting fun. He turns in the other direction and walks, one foot in front of the other. His shoes make different sounds on the concrete. Morpheus pauses and looks down at his feet, tapping a toe against the sidewalk. Tap. He walks to the small stretch of grass that covers the lawn in front of Alyxa’s house. He steps onto the green. Different sound. Different feeling. Interesting. He kneels, touches the turf. Soft. This must be soft? Moist. There were words, but without Alyxa’s mind to guide him he did not know them.
He kept the thoughts in his mind and went back to the walking.
V: Orchestration
Morpheus found himself staring at a tall structure. He could only define it as a pillar of indecisive light. Réveille had nothing like this. To be sure, there were towers of light, but these lights turned on and off, winking in and out of their rectangular existence at the most sporadic moments. What madness had generated this?
There were humans everywhere; Some talked into shining boxes carried in their hands, some talked at thin air. They fascinated him in a way that no dreamer ever had. They waited at the edge of roads for lights to grant them permission, and then, like cattle unleashed from a coral after centuries of imprisonment, they flooded forwards in an unstoppable mass. The contraptions they used – ‘cars’ – were likewise beautifully coordinated. Like a river of polish, they would wait, and then move, orchestrated by some previously-agreed-upon plan.
“Yo, dude, nice coat.”
Morpheus glanced at the three young men who stood in a couple of feet away. He took a moment to analyze their words, decided they were attempting to be friendly and smiled at them.
“Thank you.”
Their eyes glazed at the sound of his voice. A minor irritation. He could hear their heartbeats, slow, tender. Fragile. It would be a shame to waste their forgetful state. Morpheus beckoned, and like all humans, they followed docilely.
The back of the strange structure leveled into a quiet, small street, and it was here that Morpheus let his nature take form and drank his fill, fangs licked clean after the deed. The following hours would eventually reveal the slightly disorientated boys to whatever authorities might exist to take such matters into hand. Morpheus moved on, there was far too much to see to linger over the comforts of those who existed to satiate him. Beauty everywhere.
A little girl peered at him curiously as Morpheus stepped into a place lit up by brilliant blue and green lights. There were clothes hanging from the walls and from strange frames set up for presumably this purpose.
“Do I knows you, mister?” the child asked him, coming up to him and tugging his finger.
In return, Morpheus studied the little girl. She appeared to be of the princess variety, dressed in what passed for fairy pink in this realm.
“We may have met before, little one,” Morpheus said, “but not here.”
“No. I’ve never been here before,” she informed him.
“Nor have I.”
“My name is Amy,” she said after a brief pause, “I’m seven.”
“I’m Morpheus,” he replied, “I was here before the world.”
Amy nodded as though this was the most normal thing for him to say. When she moved her head the strange lights caught in her sunset hair. She was quite…pretty. The word seemed to fit.
“Can you save me, mister?”
“Amy? Amy!”
The girl cringed away from the sound of the voice. The woman was tall. Sophisticated. The word materialized behind his eyes as he saw her rush towards them. The woman scowled fiercely.
“Amy! How many times have I told you not to wander off? I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
The sentence came out in a breathless rush, and Morpheus was momentarily mesmerized by the flow of it.
“I wasn’t botherin’ him. We were talking!” Amy insisted fearfully.
“So sorry,” the woman said again, and began tugging Amy along with her towards the door before Morpheus could make a reply. Amy shrieked.
“You know better!” the woman hissed at her, and the undertone of threat was clearly audible, “when we get home you’re in deep shit, brat.”
Morpheus watched, considering his options.
VI: Undercurrent
A little girl peered at him curiously as Morpheus stepped into a place lit up by brilliant blue and green lights. There were clothes hanging from the walls and from strange frames set up for presumably this purpose.
“Do I knows you, mister?” the child asked him, coming up to him and tugging his finger.
In return, Morpheus studied the little girl. She appeared to be of the princess variety, dressed in what passed for fairy pink in this realm.
“We may have met before, little one,” Morpheus said, “but not here.”
“No. I’ve never been here before,” she informed him.
“Nor have I.”
“My name is Amy,” she said after a brief pause, “I’m seven.”
“I’m Morpheus,” he replied, “I was here before the world.”
Amy nodded as though this was the most normal thing for him to say. When she moved her head the strange lights caught in her sunset hair. She was quite…pretty. The word seemed to fit.
“Can you save me, mister?”
“Amy? Amy!”
The girl cringed away from the sound of the voice. The woman was tall. Sophisticated. The word materialized behind his eyes as he saw her rush towards them. The woman scowled fiercely.
“Amy! How many times have I told you not to wander off? I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
The sentence came out in a breathless rush, and Morpheus was momentarily mesmerized by the flow of it.
“I wasn’t botherin’ him. We were talking!” Amy insisted fearfully.
“So sorry,” the woman said again, and began tugging Amy along with her towards the door before Morpheus could make a reply. Amy shrieked.
“You know better!” the woman hissed at her, and the undertone of threat was clearly audible, “when we get home you’re in deep shit, brat.”
Morpheus watched, considering his options.
VII: Strangers
The woman who Morpheus – and everyone else watching – assumed was her mother, hauled Amy out into the street. It was not concern that made him follow; that is to say, he did not think of it as concern. It might have been curiosity, but to be completely honest, he had nothing better to do, and the child had spoken to him. So he followed.
It was a green car. The kind of green that would have set the heart of Réveille on fire, the kind of green that only marginally rivaled Morpheus’ eyes. Amy was strapped into the back of it. She said something and the mother ignored her, starting the contraption instead. Morpheus idly took the seat beside Amy, no one seemed to notice him. The seats were smooth, comfortable, but the car smelled strange, as though someone had attempted to light a fire inside it.
The world flashed by as though someone spilled their water colours outside the window, making everything run together until it was all meaningless. Morpheus enjoyed that. Amy said something else, but he was far too mesmerized by the streaming colours to hear. He did hear the woman’s reply, however, because it cut so deep into what passed for his psyche that he would have heard it at the other end of existence.
“Your dreams don’t matter.”
Dreams always mattered, even if you were not a Dreamer.
“My dreams come true!” Amy retorted sullenly, “I told you we would meet someone special today, and we did!”
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers!”
Morpheus raised an eyebrow.
“I am not a stranger,” he said, and then several things happened at once.
The woman made the car shriek, Amy shouted for her to watch out for a ‘cyclist’, and Morpheus realized that driving was possibly very complicated.
VIII: Dying
Amy’s mother was quite dead. Morpheus could see her soul, all grey patches and blue, fading. As it was the first time he was seeing it, he found himself trapped in rapt fascination, staring for long moments until he became aware that Amy was staring too. There was a thin line of blood running down from her scalp, tracing the gentle contour of her cheek.
“You are bleeding,” he told her.
“I know.”
The car was the wrong way round, Amy was hanging upside down from the belt that secured her to the seat.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked her curiously.
“She’s dead isn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said, and then realized that humans tended to be highly attached to each other, and added, “I am sorry.”
“I didn’t like her. She hated me. She was suppose to take care of me after Papa died.”
“And she did not?”
“No. She locked me in my room.”
Morpheus realized he did not entirely enjoy the sensation of being upside down.
“Shall we get out of the car?” he suggested after a moment.
“I don’t know if I can move, I’m a little dizzy.”
“I will help you.”
Morpheus steps out of the car with all the grace of a figure skater stepping onto ice and suddenly Amy is standing next to him, her hand in his. The bleeding has stopped and she realizes suddenly that she is holding a large lollypop in her free hand.
“You’re magic aren’t you?” she asked him.
“I am Morpheus.”
“Yes, I know, you told me,” she replied, but her eyes were on the woman in the car.
“What happens now?” Morpheus asked the child.
“In the movies the police always come.”
“Do you want to wait for them, or would you like to come with me?”
Alyxa stepped into her house, slightly tipsy and buzzing from the night’s work that the small circle of witches had worked. Within a matter of days they would be able to repeat Alyxa’s spell and draw yet another of the gods from Réveille. Of course the question now was who? Of all nine in the circle, only Alyxa was a Dreamer, the others had only caught glimpses of the otherworld. So they’d left it to her to decide which to bring through. Ishtar had been asking, nagging really, and of course Ares was still desperate to come out and play. Isis might be an interesting decision but –
“Who’re you?” Alyxa asked the small child standing in front of her, holding a teddy-bear.
“My name’s Amy. Morpheus brought me here,” the girl told her.
“He…did, did he?” Alyxa murmured, “he here?”
“I am here, Alyxa.”
Alyxa started, losing her balance on her heels and teetering for a split second on one precarious stiletto. Morpheus steadied her, materializing in that irritating way of his, right behind her, until she regained her footing.
“Amy’s step-mother met with an unfortunate accident, we decided to bring her here.”
She could feel the brush of his thumbs along her spine, rushing, coaxing. He wanted to feed.
“Amy…it’s Amy right?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a minute…Morpheus, can I talk to you?”
“You are talking to me, witchlet,” he pointed out.
She took him by the arm then and pulled him into the kitchen.
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just bring a child away from an accident! Or from her home and family! That’s kidnapping! You didn’t actually kill her mother did you?”
“Step-mother.”
“Whatever. You didn’t do anything to save her, did you?” Alyxa asked, incredulously, staring up into the emerald eyes.
“Should I have?”
Amy waited patiently. She stood in the living room and looked at the pictures on the wall: Alyxa with her parents, with eight other women, with a small child. Morpheus had told Amy that Alyxa was a Dreamer, and had explained, as best as he could, that this meant that she could enter the place where the gods live. Amy figured that there was more to it than that, but grown-ups had a way of telling you things in a way that reminded Amy of cooling caramel; they never really got past the part where it was sticky. Children were much more sensible. She thought Morpheus would have understood that, but if he was magic maybe he worked differently.
After several minutes, Alyxa came out into the room. She looked pale, but pretty, there were some red dots on her neck.
“Alright, Amy. Morpheus says you will stay with us for now.”
Morpheus rested a hand on Alyxa’s shoulder and smiled. Amy felt a weight lift off of her. What would she have done if Alyxa had said ‘no’? The Bad Lady was dead now, just like Daddy.
“Do you need anything from where you lived?” Alyxa asked, and Amy wondered why she sounded so sleepy.
Amy thought about it for a while.
“I would like my teddy bears. Daddy gave them to me. Can I have them?”
Morpheus smiled at her, his teeth looked strange.
“Of course, Alyxa will take us there tonight in her vehicle and we will take whatever you want for your new room,” he told her, his voice reminded Amy of a cat’s purr.
“My new room?”
“Morpheus will fix it for you,” Alyxa said softly, “let me find my keys.”
She wandered, unsteadily from the room, and Amy heard the familiar jangle of keys.
Alyxa found it severely unnerving to watch Morpheus and Bast; the one would look at the other, and yet their eyes never met. Bast had taken to sitting on the windowsill in the front room, looking out into the world, and Morpheus would then stand in the arched doorway at the other end of the room, just watching her. Sometimes, Alyxa wondered if they spoke to each other at all, and if they did if those conversations would ever be audible or if they would remain restricted to the eerie ESP that she suspected was going on.
Nights were different of course; Bast had taken to sleeping on Amy’s bed for the majority of the night, only to be completely untraceable in the morning. Amy took it all for granted, in that innocent childlike way, but Alyxa suspected that there was more than the regular feline nocturnal activities going on Bast’s excursions.
“But where does she go?” she asked Morpheus one morning, waking to find him gently licking blood off her fingers.
“Have you ever tried to ask a cat where she goes?”
“Well...I’ve never had to put up with a cat that could talk, now have I?” Alyxa countered.
“Have you not?” Morpheus queried.
Alyxa stared at him, confusion pouring into her mind, she was distracted by the gentle kiss of his lips against her wrist as he drew more blood from her.
“No...” she murmured, “no, I haven’t. Mortal...cats don’t talk.”
“Of course they do, my love,” Morpheus chided, his voice strangely thick with humanity, “you simply do not know how to listen yet.”
She smiled, drowsy once more.
“Do you think...you could teach me?”
“To listen?”
Alyxa nodded, she could feel Réveille pulling at her from just beyond the veil.
“You and I can do anything...anything.”
IX: Morals
Alyxa stepped into her house, slightly tipsy and buzzing from the night’s work that the small circle of witches had worked. Within a matter of days they would be able to repeat Alyxa’s spell and draw yet another of the gods from Réveille. Of course the question now was who? Of all nine in the circle, only Alyxa was a Dreamer, the others had only caught glimpses of the otherworld. So they’d left it to her to decide which to bring through. Ishtar had been asking, nagging really, and of course Ares was still desperate to come out and play. Isis might be an interesting decision but –
“Who’re you?” Alyxa asked the small child standing in front of her, holding a teddy-bear.
“My name’s Amy. Morpheus brought me here,” the girl told her.
“He…did, did he?” Alyxa murmured, “he here?”
“I am here, Alyxa.”
Alyxa started, losing her balance on her heels and teetering for a split second on one precarious stiletto. Morpheus steadied her, materializing in that irritating way of his, right behind her, until she regained her footing.
“Amy’s step-mother met with an unfortunate accident, we decided to bring her here.”
She could feel the brush of his thumbs along her spine, rushing, coaxing. He wanted to feed.
“Amy…it’s Amy right?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a minute…Morpheus, can I talk to you?”
“You are talking to me, witchlet,” he pointed out.
She took him by the arm then and pulled him into the kitchen.
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just bring a child away from an accident! Or from her home and family! That’s kidnapping! You didn’t actually kill her mother did you?”
“Step-mother.”
“Whatever. You didn’t do anything to save her, did you?” Alyxa asked, incredulously, staring up into the emerald eyes.
“Should I have?”
X: Caramel
Amy waited patiently. She stood in the living room and looked at the pictures on the wall: Alyxa with her parents, with eight other women, with a small child. Morpheus had told Amy that Alyxa was a Dreamer, and had explained, as best as he could, that this meant that she could enter the place where the gods live. Amy figured that there was more to it than that, but grown-ups had a way of telling you things in a way that reminded Amy of cooling caramel; they never really got past the part where it was sticky. Children were much more sensible. She thought Morpheus would have understood that, but if he was magic maybe he worked differently.
After several minutes, Alyxa came out into the room. She looked pale, but pretty, there were some red dots on her neck.
“Alright, Amy. Morpheus says you will stay with us for now.”
Morpheus rested a hand on Alyxa’s shoulder and smiled. Amy felt a weight lift off of her. What would she have done if Alyxa had said ‘no’? The Bad Lady was dead now, just like Daddy.
“Do you need anything from where you lived?” Alyxa asked, and Amy wondered why she sounded so sleepy.
Amy thought about it for a while.
“I would like my teddy bears. Daddy gave them to me. Can I have them?”
Morpheus smiled at her, his teeth looked strange.
“Of course, Alyxa will take us there tonight in her vehicle and we will take whatever you want for your new room,” he told her, his voice reminded Amy of a cat’s purr.
“My new room?”
“Morpheus will fix it for you,” Alyxa said softly, “let me find my keys.”
She wandered, unsteadily from the room, and Amy heard the familiar jangle of keys.
XI: Comforts
The child was interested in only the most basic of things that they found in the house she had inhabited with the woman she called the ‘Bad Lady’. Alyxa eventually decided that it had been her stepmother and that her father had died the year before; it was difficult to be sure, since Amy did not seem to have much of a sense of time.
She was very similar to Morpheus in this sense, except that Amy was human and had a vague understanding of age, the way that all seven-year-olds did. Not that Alyxa knew a lot about children, she’d been an only child, and the only dealings she’d had with children had been the occasional visit of a distant cousin.
It wasn’t all that surprising therefore, that Alyxa found herself driving back to her house with a car largely full of the child’s clothes and the twenty-odd teddy bears that had been strewn across the otherwise barren bedroom. They turned back into the driveway and the teddy bears disappeared instantly. Neither Alyxa or Amy blinked, Alyxa because she was too tired and Amy because she took for granted that Morpheus was ‘magic’ and that such things were normal. It was for the same reasons that neither of them were surprised when the house suddenly found itself in possession of a new room, off the end of the hallway, complete with furniture and now outfitted with teddy bears.
“I’m going to bed,” Alyxa declared after she had seen Amy settle down on the new bed.
“I will watch you sleep, witchlet,” Morpheus told her, and he probably meant it reassuringly, but there was just something about today, about the entire day, that seeped all strength from her, and so, she simply nodded and let herself fall into dreamless sleep.
XI: Choices
Réveille means ‘awaken’, in French, and it is what Dreamers have called the Realm of the Dead Gods since they first learned how to step from regular dreaming to waking dreams. Centuries ago, only the shamans of tribes could accomplish the feat, using herbs to encourage their soul to leave their body and wander. Generations slip by, and now it is a hereditary talent, rare and sought after by witches and their covens. Like her father before her, Alyxa held the only position of the Dream Witch in the coven.
To dream, for Dreamers, is to live.
“Which one of us, child, have you chosen?” Isis asks her, her voice already lamenting some loss she felt.
“Have you chosen me, little girl?” Ares demands, the swords in his hands flickering in and out of view as he dances over the courtyard floor.
Alyxa shifts in the large silver throne that they have set up for her, a sign of their flattery. She had long learned to ignore the offerings of dainty foods that were presented to her.
“You should choose me,” Thor shouts, drowning out Ares’ presence with the solidity of his form.
“I should be the one to join Morpheus on the other side of the Veil, Réveille holds nothing for me, and I could do much good in the world,” Ishtar murmurs, materializing before the silver throne.
Alyxa presses a hand to her forehead. Back in her bed, her body tosses and turns under Morpheus’ silent eyes.
“We have not yet decided,” Alyxa whispers, “I have not yet made up my mind.”
“You should do it soon, dear child,” Isis whispers, “we are all very interested in your world.”
“I will try to decide soon,” Alyxa assures the gathering.
Alone, silent, Bast sits, and waits. She knows already.
XII: Enchained
“Alright, I’ve decided…” Alyxa said, raising her head and looking at the other eight members of the Coven.
“And?” Maye, the Coven-Queen, asked her impatiently.
“Of all that want to come through, only Bast has any real knowledge of our world, and unless one of you wants to volunteer to babysit Ares or Thor, or put up with Isis’ tears for the rest of your lives, I suggest we bring Bast through.”
“Can we trust her?” one of the others asked, a touch of nerves in her voice.
“They are gods, Delia, they do not deal in human concepts of ‘trust’, they are what they are,” Maye chided.
Delia hung her head.
“Shall we begin then?” Alyxa queried, she was eager to get this over with and return home, hopefully to find that Amy and Morpheus had not turned the place into a fairy’s castle or a teapot; the last five nights since Amy’s arrival had been fraught with unexpected occurrences: fairies serving tea to teddy bears, a candy castle appearing in the backyard, and a complete overhaul of Alyxa’s wardrobe.
“We will make the preparations toni- ”
“No need, kittens, I’m here.”
The Coven went still – apart from Delia, who fainted dead into Maye’s arms – as a very impressive looking cat wandered into their midst; sleek, silver-blue, but with eyes of an eerie gold, and they looked through you as though you weren’t there at all.
“But we – we haven’t do –” one of the girls stuttered.
“The Dreamer’s decision was enough, she is after all the gateway, and I’m hardly in need of full ceremony the way the others are,” the Cat-Goddess informed them, “so I saved you the trouble of incense and candles, and in return,” she seemed to smile, “I ask only that you love me.”
XIV: Origins
Morpheus had a father of sorts; popular mythology reads that he was born of Sleep, Sonus. This was not entirely wrong: Sleep comes before dreaming after all, so in many ways, the latter is sprung from the former. However, since he had no actual feelings about his ephemeral progenitor, he found it quite fascinating to hear Amy speak of her ‘Daddy’.
They were sitting on the carpeted floor in Amy’s bedroom, a meticulous picnic spread before them, complete with actual cakes and actual tea; the teddy bears, par Alyxa’s command, were unanimated, and there were no fairies.
“Daddy used to play picnic with me all the time before he married that woman,” Amy was saying, “when he married that woman, he stopped being fun.”
“Why?” Morpheus asked.
Amy looked at him, her eyebrows pursing together as though trying to merge into one line above her nose.
“Because that woman wanted him all for herself,” she said imperiously, and then, seeing Morpheus’ expression, blank and transparent all at once, she added, shyly, “what is your daddy like?”
“I do not know.”
“How can’t you know? Don’t you know your daddy?” she hesitated, “Is he dead like mine?”
The Dream God smiled a little at the question.
“I do not think my ‘daddy’ was ever truly alive.”
Amy thought about this for a moment, and then filed it away in her mind; Morpheus could almost see the cabinets of her brain sorting the information. The thought was there and gone in an instance as both he and Amy heard Alyxa’s car pull up into the driveway downstairs.
“Alyxa’s home!” Amy exclaimed, rushing from the room with all the excitement of a baby elephant on rollerblades.
“And not alone…” Morpheus murmured, sinking through the floor to avoid the stairs, “welcome to reality, Bast.”
XV: Nocturnal
Alyxa found it severely unnerving to watch Morpheus and Bast; the one would look at the other, and yet their eyes never met. Bast had taken to sitting on the windowsill in the front room, looking out into the world, and Morpheus would then stand in the arched doorway at the other end of the room, just watching her. Sometimes, Alyxa wondered if they spoke to each other at all, and if they did if those conversations would ever be audible or if they would remain restricted to the eerie ESP that she suspected was going on.
Nights were different of course; Bast had taken to sleeping on Amy’s bed for the majority of the night, only to be completely untraceable in the morning. Amy took it all for granted, in that innocent childlike way, but Alyxa suspected that there was more than the regular feline nocturnal activities going on Bast’s excursions.
“But where does she go?” she asked Morpheus one morning, waking to find him gently licking blood off her fingers.
“Have you ever tried to ask a cat where she goes?”
“Well...I’ve never had to put up with a cat that could talk, now have I?” Alyxa countered.
“Have you not?” Morpheus queried.
Alyxa stared at him, confusion pouring into her mind, she was distracted by the gentle kiss of his lips against her wrist as he drew more blood from her.
“No...” she murmured, “no, I haven’t. Mortal...cats don’t talk.”
“Of course they do, my love,” Morpheus chided, his voice strangely thick with humanity, “you simply do not know how to listen yet.”
She smiled, drowsy once more.
“Do you think...you could teach me?”
“To listen?”
Alyxa nodded, she could feel Réveille pulling at her from just beyond the veil.
“You and I can do anything...anything.”
XVI: Cleansing
Alyxa frowned at the pile of dirty clothes that lay unceremoniously scattered all over her laundry floor in her laundry floor. This was not what she had had in mind for her Sunday afternoon. She wanted to study her Craft books, she wanted to be out in the herb garden, she wanted –
“Oh hell,” she grumbled, and set about making some sort of sense of the laundry.
She must have been at it for a couple of minutes when she noticed that Morpheus was standing in the door, looking at her with those bright eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, voice loaded with curiosity.
“Laundry,” she replied shortly, “cleaning clothes.”
“And…you do this by putting them into the machine and then…?”
“The machine spins them around and makes them clean,” Alyxa explained, demonstrating by putting the clothes into the washing machine and tipping in some detergent.
They watched it go for a couple of minutes. Then…
“Have you seen Bast today?”
Morpheus completely ignored the question, his eyes fixed on the washing machine.
“Have you ever considered doing this?”
Suddenly the washing machine gurgled and bleeped several times.
“What did you do?” Alyxa asked, a touch of worry flooding into her like boiling water seeping through a teabag.
“Made it easier.”
“What what easier?”
Alyxa edged away from the washing machine as it stuttered and then returned to its normal cycle with renewed fervor.
“Your ‘laundry’, it will now do itself.”
“It sounds like a helicopter trying to take off…” Alyxa murmured.
“Come, witchling, let us go and see what the child is doing.”
“Morpheus…I’m not sure abo- ”
He brushed a strand of hair back from her face.
“It will be well,” he said quietly, “see?”
Alyxa glanced at the washing machine. It smiled back at her.
Mice in Réveille were, generally speaking, dull and unimaginative. They left their homes to forage for food and returned with their keep. Bast had had no expectations that they would be any more entertaining here.
“Oh hell,” she grumbled, and set about making some sort of sense of the laundry.
She must have been at it for a couple of minutes when she noticed that Morpheus was standing in the door, looking at her with those bright eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, voice loaded with curiosity.
“Laundry,” she replied shortly, “cleaning clothes.”
“And…you do this by putting them into the machine and then…?”
“The machine spins them around and makes them clean,” Alyxa explained, demonstrating by putting the clothes into the washing machine and tipping in some detergent.
They watched it go for a couple of minutes. Then…
“Have you seen Bast today?”
Morpheus completely ignored the question, his eyes fixed on the washing machine.
“Have you ever considered doing this?”
Suddenly the washing machine gurgled and bleeped several times.
“What did you do?” Alyxa asked, a touch of worry flooding into her like boiling water seeping through a teabag.
“Made it easier.”
“What what easier?”
Alyxa edged away from the washing machine as it stuttered and then returned to its normal cycle with renewed fervor.
“Your ‘laundry’, it will now do itself.”
“It sounds like a helicopter trying to take off…” Alyxa murmured.
“Come, witchling, let us go and see what the child is doing.”
“Morpheus…I’m not sure abo- ”
He brushed a strand of hair back from her face.
“It will be well,” he said quietly, “see?”
Alyxa glanced at the washing machine. It smiled back at her.
XVII: Entertainment
Mice in Réveille were, generally speaking, dull and unimaginative. They left their homes to forage for food and returned with their keep. Bast had had no expectations that they would be any more entertaining here.
Unlike the others, who seemed desperate to venture into the world and experience the headiness of reality, Bast had been content to watch from the other side of the Rift. Her entertainment had come from watching the Dead Gods harass each other; Zeus’ lot in particular seemed very keen on sleeping around and creating messy love affairs that kept everyone busy. Make no mistake, Bast was a cat, and her feline nature made her both playful and easily irritated, something without a breath space between them. The primary difference between her and the others was that where they had long since lost worship to the inevitable drifts of mortal time, Bast’s true followers never really forgot her, and so she had maintained a foothold – a pawhold, if you will – and this served her now.
The Russian-blue feline shook herself free of the leaves that had settled against her fur and hissed at the tomcat as he tried to approach her again.
“Typical male,” she told him in mortal speech, catching him by surprise.
His ears went back and his tail fluffed itself up impressively, but she ignored him and stretched. He was not worth her time, if she had not found herself so bored with waiting outside the mouse hole tonight he would not have been worth her time to start with. She flicked an ear at him: go away.
Dawn would be in a few hours, perhaps a nap on the child’s bed then, followed by a lazy bath in the morning sunlight. It would not do to be tired when the time came.
XVIII: Ignorance
Morpheus stood at the edge of the living room, staring out into the backyard. Behind him, he heard Alyxa talking with Amy in the kitchen as they went about making ‘cookies’. It sounded interesting, but there was something else that had caught his attention, something neither mortal females could see while they were awake.
-You feel it too, then?- Bast asked him from where she was lounging atop the back of the sofa.
-It is impossible to not feel,- he replied wordlessly.
She flicked a tail and stretched.
-Your Dreamer’s coven is talking about bringing over another,- she murmured.
-They do not understand patience.-
-They are limited creatures, of course they don’t,- Bast said wryly.
They bring too many of us through, the Rift exists for reasons they have obviously forgotten,- Morpheus told her pointedly, -and if they do not rein in their instincts they will bridge the Rift…-
-You act as if I don’t know any of this, kitten,- Bast scolded.
She leapt suddenly and pounced on some invisible prey, a dust mote perhaps.
-Let us hope that Isis and Ishtar at least have the sense to hold back somewhat.-
Bast looked at him as the words floated through the air between them.
-Does Alyxa know that you need her blood to stay here?- she asked him after a moment of silence.
-She does, it is a Dreamer thing.-
-And yet she does not know of the greatest mistake in the history of her kind?-
-She is young still…-
Bast flicked her ears back; young was no excuse to be foolish, or worse, stupid, Morpheus knew that.
-There is a reason why you are the first to come across in eight-hundred years, Dream-King, you should educate your pet before she lets her friends remind the world through their ignorance.-
XIX: Growth
Amy’s life had changed. She was well aware of this, and to be honest she had expected it to be more difficult, but she knew that Morpheus and Bast were magic, so why should things not be as easy as they had been? Magic made things easier right? Like the way the washing machine danced now, cleaning clothes before spitting them into the empty basket. The basket then lifted itself and tipped itself into the equally animate dryer. Amy never grew tired of watching it. It was a good example for how changed her life really was.
No one on the street questioned her presence, and when someone did ask, she was introduced as Alyxa’s neice. She loved Alyxa; Alyxa was the kind of girl she wanted to be when she grew up, all so-fi-sticated and witchy.
Everything at the house was a special occasion in Amy’s eyes: she loved the cooking that Alyxa did, even if the older girl grumbled that most of it never turned out right, but most of all she loved the stories that she was told before bed. Morpheus and Alyxa would stand in the doorway, watching, and Bast would sit on her bed and spin cotton candy tales out of thin air with images that danced over the pale ceiling. She had no idea that she was being educated.
Nor did she have any idea that after sleep came, they would watch her still, until Alyxa grew weary and Morpheus took her to bed, but Bast would watch her, and wait, and when the Dreaming started, the Cat-Goddess would simply nod to herself and slip out the window.
The Dreams were about small things: it would rain next weekend, there would be no salami at the butcher. At the beginning, dreamers always Dream innocently.
“Watch,” Morpheus’ voice compels her, and Alyxa cannot look away.
Silver light dashed across the sky as Morpheus stepped out into Alyxa’s backyard, Bast, unusually, riding on his shoulder. Any onlooker would have put that minor fact aside, however, when the backyard was ceased to be the backyard and the two disappeared from sight.
“Where did they go?” Amy asked Alyxa, perched on top of the counter as the older Dreamer did the dishes.
“Hopefully to go talk some sense into the other Deities,” she said, “and hopefully they’ll have more luck than I did talking sense into my Coven.”
Amy put on a seven-year-old’s equivalent of a thoughtful expression – sucking on her bottom lip, eyes squinting in deliberate concentration, her little legs banging the cupboard door beneath her seat.
“Are there lots?”
“Lots?”
“Of Deities.”
“Hundreds, thousands, probably more. Every entity humanity ever dreamt up and worshipped, since before we had languages, they’re all there, behind the Rift,” Alyxa explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“This Rift thing. It keeps them there and us here, ‘n only Dreamers can go through?”
Alyxa nodded. She was used to Amy’s many questions by now, even if they sometimes made her think about things she would rather not.
“So how come Morpheus and Bast can go back and forth now?” Amy wanted to know next.
Alyxa stopped, frowning. This was such a question. Truth be told she didn’t really know, so she said,
“I guess it has something to do with Bast. She doesn’t seem to need a Dreamer to keep her here with blood, so….”
The words just fell out of her mouth as she put another plate in the rack, and even as she said them, it made sense.
“I like Bast,” Amy stated decisively.
“I like Morpheus.”
“Like ‘like’ like?”
“No choice really,” Alyxa replied softly.
The Silver Throne is empty, Morpheus feels strange to look upon it again, especially without his Dreamer seated in it. It is disconcerting to be here at all, and not on his own power. Bast sits on his shoulder, her claws flexing slightly into his shoulder, which the regalia and robes of his natural state leaves bare.
“You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” Alyxa murmured, letting her arm fall back onto the bedspread.
“I am sorry.”
He wasn’t of course, the concept of actual regret was still alien to him, but it mattered that he had used the words. Words were after all very important. Weren’t they? Her mind was drowsy. It was because of his fingers, he was stroking her forehead, soothing away the images of his long absence.
“Did it work?” she asked, “did you get anything from them?”
“I am not sure, but then one never is with the Olders.”
Bast leapt up onto the bed as Morpheus spoke and patted Alyxa’s cheek with a paw.
“They’ve convinced Zeus to put his agents on it,” the Cat-Goddess told her.
“Agents?”
“Four Youngers,” Morpheus said, “who stayed in this Realm after Troy.”
“Troy? You mean all that Homer stuff really happened?”
It was all so confusing. Like a Dream, but twisting in the telling, as though something were reshaping the truth around her before she had a chance to truly see it.
“‘That Homer stuff’ as you so prettily describe it, kitten,” Bast explained, “is the original blunder that started the whole separation of worlds. I mean, yes, faith failed so the Olders failed, but Troy is where the big mess all started. Zeus left behind some people. Four, one God, and three Heroes. They’ve been given the task to stop your Coven from bridging the Rift any more than they already have.”
“Can the Rift be fixed?”
“In time, perhaps,” Morpheus said, “for now, do not worry about the means or the measure of its rescue. Rest yourself. As you said, I took too much from you.”
She rolled her eyes at him, or tried to, she was so tired.
“Sleep, my weary one.”
The storm clouds parted quite elegantly to let the small private jet through, closing with thunderous lightening as soon as the wheels steamed against the tarmac of the landing strip. She tucked the cigarette filter back into its case and returned it to her handbag with an elegant gloved hand. She didn’t really know why she was still in the Hepburn phase, but she enjoyed it and so it had stuck, albeit in reds and blacks.
“Mistress, the car is waiting as you asked,” the pilot said, sticking his head out of the cockpit.
“Excellent.”
She made her way down the steps and into the car; the door was closed behind her by the chauffeur. The car purred forward and she sat back, fiddling with the necklace around her throat. For a second it glowed and the glow caught in her eyes.
-Sir?-
-Medea, you know what you’re doing?-
-I have done this before, sir.-
-Yes, several times, and as I recall there tended to be limbs strewn about the place, usually of small children. Artistic, certainly, but lacking...subtlety.-
-Are you complaining?- Medea snapped silently.
-No, but this time...listen, darlin’, we don’t need them dead.-
-We’ve been over this before, sir.-
-Yes, and you still somehow managed to get three pairs of feet up into the rafters, and the house didn’t even have rafters.-
Medea rolled her eyes and tugged her filter case and cigarettes back out of her bag, expertly lighting one up with one hand.
-I will avoid that. In fact, I won’t shed blood, would that make you happy, sir?- she asked him.
-I’d appreciate it, Medea.-
The connection faded as swiftly as it had come. She tapped the end of the filter against the glass.
“Swing by the store, I require rope.”
“As you wish, Mistress.”
“What? About Karl?”
He nodded.
“Don’t be silly,” she told him, although she was quietly warmed by his protectiveness.
When she looked at him again for a moment she saw him different, as though he was glowing. It was different from the normal visions the Sight had given her, it was never real. This scared her.
“Jazz?”
She shook her head and smiled. Michael had been her boyfriend for nearly a year now. They talked, about everything, and about nothing. She had never felt this strong a connection with anyone before. Sometimes she could feel it in the way their hands touched. There was a connection, physical and emotional and sometimes she wondered if maybe she should take it further…
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“You Seeing things again?”
Yes, she had told him, but how now to tell him that Morgan was going to die and that she was going to start Seeing in a way that she had never seen anything before. That it scared her. That she did not really want it.
“Did you know…” she started shyly, “..when I see you with the Sight, you’re surrounded by this light.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed in mirth.
“Maybe it’s telling you you’re safe with me then,” he said, chuckling.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Either that or you’re too good to be true.”
“Nothing, anywhere, is too good to be truth,” he replied and moved to get up.
She caught his hand and kept him there.
“Did you know…Dreamers can see the past, Diviners can see the future,” she told him, “Morgan says that Dreamers sacrifice their hold on reality sometimes…”
“And Diviners sacrifice sight, I know.”
Jessica was brushing her teeth when she noticed that the world in the mirror was fading around the edges. She had to brace herself against the sink, knowing what it was.
“It’s alright, Jazzy,” she told herself, “take a breath. It’s okay.”
The phone chose to ring, but she already knew what it was. People to tell her that Morgan Mirkhill had passed away in the morning, found by Aeron Smithson. Most likely it was Aeron himself, but Jessica left that to surprise. She stumbled towards where the phone sat and whisked it to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Jessica?”
“Aeron,” she replied, “I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“I thought you might have been. You know, don’t you?”
“That Morgan is dead. She told me, yesterday,” Jessica told him, “can you come and pick me up? I assume she’s had all her things in order and the wake will be in a few hours?”
“You guessed correctly. You’re handling this better than I thought you would.”
Jessica tried not to laugh. As much as she hated it, Morgan was dead, and had given her a warning, so she was as prepared as she could be. She had not been particularly close to Morgan anyways.
“I can come and collect you in an hour. You’re not okay to drive?”
Jessica looked around, the fading had stopped spreading but it was enough to make her worry.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Already losing it then,” Aeron murmured, “I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“It’s alright,” Jessica lied, trying to still her heart-rate, “I’ll be ready. I’ll be waiting, call me on my cell when you get here, I don’t know how fast this is going to go.”
“Alright, honey.” Don’t call me honey, Jessica wanted to tell him, but she left it.
The blurry-water-effect she had described to Delia was getting worse, as the daylight grew brighter her vision grew worse and worse. As soon as she stopped trying to blink it away, however, she realized that she was seeing bright colours in random patterns. It was starting to scare her, more than just a little bit. Blinking rapidly the world swam in front of her eyes. She took a step forwards and felt something knock against her hip.
“Jessica?”
She turned in the direction of the side of Aeron’s voice.
“I didn’t think it was going to go this fast,” Jessica whispered, groping a hand around. Tears flooded into her eyes, “I need Michael. Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone!”
Aeron caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze. She reached into her pocket and tried to find her phone. It slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the floor. Jessica made to get it, but Aeron stopped her, guiding her into a chair instead.
“Sit, I’ll get it.”
“I’m not an invalid,” she snapped as he pressed her phone into her hand. She blinked stubbornly.
This was not going to happen! It was happening, and she knew there was nothing she could do about it. She thumbed her phone, trying to navigate it. She could not see it properly.
“Michael. I need Michael,” she mumbled, trying to remember where it was. If only she had bothered to set the voice recognition, she wouldn’t be in this blasted mess.
“Let me,” Aeron offered.
“No! I can do this!” Jessica retorted, angered by her incapability, but Aeron took the phone and did it anyways, pressing the phone to her ear.
“Hey babe,” Michael’s voice sounded, instantly calming her, “you need me?”
“I’m at the coven house. I need you.”
“I’m coming.”
Jessica laid her head down on the table where Aeron had left her. Where was Michael? She didn’t dare shut her eyes, any moment now she would see nothing except the haze of colours. Where was Michael? I need Michael! Every time she thought about his name a burst of light flashed through the pattern of colours, it was the only thing that varied.
Then it was gone.
All of it.
“Aeron!” she shouted, reaching forwards blindly.
“What’s wrong?”
I can’t see! I can’t see! She wanted to shout at him. Then the patterns stopped swirling and she took a breath.
“I can see,” she breathed.
The patterns fell into place like a jigsaw puzzle upon completion, and then it started to move. She saw a brilliant light floating high on top of a mountain, spawning smaller lights that tumbled down the mountainside until they burst onto the land. One light blurred towards her in a rush, then burst into her vision until all she saw was black spots. One of the lights turned dark, dashing down into the earth, deeper and deeper, the earth closing around it.
“What is it, Jessica?” Aeron’s voice asked her, “what do you see?”
If this had not been TrueSight, she would have had no idea what to tell him, but she knew because she could See.
“The Fall. Lucifer’s Fall.”
Morgan’s voice came, unbidden into her vision.
“You will guide them out of Lucifer’s gilded cages.”
The light burned down into the earth, contained by it but also containing it, creating its own world, its own realm. Lucifer’s light did not dim, and he looked up, born anew. He saw the world through new eyes. Lucifer rose. She saw the fac of the one who cast him back.
“Michael!” she shouted, reaching out.
“Jazzy!”
Michael burst into the room, ignoring everyone else. He could feel her pulling at him even before she had called him. It was painful, the way she pulled at him, never before had he felt such a pull, not from any of the Cassandrians. All of that stopped irritating him when he saw her, his Jessica, lying flat on her back, twisting in the middle of her transformation.
“How long has she been like this?” he demanded, glancing at the man who was kneeling at her side.
“Since she called you.”
Michael glanced at him and around the room, seeing the faces of the men and women he knew but never seen. Aeron was the one near Jessica. Delia and Tiffany, two witches of lesser power, standing by each other, the youngest. Mark and Michaela.
“Give her space, she needs to find her own way back,” Michael instructed.
“Who is this guy?” Delia demanded, but her father waved her to silence.
“Only the Loremaster knows what happens when the Diviner’s Sight is passed on,” Mark declared.
“No Loremaster since before Morgan has seen that passage of power,” Michaela pointed out.
“Lore isn’t enough,” Aeron said, “not for something like this. What I know I learned, what is happening now is beyond my knowing.”
“And why is he – ” Delia started.
“Will you shut up?” Michael demanded impatiently, kneeling to touch Jessica’s face.
She stopped writhing instantly, and opened her eyes. They were colourless now, the deep blues were gone, bleached pale.
“Mic’hael,” she breathed, her voice filled with a new timbre, with power, “I See.”
When she said his name she said it the way it was meant to be spoken. She knew then, the first door had been opened. She would open the others soon.
“Mic’hael, I Know.”
It was quiet now, but the riots of colours that Jessica kept seeing kept falling back into place and every time she moved her head they showed her Lucifer’s beautiful face, looking up at her through the kaleidoscope. It made her laugh whenever she saw it, the white-blonde hair, and startling blue eyes.
“Are you alright?” Michael asked her, moving to stand behind her.
Now that she knew, now that she could feel his presence and knew what it meant.
“I’m super,” she told him, laughing out loud, “I don’t know how, but I can see.
None of the normal things, I can’t see the table, but I know it’s there, I can’t see you, but I know you, I can feel you. I know who you are.”
“I know you do. Morgan never had the chance to tell you, that the curse Apollo set upon your line was lifted when Lucifer Fell,” he said, and she laughed again.
“I know, I can feel that. He Fell and the One lifted the curse after consultation with Apollo, they decided between them that it was best that way.
“You’re doing well,” Michael told her, caressing her shoulders, “the doors are opening for you.”
“Do you think it will happen? Do you think I’ll be able to bring the Dreamer across?”
She laughed again. Excited by everything, it was terrifying how much she understood now, how far forward and backwards she could See. It was amazing. Everything made total sense, she could see the great pattern, the whorls and lines.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, “like your light. Just beautiful. I can’t describe it, I don’t know what it is, but I can see it and it’s so gorgeous I could eat it.”
Michael chuckled.
“Eating ripples of fate will give you indigestion.”
Alyxa sat, huddled, against the headboard of the enormous bed that was the primary furnishing of the room. She was wearing some sort of elaborate Victorian gown, complete with corset and bustle, in a shade of violet that she would never had thought possible. It didn’t matter, of course, none of it did. She had been here, how long? Days? Months? Years?
“Though it wouldn’t matter, I can’t Dream while I’m here, so it dreams me. The days dream, time fades, I can’t see, everything is the same and nothing is different,”
she blinked, it was her voice, saying those words.
“If you do not release us, she is going to lose herself, Lucifer.”
“Morpheus?”
Alyxa lifted her head and looked around. He was standing by the door. She liked the way the white shirt he was wearing opened, leaving the hollow of his throat naked. She saw Lucifer too, Hell’s King was radiant, wild around the edges.
“Run fingers over skin,” Alyxa mumbled, “I don’t remember putting on purple.”
By the door, Morpheus crossed his arms.
“You see?” he demanded.
“You might have a point.”
“Voice,” Alyxa murmured before she could stop herself. She shook herself, “Morpheus!”
He came to her then, and took her into his arms, holding her close.
“I can’t stay much longer. I can’t sleep here. I can’t Dream here. I’m losing it,” she told him, surprised by how panicked she sounded.
“I suppose you might have a point, darling,” Lucifer said to Morpheus, “but you’re my guests, and I’m your warden.”
“You’re getting your words mixed up again, Morning Star,” Morpheus snarled.
“And you’ve not even given my suggestion any thought,” Lucifer countered.
“We will not help release you, it’s unthinkable.”
“Not even if I can keep the world safe from Baldur?” Lucifer asked.
Michael helped Jazzy move around her apartment. She had lived here since the death of her parents. It had been hard at first, being mostly alone, and so young; a fourteen-year-old girl by herself with a largely absentee guardian sometimes had it rough, but Jazzy got along fine, somehow she always did. Unfortunately, for all that she was in familiar territory she was having trouble remembering where everything was and what the layout of the room was.
“You’re trying too hard,” Michael pointed out when she nearly tripped over a footstool, “your body knows where everything is, just trust it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jessica mumbled sourly, “you keep saying that. I never really had any eye-hand coordination, now it seems like I don’t have any coordination whatsoever.”
“It’ll come back, honey girl,” he said, trying to reassure her, “just give it time.”
“Hey, do you think that I can get out of phys. ed. now?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.”
“I guess I’ll have to try to explain it to them, somehow. Being a liberated teen is kinda hard,” she said and her blind eyes went wide with sudden shock.
“What? Jazz?”
“I can’t read anymore…” she whispered, blinding reaching her hand for his.
Michael took it and squeezed it gently.
“Guess you’re going to have to learn how read Braille?”
“I guess,” she murmured despondently, “if I’d known that it would’ve – ”
She had gone still, Seeing; a living room, a cat asleep on a brown sofa, a child playing on the floor. The child was surrounded by a strange green-blue light. The view changed, and Jessica started. The woman was tall, taller than any woman she had ever seen before, surrounded by darkness that was steeped in blood. So much power there.
“The Witch Queen,” she whispered, knowing instantly.
“We have to go,” Jessica exclaimed, frustrated by her new disability. She wanted to be moving, to grab her coat and get into a car.
“Where are we going?” Michael asked, pressing her coat into her hands and steering her in the direction of the door.
“There’s a house…in Mirrorgrove, there’s a young Dreamer there, and a cat, and - ”
“‘The Queen of Witches’?” Michael quoted.
“That’s the first thing that popped into my head when I saw her.”
“What did she look like?” Michael asked.
They were in the elevator now, she could feel the space around her and heard the doors slide open and shut.
“Tall, beautiful. She had black hair, pale skin. I donno. She reminded me of that fairy-tale description of Snow-white. You know?”
“‘Raven-black hair, skin pale as snow, lips red as roses’ or whatever?”
“That. She was terrifying. I could feel her power, and it wasn’t…nice.”
“Medea then, thankfully.”
“The Sight shows me a terrifying red witch lady and you’re saying thanks?” Jazzy breathed, confused, “didn’t you hear me when I said she was ‘terrifying’?! She’s with the Dreamer child.”
“Yeah, I heard you – mind your step – but Medea is, for the most part, on our side.”
“What do you mean ‘for the most part’?”
“Ever heard of the missing Romanov princess Anastazcia?”
“Russian Revolution urban legend stuff, sure.”
“Ares gave her into Medea’s keeping to keep her safe, so that the Czar’s family would have some sort of direct descension.”
“So she’s alive?” Jessica breathed.
“Er…not exactly,” Michael told her, helping her into the car, “see…Medea doesn’t deal well with children. They say that by the time a decision could be made, the Witch had lost her temper, and the girl was in several pieces. So if she’s with the Dreamer child…”
“That is the strangest house I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few houses over the centuries,” Michael stated as he brought the car to a halt in front of the house that Jessica indicated with a ‘stop here!’.
“It feels weird too, like it’s a corner house only it’s not on a corner.”
“Well, it is on a corner,” Michael told her, “only it doesn’t look like it was to start with. What the hell happened to this place?”
“If this is the captured Dreamer’s house I’d say it has something to do with the power of Reveille.”
“Most likely, it’s certainly nothing from my people.”
With Michael’s help she made it to the front door and rang the bell. Jessica realised her heart was beating really fast; what on earth was she doing here, the only reason why she was here at all was because of what she had Seen.
“Yes?”
The door cracked open, and Michael was taken aback by the handsome masculine face that peered out. He heard Jazzy gasp and found himself switching his vision to the Divine Sight. The stranger blazed with age-old energy that outdated Michael and his kin.
“You must be one of the Trojans,” Michael said.
The door opened revealing a handsome figure to follow the golden-hair-framed face.
“Greek, actually. You must be an Arc, and damn, you really are as pretty as they say. Which one are you?”
“My name is Michael.”
“Ah, the Sword. Charmed. I’m Achilles – Andreas in this time,” the old hero looked at Jessica and raised an eyebrow, “and the little lady?”
“Jessica Mirkhill,” Jazzy said before Michael could introduce her.
Achilles’ eyes narrowed.
“As in ‘Morgan Mirkhill’, you are the one who Sees?”
“I am.”
“Finally, maybe now we’ll get some answers, come in.”
“Have you Seen anything useful, girl?”
The voice itself was scary enough, and it did not help in the slightest that Jazzy knew what she looked like from the Sight.
“I Saw enough to bring me here,” Jessica replied nervously.
“Brilliant, you’re here, now See more.”
“Go easy on her, Witch Queen,” Jazzy heard Michael say, an edge creeping into his voice. He faltered, however, under the gaze that was turned on him; Jazzy didn’t need her eyes to be able to feel those eyes; they would have set a blaze to icicles.
“I’m new at this,” Jessica said quietly, “it’s only been two days.”
“I knew Morrigan, she was a Cassandrian like no other. Trust her to die inconveniently and leave me with...this to work with,” Medea replied.
“Now, now, Mercedes, you’re being snappy,” Achilles chided.
“My great-mother’s name was Morgan,” Jazzy said softly.
“It used to be Morrigan,” Medea snapped.
“Well, I knew her as Morgan, and I’m sorry if you feel slighted,” Jessica told her, her voice sharper than she realised, “I know these things: the Dreamer that the Morning Star has is slowly losing her grip on reality. I know we must bring her back soon. That is all.”
“Perhaps I can jog your Sight along,” Medea murmured, apparently completely disregarding what had been said. Jessica started back, but could not escape the carefully-manicured fingers that caught her chin, viciously.
“See.”
Jessica can feel nothing save for Medea’s claw, wrapped around her throat in a somehow gentle grip.
Then...
The water is freezing. She sees through the child’s eyes.
Down, down. I mustn’t be afraid. Alyxa is down there. I’m the only one can go get her. The pretty girl said so. I have to rescue Alyxa and Mr. Morpheus, and Bast. I’m the only one. I can hold my breath forever! The scary witch lady told me so. I shouldn’t call her that, but she’s mean! Though she did let me have pasta for dinner. That was nice.
The stream of consciousness is punctuated here and there by spikes of suppressed terror at being unable to reach the bottom before she runs out of breath. If there even is a bottom to this vastness. Then, there it is, a brilliant glimmer of light, like a whirlpool deep beneath the waters.
Jessica blinked as the vision cleared itself from her eyes, restoring the chaos of colours.
“Well?”
“There’s a lake,” Jazzy said into the room, feeling Medea’s hand slip away, “and a whirlpool beneath it. The little Dreamer has to swim into it. She’s the only one who can bring them back.”
“Me?” the child’s voice squeaked, sounding for the first time.
“Yes, that’s what I Saw. Don’t be scared, you’ll be alright. Medea here will cast a spell on you so you won’t need to breath underwater or something. Can you swim?”
The girl nodded – relayed by Michael.
“What then?” Medea demanded.
“No idea.”
“Pit a child against the Devil?” Achilles suggested.
Alyxa couldn’t sleep. It was, quite literally, driving her insane, and all Morpheus could do was watch her. More often than not, afraid to leave her alone, he carried her around in his arms, letting her talk at him or simply be silent as he wandered the halls of Hell. He had come here rarely when it had still been under Hades’ rule, and he had to admit – quietly – that Lucifer had a flair for the dramatic. The lofty ceilings and great pillars were swarming with golds and silvers, deep velvet blues and blacks. Everywhere you turned there were paintings and portraits; it was very much like wandering through a museum or palace of the ages. Lucifer left them to their own devices for the most part, dropping in every now and then to see if Morpheus had had enough time to think. This place wore on you; people did not sleep here, or dream, as most of them were dead. For Dreamers then, it was agonizing, and for the Dream-King himself? He knew he was fading in power.
Alyxa tugged on his sleeve and he glanced down at her.
“Can we go home yet?” she asked softly, her internal battle clouding her eyes.
“Soon, my love,” he replied softly. She shifted in his grip.
“Let’s go see Bast?”
He nodded and turned, wandering in the direction of the throne room. Lucifer wasn’t there, but the two cages were. Bast looked up as they entered and stretched her panther-shape.
-Good, you’re here. Enyo, tell them.-
The goddess Kali – also known as Enyo in the Greek world – beckoned them closer. From what Morpheus understood, she had been one of the first that Lucifer had trapped, afraid of her. Who wouldn’t be? Goddess of Destruction, Ares’ lover and consort, Lady of Fire…
“So you want to make the child swim down into Hell through the Sibyl’s lake, talk to the devil, and convince him to let the Dreamer and the others go?”
It was the way that Medea said it, the scoffing tone, that made it sound ridiculous.
“Yes,” Jessica said.
“Better to send one of the pretty boys, at least they might have something to offer the Morning Star,” the Witch-Queen stated, and Jessica sensed her sitting down, one knee drawn over the other.
“No smoking inside please, Miss Medea,” Amy’s young voice piped in. A crackle of power, a grumbled response, and the smell of smoke vanished.
“You do realize no mortal child has done this before,” Achilles pointed out as an aside from his conversation with Hector on the phone.
“It’s what she Saw,” Michael said.
“Why don’t you go? You’ve fought him before and won,” Medea pointed out, “if I recall the stories correctly, you’re the reason why he’s down there in the first place.”
Jessica felt Michael tense.
“My Father is not entirely…interested in these affairs. He sent the Arcs to Earth to be caretakers.”
“Typical, absentee parents, what more could you base religion on?” Medea sneered. Jessica could almost see her beautiful lips curving upwards in a sardonic smile.
“Better an absentee Father who loves than none at all,” Michael countered.
“Better a set of parents that can admit when they’ve blundered,” the Witch retorted.
“Will you two please grow the fuck up?” Achilles demanded, stepping back into the room again.
“You said a bad word, Mr. ‘chilles,” Amy chided softly.
“For which I apologize profusely, my dear,” he turned to the others in the room, “that was Hector. So unless someone comes up with another plan it’s wheel’s up in two hours. We’re goin’ swimming!”
-You see, Enyo cannot break herself free, but given the right amount of power, she can free me. I would like to see that glittering poofball of a fallen Arc deal with me without these bars!- Bast explained as Enyo beckoned them closer.
“I…I know some of where Enyo’s power comes from,” Morpheus said, hesistantly, “just how much blood is it going to take?”
Enyo glanced at Bast and their communication took place again; Bast didn’t reply and sat instead in silence.
“That bad, huh?” Alyxa murmured, “well…if it’s going to take that much blood you might as well kill me and be done with it. If I stay here any longer I’m going to lose it all anyways.”
Morpheus tightened his grip on her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.
-She’s making you more human isn’t she?- Bast observed, looking up from her paws, -if you had spent less time in the real world you’d have agreed that her sacrifice would have been the most pragmatic option, were it a viable option to start with.-
“What do you mean?”
Enyo gestured shortly, her sweet smile aimed somewhere between Bast and Morpheus.
-Alyxa’s blood is here because she was sent here, against her will. As a result any sacrifice she makes is against her will.-
“Do you have any idea how illogical that sounds?” the Dream-King demanded and Alyxa rolled her eyes.
“Oh, pretty,” she whispered, realizing that there were bright blues and reds glimmering on the high ceiling.
-She’s not herself,- Bast pointed out, -how can you expect her to make a decision she would make otherwise?-
Morpheus slumped his shoulders.
“Then what? There are no other mortals here with blood to give.”
Enyo laughed then, and it was an eerie laugh bereft of amusement, soundless, cold and yet… lonely.
“So you propose we wait here, until Alyxa loses her mind and we grow even more ancient than we are?” Morpheus demanded.
-Not exactly. Enyo says that there is movement in the real world.-
“Does that line go both ways?” Alyxa asked, looking at the caged goddess with bright eyes, “I mean, you could send a message to my parents?”
“Your parents are dead, little one,” Morpheus murmured.
-Anyways,- Bast interrupted before Alyxa could go on, -Enyo says that the wait will not be long now.-
“Lemme get this straight before you say anything more,” Alyxa said, suddenly completely lucid, “we wait here. Someone rocks up. Presumeably this person is mortal. We’re still going to sacrifice another human being? Kill another human being.”
-It might be a dog,- Bast offered, -we might sacrifice a dog? That wouldn’t be hard right?-
Alyxa gave her a weird look.
“I believe Alyxa’s point is, are you willing to sacrifice anyone to let little darling Enyo here work her magic,” Lucifer’s voice said and they all started.
The Prince of Darkness, Lord of Evil, etc. etc. was lounging quite comfortably in his throne between the two cages. He had not been there a moment before.
“Lucifer – ” Morpheus started.
“Oh tut, tut, darling,” the Morning Star chided, waving a hand in the Dream-King’s general direction, “you don’t think you can scheme here without me knowing it? I practically raised betrayal to an artform, remember? I am very familiar with it.”
-It’s not betrayal if you’re plotting against the Enemy,- Bast pointed out, her mental voice sickly sweet.
“Rub that in, why don’t you, kitty,” Lucifer pouted.
Bast hissed at him.
“He does have a point though,” Alyxa whispered, “can we kill anyone?”
“You could always take me up on my offer,” Lucifer reminded them.
“Eh, the girl said she Saw it this way? Why argue with the Fates?” Achilles told him, squeezing his shoulder as he looked around him.
“Because the last time we did not argue with the Fates we ended up knee-deep in blood. D’you remember?”
“I’m not likely to forget the ten-year-long war that made us who we are today, love,” Achilles murmured.
“Keep your wits,” Hector put in, motioning as Medea made her way out of the jet, “I do not trust this.”
“You were ever wary of open spaces.”
“I’m more wary of the Prince’s minions, he’s more resourceful than I’d like,” Hector muttered.
Achilles nodded and looked up into the sky.
“You’re right.”
“He’s very right,” Medea said as she came down the steps, “the air is heavy with magic.”
Amy stepped out of the jet then, holding Bast’s silent form. Jessica followed her, Michael at her side.
“Come here, child,” Medea instructed and gathered Amy to her almost absently. Long-lost maternal instinct perhaps? Or long suppressed?
When Amy was sheltered in the scarlet curve of the length of Medea’s fur coat, they started to cross the tarmac to where the cars were waiting. They had gone two steps, maybe three when Hector raised a fist and they stopped.
“What?” Medea asked.
“Miss Medea...I’m scared,” Amy whispered.
“It’ll be alright, child,” Medea murmured, her eyes were scanning.
“Do you see anything?” Jessica asked, her voice nervous.
“Quiet,” Achilles hissed and Jessica pressed herself again Michael.
Medea glanced at the couple, and sneered at the energy that was taking shape around the young man. Ah, Arcs. Pitifully chained and thus, limited. Luckily, she was neither.
“They come,” he told the others, “I can feel them.”
“Let them come,” Medea whispered, and Michael glanced at her.
The power he felt was nothing compared the power that surrounded her now, the crackling he had felt had been her doing. She looked so young now, like the young girl who had commanded Jason to cut her brother into pieces and throw him into the sea. He could see it in her now. Her hair moved of its own accord, twining around her and upwards like some living cloud of darkened magic.
“There!” Achilles exclaimed, pointing.
Michael had often wondered how Zeus’ agents fought, three of them as they were, and today that question was answered. Even as Achilles lifted his hands there was a crackle of energy and then his hands were filled, handguns, but somehow with blades as well. The air was thick when they came into sight, to the naked eye human men and women, armed to the teeth.
“Stay with me!” Jessica hissed, clutching at his arm.
“I will keep you safe,” he swore and let the Sword of God form in his hand, “stay low.”
Jessica crouched, on hands and knees.
“Give over the Sighted and the Dreamer and we will let you be!” the leader of the Horde called.
“How about...‘no’?” Hector retaliated, “return to your master, demon.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will render you back into the dust,” Michael shouted.
“We will not bargain. Give us the girls or you die.”
“Give it your best shot,” Achilles suggested.
Amy, in all her childish innocence, did not fully understand the danger that she was on – or perhaps in her child’s wisdom she knew that Medea could destroy the creatures that sprung out of those humans that a moment ago had seemed threatening but otherwise normal. She could burn them where they raised themselves into the air. Gunfire from Achilles forced them to stay low as Hector sprinted forward. Amy quite liked the strange weapon he suddenly held; a long sword with a gun built into the long hilt. At least, she thought it was the part called the hilt. Daddy had called bits of the sword the blade and the hilt in his story; the hilt was where you held it.
Jessica screamed behind her, and Amy twisted under Medea’s coat, lined prettily with mink fur and red leather, to look. The other girl was kicking madly, one of the demons had grabbed her by the ankle and was trying to fly up into the air with her. Amy wondered where it had come from. It had big leathery wings. Michael was in the air next to them, and he had a big sword in his hand, just like Hector, only Michael’s sword was on fire.
“I’ve got the Cassandrian!” the demon who had Jazzy shouted.
Michael raised his sword and cut a demon down. Jessica fell awkwardly, hitting the tarmac with a whimper.
“I will take the child!” Achilles half turned in reply to that call and Hector took a blow to his shoulder, falling. Now Amy was scared. One of the demon creatures rushed towards her and she cringed against Medea’s leg.
“Come, little one, play with me,” Medea laughed, and lifted a perfectly-manicured, child-like hand to beckon them closer, “play with me, children, come and play.”
The demon hurtling towards them incinerated, or maybe he evaporated too, it was hard to tell. Ashes were born upwards on a wind that seemed to sweep out of nowhere. One after the other the demons were crisped and singed to their end and the evidence lifted skywards.
There were more enemies, of course, demons rarely came in small numbers – they gave ‘horde’ its meaning afterall. The newcomers hesitated when they glimpsed the now one-sided battlefield. It was obvious that they had not expected much resistance, let alone resistance of the Witch-Queen’s calibre. She turned to face them, drawing Amy with her. Her hair whipped around her youthful face, the red business dress she had been wearing earlier now resembled something like a red toga; red like swirling blood.
“Tell your Prince he will have to do better than this,” Achilles shouted across at the paused demons, “much, much better.”
“Want me to have a look at that shoulder?” Medea asked him, looking now completely like her normal, bitchy self, her outfit restored as was.
“If I let you look at my shoulder I won’t have a shoulder,” the patient told her, his tone unchanging.
“It does need seeing to,” Medea told him, and shot a sideways glance at Michael, “ask the Arc to lay on hands or something.”
“Can he do that?” Achilles asked, blinking as he glanced at the angel.
“He’s God’s almighty sword of Heaven, what do you think?” Medea said, her tone less than sincere.
She turned away and focused on Amy, leaning down to say something to the little girl that neither of the others heard before lifting the girl up onto a hip. The movement struck Hector as so maternal that it almost scared him.
“You want me to take a look at that?” Michael asked him, coming forward.
Jessica was sitting on the tarmac, shaking but what had looked like a broken arm was completely healed and normal.
“So you really can heal?”
“We can,” Michael told him, and shot a glance at Medea, “but we don’t call it laying of hands. We call them Miracles.”
“Parting the Red Sea isn’t that hard,” Medea scoffed, but the others ignored her.
Michael sat Hector down and touched a hand to Hector’s shoulder.
He spoke Aramaic words that Hector couldn’t understand and there was a flash of icy cold searing through his arm, focusing like needle-points on his shoulder. It burned into his joints and then vanished, leaving him breathless and trembling. Where there had been a vicious claw-mark, there was now nothing.
“Not even a scar,” Achilles muttered.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
Alyxa looked up from the running waters of the river Styx. Lucifer was kneeling at her shoulder, staring into the waters just as she had been doing.
“It is,” she agreed.
“I come here a lot, when I want to think,” the Morning Star said, giving her a brilliant smile that made her knees go weaker than Morpheus ever managed. Alyxa looked deep into the waters again, she could see colours flashing through the darkness, a myriad of strange images like those she sometimes saw in her dreams.
“What do you think about?” she asked suddenly.
“What it would be like if I hadn’t fallen,” Lucifer replied without missing a beat, “what it would be like if my Father hadn’t handed the reins to Michael and the rest of my siblings. I also think about what it would be like if I felt more female than male.”
Alyxa blinked.
“Um...”
“Yes, I know, I’m rather feminine,” the Dark Prince said, “I’m a perfect being, all balanced.”
“‘Balanced’?” Alyxa murmured, feeling the world twisting around her; it was getting harder to hang on.
“Being sane is a matter of point of view,” Lucifer said.
“You know what you are?” Alyxa blurted out, “you’re...pornography.”
That seemed to catch him off guard.
“I’m...pornography?”
“Yes,” she said, staggering through her words, “you’re too flexible to be real, which means you’re staged, pulling off all sorts of things that a normal person couldn’t possibly do, or taking all sorts of punishment that no normal person could. You’re also too pretty. Like snowflakes and butterflies.”
“Snowflakes and butterflies are like pornography?”
“No...” Alyxa said, suddenly looking very confused.
“So I’m like butterflies and snowflakes?”
“No...”
“So I’m as pretty as a butterfly and snowflakes and crazy as pornography?”
“Yes.”
“Now we’re making sense.
Pacing. That was about all there was to it. Back and forth continuously. The wide open spaces were oppressive in ways that Morpheus had never thought possible; the mortal world at least had its innovations and novelties, nothing compared to the incomprehensible beauties of Reveille. He was suffocating here.
“Where is she?” he demanded of the air in front of him.
-Chances are she is looking into the River,- Bast told him, and he glanced back at the cage that contained her, -Enyo says that its where she would be if she were mortal. The Styx is apparently the border between everything, the Dreamer would be most comfortable there.-
Enyo nodded and made a gesture.
-It’ll stop her from going insane, or at least slow it down.-
“I should be with her,” Morpheus murmured absently as though the thought had just occurred to him.
-It’s not like she’s going anywhere,- Bast snarled, -she can’t get out, Lucifer will keep her here at all costs.-
“What does Lucifer want with her anyways? How many Dreamers has he taken prisoner, I have seen none.”
Bast glanced at Enyo who made a noncommittal gesture with her elegant hands.
-We don’t know.-
“He obviously wishes Baldur to be kept away, but what other purpose apart from bridging the Rift does capturing Dreamers have?”
-Unfortunately, kitten, your guess is as good as mine,- Bast replied, sitting down on her haunches.
“The Older should know this, when we get out of here...”
-If, kitten, ‘if’,- the Cat-Goddess corrected.
Enyo tapped her scarlet and black nails against the bars of her golden cage.
- I have faith in your abilities, Kali, I don’t have faith in mortals.-
“Mortals are predictable,” Morpheus countered.
-Not that predictable. Do you honestly think a mortal is going to come down here?-
They stood on the edge of the water and Michael shifted uneasily. It was so deep. Too deep. He could feel just how deep it ran, so deep that it made him want to wear his wings, just in case it seemed like he would trip and tumble in. He glanced over to where Medea was talking to Amy; the little girl looked quite nonplussed about the entire deal. Swim to the non-existing bottom of this lake? She could do that, or so she had quite readily told them. She had sworn herself blue and black that she was a great swimmer – apparently her father had taught her how to swim behind their house, making Michael wonder just where this child had come from and how she had ended up entangled with Alyxa and her Deity.
“So you understand, child, you are not to stop for anything, nothing. I will cast this spell on you, but it will not last indefinitely,” Medea was saying.
“What does ‘indefinitely’ mean?” Amy asked and Medea clicked her tongue impatiently.
“‘Forever’,” she explained, her voice short.
“Oh. How long will it last then?”
“About an hour, possibly two. It depends. So do not get distracted, swim to the bottom, and you will find a cave, you will go through the cave, and you will find yourself in Tartarus.”
“Once you’re in,” Achilles said, stepping in, “you will probably be approached by someone or something. Don’t be scared, tell them you wish to see Lucifer.”
“Tell them you are a Dreamer,” Medea told her, wrestling the conversation back into her own control, “now this is very important: tell them you are of the Living World. Do not eat or drink anything while you are there. Nothing. Not a seed, not a sip. Do you understand?”
The water was cold. Amy’s little brow curled into a frown as she took her first steps into it, listening to the Red Lady saying strange things behind her. The water was very cold. This was not what she had imagined when the others had told her she would be swimming in a beautiful lake; in her mind, beautiful and warm were pretty much mutually inclusive.
The Red Lady made a gesture and Amy assumed that this meant it was time for her to start swimming so that is exactly what she did. Amy prided herself in being the best swimmer in her grade; she always beat everyone at the races and could swim to the bottom of the pool and sit there for long enough to count to sixty. Her teachers and Daddy had always been very impressed. Of course, Daddy was gone now... there was no way she was going to let anything happen to Alyxa and Mr. Morpheus.
The further down she dove the darker it got, so Amy shut her eyes and just swam deeper and deeper. She could feel the air building up in her lungs, and a little further down she had to exhale and inhale. To her surprised there was no water that rushed into her lungs; it felt sticky, like candy that had been left in the sunlight, but it was exactly like air. The Red Lady was good at her job too!
Amy opened her eyes, to see if she could see the cave that she had been told about. There was no cave; she could see was a faint glimmer somewhere below her, as though she was swimming back to the surface. That’s probably it. Her little legs were tiring. And then the light engulfed her and she couldn’t see.
XX: Historical
“Watch,” Morpheus’ voice compels her, and Alyxa cannot look away.
The Dreamer stares as the stars are born, planets exploding into existence as suns collide and galaxies spin in and out of control.
“Morpheus, what is this?”
“Watch, witchlet.”
Gods and Demons and Angels and all manner of creation wander through worlds unknowable, she recognizes Earth only because Morpheus whispers it to her. The Dream is so vivid she can taste the dust as Demons and Angels take to a battlefield somewhere between the moon and the planet. She sees humanity awaken from their evolutionary folds, birthed into a war that preceded their existence. The Gods strike, Demons and Angels everywhere keen and wail, breaking. Humanity advances, Gods flail as worship gives way to commerce, and commerce to decadence. Empires rise, crumble, disappear. Monuments raised, shattered, forgotten. Myths, legends.
The Gods retreat from the world of trade and currency, they retreat to Morpheus’ kingdom: Réveille. They grow bitter and weary, watching the happenings of the mortal world through mirrors and streams of water, longing to touch it, but knowing that to re-enter that world would unravel them forever.
“Morpheus, I know all of this,” Alyxa whispers, turning to look up at him.
“Are you sure?”
“You’ve shown me this before,” she tells him, an edge creeping into her voice; what was he playing at?
“Are you sure?” he asks again, “watch, little witch.”
With a disgruntled sigh, Alyxa turns back, mesmerized again by the vision. So mesmerized that she does not notice Bast seated at Morpheus’ feet.
-You’re going to show her then?-
-I have no choice. She is a Dreamer, this history is hers to own as much as yours and mine.-
-Sentimentality,- Bast scoffed, -she needs to know this before her Coven rocks the world with another Ragnarok.-
XXI: Mythos
Eight-hundred years ago, a Dreamer named Andris lived in far-northern Europe. For many years he had been in communing with an otherworld called ‘The Unsleeping’, in particular with a creature called himself Baldur, and promised them light and love and warmth.
They lighted upon an ambition: to bring Baldur into the world of the humans, to let him share his love and light and warmth with the cold realms of the North. Baldur had only the vaguest of memories and conceptions of the world, just a touch away, but without followers he would be weak, without something to keep him anchored to that world, with all its fickle tendencies and heartbreak, he would fade and become nothing, a shadow of nothing. Even to this, Andris knew the answer; he was brilliant as well as powerful, and his Coven had used blood rituals since the dawning of their time.
So Baldur came through, and he a transcended goodness. He was innocent and fragile in that innocence.
It was that innocence that broke him.
In the far north, people died often; it was cold, it was dangerous. For Baldur it was too much. His fear of his own death, of not existing, grew too much for him to bear. He drank the blood of his Dreamer, the anchor that kept him in the world, but it was not enough, and so in a moment of panicked despair Baldur consumed Andris, swallowing him whole, to anchor himself forever to the world.
Horrified by his act, the Gods in Réveille banded together and drew Baldur back into their world, holding him there. It was then that the Great Gods created the Rift, to separate the mortal world from Réveille, to keep Baldur’s now unbalanced and grown power from ending humanity to cull the suffering.
XXII: Ambition
Alyxa’s hand shook as she dialed Maye’s number, a sleep-fogged voice mumbled her name in query.
“Maye…we need to talk.”
“If this is about the bringing another – ” the Coven Mistress muttered.
“We can’t!”
“What do you mean ‘we can’t’?!” Maye demanded, startled out of her sleep completely.
“Maye, the last time that we – that a Dreamer brought someone through, he kill – ”
“We’ve been planning this for years, Alyxa. Your own father is the one who made the final preparations! He gave his life to re-establish the communication between our world and Réveille! How dare you dishonor his memory by suggesting we abort!”
“Maye – ”
“I am your Coven Mistress! Like my mother before me! I will not put up with your insubordination!”
Alyxa could not believe what she was hearing. She and Maye had been raised together within the Coven, their parents had been friends. They had been the special children of the Coven, the Mistress’s heir and the Dreamer’s. They had always known their place. It was not like Maye to completely disregard what she, the Coven’s Dreamer, was saying. Not like this. Unlike the other Witches, she was not ‘subordinate’. The Coven needed her, she did not need the Coven.
“Maye…”
“There is nothing to talk about, Dreamer. This has been the Coven’s purpose, to reestablish our power…my Mother wanted nothing more, and your Father…”
“It was Dad’s dream, yes, I know, but – ”
“No buts. We know the Rituals. We do not need you to draw another through. Choose as you will, Alyxa.”
Maye hung up on her. Alyxa looked up at Morpheus.
“Will a Dreamerless Ritual work?”
Morpheus’ lips tightened, a human expression.
“Witches have an extraordinary power in intent, and your Mistress is driven by it. With enough intent, anything is possible. Anything.”
XXIII: Inquisition
Silver light dashed across the sky as Morpheus stepped out into Alyxa’s backyard, Bast, unusually, riding on his shoulder. Any onlooker would have put that minor fact aside, however, when the backyard was ceased to be the backyard and the two disappeared from sight.
“Where did they go?” Amy asked Alyxa, perched on top of the counter as the older Dreamer did the dishes.
“Hopefully to go talk some sense into the other Deities,” she said, “and hopefully they’ll have more luck than I did talking sense into my Coven.”
Amy put on a seven-year-old’s equivalent of a thoughtful expression – sucking on her bottom lip, eyes squinting in deliberate concentration, her little legs banging the cupboard door beneath her seat.
“Are there lots?”
“Lots?”
“Of Deities.”
“Hundreds, thousands, probably more. Every entity humanity ever dreamt up and worshipped, since before we had languages, they’re all there, behind the Rift,” Alyxa explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“This Rift thing. It keeps them there and us here, ‘n only Dreamers can go through?”
Alyxa nodded. She was used to Amy’s many questions by now, even if they sometimes made her think about things she would rather not.
“So how come Morpheus and Bast can go back and forth now?” Amy wanted to know next.
Alyxa stopped, frowning. This was such a question. Truth be told she didn’t really know, so she said,
“I guess it has something to do with Bast. She doesn’t seem to need a Dreamer to keep her here with blood, so….”
The words just fell out of her mouth as she put another plate in the rack, and even as she said them, it made sense.
“I like Bast,” Amy stated decisively.
“I like Morpheus.”
“Like ‘like’ like?”
“No choice really,” Alyxa replied softly.
XXIV: Courting
The Silver Throne is empty, Morpheus feels strange to look upon it again, especially without his Dreamer seated in it. It is disconcerting to be here at all, and not on his own power. Bast sits on his shoulder, her claws flexing slightly into his shoulder, which the regalia and robes of his natural state leaves bare.
“Why are you back?” Isis asks him, the distant sorrow weeping through her voice even though her husband sits silent beside her.
“We are back because my Dreamer’s coven is threatening the Rift.”
The Older Deities share looks. It is strange to see them gathered like this: Zeus and Hera, Isis and Osiris, Odin and Frigga, Ishtar and Tammuz. Without the Younger Deities hovering around them the room seems empty.
“Why would they threaten the Rift?” Hera asks, her tone lilting with her power.
“They are ignorant,” Morpheus replies.
“Have you not educated them?” Tammuz demands, glancing sideways at Zeus, seated beside him.
“You’re being narrow-minded, Tammuz,” Bast scolds, her tail flicking to demonstrate her irritation, “you have forgotten what humans are like, they do not listen to our reason, they act on instinct and emotion.”
“They seem set,” Morpheus puts in.
“And your Dreamer? Is she Working this for them.”
“No.”
The Older Deities raised their eyebrows collectively at Morpheus’ decisive tone.
“I cannot understand why they would – ”
“Dreamerless Rituals are possible when a Coven Master is strong enough, is Maye Darjeeling strong enough to lead that Circle?”
“She is,” both Bast and Morpheus tell her shortly.
Again the Olders share a long look, at long last, Odin raises his head.
“I will not release my son, called or not,” he declares stoically.
“You are his keeper still, my brother,” Tammuz agrees, lifting his eyes to meet Morpheus’, “are you content?”
XXV: Straying
“No!” Bast snarls, “no it’s not enough. You do not understand.”
“I find your tone disrespectful, Cat-Goddess,” Isis murmurs.
“You’ve all been locked behind the Rift for so long you’ve forgotten how stubborn humans can be,” Bast continues, shooting a glare at Odin next, “and you! Do you honestly think your precious son will sit idly in his little cage while there is any chance that he might once again walk free? You’ve forgotten the heady taste of reality, you think he has?”
Frigga and Odin share a long look.
“Perhaps the cat has a point,” Frigga put out.
“Of course I do!”
The Olders ignored her.
“What do you propose to do, my Lady,” Odin asks her.
“Zeus?”
“What can I do for you, Frigga?” Zeus drawls, earning an elbow to the side from Hera.
“Which of your children are in the World?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Frigga.”
“We all know that after your debacle at Troy you sent some of your Younglings into the world, in human form, living, dying, being reborn,” the Norse Queen replies coolly, “tell us how many and who.”
Zeus hesitated.
“Come now, brother, don’t be shy,” Tammuz tells him.
“It isn’t as if this was some great secret, Zeus,” Bast mutters darkly, “we all new about it. You have your games, and we have ours. So just answer the goddess already.”
“Four,” Zeus said reluctantly.
“Only four?”
“Yes. Anymore and the balance would have been upset,” Hera retorts, defending her mate.
“Surely there is one amongst those Youngers that can put an end to these procedures,” Frigga suggests, a sly catch in her voice.
Morpheus’ frown deepens. She knew more of these matters than the others; apparently Zeus had been straying again. Unsurprising.
“Give us the names, Zeus.”
“As you wish.”
XXVI: Empress
The singing was soft, barely audible, soft and rhythmic, slightly off-key as though a child were humming along with a music box. There two people in the room; one a tall woman, dark curling hair falling around her shoulders, the other was a man, cowering. The magics in the room were so heavy that the air was like syrup with it. It weighed on the man’s shoulders like anvils draped over his shoulders; she wore it like a mantle. The singing was hers, timed to the strings she held stretched between her hands. Red, white, then black flashed between her fingers, given a life of its own as she wove it to her will.
Suddenly, she halted, smiling over the coils at her guest.
“Are you alright there, sweet?”
Her voice was full, like her figure, wrapped in the crimson silks.
“Cat got your tongue perhaps? This is what you wanted, sweet.”
The man blinked several times.
“I-I…” he swallowed nervously.
“Yes, sweet?”
“I-I…I’m fine!”
“Are you sure? You don’t look so good, my sweet. Are you sure you want me to break up that marriage just so you can have your dear, dear Julia?”
Something primal flashed over his face.
“Yes! I want her back! Give her back to me!”
Her smile was brilliant, a sunset in full splendor.
“Of course, all I need is your right hand.”
Without thinking, blinded with the lust that drove all these primitive males to her, he slipped it into the offered gap between the strings. She pulled. He screamed as his hand fell to the floor between them.
“Bitch!”
“I told you my price. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen. Go home, your Julia is waiting.”
He swore at her again, but she was no longer listening. Someone was calling her.
Alyxa read the instructions again. The words were not staying with her. Perhaps she should have stuck with the making of fetches as tonight’s entertainment. Sighing, she looked at Amy, sitting on the counter top. Three nights it had been now, the waiting, without a sign or a Dream.
“Maybe they’ll be home tonight,” the little girl said hopefully.
“In time for cookies?” Alyxa queried, the sardonic edge in her voice lost on the child.
She measured out the right amount of butter on the scale in front of her, placed it on a saucer and slipped it into the microwave.
“Can I push the buttons?” Amy asked.
“10 seconds.”
Dutifully, Amy pressed set the time and watched as the microwave blurred into brief action. Alyxa turned to the flour. The world seemed to blur for a moment. The bag tipped over, spilling brilliantly white.
“Alyxa?” Amy asked, pushing the stop button as the microwave beeped at them.
“It’s nothing. Can you get the sugar from the pa- ” she caught sight then, of Morpheus’ unmistakable shape kneeling in the garden.
She forgot all about the cookies and rushed out.
“Morpheus!”
His blue hair was struggling to fade into a more acceptable black, the emerald eyes burned. His skin, marble pale was now also cold. He blinked at her slowly, as though realizing where he was.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
He pushed her hair from her neck n answer, and she felt him break the skin. He drank.
XXVII: Waiting
SHORT BREAD COOKIES
1 c. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Cream sugar and butter together. Mix dry ingredients together and add to butter-sugar mixture. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350C°.
Alyxa read the instructions again. The words were not staying with her. Perhaps she should have stuck with the making of fetches as tonight’s entertainment. Sighing, she looked at Amy, sitting on the counter top. Three nights it had been now, the waiting, without a sign or a Dream.
“Maybe they’ll be home tonight,” the little girl said hopefully.
“In time for cookies?” Alyxa queried, the sardonic edge in her voice lost on the child.
She measured out the right amount of butter on the scale in front of her, placed it on a saucer and slipped it into the microwave.
“Can I push the buttons?” Amy asked.
“10 seconds.”
Dutifully, Amy pressed set the time and watched as the microwave blurred into brief action. Alyxa turned to the flour. The world seemed to blur for a moment. The bag tipped over, spilling brilliantly white.
“Alyxa?” Amy asked, pushing the stop button as the microwave beeped at them.
“It’s nothing. Can you get the sugar from the pa- ” she caught sight then, of Morpheus’ unmistakable shape kneeling in the garden.
She forgot all about the cookies and rushed out.
“Morpheus!”
His blue hair was struggling to fade into a more acceptable black, the emerald eyes burned. His skin, marble pale was now also cold. He blinked at her slowly, as though realizing where he was.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
He pushed her hair from her neck n answer, and she felt him break the skin. He drank.
XXVIII: Blunders
“You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” Alyxa murmured, letting her arm fall back onto the bedspread.
“I am sorry.”
He wasn’t of course, the concept of actual regret was still alien to him, but it mattered that he had used the words. Words were after all very important. Weren’t they? Her mind was drowsy. It was because of his fingers, he was stroking her forehead, soothing away the images of his long absence.
“Did it work?” she asked, “did you get anything from them?”
“I am not sure, but then one never is with the Olders.”
Bast leapt up onto the bed as Morpheus spoke and patted Alyxa’s cheek with a paw.
“They’ve convinced Zeus to put his agents on it,” the Cat-Goddess told her.
“Agents?”
“Four Youngers,” Morpheus said, “who stayed in this Realm after Troy.”
“Troy? You mean all that Homer stuff really happened?”
It was all so confusing. Like a Dream, but twisting in the telling, as though something were reshaping the truth around her before she had a chance to truly see it.
“‘That Homer stuff’ as you so prettily describe it, kitten,” Bast explained, “is the original blunder that started the whole separation of worlds. I mean, yes, faith failed so the Olders failed, but Troy is where the big mess all started. Zeus left behind some people. Four, one God, and three Heroes. They’ve been given the task to stop your Coven from bridging the Rift any more than they already have.”
“Can the Rift be fixed?”
“In time, perhaps,” Morpheus said, “for now, do not worry about the means or the measure of its rescue. Rest yourself. As you said, I took too much from you.”
She rolled her eyes at him, or tried to, she was so tired.
“Sleep, my weary one.”
XXIX: Elegance
The storm clouds parted quite elegantly to let the small private jet through, closing with thunderous lightening as soon as the wheels steamed against the tarmac of the landing strip. She tucked the cigarette filter back into its case and returned it to her handbag with an elegant gloved hand. She didn’t really know why she was still in the Hepburn phase, but she enjoyed it and so it had stuck, albeit in reds and blacks.
“Mistress, the car is waiting as you asked,” the pilot said, sticking his head out of the cockpit.
“Excellent.”
She made her way down the steps and into the car; the door was closed behind her by the chauffeur. The car purred forward and she sat back, fiddling with the necklace around her throat. For a second it glowed and the glow caught in her eyes.
-Sir?-
-Medea, you know what you’re doing?-
-I have done this before, sir.-
-Yes, several times, and as I recall there tended to be limbs strewn about the place, usually of small children. Artistic, certainly, but lacking...subtlety.-
-Are you complaining?- Medea snapped silently.
-No, but this time...listen, darlin’, we don’t need them dead.-
-We’ve been over this before, sir.-
-Yes, and you still somehow managed to get three pairs of feet up into the rafters, and the house didn’t even have rafters.-
Medea rolled her eyes and tugged her filter case and cigarettes back out of her bag, expertly lighting one up with one hand.
-I will avoid that. In fact, I won’t shed blood, would that make you happy, sir?- she asked him.
-I’d appreciate it, Medea.-
The connection faded as swiftly as it had come. She tapped the end of the filter against the glass.
“Swing by the store, I require rope.”
“As you wish, Mistress.”
XXX: Awareness
Alyxa sat quiet in her living room, her legs tucked beneath her, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She stared out into the street. It was night and the street lights were burning with their soft glow, illuminating the rain-soaked street. Everything she looked at seemed grey still, as though the Dreamed threat was spreading from her mind to the world around her. Amy was staring at her, she knew, she also knew that Bast and Morpheus were conversing in that silent manner of theirs. She hoped they talked about what it meant to ‘stop the Coven’. What did it mean? Four ‘agents’? Her thoughts ran together in single streams that branched off before she could make sense of any of it. Morpheus had drunk from her again that morning, but gently, igniting her pleasure points before drawing back again. It was the only flash of colour that she had seen since he had urged her to sleep. Bast had been sitting on the window sill, her tail flicking in irritation every now and then. Suddenly she looked up and hissed.
“The Witch is here,” she snarled.
Morpheus suddenly came into the room.
“You are sure?”
“Am I a cat?” Bast snapped.
“She will empty their veins and set fire to their flesh while they still breathe.”
“Can people really do that?” Amy asked, looking up from her drawing.
“Not in front of the child,” Bast muttered, and instantly the conversation returned to the state of silence.
Alyxa caught Morpheus’ hand just as he passed her. She did not look up.
“Who is ‘the Witch’?”
Morpheus’ green eyes glanced at Bast.
“She is here, nothing else matters,” the Cat-Goddess stated, “are you coming, Morpheus?”
“We will need the car,” Morpheus murmured, “Alyxa will you – ”
“I’ll drive you,” Alyxa whispered.
“Is she dead?” Amy whispered.
It had taken only one line and one look to chase off the men that had stood on the porch, and all Medea had had to do was show Amy Bast’s comatose body. They were seated on the sofa, Bast on the seat between them.
“Can you not tell?” Medea asked her, taking Amy’s hand and pressing it gently to the Cat-Goddess’ flank.
Amy pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as deep as she could manage. For a moment there was nothing, and then Amy yanked her hand back.
“What is it, child?”
“She’s not there,” Amy whispered, “it’s all empty inside.”
Medea’s eyes narrowed. This was not something she had expected. Bast was not bound to Zeus’ Ban, the law set down after Troy, or even hampered by the Rift; with her followers, she could go where she wanted. If Bast was not in her physical form there was only one place she could be, and it was that very place that Medea had spent her many centuries avoiding.
“Miss Medea, where is she?”
“I’m not sure,” the Witch lied, an easy thing, especially to the child.
She made to light her cigarette, glanced at her companion and got to her feet.
“I’m going to go smoke and think on this, girl, stay here, maybe feed her a little blood.”
“Blood?”
Amy pulled a face.
“Yes, blood. You are a Dreamer, it might help her,” Medea said, slipping the cigarette into the filter and tapping her lighter impatiently.
“Oh.”
“Don’t go crazy though, child, just a prick to your finger. I can do it for you if you like, after I have had time to think….and smoke.”
“Smoking is bad for you,” Amy said softly, a little worried.
“So they keep telling me.”
-Ares?- Medea sent the thought racing out, like an arrow, -Ares! Burn your Dice and your Game, pay attention!-
There was a thunder strike in the otherwise clear evening sky.
-Don’t rattle the heavens with Zeus’ thunder, Ares, this is important!-
The amulet hummed against her throat for a moment.
-Oh fine, spoil my fun, witch, what was it you wanted?-
-It’s about Bast. The Dreamer child says the Cat-Goddess is not in her corporeal shape.-
There was a moment of silence, followed by another stream of curses. The amulet grew warm and then burned softly, Medea hissed for Ares to tone it down.
-Can you verify what the Dreamer child said?-
-She’s the Dreamer, not I,- Medea muttered darkly.
Another thunder clap.
-Ares, I – -
-Yes, I know, enough with the thunder. This really pisses me off. To say the least. If she’s not there, then she’s there, which means the Prince has another Dreamer. This is precisely what I wanted to avoid!- Ares growled.
Medea blew out a swirl of smoke, using a finger to manipulate its shape, working it into the shape of a throne.
-Do you think we should contact the Arcs? This is more their department than it is ours, I don’t want to have them asking questions later,- she asked.
-Leave them for the moment, the Arcs are scattered miserably since the Prince slew the Messiah’s last Incarnate,- Ares replied sourly, -I’ve sent the other two to your address already. They should be there in a day or two.-
-And if the Prince comes looking?-
-Do you honestly believe that he is going to leave his fortress while he’s got another caged Goddess? Come now, Medea, stay with the youngling and please try to remember your maternal instinct a little, eh?-
The connection ended.
Amy frowned at Bast, petting her frantically while she tried to drip blood into the cat’s mouth with Medea’s impatient aid.
“Are you sure this is going to help, Miss Medea?”
“You are a Dreamer, the blood and flesh of a Dreamer are like…glue, they strengthen the Deity,” the woman explained, and not for the first time.
Amy pursed her lips. It wasn’t that she was trying to be difficult, but it was all so very confusing. Bast had explained the ‘Dreamer’ thing to her before, but it had never been all that clear. Alyxa was the real Dreamer, she knew what it meant, her father had been a Dreamer before her, and her Grandmother. Amy knew because Alyxa had told her; Amy didn’t know anything about what it meant to be a Dreamer.
“So why am I in danger?” she asked.
“Because you are,” Miss Medea snapped, and Amy ducked her head, momentarily scared into silence.
For a moment neither said anything, Amy out of silent terror and Medea for whatever reasons drove her to make such decisions. After several minutes in which each tick the clock in the kitchen made seemed to set the entire house into vibrations, however, Amy could not leave it any longer.
“Are you going to protect me?” she wanted to know, her voice as small as she could make it.
Medea’s eyes flickered for a moment.
“Yes.”
“But….” Amy took a breath and decided to just let loose and ask all the questions at once, “what about rescuing the others? Aren’t you going to do that too? How can you keep me safe and save the others? I’m sure you’re a very smart lady, Miss Medea, but are you really that powerful?”
Again the ominous flicker of the eyes.
“I will have help.”
The soft hum of the car’s engine vibrated through the gear stick as he shifted it up into fourth and brought the BMW around the corner and into the residential zone. The man in the car beside him glanced at him.
“You sure this is the right place?”
“It has to be,” the driver drawled.
“It doesn’t look like what it should look like.”
“Nothing looks like what it should look like, Achilles, that’s why it’s reality.”
“Oh so we’re reverting to old talk are we? Fine! I’m going to go out ‘n knock on the door.”
“You do that, if you get shot, at least I’ll know it was for a good cause.”
Before Achilles could open the door however, the front door opened. The tall woman in red who stepped out was unmistakable.
“I told you this was the right place.”
“Stop dawdling, this child is starting to get on my nerves!”
“You heard the lady,” Achilles muttered and lifted his duffle-bag from the backseat.
Moments later the two of them were sitting on the sofa, facing a fascinated little girl and her comatose Cat-Goddess. The girl stared at them with eyes wide as moons.
“Amy, stop staring, these are Hector and Achilles,” Medea commanded, coming into the room in a cloud of smoke, “now you two boys… tell me how you plan to protect this girl while I attempt the impossible and move Elysium and Reveille to bring Morpheus out of the clutches – ”
Achilles waved a hand dismissively.
“We are the best, my witchy lady,” he told her dismissively.
“Of all the warlords Zeus had to allow down here, it had to be you two,” Medea muttered in disgust, “and you’re lovers too. Irony amuses me.”
Hector laughed and Achilles winked at her.
“Saw it coming?”
There was a stale quality to the air, as though it had been breathed before. Her head hurt; Alyxa opened her eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the soft glow that lit up the room in which she lay. To her surprise rather than lying on a hard stone floor she was resting on a mattress.
“Awake then at last, Dreamer?”
Not even Morpheus was that beautiful, this creature was spellbinding. His hair was nearly white, falling over his shoulders in almost effeminate flows. It was his cheekbones that shocked her; on any other man they might have been too delicate. The eyes were brilliantly blue, the purest cut sapphires had nothing on them.
“It’s been forever since I’ve had guests, especially little Dreaming treasures,” he went on, and all Alyxa could do was watch his lips move.
A perfect mouth. Kissable, and tasteable –
“Alyxa!”
She turned at the sound of her name and saw Morpheus storming in.
“Ah, the Dream-King awakened, undreaming! Rested after your sleep, darling?” the stranger asked, half spinning half hovering out of the way as Morpheus swept by him to wrap his arms around Alyxa protectively.
“Morph- ” she murmured.
“What have you done with us? Why do you hold us here?” the Dream-King demanded.
“I have done nothing, honey,” the stranger told him laughingly.
“Morpheus, what’s going on, who is this guy?” Alyxa asked, alarmed by the panic in Morpheus’ eyes and voice.
“I believe we are prisoners,” he said softly.
“In a way you are guests and I am your keeper.”
“Who are you?”
The stranger laughed and hovered upwards, arms spread in an expression of delight.
“Alyxa…” Morpheus said, his eyes never leaving their ‘host’, “I present to you the Prince of Hell, the Morning Star, the Great Enemy…Alyxa, this is Lucifer.”
“And how’re my beautiful goddesses today?” the Prince exclaimed as he danced into the room, running his fingers over the bars as he passed on his way to the amber throne.
The strange-furred panther on the left hissed at him and clawed at him.
“Awww, Bast, don’t you like your accommodations? You know I’d have let you stay in a normal room, if only you’d leave the drapes alone, silly kitty.”
-Save your words, Lucifer, I will not hear them!- Bast snarled at him, pacing back and forth in her cell.
Lucifer laughed, falling back into his chair, turning his attention to the cage on the right.
“And how about you, my dearest one?” he practically purred, he glanced at Bast, “do you know, Venus was once frightfully jealous of this one!”
Bast ignored him. The other inhabitant merely shrugged, her true-black hair fell around her kneeling form in supernatural waves, snapping around her angrily, the only betrayal of emotion. Even her ice-blue eyes said nothing.
“Well, Destroyer?” the Morning Star asked her.
She reached out and touched the bars of her prison, the gold shook and trembled beneath her fingers. Lucifer sat back and watched her, a spark of interest lighting in his eyes.
“Always pushing, treasure, always testing me, cheeky goddess,” he murmured, and then laughed again, “but not today, Kali, I have more guests for you to meet!”
Kali dropped her hand and turned her head.
-Morpheus!- Bast hissed as the Dream-King entered, his arm wrapped tightly around Alyxa’s shoulders, -let them go, Dark Prince, they are of no use to you!-
“Au contraire, they are going to be very useful.”
-With what?-
“With giving humanity back what is theirs: imagination….and faith.”
XXXI: Introductions
The Coven House had been in the Darjeeling family for more than 20 generations, starting off as a tiny shack and developing into the monstrosity that it was now. Maye, the only child of her parents, was childless at 26, and so shared the house instead with the Coven Diviner, Morgan Mirkhill, who, at age 112, was the oldest member of the Coven. Morgan was blind, and often not entirely sober, though what substances she used to ‘enhance’ herself was beyond anyone. The Coven was not gathered on this particular evening, instead Maye was sitting quietly in front of the television watching the latest episode of True Blood, only somewhat disgusted by the fact that she was watching it alone. Morgan was, oddly, not in the house at all, but rather had called Aeron Smithson, the second eldest Coven member to come and pick her up several hours ago. Perhaps she had had a sense of what was to come, perhaps not, it was never easy to tell with Morgan. Much like reading tea-leaves, she left much to the interpretation of others and sought rarely to explain herself.
Maye answered the door only on the second chime of the bell, muttering darkly that she was about to miss yet another cliff-hanger moment of her secret passion.
“Can I help you?” she asked the tall imposing woman on her doorstep.
“Maye Darjeeling, you are overstepping your bounds,” the woman told her, her voice strangely accented.
“Overstepping my – ?”
“Yes...” the woman said boredly, looking past her into the house, “with the Rift and the Coven. Do you know how rare a good Dreamer is?”
“Wha – ”
“Do you know why?”
“Who the hell are you?” Maye demanded sharply, she did not like the feeling of this.
“You may call me Medea.”
The tea Maye found herself serving was not something she believed she’d ever heard of, let alone had in the pantry, she didn’t want to dwell on how it got there. Medea was sitting in one of the armchairs, the TV was now switched off, and a bouquet of flowers was perched neatly in a vase on the coffee table. Maye set the tray of tea down and knelt to pour it, testing the strength; it was just as well that she knew how to serve tea.
“When you say you are ‘Medea’, am I to understand that you are the Medea? Of the Fleece tale?” Maye asked after they had both taken several sips of tea.
“If you like. I’m not really here to discuss me. You have to stop what you are doing.”
“And what exactly am I doing?” Maye asked.
“Did you know that the last time a Dreamerless Ritual was completed, the transition ripped every individual in the Coven to shreds. They’d managed to bring one of the Furies across, that was fun!”
Maye stared at her.
“The stories about you are true, aren’t they?” she demanded.
“Most of them.”
“I intend to go through with it, my family has worked for generations to bridge the worlds.”
Medea’s dark eyes flashed, somewhere in the house something smashed to the ground.
“The Rift exists for a reason, girl.”
“The Gods – ”
“Are not at your beck and call,” the older woman replied, “they’ve sent me to bring an end to this.”
Maye’s eyes narrowed.
“I am not afraid of you, this has been my dream since I was a child, and my parents’ dream before me. I will not stop.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Medea murmured, smoothing her ruby skirts over her legs, “actually... I’m not.”
XXXII: Fleeces
The tea Maye found herself serving was not something she believed she’d ever heard of, let alone had in the pantry, she didn’t want to dwell on how it got there. Medea was sitting in one of the armchairs, the TV was now switched off, and a bouquet of flowers was perched neatly in a vase on the coffee table. Maye set the tray of tea down and knelt to pour it, testing the strength; it was just as well that she knew how to serve tea.
“When you say you are ‘Medea’, am I to understand that you are the Medea? Of the Fleece tale?” Maye asked after they had both taken several sips of tea.
“If you like. I’m not really here to discuss me. You have to stop what you are doing.”
“And what exactly am I doing?” Maye asked.
“Did you know that the last time a Dreamerless Ritual was completed, the transition ripped every individual in the Coven to shreds. They’d managed to bring one of the Furies across, that was fun!”
Maye stared at her.
“The stories about you are true, aren’t they?” she demanded.
“Most of them.”
“I intend to go through with it, my family has worked for generations to bridge the worlds.”
Medea’s dark eyes flashed, somewhere in the house something smashed to the ground.
“The Rift exists for a reason, girl.”
“The Gods – ”
“Are not at your beck and call,” the older woman replied, “they’ve sent me to bring an end to this.”
Maye’s eyes narrowed.
“I am not afraid of you, this has been my dream since I was a child, and my parents’ dream before me. I will not stop.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Medea murmured, smoothing her ruby skirts over her legs, “actually... I’m not.”
XXXIII: Powers
Alyxa got out of the car with Morpheus and Bast, ignoring the look that Morpheus shot her. He wanted her to stay put, she could feel it, but she could also feel the immense power inside Maye’s house and despite the terror at that immensity she wanted to be there. Bast hopped up onto a windowsill and hissed.
“She’s inside already. Kitten’s claws but she moves fast!”
“I will open – ” Morpheus started, but before he could open anything, Alyxa had simply hit the doorbell.
There was movement inside, quick footsteps, and Maye’s familiar voice, out of breath, exclaiming that she was on the way.
“Oh thank the stars,” Maye whispered when she saw Alyxa’s face, “there’s a wo – ”
“I know,” Alyxa said, “I told you there would be consequences if you didn’t stop.”
“I’m not going to stop! I do not deal well with threats!” Maye snapped.
Alyxa gawked at her.
“Don’t be an idiot, girl, Medea is older than the dirt, she gave meaning to the word ‘witch’ in ways Hecate never thought of!” Bast snarled, leaping past her into the living room.
“This is my house and I will not be threatened in it, not by anyone!”
“You are blinded, Maye Darjeeling, by pride, by lack of power,” Morpheus murmured.
“‘Lack of power’?!” Maye gaped, she turned her anger at Alyxa, “keep your pet God in line, Alyxa, I will not be spoken to like that!”
“It does not work that way, Maye Darjeeling, the more you speak the more you prove you know little of what you claim to,” Morpheus replied, reaching forwards, hand suddenly talon-like.
Maye shouted something that made Alyxa’s ears ring, and the world went dark, fading as though someone had dropped a large blanket over the sun.
And then simply nothing.
XXXIV: Rippling
Medea came storming out of the living room, only to find that she was strangely alone in the entire house. She could feel the residue of strong magics lingering around the front porch, but that was all. She knew, of course, what had happened, the Darjeeling girl had chosen to show off and in doing so had used magics not intended for an unDreaming witch. Who knew what kind of ripples that had torn through fabrics? Medea cursed quietly under her breath and touched her fingers to her necklace.
-Sir,- she cast the thought outwards.
-What?-
His waspish tone did not faze her as she sent him mental images of what she was feeling and seeing. The curses she had uttered were nothing to what poured over the link between them, a veritable solid flow of words in languages long dead.
-How would you like me to proceed, sir?-
For a moment there was a silence, and then…
-You can’t do anything for them without a Dreamer. There is a child, in Morpheus’ Dreamer’s custody. Find her. Perhaps she can do what we can’t. I will make contact with the other two and send them to you. If the Prince gets word of this the child will not be safe.-
-Then she will not be safe, this will travel further, I can feel the residue flowing as I sp- wait. Bast is here.-
The Cat-Goddess was lying in the corner, comatose and silent. Medea bent and lifted her, she was limp but breathing.
-Is she alive, Medea?-
-Yes, sir, but in a faint.-
-Get her to the child, Bast is not like the others, but a Dreamer’s presence can do nothing but help.-
Medea nodded and set her senses scanning, shooting out over the city.
“Where are you…Dreaming child?”
XXXV: Thoughtless
Amy rubbed her eyes, she was tired, and hungry. No one was home, which meant no one was there to materialize – or make – food. She’d walked into the kitchen and found some of the cookies Alyxa had made for them a few days before and managed not to spill all the milk in her attempt to pour it into a glass. Where did they go? And why had no one thought for a moment ‘wait, someone needs to stay here with Amy’. It was very – what was the word that her Daddy had used? - thoughtless. Yes. Thoughtless. She munched on a cookie, ignoring the fact that there was a trail of crumbs that tumbled in her wake. Maybe she would watch some television in her room. A few days ago a television had appeared on a brand new cabinet in a corner of her room, a corner that had not been there the day before. Amy took these things for granted, however, and did not let it bother her. There was a knock on the door and Amy rushed towards it, then slowed, remembering the things she had been told over the years, even with the Bad Lady.
“Who is it?” she called tentatively, hoping she sounded less excited than she was.
“Amy Dawson?” a man asked her.
Amy frowned. Her seven-year-old mind was trying very hard to remember everything she should and shouldn’t do.
“Amy? Is the woman who took you at home?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” Amy told the man on the other side.
The doorknob rattled for a moment.
“I just want to talk.”
“Who are you?”
“Amy, your parents are dead, you’re alone,” he sounded rushed.
“Then it is lucky that I am here, is it not, sweet?” a woman’s voice asked.
XXXVI: Comatose
“Is she dead?” Amy whispered.
It had taken only one line and one look to chase off the men that had stood on the porch, and all Medea had had to do was show Amy Bast’s comatose body. They were seated on the sofa, Bast on the seat between them.
“Can you not tell?” Medea asked her, taking Amy’s hand and pressing it gently to the Cat-Goddess’ flank.
Amy pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as deep as she could manage. For a moment there was nothing, and then Amy yanked her hand back.
“What is it, child?”
“She’s not there,” Amy whispered, “it’s all empty inside.”
Medea’s eyes narrowed. This was not something she had expected. Bast was not bound to Zeus’ Ban, the law set down after Troy, or even hampered by the Rift; with her followers, she could go where she wanted. If Bast was not in her physical form there was only one place she could be, and it was that very place that Medea had spent her many centuries avoiding.
“Miss Medea, where is she?”
“I’m not sure,” the Witch lied, an easy thing, especially to the child.
She made to light her cigarette, glanced at her companion and got to her feet.
“I’m going to go smoke and think on this, girl, stay here, maybe feed her a little blood.”
“Blood?”
Amy pulled a face.
“Yes, blood. You are a Dreamer, it might help her,” Medea said, slipping the cigarette into the filter and tapping her lighter impatiently.
“Oh.”
“Don’t go crazy though, child, just a prick to your finger. I can do it for you if you like, after I have had time to think….and smoke.”
“Smoking is bad for you,” Amy said softly, a little worried.
“So they keep telling me.”
XXXVII: Rattled
-Ares?- Medea sent the thought racing out, like an arrow, -Ares! Burn your Dice and your Game, pay attention!-
There was a thunder strike in the otherwise clear evening sky.
-Don’t rattle the heavens with Zeus’ thunder, Ares, this is important!-
The amulet hummed against her throat for a moment.
-Oh fine, spoil my fun, witch, what was it you wanted?-
-It’s about Bast. The Dreamer child says the Cat-Goddess is not in her corporeal shape.-
There was a moment of silence, followed by another stream of curses. The amulet grew warm and then burned softly, Medea hissed for Ares to tone it down.
-Can you verify what the Dreamer child said?-
-She’s the Dreamer, not I,- Medea muttered darkly.
Another thunder clap.
-Ares, I – -
-Yes, I know, enough with the thunder. This really pisses me off. To say the least. If she’s not there, then she’s there, which means the Prince has another Dreamer. This is precisely what I wanted to avoid!- Ares growled.
Medea blew out a swirl of smoke, using a finger to manipulate its shape, working it into the shape of a throne.
-Do you think we should contact the Arcs? This is more their department than it is ours, I don’t want to have them asking questions later,- she asked.
-Leave them for the moment, the Arcs are scattered miserably since the Prince slew the Messiah’s last Incarnate,- Ares replied sourly, -I’ve sent the other two to your address already. They should be there in a day or two.-
-And if the Prince comes looking?-
-Do you honestly believe that he is going to leave his fortress while he’s got another caged Goddess? Come now, Medea, stay with the youngling and please try to remember your maternal instinct a little, eh?-
The connection ended.
XXXVIII: Curiosity
Amy frowned at Bast, petting her frantically while she tried to drip blood into the cat’s mouth with Medea’s impatient aid.
“Are you sure this is going to help, Miss Medea?”
“You are a Dreamer, the blood and flesh of a Dreamer are like…glue, they strengthen the Deity,” the woman explained, and not for the first time.
Amy pursed her lips. It wasn’t that she was trying to be difficult, but it was all so very confusing. Bast had explained the ‘Dreamer’ thing to her before, but it had never been all that clear. Alyxa was the real Dreamer, she knew what it meant, her father had been a Dreamer before her, and her Grandmother. Amy knew because Alyxa had told her; Amy didn’t know anything about what it meant to be a Dreamer.
“So why am I in danger?” she asked.
“Because you are,” Miss Medea snapped, and Amy ducked her head, momentarily scared into silence.
For a moment neither said anything, Amy out of silent terror and Medea for whatever reasons drove her to make such decisions. After several minutes in which each tick the clock in the kitchen made seemed to set the entire house into vibrations, however, Amy could not leave it any longer.
“Are you going to protect me?” she wanted to know, her voice as small as she could make it.
Medea’s eyes flickered for a moment.
“Yes.”
“But….” Amy took a breath and decided to just let loose and ask all the questions at once, “what about rescuing the others? Aren’t you going to do that too? How can you keep me safe and save the others? I’m sure you’re a very smart lady, Miss Medea, but are you really that powerful?”
Again the ominous flicker of the eyes.
“I will have help.”
XXXIX: Lovers
The soft hum of the car’s engine vibrated through the gear stick as he shifted it up into fourth and brought the BMW around the corner and into the residential zone. The man in the car beside him glanced at him.
“You sure this is the right place?”
“It has to be,” the driver drawled.
“It doesn’t look like what it should look like.”
“Nothing looks like what it should look like, Achilles, that’s why it’s reality.”
“Oh so we’re reverting to old talk are we? Fine! I’m going to go out ‘n knock on the door.”
“You do that, if you get shot, at least I’ll know it was for a good cause.”
Before Achilles could open the door however, the front door opened. The tall woman in red who stepped out was unmistakable.
“I told you this was the right place.”
“Stop dawdling, this child is starting to get on my nerves!”
“You heard the lady,” Achilles muttered and lifted his duffle-bag from the backseat.
Moments later the two of them were sitting on the sofa, facing a fascinated little girl and her comatose Cat-Goddess. The girl stared at them with eyes wide as moons.
“Amy, stop staring, these are Hector and Achilles,” Medea commanded, coming into the room in a cloud of smoke, “now you two boys… tell me how you plan to protect this girl while I attempt the impossible and move Elysium and Reveille to bring Morpheus out of the clutches – ”
Achilles waved a hand dismissively.
“We are the best, my witchy lady,” he told her dismissively.
“Of all the warlords Zeus had to allow down here, it had to be you two,” Medea muttered in disgust, “and you’re lovers too. Irony amuses me.”
Hector laughed and Achilles winked at her.
“Saw it coming?”
LX: Daystar
There was a stale quality to the air, as though it had been breathed before. Her head hurt; Alyxa opened her eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the soft glow that lit up the room in which she lay. To her surprise rather than lying on a hard stone floor she was resting on a mattress.
“Awake then at last, Dreamer?”
Not even Morpheus was that beautiful, this creature was spellbinding. His hair was nearly white, falling over his shoulders in almost effeminate flows. It was his cheekbones that shocked her; on any other man they might have been too delicate. The eyes were brilliantly blue, the purest cut sapphires had nothing on them.
“It’s been forever since I’ve had guests, especially little Dreaming treasures,” he went on, and all Alyxa could do was watch his lips move.
A perfect mouth. Kissable, and tasteable –
“Alyxa!”
She turned at the sound of her name and saw Morpheus storming in.
“Ah, the Dream-King awakened, undreaming! Rested after your sleep, darling?” the stranger asked, half spinning half hovering out of the way as Morpheus swept by him to wrap his arms around Alyxa protectively.
“Morph- ” she murmured.
“What have you done with us? Why do you hold us here?” the Dream-King demanded.
“I have done nothing, honey,” the stranger told him laughingly.
“Morpheus, what’s going on, who is this guy?” Alyxa asked, alarmed by the panic in Morpheus’ eyes and voice.
“I believe we are prisoners,” he said softly.
“In a way you are guests and I am your keeper.”
“Who are you?”
The stranger laughed and hovered upwards, arms spread in an expression of delight.
“Alyxa…” Morpheus said, his eyes never leaving their ‘host’, “I present to you the Prince of Hell, the Morning Star, the Great Enemy…Alyxa, this is Lucifer.”
The bars of the two cages were golden, shimmering in the light of the room.XLI: Caged
“And how’re my beautiful goddesses today?” the Prince exclaimed as he danced into the room, running his fingers over the bars as he passed on his way to the amber throne.
The strange-furred panther on the left hissed at him and clawed at him.
“Awww, Bast, don’t you like your accommodations? You know I’d have let you stay in a normal room, if only you’d leave the drapes alone, silly kitty.”
-Save your words, Lucifer, I will not hear them!- Bast snarled at him, pacing back and forth in her cell.
Lucifer laughed, falling back into his chair, turning his attention to the cage on the right.
“And how about you, my dearest one?” he practically purred, he glanced at Bast, “do you know, Venus was once frightfully jealous of this one!”
Bast ignored him. The other inhabitant merely shrugged, her true-black hair fell around her kneeling form in supernatural waves, snapping around her angrily, the only betrayal of emotion. Even her ice-blue eyes said nothing.
“Well, Destroyer?” the Morning Star asked her.
She reached out and touched the bars of her prison, the gold shook and trembled beneath her fingers. Lucifer sat back and watched her, a spark of interest lighting in his eyes.
“Always pushing, treasure, always testing me, cheeky goddess,” he murmured, and then laughed again, “but not today, Kali, I have more guests for you to meet!”
Kali dropped her hand and turned her head.
-Morpheus!- Bast hissed as the Dream-King entered, his arm wrapped tightly around Alyxa’s shoulders, -let them go, Dark Prince, they are of no use to you!-
“Au contraire, they are going to be very useful.”
-With what?-
“With giving humanity back what is theirs: imagination….and faith.”
END OF PART I
LXII: Foresight
“Listen closely, Jazzy,” Morgan Mirkhill told her great-great-grandaughter.
Jessica stared into blind eyes.
“Alright, Morgan,” Jessica replied, setting herself.
“Tomorrow I’m going to die.”
“Wh- ”
Morgan raised a hand, commanding silence.
“When I am dead, you will start to See things, not the way you have been seeing them up until now, but to See things.”
Jessica could hear the capital letters while her foremother spoke. She had known that this day would come of course, but it would have helped if Morgan had given her some more time. More time to prepare, more time to read, more time to prepare before she took up the mantle of Seer within the Coven.
“You won’t be joining the Coven.”
Jessica blinked at the empty eyes.
“But I thought…all these years of training,” she said, spreading her hands on the lunch table.
Around them the school cafeteria was emptying, Jessica glanced at the violin case next to her. She was going to be late to music. Morgan appeared to follow her gaze.
“Your teacher is detained, you will arrive before him.”
Jessica nodded, taking it for granted in a way that any Mirkhill child would. Morgan knew.
“So…I won’t be joining the Coven?”
“Maye has broken the Coven and gone missing,” Morgan told her, “Alyxa is also missing, but I know where she is.”
Jessica waited for the ‘she can be found here’ that she was expecting, but there was nothing.
“Morgan – ”
“You will help her and Morpheus and Bast find their way out,” the blind Seer interrupted.
“How?”
“Seeing is what we do, Jazzy. You, your mother, your grandmother, myself. We are the Cassandrian line. By Apollo’s Gift we See, and by his Curse they have do not believe us. You will guide them out of Lucifer’s gilded cages.”
XLIII: Trivial
Jessica Mirkhill had had the Sight since she was a child, but, like her mother and grandmother bhefore her, she could not see much beyond the small glimmers of trivial events: how many eggs would the chickens lay today? Would there be rain or shine tomorrow? Useless little things in the greater scheme of things. Not like what Morgan was capable of: to see through the many streams of the future into the actual ocean of time and then make sense of it.
Jessica shuddered. Secretly she had always hoped that Morgan would outlive her, that way she would not, as the youngest Cassandrian, inherit the TrueSight. Of course, her actual eyesight would fade. That was not what scared her, however, it was the vastness of the ocean.
“Guess there’s no use worrying about it now,” she murmured to herself.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
The voice came out of nowhere and suddenly Jessica found herself corned, two burly arms pinned to either side of her head. She swore silently.
“Karl, don’t you ever give up?” she asked him, crossing her arms.
“I’m a slow learner.”
“Please let me go.”
“Will you go out with me?”
“No.”
“You’re way too good for Michael, Jessica. You should be with me.”
Jessica really wished she could tell him that tomorrow she was going to turn into a freak because her great-grandmother was going to be dead. That would have put him off.
“Picking on my girlfriend again?”
Karl stepped away from her, turning to face Michael, who was casually leaning against the stairwell.
“What’s it to you, St.Claire?”
“Well, she is my girlfriend,” Michael replied, holding out his hand for Jessica, “let’s go, Jazzy.”
Jessica darted down the stairs ahead of Michael, shooting an impish smile at Karl.
“Karl...stay away from her.”
“Do you want me to do something about it?” Michael murmured, pushing her mug closer to her, encouraging her to drink.XLIV: Coffee
“What? About Karl?”
He nodded.
“Don’t be silly,” she told him, although she was quietly warmed by his protectiveness.
When she looked at him again for a moment she saw him different, as though he was glowing. It was different from the normal visions the Sight had given her, it was never real. This scared her.
“Jazz?”
She shook her head and smiled. Michael had been her boyfriend for nearly a year now. They talked, about everything, and about nothing. She had never felt this strong a connection with anyone before. Sometimes she could feel it in the way their hands touched. There was a connection, physical and emotional and sometimes she wondered if maybe she should take it further…
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“You Seeing things again?”
Yes, she had told him, but how now to tell him that Morgan was going to die and that she was going to start Seeing in a way that she had never seen anything before. That it scared her. That she did not really want it.
“Did you know…” she started shyly, “..when I see you with the Sight, you’re surrounded by this light.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed in mirth.
“Maybe it’s telling you you’re safe with me then,” he said, chuckling.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Either that or you’re too good to be true.”
“Nothing, anywhere, is too good to be truth,” he replied and moved to get up.
She caught his hand and kept him there.
“Did you know…Dreamers can see the past, Diviners can see the future,” she told him, “Morgan says that Dreamers sacrifice their hold on reality sometimes…”
“And Diviners sacrifice sight, I know.”
It started the next day.XLV: Losing
Jessica was brushing her teeth when she noticed that the world in the mirror was fading around the edges. She had to brace herself against the sink, knowing what it was.
“It’s alright, Jazzy,” she told herself, “take a breath. It’s okay.”
The phone chose to ring, but she already knew what it was. People to tell her that Morgan Mirkhill had passed away in the morning, found by Aeron Smithson. Most likely it was Aeron himself, but Jessica left that to surprise. She stumbled towards where the phone sat and whisked it to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Jessica?”
“Aeron,” she replied, “I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“I thought you might have been. You know, don’t you?”
“That Morgan is dead. She told me, yesterday,” Jessica told him, “can you come and pick me up? I assume she’s had all her things in order and the wake will be in a few hours?”
“You guessed correctly. You’re handling this better than I thought you would.”
Jessica tried not to laugh. As much as she hated it, Morgan was dead, and had given her a warning, so she was as prepared as she could be. She had not been particularly close to Morgan anyways.
“I can come and collect you in an hour. You’re not okay to drive?”
Jessica looked around, the fading had stopped spreading but it was enough to make her worry.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Already losing it then,” Aeron murmured, “I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“It’s alright,” Jessica lied, trying to still her heart-rate, “I’ll be ready. I’ll be waiting, call me on my cell when you get here, I don’t know how fast this is going to go.”
“Alright, honey.” Don’t call me honey, Jessica wanted to tell him, but she left it.
LXVI: Waking
Morgan had bought a casual coffin, but an expensive one all the same. From the way Aeron told her, she had dressed herself in her best clothes the night before and had called him to tell him to come and ‘collect’ her no later than 9am, which was when he had found her. She had made all the appropriate arrangements, having sent out invitations to her funeral and wake that week and even gone so far as ask Aeron to prepare a few modest remarks – nothing too fancy, she had insisted.
Jessica wandered around aimlessly. The Darjeeling house was empty save for the coven members that were not ‘elsewhere’, which is how Aeron explained their absence. Jessica did not know many of them personally. It felt strange being amongst them as Morgan’s successor.
“Drink?” Delia asked, handing her another glass of white wine.
Jessica accepted it with thanks. Delia was Aeron’s eighteen-year-old daughter, destined to follow her father as Coven Loremaster. This meant she was a brainiac.
“You alright?” she asked her, and Jessica blinked rapidly, trying to clear her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“It’s happening already isn’t it? You’re the youngest Cassandrian, so you’re inheriting all the gifts and curses. Am I right?”
Jessica looked at her, struggling to keep her vision from blurring.
“Yes, you’re right.”
Delia’s eyes lit up and she drew Jessica off to one side.
“What’s it like?”
Jessica stared at her. What kind of question was that?
“It’s like going blind,” Jessica told her flatly, “my eyesight is going, Delia, it’s not something you can just describe.”
“But is it like being blindfolded or is it like something else?”
Jessica took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. Delia was just trying learn.
“It’s like trying to blink water from your eyes only it doesn’t help.”
XLVII: Need
The blurry-water-effect she had described to Delia was getting worse, as the daylight grew brighter her vision grew worse and worse. As soon as she stopped trying to blink it away, however, she realized that she was seeing bright colours in random patterns. It was starting to scare her, more than just a little bit. Blinking rapidly the world swam in front of her eyes. She took a step forwards and felt something knock against her hip.
“Jessica?”
She turned in the direction of the side of Aeron’s voice.
“I didn’t think it was going to go this fast,” Jessica whispered, groping a hand around. Tears flooded into her eyes, “I need Michael. Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone!”
Aeron caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze. She reached into her pocket and tried to find her phone. It slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the floor. Jessica made to get it, but Aeron stopped her, guiding her into a chair instead.
“Sit, I’ll get it.”
“I’m not an invalid,” she snapped as he pressed her phone into her hand. She blinked stubbornly.
This was not going to happen! It was happening, and she knew there was nothing she could do about it. She thumbed her phone, trying to navigate it. She could not see it properly.
“Michael. I need Michael,” she mumbled, trying to remember where it was. If only she had bothered to set the voice recognition, she wouldn’t be in this blasted mess.
“Let me,” Aeron offered.
“No! I can do this!” Jessica retorted, angered by her incapability, but Aeron took the phone and did it anyways, pressing the phone to her ear.
“Hey babe,” Michael’s voice sounded, instantly calming her, “you need me?”
“I’m at the coven house. I need you.”
“I’m coming.”
XLVIII: TrueSight
Jessica laid her head down on the table where Aeron had left her. Where was Michael? She didn’t dare shut her eyes, any moment now she would see nothing except the haze of colours. Where was Michael? I need Michael! Every time she thought about his name a burst of light flashed through the pattern of colours, it was the only thing that varied.
Then it was gone.
All of it.
“Aeron!” she shouted, reaching forwards blindly.
“What’s wrong?”
I can’t see! I can’t see! She wanted to shout at him. Then the patterns stopped swirling and she took a breath.
“I can see,” she breathed.
The patterns fell into place like a jigsaw puzzle upon completion, and then it started to move. She saw a brilliant light floating high on top of a mountain, spawning smaller lights that tumbled down the mountainside until they burst onto the land. One light blurred towards her in a rush, then burst into her vision until all she saw was black spots. One of the lights turned dark, dashing down into the earth, deeper and deeper, the earth closing around it.
“What is it, Jessica?” Aeron’s voice asked her, “what do you see?”
If this had not been TrueSight, she would have had no idea what to tell him, but she knew because she could See.
“The Fall. Lucifer’s Fall.”
Morgan’s voice came, unbidden into her vision.
“You will guide them out of Lucifer’s gilded cages.”
The light burned down into the earth, contained by it but also containing it, creating its own world, its own realm. Lucifer’s light did not dim, and he looked up, born anew. He saw the world through new eyes. Lucifer rose. She saw the fac of the one who cast him back.
“Michael!” she shouted, reaching out.
XLIX: Knowing
“Jazzy!”
Michael burst into the room, ignoring everyone else. He could feel her pulling at him even before she had called him. It was painful, the way she pulled at him, never before had he felt such a pull, not from any of the Cassandrians. All of that stopped irritating him when he saw her, his Jessica, lying flat on her back, twisting in the middle of her transformation.
“How long has she been like this?” he demanded, glancing at the man who was kneeling at her side.
“Since she called you.”
Michael glanced at him and around the room, seeing the faces of the men and women he knew but never seen. Aeron was the one near Jessica. Delia and Tiffany, two witches of lesser power, standing by each other, the youngest. Mark and Michaela.
“Give her space, she needs to find her own way back,” Michael instructed.
“Who is this guy?” Delia demanded, but her father waved her to silence.
“Only the Loremaster knows what happens when the Diviner’s Sight is passed on,” Mark declared.
“No Loremaster since before Morgan has seen that passage of power,” Michaela pointed out.
“Lore isn’t enough,” Aeron said, “not for something like this. What I know I learned, what is happening now is beyond my knowing.”
“And why is he – ” Delia started.
“Will you shut up?” Michael demanded impatiently, kneeling to touch Jessica’s face.
She stopped writhing instantly, and opened her eyes. They were colourless now, the deep blues were gone, bleached pale.
“Mic’hael,” she breathed, her voice filled with a new timbre, with power, “I See.”
When she said his name she said it the way it was meant to be spoken. She knew then, the first door had been opened. She would open the others soon.
“Mic’hael, I Know.”
L: Patterns
It was quiet now, but the riots of colours that Jessica kept seeing kept falling back into place and every time she moved her head they showed her Lucifer’s beautiful face, looking up at her through the kaleidoscope. It made her laugh whenever she saw it, the white-blonde hair, and startling blue eyes.
“Are you alright?” Michael asked her, moving to stand behind her.
Now that she knew, now that she could feel his presence and knew what it meant.
“I’m super,” she told him, laughing out loud, “I don’t know how, but I can see.
None of the normal things, I can’t see the table, but I know it’s there, I can’t see you, but I know you, I can feel you. I know who you are.”
“I know you do. Morgan never had the chance to tell you, that the curse Apollo set upon your line was lifted when Lucifer Fell,” he said, and she laughed again.
“I know, I can feel that. He Fell and the One lifted the curse after consultation with Apollo, they decided between them that it was best that way.
“You’re doing well,” Michael told her, caressing her shoulders, “the doors are opening for you.”
“Do you think it will happen? Do you think I’ll be able to bring the Dreamer across?”
She laughed again. Excited by everything, it was terrifying how much she understood now, how far forward and backwards she could See. It was amazing. Everything made total sense, she could see the great pattern, the whorls and lines.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, “like your light. Just beautiful. I can’t describe it, I don’t know what it is, but I can see it and it’s so gorgeous I could eat it.”
Michael chuckled.
“Eating ripples of fate will give you indigestion.”
LI: Unravelling
Alyxa sat, huddled, against the headboard of the enormous bed that was the primary furnishing of the room. She was wearing some sort of elaborate Victorian gown, complete with corset and bustle, in a shade of violet that she would never had thought possible. It didn’t matter, of course, none of it did. She had been here, how long? Days? Months? Years?
“Though it wouldn’t matter, I can’t Dream while I’m here, so it dreams me. The days dream, time fades, I can’t see, everything is the same and nothing is different,”
she blinked, it was her voice, saying those words.
“If you do not release us, she is going to lose herself, Lucifer.”
“Morpheus?”
Alyxa lifted her head and looked around. He was standing by the door. She liked the way the white shirt he was wearing opened, leaving the hollow of his throat naked. She saw Lucifer too, Hell’s King was radiant, wild around the edges.
“Run fingers over skin,” Alyxa mumbled, “I don’t remember putting on purple.”
By the door, Morpheus crossed his arms.
“You see?” he demanded.
“You might have a point.”
“Voice,” Alyxa murmured before she could stop herself. She shook herself, “Morpheus!”
He came to her then, and took her into his arms, holding her close.
“I can’t stay much longer. I can’t sleep here. I can’t Dream here. I’m losing it,” she told him, surprised by how panicked she sounded.
“I suppose you might have a point, darling,” Lucifer said to Morpheus, “but you’re my guests, and I’m your warden.”
“You’re getting your words mixed up again, Morning Star,” Morpheus snarled.
“And you’ve not even given my suggestion any thought,” Lucifer countered.
“We will not help release you, it’s unthinkable.”
“Not even if I can keep the world safe from Baldur?” Lucifer asked.
LII: Coordination
Michael helped Jazzy move around her apartment. She had lived here since the death of her parents. It had been hard at first, being mostly alone, and so young; a fourteen-year-old girl by herself with a largely absentee guardian sometimes had it rough, but Jazzy got along fine, somehow she always did. Unfortunately, for all that she was in familiar territory she was having trouble remembering where everything was and what the layout of the room was.
“You’re trying too hard,” Michael pointed out when she nearly tripped over a footstool, “your body knows where everything is, just trust it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jessica mumbled sourly, “you keep saying that. I never really had any eye-hand coordination, now it seems like I don’t have any coordination whatsoever.”
“It’ll come back, honey girl,” he said, trying to reassure her, “just give it time.”
“Hey, do you think that I can get out of phys. ed. now?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.”
“I guess I’ll have to try to explain it to them, somehow. Being a liberated teen is kinda hard,” she said and her blind eyes went wide with sudden shock.
“What? Jazz?”
“I can’t read anymore…” she whispered, blinding reaching her hand for his.
Michael took it and squeezed it gently.
“Guess you’re going to have to learn how read Braille?”
“I guess,” she murmured despondently, “if I’d known that it would’ve – ”
She had gone still, Seeing; a living room, a cat asleep on a brown sofa, a child playing on the floor. The child was surrounded by a strange green-blue light. The view changed, and Jessica started. The woman was tall, taller than any woman she had ever seen before, surrounded by darkness that was steeped in blood. So much power there.
“The Witch Queen,” she whispered, knowing instantly.
LIII: Rendevouz
“We have to go,” Jessica exclaimed, frustrated by her new disability. She wanted to be moving, to grab her coat and get into a car.
“Where are we going?” Michael asked, pressing her coat into her hands and steering her in the direction of the door.
“There’s a house…in Mirrorgrove, there’s a young Dreamer there, and a cat, and - ”
“‘The Queen of Witches’?” Michael quoted.
“That’s the first thing that popped into my head when I saw her.”
“What did she look like?” Michael asked.
They were in the elevator now, she could feel the space around her and heard the doors slide open and shut.
“Tall, beautiful. She had black hair, pale skin. I donno. She reminded me of that fairy-tale description of Snow-white. You know?”
“‘Raven-black hair, skin pale as snow, lips red as roses’ or whatever?”
“That. She was terrifying. I could feel her power, and it wasn’t…nice.”
“Medea then, thankfully.”
“The Sight shows me a terrifying red witch lady and you’re saying thanks?” Jazzy breathed, confused, “didn’t you hear me when I said she was ‘terrifying’?! She’s with the Dreamer child.”
“Yeah, I heard you – mind your step – but Medea is, for the most part, on our side.”
“What do you mean ‘for the most part’?”
“Ever heard of the missing Romanov princess Anastazcia?”
“Russian Revolution urban legend stuff, sure.”
“Ares gave her into Medea’s keeping to keep her safe, so that the Czar’s family would have some sort of direct descension.”
“So she’s alive?” Jessica breathed.
“Er…not exactly,” Michael told her, helping her into the car, “see…Medea doesn’t deal well with children. They say that by the time a decision could be made, the Witch had lost her temper, and the girl was in several pieces. So if she’s with the Dreamer child…”
LIV: Flirtation
“That is the strangest house I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few houses over the centuries,” Michael stated as he brought the car to a halt in front of the house that Jessica indicated with a ‘stop here!’.
“It feels weird too, like it’s a corner house only it’s not on a corner.”
“Well, it is on a corner,” Michael told her, “only it doesn’t look like it was to start with. What the hell happened to this place?”
“If this is the captured Dreamer’s house I’d say it has something to do with the power of Reveille.”
“Most likely, it’s certainly nothing from my people.”
With Michael’s help she made it to the front door and rang the bell. Jessica realised her heart was beating really fast; what on earth was she doing here, the only reason why she was here at all was because of what she had Seen.
“Yes?”
The door cracked open, and Michael was taken aback by the handsome masculine face that peered out. He heard Jazzy gasp and found himself switching his vision to the Divine Sight. The stranger blazed with age-old energy that outdated Michael and his kin.
“You must be one of the Trojans,” Michael said.
The door opened revealing a handsome figure to follow the golden-hair-framed face.
“Greek, actually. You must be an Arc, and damn, you really are as pretty as they say. Which one are you?”
“My name is Michael.”
“Ah, the Sword. Charmed. I’m Achilles – Andreas in this time,” the old hero looked at Jessica and raised an eyebrow, “and the little lady?”
“Jessica Mirkhill,” Jazzy said before Michael could introduce her.
Achilles’ eyes narrowed.
“As in ‘Morgan Mirkhill’, you are the one who Sees?”
“I am.”
“Finally, maybe now we’ll get some answers, come in.”
The kaleidoscope of colours that made up what was left of Jessica’s sight went crazy as soon as they stepped into the house; she could feel walls shifting; things seemed out of place here. Like Alice in Wonderland, or worse, Alice through the damned looking glass. They were sitting in a sunlit room; she could feel the light warm against the curve of her cheek.LV: Shift
“Have you Seen anything useful, girl?”
The voice itself was scary enough, and it did not help in the slightest that Jazzy knew what she looked like from the Sight.
“I Saw enough to bring me here,” Jessica replied nervously.
“Brilliant, you’re here, now See more.”
“Go easy on her, Witch Queen,” Jazzy heard Michael say, an edge creeping into his voice. He faltered, however, under the gaze that was turned on him; Jazzy didn’t need her eyes to be able to feel those eyes; they would have set a blaze to icicles.
“I’m new at this,” Jessica said quietly, “it’s only been two days.”
“I knew Morrigan, she was a Cassandrian like no other. Trust her to die inconveniently and leave me with...this to work with,” Medea replied.
“Now, now, Mercedes, you’re being snappy,” Achilles chided.
“My great-mother’s name was Morgan,” Jazzy said softly.
“It used to be Morrigan,” Medea snapped.
“Well, I knew her as Morgan, and I’m sorry if you feel slighted,” Jessica told her, her voice sharper than she realised, “I know these things: the Dreamer that the Morning Star has is slowly losing her grip on reality. I know we must bring her back soon. That is all.”
“Perhaps I can jog your Sight along,” Medea murmured, apparently completely disregarding what had been said. Jessica started back, but could not escape the carefully-manicured fingers that caught her chin, viciously.
“See.”
There is a lake. A deep lake. So deep that it rivals any ocean. She can see a girl swimming in the water. It’s the little girl from the living room. She’s wearing a rather pink frilly dress.LVI: Swimming
Jessica can feel nothing save for Medea’s claw, wrapped around her throat in a somehow gentle grip.
Then...
The water is freezing. She sees through the child’s eyes.
Down, down. I mustn’t be afraid. Alyxa is down there. I’m the only one can go get her. The pretty girl said so. I have to rescue Alyxa and Mr. Morpheus, and Bast. I’m the only one. I can hold my breath forever! The scary witch lady told me so. I shouldn’t call her that, but she’s mean! Though she did let me have pasta for dinner. That was nice.
The stream of consciousness is punctuated here and there by spikes of suppressed terror at being unable to reach the bottom before she runs out of breath. If there even is a bottom to this vastness. Then, there it is, a brilliant glimmer of light, like a whirlpool deep beneath the waters.
Jessica blinked as the vision cleared itself from her eyes, restoring the chaos of colours.
“Well?”
“There’s a lake,” Jazzy said into the room, feeling Medea’s hand slip away, “and a whirlpool beneath it. The little Dreamer has to swim into it. She’s the only one who can bring them back.”
“Me?” the child’s voice squeaked, sounding for the first time.
“Yes, that’s what I Saw. Don’t be scared, you’ll be alright. Medea here will cast a spell on you so you won’t need to breath underwater or something. Can you swim?”
The girl nodded – relayed by Michael.
“What then?” Medea demanded.
“No idea.”
“Pit a child against the Devil?” Achilles suggested.
LVII: Frightened
Alyxa couldn’t sleep. It was, quite literally, driving her insane, and all Morpheus could do was watch her. More often than not, afraid to leave her alone, he carried her around in his arms, letting her talk at him or simply be silent as he wandered the halls of Hell. He had come here rarely when it had still been under Hades’ rule, and he had to admit – quietly – that Lucifer had a flair for the dramatic. The lofty ceilings and great pillars were swarming with golds and silvers, deep velvet blues and blacks. Everywhere you turned there were paintings and portraits; it was very much like wandering through a museum or palace of the ages. Lucifer left them to their own devices for the most part, dropping in every now and then to see if Morpheus had had enough time to think. This place wore on you; people did not sleep here, or dream, as most of them were dead. For Dreamers then, it was agonizing, and for the Dream-King himself? He knew he was fading in power.
Alyxa tugged on his sleeve and he glanced down at her.
“Can we go home yet?” she asked softly, her internal battle clouding her eyes.
“Soon, my love,” he replied softly. She shifted in his grip.
“Let’s go see Bast?”
He nodded and turned, wandering in the direction of the throne room. Lucifer wasn’t there, but the two cages were. Bast looked up as they entered and stretched her panther-shape.
-Good, you’re here. Enyo, tell them.-
The goddess Kali – also known as Enyo in the Greek world – beckoned them closer. From what Morpheus understood, she had been one of the first that Lucifer had trapped, afraid of her. Who wouldn’t be? Goddess of Destruction, Ares’ lover and consort, Lady of Fire…
LVIII: Theology
“So you want to make the child swim down into Hell through the Sibyl’s lake, talk to the devil, and convince him to let the Dreamer and the others go?”
It was the way that Medea said it, the scoffing tone, that made it sound ridiculous.
“Yes,” Jessica said.
“Better to send one of the pretty boys, at least they might have something to offer the Morning Star,” the Witch-Queen stated, and Jessica sensed her sitting down, one knee drawn over the other.
“No smoking inside please, Miss Medea,” Amy’s young voice piped in. A crackle of power, a grumbled response, and the smell of smoke vanished.
“You do realize no mortal child has done this before,” Achilles pointed out as an aside from his conversation with Hector on the phone.
“It’s what she Saw,” Michael said.
“Why don’t you go? You’ve fought him before and won,” Medea pointed out, “if I recall the stories correctly, you’re the reason why he’s down there in the first place.”
Jessica felt Michael tense.
“My Father is not entirely…interested in these affairs. He sent the Arcs to Earth to be caretakers.”
“Typical, absentee parents, what more could you base religion on?” Medea sneered. Jessica could almost see her beautiful lips curving upwards in a sardonic smile.
“Better an absentee Father who loves than none at all,” Michael countered.
“Better a set of parents that can admit when they’ve blundered,” the Witch retorted.
“Will you two please grow the fuck up?” Achilles demanded, stepping back into the room again.
“You said a bad word, Mr. ‘chilles,” Amy chided softly.
“For which I apologize profusely, my dear,” he turned to the others in the room, “that was Hector. So unless someone comes up with another plan it’s wheel’s up in two hours. We’re goin’ swimming!”
LIX: Viable
-You see, Enyo cannot break herself free, but given the right amount of power, she can free me. I would like to see that glittering poofball of a fallen Arc deal with me without these bars!- Bast explained as Enyo beckoned them closer.
“I…I know some of where Enyo’s power comes from,” Morpheus said, hesistantly, “just how much blood is it going to take?”
Enyo glanced at Bast and their communication took place again; Bast didn’t reply and sat instead in silence.
“That bad, huh?” Alyxa murmured, “well…if it’s going to take that much blood you might as well kill me and be done with it. If I stay here any longer I’m going to lose it all anyways.”
Morpheus tightened his grip on her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.
-She’s making you more human isn’t she?- Bast observed, looking up from her paws, -if you had spent less time in the real world you’d have agreed that her sacrifice would have been the most pragmatic option, were it a viable option to start with.-
“What do you mean?”
Enyo gestured shortly, her sweet smile aimed somewhere between Bast and Morpheus.
-Alyxa’s blood is here because she was sent here, against her will. As a result any sacrifice she makes is against her will.-
“Do you have any idea how illogical that sounds?” the Dream-King demanded and Alyxa rolled her eyes.
“Oh, pretty,” she whispered, realizing that there were bright blues and reds glimmering on the high ceiling.
-She’s not herself,- Bast pointed out, -how can you expect her to make a decision she would make otherwise?-
Morpheus slumped his shoulders.
“Then what? There are no other mortals here with blood to give.”
Enyo laughed then, and it was an eerie laugh bereft of amusement, soundless, cold and yet… lonely.
LX: Semantics
“So you propose we wait here, until Alyxa loses her mind and we grow even more ancient than we are?” Morpheus demanded.
-Not exactly. Enyo says that there is movement in the real world.-
“Does that line go both ways?” Alyxa asked, looking at the caged goddess with bright eyes, “I mean, you could send a message to my parents?”
“Your parents are dead, little one,” Morpheus murmured.
-Anyways,- Bast interrupted before Alyxa could go on, -Enyo says that the wait will not be long now.-
“Lemme get this straight before you say anything more,” Alyxa said, suddenly completely lucid, “we wait here. Someone rocks up. Presumeably this person is mortal. We’re still going to sacrifice another human being? Kill another human being.”
-It might be a dog,- Bast offered, -we might sacrifice a dog? That wouldn’t be hard right?-
Alyxa gave her a weird look.
“I believe Alyxa’s point is, are you willing to sacrifice anyone to let little darling Enyo here work her magic,” Lucifer’s voice said and they all started.
The Prince of Darkness, Lord of Evil, etc. etc. was lounging quite comfortably in his throne between the two cages. He had not been there a moment before.
“Lucifer – ” Morpheus started.
“Oh tut, tut, darling,” the Morning Star chided, waving a hand in the Dream-King’s general direction, “you don’t think you can scheme here without me knowing it? I practically raised betrayal to an artform, remember? I am very familiar with it.”
-It’s not betrayal if you’re plotting against the Enemy,- Bast pointed out, her mental voice sickly sweet.
“Rub that in, why don’t you, kitty,” Lucifer pouted.
Bast hissed at him.
“He does have a point though,” Alyxa whispered, “can we kill anyone?”
“You could always take me up on my offer,” Lucifer reminded them.
LXI: Unease“I’m still not sure about this,” Hector said as they stepped out onto the icy tarmac of the landing strip, glancing at his lover.
“Eh, the girl said she Saw it this way? Why argue with the Fates?” Achilles told him, squeezing his shoulder as he looked around him.
“Because the last time we did not argue with the Fates we ended up knee-deep in blood. D’you remember?”
“I’m not likely to forget the ten-year-long war that made us who we are today, love,” Achilles murmured.
“Keep your wits,” Hector put in, motioning as Medea made her way out of the jet, “I do not trust this.”
“You were ever wary of open spaces.”
“I’m more wary of the Prince’s minions, he’s more resourceful than I’d like,” Hector muttered.
Achilles nodded and looked up into the sky.
“You’re right.”
“He’s very right,” Medea said as she came down the steps, “the air is heavy with magic.”
Amy stepped out of the jet then, holding Bast’s silent form. Jessica followed her, Michael at her side.
“Come here, child,” Medea instructed and gathered Amy to her almost absently. Long-lost maternal instinct perhaps? Or long suppressed?
When Amy was sheltered in the scarlet curve of the length of Medea’s fur coat, they started to cross the tarmac to where the cars were waiting. They had gone two steps, maybe three when Hector raised a fist and they stopped.
“What?” Medea asked.
“Miss Medea...I’m scared,” Amy whispered.
“It’ll be alright, child,” Medea murmured, her eyes were scanning.
“Do you see anything?” Jessica asked, her voice nervous.
“Quiet,” Achilles hissed and Jessica pressed herself again Michael.
Medea glanced at the couple, and sneered at the energy that was taking shape around the young man. Ah, Arcs. Pitifully chained and thus, limited. Luckily, she was neither.
Michael felt the air snap around him as though a thousand whips rushed by his face. The power crackled into his hand, took shape, he could feel it there: Purpose given to him by his Father. Power that came only when it was needed.LXII: Weaponry
“They come,” he told the others, “I can feel them.”
“Let them come,” Medea whispered, and Michael glanced at her.
The power he felt was nothing compared the power that surrounded her now, the crackling he had felt had been her doing. She looked so young now, like the young girl who had commanded Jason to cut her brother into pieces and throw him into the sea. He could see it in her now. Her hair moved of its own accord, twining around her and upwards like some living cloud of darkened magic.
“There!” Achilles exclaimed, pointing.
Michael had often wondered how Zeus’ agents fought, three of them as they were, and today that question was answered. Even as Achilles lifted his hands there was a crackle of energy and then his hands were filled, handguns, but somehow with blades as well. The air was thick when they came into sight, to the naked eye human men and women, armed to the teeth.
“Stay with me!” Jessica hissed, clutching at his arm.
“I will keep you safe,” he swore and let the Sword of God form in his hand, “stay low.”
Jessica crouched, on hands and knees.
“Give over the Sighted and the Dreamer and we will let you be!” the leader of the Horde called.
“How about...‘no’?” Hector retaliated, “return to your master, demon.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will render you back into the dust,” Michael shouted.
“We will not bargain. Give us the girls or you die.”
“Give it your best shot,” Achilles suggested.
LXIII: Playtime
Amy, in all her childish innocence, did not fully understand the danger that she was on – or perhaps in her child’s wisdom she knew that Medea could destroy the creatures that sprung out of those humans that a moment ago had seemed threatening but otherwise normal. She could burn them where they raised themselves into the air. Gunfire from Achilles forced them to stay low as Hector sprinted forward. Amy quite liked the strange weapon he suddenly held; a long sword with a gun built into the long hilt. At least, she thought it was the part called the hilt. Daddy had called bits of the sword the blade and the hilt in his story; the hilt was where you held it.
Jessica screamed behind her, and Amy twisted under Medea’s coat, lined prettily with mink fur and red leather, to look. The other girl was kicking madly, one of the demons had grabbed her by the ankle and was trying to fly up into the air with her. Amy wondered where it had come from. It had big leathery wings. Michael was in the air next to them, and he had a big sword in his hand, just like Hector, only Michael’s sword was on fire.
“I’ve got the Cassandrian!” the demon who had Jazzy shouted.
Michael raised his sword and cut a demon down. Jessica fell awkwardly, hitting the tarmac with a whimper.
“I will take the child!” Achilles half turned in reply to that call and Hector took a blow to his shoulder, falling. Now Amy was scared. One of the demon creatures rushed towards her and she cringed against Medea’s leg.
“Come, little one, play with me,” Medea laughed, and lifted a perfectly-manicured, child-like hand to beckon them closer, “play with me, children, come and play.”
If someone were to ask Amy – or any of the others - to describe what they saw after Medea’s creepily-cheerful ominous declaration, they would focus primarily on the fact that there was heat, as though the very air around them was filled with static. Lightning might have flashed overhead, or perhaps it shot out from the ground at their feet, it might have been blue, or red, or green. It hit nothing, but swirled, or maybe danced, around Medea’s body. Medea may or may not have looked young, or unchanged, she may have flickered or warped or stayed still. She raised her hands and spoke words that none of her companions could recall afterwards, but the heat intensified to the point where Amy could do nothing but cling to Medea’s leg and coat; she didn’t realise she was crying until she noticed that her tears were evaporating from her face.LXIX: Maybes
The demon hurtling towards them incinerated, or maybe he evaporated too, it was hard to tell. Ashes were born upwards on a wind that seemed to sweep out of nowhere. One after the other the demons were crisped and singed to their end and the evidence lifted skywards.
There were more enemies, of course, demons rarely came in small numbers – they gave ‘horde’ its meaning afterall. The newcomers hesitated when they glimpsed the now one-sided battlefield. It was obvious that they had not expected much resistance, let alone resistance of the Witch-Queen’s calibre. She turned to face them, drawing Amy with her. Her hair whipped around her youthful face, the red business dress she had been wearing earlier now resembled something like a red toga; red like swirling blood.
“Tell your Prince he will have to do better than this,” Achilles shouted across at the paused demons, “much, much better.”
“Well, that was fun,” Hector stated dryly, hauling himself to his feet.LXX: Healing
“Want me to have a look at that shoulder?” Medea asked him, looking now completely like her normal, bitchy self, her outfit restored as was.
“If I let you look at my shoulder I won’t have a shoulder,” the patient told her, his tone unchanging.
“It does need seeing to,” Medea told him, and shot a sideways glance at Michael, “ask the Arc to lay on hands or something.”
“Can he do that?” Achilles asked, blinking as he glanced at the angel.
“He’s God’s almighty sword of Heaven, what do you think?” Medea said, her tone less than sincere.
She turned away and focused on Amy, leaning down to say something to the little girl that neither of the others heard before lifting the girl up onto a hip. The movement struck Hector as so maternal that it almost scared him.
“You want me to take a look at that?” Michael asked him, coming forward.
Jessica was sitting on the tarmac, shaking but what had looked like a broken arm was completely healed and normal.
“So you really can heal?”
“We can,” Michael told him, and shot a glance at Medea, “but we don’t call it laying of hands. We call them Miracles.”
“Parting the Red Sea isn’t that hard,” Medea scoffed, but the others ignored her.
Michael sat Hector down and touched a hand to Hector’s shoulder.
He spoke Aramaic words that Hector couldn’t understand and there was a flash of icy cold searing through his arm, focusing like needle-points on his shoulder. It burned into his joints and then vanished, leaving him breathless and trembling. Where there had been a vicious claw-mark, there was now nothing.
“Not even a scar,” Achilles muttered.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
“Pretty, isn’t it?”LXXI: Pornography
Alyxa looked up from the running waters of the river Styx. Lucifer was kneeling at her shoulder, staring into the waters just as she had been doing.
“It is,” she agreed.
“I come here a lot, when I want to think,” the Morning Star said, giving her a brilliant smile that made her knees go weaker than Morpheus ever managed. Alyxa looked deep into the waters again, she could see colours flashing through the darkness, a myriad of strange images like those she sometimes saw in her dreams.
“What do you think about?” she asked suddenly.
“What it would be like if I hadn’t fallen,” Lucifer replied without missing a beat, “what it would be like if my Father hadn’t handed the reins to Michael and the rest of my siblings. I also think about what it would be like if I felt more female than male.”
Alyxa blinked.
“Um...”
“Yes, I know, I’m rather feminine,” the Dark Prince said, “I’m a perfect being, all balanced.”
“‘Balanced’?” Alyxa murmured, feeling the world twisting around her; it was getting harder to hang on.
“Being sane is a matter of point of view,” Lucifer said.
“You know what you are?” Alyxa blurted out, “you’re...pornography.”
That seemed to catch him off guard.
“I’m...pornography?”
“Yes,” she said, staggering through her words, “you’re too flexible to be real, which means you’re staged, pulling off all sorts of things that a normal person couldn’t possibly do, or taking all sorts of punishment that no normal person could. You’re also too pretty. Like snowflakes and butterflies.”
“Snowflakes and butterflies are like pornography?”
“No...” Alyxa said, suddenly looking very confused.
“So I’m like butterflies and snowflakes?”
“No...”
“So I’m as pretty as a butterfly and snowflakes and crazy as pornography?”
“Yes.”
“Now we’re making sense.
LXXII: Pacing
Pacing. That was about all there was to it. Back and forth continuously. The wide open spaces were oppressive in ways that Morpheus had never thought possible; the mortal world at least had its innovations and novelties, nothing compared to the incomprehensible beauties of Reveille. He was suffocating here.
“Where is she?” he demanded of the air in front of him.
-Chances are she is looking into the River,- Bast told him, and he glanced back at the cage that contained her, -Enyo says that its where she would be if she were mortal. The Styx is apparently the border between everything, the Dreamer would be most comfortable there.-
Enyo nodded and made a gesture.
-It’ll stop her from going insane, or at least slow it down.-
“I should be with her,” Morpheus murmured absently as though the thought had just occurred to him.
-It’s not like she’s going anywhere,- Bast snarled, -she can’t get out, Lucifer will keep her here at all costs.-
“What does Lucifer want with her anyways? How many Dreamers has he taken prisoner, I have seen none.”
Bast glanced at Enyo who made a noncommittal gesture with her elegant hands.
-We don’t know.-
“He obviously wishes Baldur to be kept away, but what other purpose apart from bridging the Rift does capturing Dreamers have?”
-Unfortunately, kitten, your guess is as good as mine,- Bast replied, sitting down on her haunches.
“The Older should know this, when we get out of here...”
-If, kitten, ‘if’,- the Cat-Goddess corrected.
Enyo tapped her scarlet and black nails against the bars of her golden cage.
- I have faith in your abilities, Kali, I don’t have faith in mortals.-
“Mortals are predictable,” Morpheus countered.
-Not that predictable. Do you honestly think a mortal is going to come down here?-
LXXIII: Preparations
They stood on the edge of the water and Michael shifted uneasily. It was so deep. Too deep. He could feel just how deep it ran, so deep that it made him want to wear his wings, just in case it seemed like he would trip and tumble in. He glanced over to where Medea was talking to Amy; the little girl looked quite nonplussed about the entire deal. Swim to the non-existing bottom of this lake? She could do that, or so she had quite readily told them. She had sworn herself blue and black that she was a great swimmer – apparently her father had taught her how to swim behind their house, making Michael wonder just where this child had come from and how she had ended up entangled with Alyxa and her Deity.
“So you understand, child, you are not to stop for anything, nothing. I will cast this spell on you, but it will not last indefinitely,” Medea was saying.
“What does ‘indefinitely’ mean?” Amy asked and Medea clicked her tongue impatiently.
“‘Forever’,” she explained, her voice short.
“Oh. How long will it last then?”
“About an hour, possibly two. It depends. So do not get distracted, swim to the bottom, and you will find a cave, you will go through the cave, and you will find yourself in Tartarus.”
“Once you’re in,” Achilles said, stepping in, “you will probably be approached by someone or something. Don’t be scared, tell them you wish to see Lucifer.”
“Tell them you are a Dreamer,” Medea told her, wrestling the conversation back into her own control, “now this is very important: tell them you are of the Living World. Do not eat or drink anything while you are there. Nothing. Not a seed, not a sip. Do you understand?”
LXXIV:Deeper
The water was cold. Amy’s little brow curled into a frown as she took her first steps into it, listening to the Red Lady saying strange things behind her. The water was very cold. This was not what she had imagined when the others had told her she would be swimming in a beautiful lake; in her mind, beautiful and warm were pretty much mutually inclusive.
The Red Lady made a gesture and Amy assumed that this meant it was time for her to start swimming so that is exactly what she did. Amy prided herself in being the best swimmer in her grade; she always beat everyone at the races and could swim to the bottom of the pool and sit there for long enough to count to sixty. Her teachers and Daddy had always been very impressed. Of course, Daddy was gone now... there was no way she was going to let anything happen to Alyxa and Mr. Morpheus.
The further down she dove the darker it got, so Amy shut her eyes and just swam deeper and deeper. She could feel the air building up in her lungs, and a little further down she had to exhale and inhale. To her surprised there was no water that rushed into her lungs; it felt sticky, like candy that had been left in the sunlight, but it was exactly like air. The Red Lady was good at her job too!
Amy opened her eyes, to see if she could see the cave that she had been told about. There was no cave; she could see was a faint glimmer somewhere below her, as though she was swimming back to the surface. That’s probably it. Her little legs were tiring. And then the light engulfed her and she couldn’t see.
LXXV: Temperment
-How long do you think she can hold out?- Bast asked her fellow captive goddess when Morpheus had left them.
“As
long as a dream, less than a nightmare,” Enyo told her in a voice that
only Bast and Lucifer were apparently capable of hearing.
-How long would your little spell take?-
“No longer than a breath, as long as the fall of a drop of blood.”
-I like a good blood sacrifice as the next goddess, Kali, but seriously, don’t you take it a little far?-
“Your kind eat your kittens,” Enyo pointed out.
-Only when they’re dead,- Bast snarled, her long tail fluffing up slightly.
“Or when they don’t belong to you,” Enyo reminded her.
The two deities looked at each other in silence for a minute or two, and then Enyo affected a small, shrug.
“Would you have let me drain Morpheus’Dreamer, if it meant freedom?”
-Of course,- Bast said, -she is not my Dreamer, I feel nothing but minor amity for her-
“It can still be done, Cat-Queen, if I were to drain the Dreamer and her Morpheus I could – ”
-Absolutely not!- Bast hissed, -You’re disgusting for even thinking it!-
Enyo’s eyes flashed into a brilliant gold, her hair flared from its dark curls into brilliant reds and oranges.
“I
am what I am, little kitten, and I was here before you. Yama and
Thanatos pay tribute to me, Di Yu grovels at my feet, Osiris came before
me for new life when Isis sewed his pieces together. Every single
entity of death, destruction, and rebirth answers to me. Do not presume to teach me of morality. ”
-And yet you are here, bound by a minor deity,- Bast countered slyly.
“He has the Chains of Lilith.”
-He does?- Bast asked, startled.
“Yes, he does.”
It was deliciously warm, and dry, and she was so hungry. Thirsty too. Amy sat up. She was lying on moss that was growing on rock. She was in a cave, everywhere she looked there were those things that grew from the roof and grew from the floor, here and there they had formed gigantic pillars, holding up the cavern roof. She blinked, suddenly realising that she could see quite clearly. There was no light source, unless you counted the fact that the ground and walls gave off a pale white glow. It was really pretty.
“Are you awake then, girl?” a voice asked her, making her start.
She looked around and felt her eyes nearly drop out of her head when she saw what she could only assume was a skeleton.
“’s not nice to stare.”
“Sorry. I’ve...just never seen a talking skeleton before.”
“Name’s Chiron,” the skeleton told her, adjusting the black cloth he had wrapped around his bony shoulders.
“I’m Amy, I’m looking for my friends,” Amy replied, and then remembered she was suppose to say something, “and I’m of the Living World.”
Chiron chuckled.
“I’m not gonna be keepin’ you here, girl, I just ferry people across the river when it’s time, they’s that pay. Used to anyhow, but those days ‘r long past now that there’s a new Prince on the Plutonic Throne.”
“I’d like to go to him, he knows where my friends are,” Amy said.
“Best to leave the Morning Star be, girl, he’s not to be trifl’d with.”
“I promised.”
If a skeleton could ever be described as thoughtful, now would be the right moment.
“Well, seein’ as you’re not dead ‘n I haven’t got a job to do no more, guess I’ll be y’r escort.”
Amy’s face brightened.
“Thank you, Chiron.”
“I didn’t realise you were still here, Chiron, I should’ve given you a redundancy package and sent you on a leave,” the Morning Star mused, “my apologies.”
“No need, y’r Excellency,” Chiron assured him, his skeletal hand wrapped gently about Amy’s, “I’m quite happy fishin’ for lost them lost souls in the river as it were.”
“Good good, but still, if there’s anything...”
“I’ll be s’re to mention it, y’r Excellency.”
“Good,” Lucifer said and turned his gaze on Amy, who stared up at him with large eyes.
He was so tall and impressive, and reminded her of Daddy, but scarier.
“What can I do for you, little one?”
“I’m from the Living World,” Amy blurted out, “my name’s Amy. I’m here for my friends.”
Lucifer’s gaze turned curious.
“And which friends are those, my dear?”
“Alyxa ‘n Mister Morpheus ‘n Bast!” Amy stated, a little rattled by the pure colour in his eyes.
“Ah. Then you are here to negotiate their return?”
Amy didn’t really know what ‘negotiate’ meant so she nodded.
“Then, as the Witch Queen’s ambassador, you are my guest, are you thirsty or hungry? I will see refreshments brought.”
Before Amy could reply the shining creature waved a hand and a small chair and table appeared just beside his throne, on the table sat a plate of cookies and a large mug of something steaming.
“I’m not suppose to drink or eat anything,” she said dubiously, but Lucifer waved a hand, swinging his feet off the throne to make his way towards her.
“It is freely given, little one, I promise.”
Amy screwed her little nose up.
“That’s gross,” she said.
“Depends on your perspective.”
“It’s gross,” she repeated.
“It raises a big problem for you though, little one, because essentially what I’ve been paid is in gods and the soul of a Bound Dreamer. The only way you can get them back is replace them with something of equal worth.”
Amy was trying very hard to listen to everything he was saying, but it was all very confusing. Daddy had always told her to ask questions if she did not understand something, but she wasn’t sure that Lucifer would understand that philosophy. She had to try something though.
“What’s the difference between a normal Dreamer and a...bound Dreamer?”
“A Bound Dreamer,” he said slowly, “is a Dreamer whose life is all tangled up with a Deity’s, in other words, your sister and Morpheus now share one lifeline. They are ‘bound’ together. He drinks her blood, she is strengthened by his energies.”
“Oh,” she replied and chewed on her lip for a moment, “does that mean I’m a not bound Dreamer? Since Bast doesn’t drink my...blood?”
Something flashed in Lucifer’s eyes; Amy wondered if they had a name for that kind of blue.
“If you have not shared your blood with a Deity or supernatural force then you are Unbound, and thus far more powerful than Alyxa.”
“Why?”
“Because Bound Dreamers are restrained Dreamers, Unbound Dreamers are not limited by the powers of their Deity. As a result, they are also much more valuable.”
“How valuable?” Amy asked softly.
“Valuable enough to trade for two gods and a Bound Dreamer.”
“Oh.”
“Can I talk with them?” Amy asked the Prince, suddenly not sure about what she was doing here.
“I will let you see them,” Lucifer replied, and clapped his hands, summoning a strange bird down from unseen rafters.
It was brown, but no kind of brown that Amy had ever seen before, it was shiny and reminded her of the hair pins the Bad Lady had worn when she had stolen Daddy.
“Bring Morpheus and his Dreamer,” Lucifer instructed the bird, who took off and vanished.
“What about Bast?” Amy demanded.
“Patience, little one, Bast is already here.”
Lucifer waved a hand and the air beside the throne shimmered, revealing to golden-barred cages, one of which held the most beautiful woman Amy had ever seen and the other held Bast, although she was no longer pick-up-able.
“Bast!” Amy exclaimed and bolted forward beneath Lucifer’s indulgent smirk.
-Amy? Kittens and fishsticks, what are you doing down here, child?-
“Medea sent me, and there’s this girl who sees things before they happen, and boy name Michael, and they told me to come here and talk to him and get you out!” Amy told her in a rush of emotion, sinking down beside the cage and reaching through the bars.
Bast licked the child’s hands gently, ignoring the amused looks she was receiving from both Enyo and Lucifer.
-They should not have sent you.-
“On the contrary, little kitty,” Lucifer countered, “she is the only thing of worth that they have.”
“Huh?”
Bast bristled and hissed at him, reaching through the bars to swipe at him in her anger.
-How dare you! She’s just a child!-
“An Unbound Dreamer, goddess, is worth more than a hundred Bound Dreamers, the Witch-Queen knows that and yet she still sends her to me? How convenient.”
LXXVI: Guide
It was deliciously warm, and dry, and she was so hungry. Thirsty too. Amy sat up. She was lying on moss that was growing on rock. She was in a cave, everywhere she looked there were those things that grew from the roof and grew from the floor, here and there they had formed gigantic pillars, holding up the cavern roof. She blinked, suddenly realising that she could see quite clearly. There was no light source, unless you counted the fact that the ground and walls gave off a pale white glow. It was really pretty.
“Are you awake then, girl?” a voice asked her, making her start.
She looked around and felt her eyes nearly drop out of her head when she saw what she could only assume was a skeleton.
“’s not nice to stare.”
“Sorry. I’ve...just never seen a talking skeleton before.”
“Name’s Chiron,” the skeleton told her, adjusting the black cloth he had wrapped around his bony shoulders.
“I’m Amy, I’m looking for my friends,” Amy replied, and then remembered she was suppose to say something, “and I’m of the Living World.”
Chiron chuckled.
“I’m not gonna be keepin’ you here, girl, I just ferry people across the river when it’s time, they’s that pay. Used to anyhow, but those days ‘r long past now that there’s a new Prince on the Plutonic Throne.”
“I’d like to go to him, he knows where my friends are,” Amy said.
“Best to leave the Morning Star be, girl, he’s not to be trifl’d with.”
“I promised.”
If a skeleton could ever be described as thoughtful, now would be the right moment.
“Well, seein’ as you’re not dead ‘n I haven’t got a job to do no more, guess I’ll be y’r escort.”
Amy’s face brightened.
“Thank you, Chiron.”
Lucifer lounged in the over-sized chair that made up the Plutonic Throne, one leg dangling over an arm and the other curled up underneath him. His wings drooped over the other arm, just for show.LXXVII: Audience
“I didn’t realise you were still here, Chiron, I should’ve given you a redundancy package and sent you on a leave,” the Morning Star mused, “my apologies.”
“No need, y’r Excellency,” Chiron assured him, his skeletal hand wrapped gently about Amy’s, “I’m quite happy fishin’ for lost them lost souls in the river as it were.”
“Good good, but still, if there’s anything...”
“I’ll be s’re to mention it, y’r Excellency.”
“Good,” Lucifer said and turned his gaze on Amy, who stared up at him with large eyes.
He was so tall and impressive, and reminded her of Daddy, but scarier.
“What can I do for you, little one?”
“I’m from the Living World,” Amy blurted out, “my name’s Amy. I’m here for my friends.”
Lucifer’s gaze turned curious.
“And which friends are those, my dear?”
“Alyxa ‘n Mister Morpheus ‘n Bast!” Amy stated, a little rattled by the pure colour in his eyes.
“Ah. Then you are here to negotiate their return?”
Amy didn’t really know what ‘negotiate’ meant so she nodded.
“Then, as the Witch Queen’s ambassador, you are my guest, are you thirsty or hungry? I will see refreshments brought.”
Before Amy could reply the shining creature waved a hand and a small chair and table appeared just beside his throne, on the table sat a plate of cookies and a large mug of something steaming.
“I’m not suppose to drink or eat anything,” she said dubiously, but Lucifer waved a hand, swinging his feet off the throne to make his way towards her.
“It is freely given, little one, I promise.”
LXXVIII: Payment
There was every kind of food she could think of, and it all
drifted in on clouds of red and blue lights. It was very pretty. Lucifer sat in
a shiny chair next to her, it was a really long table, but they occupied only
one little corner of it while the food drifted by them. Lucifer himself put
bits and pieces of food on her plate, suggesting that she try something.
“This is delicious,” she told him politely.
“You should have some of this fruit juice, it’s made in the
Elysium Fields.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s here.”
Amy looked around, trying to see what he was talking about.
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“You can only see it if you live here, and only then if you’re
allowed to.”
“Who says you’re allowed to?” Amy asked him.
Lucifer leaned in closer to her to tell her a secret.
“I’m the boss,” he told her.
Amy nodded, she knew that.
“You’re trying to distract me,” she said to him, putting on
what she called Daddy’s Business Look, “it’s not going to work.”
Lucifer leaned back again.
“It isn’t?”
“No, it isn’t,” she replied, “I want you to give my friends
back now please.”
“Are you sure you don’t want some of the fruit juice?”
“I’m sure,” Amy told him.
“Then we shall begin the negotiations,” he replied.
He clapped his hands and everything except the cups and jug
of juice disappeared.
“You want your friends back, but they are mine,” Lucifer
said, “so what will you give me in return?”
“They shouldn’t be yours, they were free!” Amy countered, “you
took them away.”
“Actually,” Lucifer said, “they were given to me in payment
by a witch who was looking for more power.”
“How can you give people in payment? That’s wrong!”
“Actually, it’s been around for a long time,” Lucifer assured her, leaning back in his chair and sipping the fruit, “and witches have dealt in souls for many, many centuries.”LXXIX: Value
Amy screwed her little nose up.
“That’s gross,” she said.
“Depends on your perspective.”
“It’s gross,” she repeated.
“It raises a big problem for you though, little one, because essentially what I’ve been paid is in gods and the soul of a Bound Dreamer. The only way you can get them back is replace them with something of equal worth.”
Amy was trying very hard to listen to everything he was saying, but it was all very confusing. Daddy had always told her to ask questions if she did not understand something, but she wasn’t sure that Lucifer would understand that philosophy. She had to try something though.
“What’s the difference between a normal Dreamer and a...bound Dreamer?”
“A Bound Dreamer,” he said slowly, “is a Dreamer whose life is all tangled up with a Deity’s, in other words, your sister and Morpheus now share one lifeline. They are ‘bound’ together. He drinks her blood, she is strengthened by his energies.”
“Oh,” she replied and chewed on her lip for a moment, “does that mean I’m a not bound Dreamer? Since Bast doesn’t drink my...blood?”
Something flashed in Lucifer’s eyes; Amy wondered if they had a name for that kind of blue.
“If you have not shared your blood with a Deity or supernatural force then you are Unbound, and thus far more powerful than Alyxa.”
“Why?”
“Because Bound Dreamers are restrained Dreamers, Unbound Dreamers are not limited by the powers of their Deity. As a result, they are also much more valuable.”
“How valuable?” Amy asked softly.
“Valuable enough to trade for two gods and a Bound Dreamer.”
“Oh.”
LXXX: Convenience
“Can I talk with them?” Amy asked the Prince, suddenly not sure about what she was doing here.
“I will let you see them,” Lucifer replied, and clapped his hands, summoning a strange bird down from unseen rafters.
It was brown, but no kind of brown that Amy had ever seen before, it was shiny and reminded her of the hair pins the Bad Lady had worn when she had stolen Daddy.
“Bring Morpheus and his Dreamer,” Lucifer instructed the bird, who took off and vanished.
“What about Bast?” Amy demanded.
“Patience, little one, Bast is already here.”
Lucifer waved a hand and the air beside the throne shimmered, revealing to golden-barred cages, one of which held the most beautiful woman Amy had ever seen and the other held Bast, although she was no longer pick-up-able.
“Bast!” Amy exclaimed and bolted forward beneath Lucifer’s indulgent smirk.
-Amy? Kittens and fishsticks, what are you doing down here, child?-
“Medea sent me, and there’s this girl who sees things before they happen, and boy name Michael, and they told me to come here and talk to him and get you out!” Amy told her in a rush of emotion, sinking down beside the cage and reaching through the bars.
Bast licked the child’s hands gently, ignoring the amused looks she was receiving from both Enyo and Lucifer.
-They should not have sent you.-
“On the contrary, little kitty,” Lucifer countered, “she is the only thing of worth that they have.”
“Huh?”
Bast bristled and hissed at him, reaching through the bars to swipe at him in her anger.
-How dare you! She’s just a child!-
“An Unbound Dreamer, goddess, is worth more than a hundred Bound Dreamers, the Witch-Queen knows that and yet she still sends her to me? How convenient.”
LXXXI: Accord
“Is that Amy?” Alyxa mumbled as
they came in.
“Yes,” he replied simply.
“Why?”
Lucifer smiled magnanimously.
“She is here to take your place,”
the Morning Star told them with an expansive gesture of his arms.
“She’s what?” Alyxa demanded,
shaken out of the stupor.
Amy blinked, twisting where she
knelt by Bast’s cage.
“What do you mean?” the little
girl asked.
Lucifer moved to kneel at her
side and he laid a calming hand on her shoulder.
-Don’t touch her!- Bast hissed; her
words ignored.
“I mean, little one, that if you
stay here, with me, I will let your friends go. I will let them return to the
World of the Living, if you promise to stay with me forever.”
Amy hesitated.
“‘Forever’?” she echoed, a little
undone by the word itself.
“It is not enough,” Morpheus
said, stepping forwards and setting Alyxa down on the chair Amy had vacated not
long before.
Lucifer’s brilliant eyes flashed
and he met Morpheus’ eyes.
“Do not push me, sweetheart.”
“If you have an Unbound Dreamer, Morning
Star, we will not walk away empty handed.” Morpheus said softly, eyes
narrowing.
The Prince of Darkness took a
moment to consider this.
“Your suggestion?”
Morpheus raised an elegant finger
and pointed at Enyo.
“Kali comes with us.”
“If I release her it should be
into Reveille,” Lucifer countered.
“We will send Amy back.”
The Morning Star hesitated.
“Take the Destroyer then,”
Lucifer murmured, studying Amy, “take her and go.”
-We can’t just leave her!- Bast
roared.
Morpheus looked at the little girl.
“Amy?” Morpheus asked the girl.
She glanced at Lucifer.
“If you let them go and never
touch them again, I will stay.”
“Then it is done,” Lucifer
replied, and waved a hand, “go. Don’t worry, Bast, I will care for her.”
LXXXII: Fields
“No, wai- ” Alyxa shrieked but
the Underworld faded and then she was standing on edge of a lake.
There were people all around her,
people she did not know.
“Dreamer,” a woman in red said, “welcome
back.”
Then Morpheus was there, and almost instantly
his teeth were in her throat and he was drinking, drawing the blood that was his
life-force directly from her jugular.
-Morpheus, enough,- Bast’s voice
snarled a moment later, -she’s weak.-
“Let the Angel do his healin’
thing, she’ll be fine,” a male voice.
Alyxa blinked her eyes, trying to
gain some clarity; there were three men she didn’t know, and apart from the
woman in red there was a younger girl. Morpheus pulled back, licking his lips
to sweep up the last of blood.
“We left Amy there...with him,”
Alyxa murmured.
“You did what?” one of the men
demanded.
The lady in red lit up a
cigarette.
“The pieces are gathered then,”
she said, “and you’ve brought back one of the things we needed.”
-You sent Amy there on purpose,
didn’t you?!- Bast hissed, -you sent her there to sell her!-
“Lucifer would have kept Amy no
matter what, an Unbound Dreamer! Unbound! He would not have let her go,
regardless,” Medea retorted, “but now we have her!”
A scarlet-nailed finger pointed
at Enyo.
-You traded her! Like an object!
My Dreamer!-
“The Rift will open at this rate,
three Deities this side of Reveille. Bast is right, Medea, what are you playing
at?” Morpheus asked, cradling Alyxa to him.
“Lucifer will bridge the Rift anyways,
he wants to battle Baldur and restart everything,” Medea countered, “but with
Kali on our side, the field is even.”
-Except that Kali lives only to
destroy everything.-
“I am standing right here,
children, I can hear you.”
END OF PART II
