Call of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 1) (32 page)

“You know more than I can safely allow. Please die.” The host/Goddess raised her splayed hands toward Axandra. The space between them rippled.

Defensively, Axandra raised her good arm to shield herself. A nearly invisible bubble blocked the rippling air, causing the force to ricochet out in all directions.

“Stop them! Do something!” Quinn shouted at the Prophets. Stifled by the din, no one seemed to hear him. From behind, he received a kick in his kidney. Doubled over in pain, he turned back to find Tyrane on his feet and swinging around for another swipe with his leg. Catching the man by his ankle, Quinn set him off balance and sent them both tumbling to the ground.

“They are going to kill everyone!” Quinn shouted at Tyrane, trying to make him understand.

“You are ruining everything!” the old man screamed, drawing back his fist to strike a blow. Quinn easily evaded the move, propelling himself onto his feet—

Only to be knocked flat again by a flying body. Prophets were being tossed aside like rag dolls by the new host. Invisible yet crushing blows sent the Prophets careening in all directions.

Axandra shielded herself with the bubble of her own making, holding off the crushing mental force aimed at her. Ty pressed behind her, trying to keep the woman on her feet. Patrum could not be seen on the far side of the action. Quinn marveled for a moment at his love's ability to protect herself. He realized that many of the Prophets tried to use similar powers, but the Goddess thwarted their efforts with simple flicks of her wrist.

“Goddess, be patient!” Tyrane begged of the new vessel. “We will deal with the traitor. Allow me to help you learn about our ways. This body has been asleep for a hundred and fifty years. A great deal has changed.”

Laughing derisively, the host/Goddess mocked the elder. “As if I don't already know? I've seen it all, human. I was there through all of it. There is nothing you can teach me now.”

Quinn moved into the crowd, avoiding more men and women thrown in his direction. He hoped to get near the being unnoticed and use his physical strength against her. It was a slim hope, but one he felt he could not abandon.

Under the pressure of the assault, Axandra's defense weakened and broke. She toppled backward onto Narone. The energetic force wrapped around her and lifted her into the air. Suspended above the stony ground, she writhed and screamed as the ripples enveloped her. Slowly, her body spun and tilted, worked over by the onslaught of energy.

From the far shadows, Patrum leaped into the path of the torturing force. As the rescuer became enveloped in pain, Axandra slumped to the ground, right into the arms of her commander, who lifted her easily and moved to the far side of the stone platform for protection. Patrum's shrieks took over where hers ended.

Furiously, the host narrowed her eyes and raised her second hand directly at the meddling man. The ripples lengthened into waves as she increased her destructive power. The force expanded outward in a sphere, touching the Prophets in the front lines and causing them to drop and thrash in agony.

Patrum's cries immediately ceased.

“You believe yourselves superior, that you captured us and kept us alive. We are tired of this game, and we are ready now to take you all,” the host/Goddess proclaimed. Raising one arm to the open sky, she released a spray of lightning that slashed a hole in the clouds like sharp scissors through cloth.

Quinn looked up at the sky full of shooting stars and felt terror. They fell far and wide across the sky, reaching distances beyond the Great Storm. A bolt of lightning struck the lip of the arena, sending down a shower of rubble. People threw up their arms to protect their faces.

Quinn reached the capsule. He leaned against the massive structure to catch his breath, hiding a moment. The screaming cut into his heart.

The metal orb rocked slightly as his weight pushed against the side. Giving a shove, he found its balance unstable.

Looking across the stage, Quinn's eyes met Ty's. Eyes narrowed, Quinn attempted to find some way to convey what he was about to attempt. Somehow, the effort seemed to work, for Ty gave one brief nod of his head in approval.

Quinn shoved against the metal orb with all his might, trying to get the pod to roll. Simultaneously, Ty lunged, shoulder forward. The commander struck the girl with a crushing force, driving her body against the metal capsule. He moved back immediately as the orb rolled in his direction. There came a sickening crunch and a gargled shriek that soon stopped as the heavy capsule came to rest again. The ripples and waves that distorted the space in the room abruptly ceased.

The Stormflies swooped down. Many of the Prophets turned their attention to the raining fire, lifting their hands in unison and building a shield over the gathering. Fingers of lightning showered down among the Prophets. Some lost footing and collapsed to the stony ground with shrieks of pain. Others guarded themselves with bubbles of their own energy which absorbed and nullified the electricity from above. The combined strength of the individuals caused the atmosphere around them to quake and rumble. The sensation struck Quinn with a wave of nausea. Guts flipping wildly, he lost his footing.

The Stormflies swirled around the arena, their miniscule forms striking any human object in their paths. Axandra raised an arm weakly to block the next attack. Her left arm twisted oddly, her hand dangling from a broken wrist. Ty shouted in protest and clambered to place himself between his charge and the showering assailants, a possibility he had long trained for. The commander didn't even give it a second thought.

Quinn examined what little of the body he could view from beneath the massive orb. He assured himself he killed this girl because he had to save many others, but the self-assurance felt weak.

He witnessed the purple spirit rise out of the crushed body, wobbling in the air. With a quiver, the entire thing broke free of the corpse and reshaped itself into the ball of light. Righting itself, the entity made a beeline for the next available body, a young Prophet woman attempting to pull herself to her feet after being knocked down.

Too late to call out a warning, Quinn realized the Goddess could easily leap from host to host in this environment. The woman of pale skin lurched as the light overtook her, then her face adopted the same ancient expression of rage.

Growling like a prairie cat, Quinn plowed forward head down, directly into the host's sternum, knocking her flat against the ground.

The woman only laughed and teased, “You'll never win.” Then the life behind the host's eye blinked out, the body dead. The violet essence that was the Goddess rose out of the body and upward.

Quinn fumbled to capture the creature in his hands, just as Tyrane had held it, but the entity slipped between his fingers and escaped into the dissipating mass of clouds that so recently housed the Stormflies.

A thousand results swirled through his head realizing that the Stormflies had just loosed themselves upon an unsuspecting world of humans.

But right now, he had more important matters.

Bodies of the dead and the dying lay everywhere in the arena. Several of the Prophets moved forward, tending to Tyrane, the young sleeper and the Prophet woman who most recently hosted the foul Goddess. Quinn paused to evaluate Patrum's condition. Finding the ex-Prophet lifeless, he joined Ty next to the Protectress.

“She's alive,” Ty whispered to Quinn. He feared an open announcement could bring unwanted attention. The overall emotion of resentment hovered in the arena, directed toward the woman Tyrane labeled “traitor” only minutes ago.

Axandra clung to life despite being horribly battered. Bruised, her skin changed into shades of blue and purple. Blisters and burns blackened her right hand. Crushed bones disfigured the other. She coughed and blood trickled from her mouth.

Ty pulled off his cloak to cover the injured woman. Lifting Axandra's body gently, Quinn cradled her against him. Instinctively, he sent his mind into hers. He sought out her consciousness, her very soul, and embraced it with his own.

“Axandra?” Quinn whispered and was rewarded by two slits of eyes. Throat tight, he lost his physical voice.

Don't leave,
he begged, his thought-voice filled with grief.
You're not supposed to die now.

I am not ready to go yet,
Axandra responded, clinging to him and entwining her essence with his like twisting ribbons in the wind. His presence could sustain her until she could be healed. He vowed he would not let her go.

25th Octember, 307

The Prophets,
expert healers using their strong mental arts, set immediately to work to heal the woman they had so recently intended to murder. For thirty hours, they sat with their hands on her skin almost around the clock, many taking shifts to focus on healing her damaged organs and broken bones and controlling her pain.

The broken bones mended rapidly. Cuts and bruises disappeared quickly with the aid of salves and ointments.

The worst physical injury, the burnt flesh of her right hand, did not heal with such speed. The Healers willed the tissues to restore, as they would with a typical burn caused by fire or heat. This flesh did not respond in a typical manner and refused to regenerate. While they did not abandon all hope of completing the task of healing their patient, the Healers reverted back to non-telepathic methods in order to do so. With surgical instruments, the Healers sloughed away dead skin and removed dead muscle. These methods left the hand disfigured. To prevent infection, the open wounds were wrapped in bandages soaked in a solution of potent herbs and extracts that were often used by Healers outside the Prophets realm to anesthetize the pain and promote healing. The Prophet Healers felt these methods less efficient and apologized for their necessity. With regret, the Healers reported their fear that she might lose one or two digits due to the severity of the injury. They monitored the healing and hoped they would be proven wrong.

With Axandra's vital functions stabilized the Healers vacated the room to allow the patient to rest. Quinn never left. He held Axandra's hand or touched her face, all the time in contact with her, connecting himself to her and maintaining her life and her sanity.

Inside, she faced strange demons. Old faces became new to her again, memories that had been suppressed by the Goddess returned to her, even from her childhood. She wrestled with new truths that had been hidden from her so that she would fulfill the needs of her symbiont. She had been used, like her mother before her, in a complex web of lies and deceptions, all to bring them to the time when the Goddess and her kind planned to take the planet from the humans, with no remorse for complete destruction of humankind.

The origin of the creatures remained unclear, especially now that the memories of the Goddess had been stripped away. Quinn believed the creatures traveled the galaxy, preying on the bodies of physical creatures, consuming nutrients directly from the blood. Their queen, a most powerful being, had apparently been hosted by a select human woman for centuries as part of the truce that kept the Stormflies from completely invading the human interlopers to this world. Possibly these Stormflies arrived millennia ago. Perhaps these creatures caused the disappearance of the Ancients. Quinn doubted he would ever get to test his hypothesis, and would probably never find any evidence to prove his presumptions.

On the third day, early in the morning—well before the dawn—Axandra stirred. Quinn felt her move beside him. He lay next to her on the wide spread of pillows and cushions, enveloping her with his arms as she slept. She shifted, suddenly restless. In the candlelight, Quinn saw her face and watched her grimace with lingering pain.

Axandra opened her eyes, disoriented to find herself in near darkness. Her expression changed to relief when her eyes settled on him.

“You're here,” she breathed out a sigh and tried to smile.

“I haven't gone anywhere,” he said, kissing her unbandaged hand. The other, the one burned, lay at her side wrapped in thick bandages, likely the source of her pain.

“The creatures…?” she questioned, unsure what specific question to ask.

“Will have to be dealt with. The Stormflies are out with our people,” he explained. “The Goddess is out there with them.”

“Did we warn anyone?”

He nodded. “Days ago. Ty sent a messenger back to the Council with the details,” he told her. “Word back is the people are all aware of the signs, what to look for and report. Hopefully most will be able to avoid possession, but if people are affected, the guards will do their best not to harm them until medical help arrives.”

Then, lastly, as she grew tired already, she asked, “And the toll?”

“I … don't know right now. I haven't been given anything. Ty might know.”

Nodding slightly, she accepted his response. For now she gave no opinion.

“I'm very hungry,” she said to him.

For the moment, Quinn allowed himself to return to his self-appointed task of nursing her back to health. “Eat this,” he offered, reaching behind him to the tray that held the staples of food and water. And for a while, as she nibbled tiny bits of dried fruit, they lay side-by-side quietly. He felt relieved beyond measure that she was recovering. She felt grateful to be alive. Together, they cherished each other's touch and welcomed the exchange of emotion between them. She nestled against him, her skin touching his, enveloped in his radiating warmth.

+++

25nd Octember

“
Head of Council,
we have received a message from Commander Narone.” Ben began and completed his announcement before he traversed the space of her office.

From behind a desk littered with tea cups, half-eaten sandwiches and sheaves of paper, Nancy Morton rose to meet him.

“Spit it out,” she ordered impatiently. After receiving word that the Protectress had been abducted, and that Ty Narone was leading forces to retrieve her, Morton had spent the night here, in her office, waiting for any sign that the incident was over. What she expected to happen, what Tyrane told her would happen, was for the woman known as Axandra Korte Saugray to cease existing. Needing Morton's aide in his plan, Tyrane had explained that within the Great Storm lived an entire population of creatures who needed human kind in order to survive. The Goddess residing inside the Protectress acted as a funnel, drawing in the emotional energy of the human population through the host and channeling the fuel to the Storm to be consumed by the mass. Since the Heir refused to cooperate, a new vessel would be installed, someone trained and willing to accept the responsibility. Without the host, the Stormflies would take it upon themselves to gather their needed sustenance. The effect of such had been unexpectedly witnessed in the recent murders and unusual animal behaviors.

Holding the good of the people higher than the well-being of one woman, Morton agreed to allow the Prophets access, in stealth, to the Palace and the Protectress' home.

Trying to avoid feelings of guilt, Nancy kept the young woman at a distance, spurning any attempts by the Protectress to strike an emotional attachment. Nancy assumed her efforts would prevent this ache in her heart, this sorrow and apprehension. Buried within, a miniscule light of hope blinked. Perhaps the Protectress survived.

Ben read from a sheet of parchment long with hand-written notes. “The Esteemed Matriarch has sustained serious injury, but she has survived her ordeal. Of greater importance, the following information needs disseminated to all villages and persons for their safety. Creatures known as the Stormflies are moving about the continent. The creatures are responsible for the violent behavior and fatal illness people have recently experienced. They are known to enter through the eye.”

Ben paused. “The remainder of the report contains instructions for the Healers, Elite and Safety Watch volunteers.”

“She's alive?”

“Yes, Ma'am,” Ben confirmed.

Tyrane failed. Now the Stormflies would decimate the human population. Internally, Morton cursed the Heir for her selfish short-sightedness.

“Good. Tell Narone to get her back to the Palace as quickly as possible. With a flick of her fingers, she dismissed the guard and turned away to her window. Her chest stung.

Nancy never expected such a cataclysm in her lifetime. She wasn't certain she was prepared to make the decisions required to enter into a war, especially with life forms so vastly different from human kind.

As she felt her heart explode inside her chest, Nancy realized she was a great fool to think she would be allowed to live with the knowledge the Prophets had shown her. She collapsed upon the floor, her eyes open only to darkness.

+++

27th Octember

Each day, Axandra grew stronger. Her body ached in places she hadn't been aware could feel pain, but the discomfort only reminded her that she survived an event when she had been expected—and almost willed—to die.

While she endured the pain of her body by reminding herself that it would all pass in time, she struggled to comfort herself when her mind became filled with disturbing revelations. Past memories surfaced that had been taken from her long ago, shielded from her by the entity for its own purposes. Warnings in her mother's voice told her to run away, to escape the Prophet before he could take her under the Great Storm. Elora did not want Ileanne's fate to be sealed by a race of people warped by decades of seclusion.

Images of her father surfaced, showing her the way he looked at her when she was a child. He would often send her away from him, not to be bothered by her questions or her needs. His blue eyes burned holes in her every time she tried to approach. When her mental abilities first began to manifest at the age of four, she sensed the reason why he treated her so horribly. Not so much in direct words, but in images of another man's face and a flash of passion that Elora felt for that stranger. As a child, she did not understand why her father would picture his wife embraced in someone else's arms and the intense anger the image stirred in him. As a woman, however, Axandra recognized jealousy and understood betrayal. A man knows when something has been stolen from him. Her father refused to care for the child who was not his true daughter.

Axandra did not know who the other man was, nor did she believe she would ever discover his identity. The truth gave her no benefit anyway. It was much too late to reunite with her lost family. Her mother was gone. The man she thought was her father was gone. She suspected that her real father was gone as well.

On the fifth day of her recovery, Axandra dictated that she was to be taken home to Undun. Both Ty and Quinn advised against traveling. Commander Narone relayed reports that incidents of violence spread slowly across the continent. For now the crimes appeared isolated, a single infection in a hundred kiloms.

“You may be safer here, Madam, since your location for now is undisclosed to the general public. The Stormflies may use the information against you,” Ty recommended.

“Then I suggest you make it safe to return home, Commander,” the Protectress delivered her ultimatum. “You have two days to direct your squads to prepare for my arrival. If we are in the middle of a dark time, the people need to see that the Protectress is willing to get herself dirty, even if I am in harm's way. They need to see something to help them endure.”

Once again quashing his own protests, Ty bowed respectfully and agreed to the terms. “We will be ready. I will arrange for transportation.”

Quinn watched the exchange and marveled at how the petite, mindful, observant countenance that Axandra normally displayed could so easily be replaced by the commanding, unyielding figure he watched now. Certainly, a person in her position needed to be both. He wondered how often he might feel the stinging end if he chose to continue down this path. He decided within only a few seconds that his love for her would endure, no matter which face graced his presence each day.

Stabbing pain shot through her arm, traceable from the burned wrist through the bent elbow and all the way into her upper back, causing Axandra to hunch toward her right and seize the offending limb hard against her body. Curses trapped behind pinched lips swirled about in the forefront of her brain, battering anyone nearby with any remote talent.

Quinn felt all of it, and now that he had spent unceasing days and nights with Axandra during the course of her healing, he understood why. Each time they touched, she left a piece of herself with him, a thin strand that linked her vast mind with his. Each consecutive contact left another strand, braiding together with the last. The strands might fade slightly if the couple was separated by time and distance, yet each reunion strengthened the existing bonds. Quinn had never experienced this kind of bond with anyone he'd ever known. He did not know if the ability was unique to Axandra, or perhaps unique to the Prophets, of which she was unwittingly a part. He recognized that the bond drew them closer together than he ever hoped to be with another human being, even if the connection meant each and every pain she endured belonged to him as well.

The bond offered him the opportunity to uniquely aid his wife by allowing him to absorb some of the pain and substitute comfort. As tiring as it was to offer this benefit, he continued to do so. Sitting next to her, Quinn clasped her good left hand tightly between his.

“When we get back to Undun,” Axandra began, “I want you to know that you are free to go. You don't have to stay with me. You're not obligated.”

“That is something we can talk about another time,” Quinn refused. “When we get back to Undun, I will have the rest of my belongings from Lazzonir sent up. There is no point in leaving them in Southland.”

“I have a lot of work to do with the Council when I return. Things are a mess.”

“Yes, they are. There is a lot of cleanup to do. I have two capable hands …” He stopped himself hearing the words and thinking about her disfigured limb. How insensitive!

“Yes,” Axandra agreed, forgiving him his words, “You do. I know you will use them wisely.”