Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (67 page)

"Honored beings," he said, still not knowing what
his next words would be. But they flowed regardless. "Your child belonged
to the wild, running free, following the nature the Universe gave her. She
believes she loved no one, but she judges herself cruelly. I saw her keening
over her slain companion's form, nearly mad with remorse. Is that not love? She
risked her own life to save my daughter's. Is that not also love?"

The animal guides and nature spirits moved away, again
lining the walls. The chorus of angels resumed their semicircle. Quetzalcoatl
slithered forward, coiling up next to the tallest angel and ruffling his
feathers.

"Remember the children she spared," Tony
continued. "Not all of them suffered from poverty and neglect."

On those words, a young man appeared. "Hear me,"
he implored. "I entered medical school last year. They tell me I'll be a
great surgeon."

"Yes," the tall angel said, "and many lives
you'll save."

The boy became a teenaged girl. "I will enter
politics," she told them. "Change is in the wind."

"She'll bring a new era of compassion," said Bear.

"There are more of us," the girl continued.
"We live to enrich the world." Then she disappeared.

"Listen to these children, Tribunal," Tony cried.
Lily shuddered beneath his palm. He looked down, saw she was crying, and his
voice became impassioned. "They show this woman's worth. She says she's
loved by none, but Shala loves her like the mother she lost. Show this woman
mercy. She is your child as much as I, as much as those she's slain! She
deserves your mercy!"

Quetzalcoatl's long forked tongue flickered. Instantly he
was a man, the great ruler of the Aztecs, his bronze skin gleaming in the
brilliant light. He straightened his golden crown and met the tallest angel's
eyes. The angel subtly inclined his head, and Quetzalcoatl turned his gaze to
Tony.

"Well spoken, Shaman," he said. "This woman
means much to you?"

"I love her," he said softly. "She is part of
my heart." Lily looked up at him, a dazed expression on her tear-streaked
face.

A hushed discussion began anew. Tony couldn't make out the
words, but he wasn't drawn to listen.

Lily was still staring at him, adoration shining on her
face, and he could concentrate on nothing else.

"If my life ends now," she said softly, "I'll
die fulfilled. I love you too, Tony White Hawk. More than words can tell."

Bending, he chastely kissed her lips, breathing in the smell
of her.

"Stand, wolf woman," Quetzalcoatl commanded.

Tony straightened. Taking Lily's hands, he helped her to her
feet. She looked at him so trustingly his heart almost shattered. Had his words
been enough? Would the Tribunal heed the messages of the exceptional children
who had spoken?

Taking a place beside Lily, he kept one of her hands,
waiting with her. He expected the Aztec ruler to speak, but instead it was the
angel.

"You have done well, daughter, yet there is more for
you to know.”

Eyes now dry, Lily faced the angel's light without
flinching.

"The judgments you heard us reflect on, Lily, were only
echoes of your own self-condemnation. Your crime was not in adhering to your
werewolf nature. You lived that life in accordance with its Laws, yet retained
some spark of your humanity, as the testimony of the children attest. But your
fear of your leader's censure sapped your integrity. When you killed the
wolfling, you parted from yourself, and became lost and unanchored, searching
for meaning." The angel fluttered its wings. "By coming back to face
the Tribunal alone, unaided by your advocate, you surrendered your defenses.
And in your defenselessness you found salvation."

"But there is one more task ahead," interrupted
Quetzalcoatl, "before you are redeemed."

"What?" Lily asked.

"It will be revealed in its own time."

"I will fulfill it as well as I can."

The Aztec ruler bowed. "This is all we ask of you.
Remember, wolf woman, stay true to yourself. In doing so, you cannot
fail."

He moved his eyes toward Tony. "And you, Shaman, have
stared into your doubts courageously, but have still failed to make a choice.
You can't delay much longer."

"I understand."

Instantly, the light inside the lodge grew in brilliance,
although the moment before Tony would have thought it couldn't get any
brighter. A sense of peace unlike any he'd ever known embraced him. Lily's hand
was still enclosed in his. As the light increased, he felt a subtle change in
the feel of it, and he looked at Lily, then blinked in astonishment.

Again, silver down covered her skin. But now it seemed like
filaments of light instead of hair. Her body was brighter than the field that
enclosed them, and her face radiated serenity.

She returned Quetzalcoatl's bow. With a smile the god
resumed his serpent form and vanished. The angels, animal guides, and nature
spirits lingered an instant longer, then they too evaporated in the mist.

Soon the rough branch and mud ceiling of the lodge came
back, and only the radiance left in the spirits' wake confirmed the beings had
even been there.

Lily released Tony's hand and sank slowly to the floor.
Stretching out on her side, she folded her hands and put them beneath her head.
Still radiating light, she gave a sigh of complete fulfillment, then fell fast
asleep.

Tony settled beside her to wait until she awoke. The Stone
People stared at him, giving him the full import of what had occurred, and he
took it in, knowing he was meant to share it with Lily when the time came.
 
It pained him that her ordeal was over, but
even before he'd taken her to the lodge he’d known it wasn't. He'd felt the
injustice of it then, but now it nearly tore him apart.

But she was alive, she'd survived both the werewolves and
the Tribunal. He'd be at her side for her next and final challenge, and for the
moment he was determined to just appreciate having her here. He swung away from
the pit, let his eyes drink her in. The shimmering cover had left her body. She
reclined quietly on the floor, very human, very tired.

Then he noticed how still she was. Her chest wasn't moving.
Rising to his knees, he bent over and put his ear to her face. Was she
breathing? Oh gods above, he didn't think so. And she was so pale.

Berating himself for making love to her in defiance of
tradition, he put his fingers on her throat and found a pulse.

So why the hell didn't she breathe?

He rolled her onto her back, placed his mouth over hers, and
blew air into her lungs. After several exhales, she still didn't move.

Breathe, Lily, he willed, breathe. He shouldn't have done
it, shouldn't have touched her, despite her pleas—she hadn't fully understood
the consequences. But he had understood and still allowed his desire for her to
put her in this danger.

Suddenly she coughed. Never had Tony heard a sweeter sound,
and he rocked back on his knees, flushed with relief. Her chest rose and fell
rhythmically again. Her face looked more serene than he had ever seen it. Now
the only thing that stood between them was Quakahla and the passing of his
people. Exhausted himself, Tony reclined beside Lily. Knowing he was now free
to love her with all his heart, he took her in his arms and fell asleep.

Later, when he felt Lily stir in his arms, he stirred fully
awake. The Stone People had ebbed to small sparks of red. The lodge was cooler
now, and dressed only in his loincloth, he shivered and moved closer. Lily
slowly opened her eyes and smiled at him luminously.

"Oh, Tony," she said, "I had the most
wonderful dream."

Lily had expected sunshine and singing birds to greet her
that morning, but the raindrops drizzling on the top of the lodge told her
differently. She and Tony crawled out of the sweat lodge into a gray day. She
wasn't even sure it was morning because the sun was nowhere to be found.

She'd wanted to tell Tony about her dream, but he'd insisted
they leave for the village immediately. Now, after making their way down the
muddy slope of the mesa, they stood beneath the dripping tree where they'd left
their provisions and Tony was rummaging through the backpack.

His urgency should be making her uneasy, but it wasn't. Tony
had escaped Sebastian unharmed. She'd survived the Tribunal, and it had ended
so blissfully she almost wished it weren't over.

The experience had irrevocably changed her. Not anything she
could quite put her finger on, but she wasn't angry anymore, or bitter or sad,
regretful or guilty. Everything was okay now. The future was full of promise.

The Tribunal had taken her to a world of white upon white, a
place so filled with joyful possibilities she'd wept from sheer happiness.
She'd floated on clouds and felt herself rocked by loving hands as if in a
cradle. Voices had crooned words of forgiveness, words of encouragement. Never
had she known such peace.

"Don't you want to hear about my dream, Tony?"

"Later, while we walk to the village." He handed
her some water with terse instructions not to drink too much, then reapplied
himself to his search for the backpack.

Although Lily had neither eaten nor drank since the morning
they'd walked to the lodge, she wasn't hungry or thirsty. She felt marvelous,
better than she ever had. Her bruises and scratches were gone, and despite the
rain, the radical drop in temperature, and her wet and muddy feet, the deerskin
dress was keeping her comfortable. Her only uneasiness came from the suspicion
she was fooling herself.

A dream? Truly, the experience had been as crazy and
blissful as any dream she'd ever had, but the content . . .

Well, even though werewolves were considered imaginary by
mortals, they were still bound by natural law. They couldn't appear, disappear,
and reappear the way her nocturnal visitors had. And she'd been visited by dead
ones, angels, gods, for heaven's sake,

creatures that didn't just drop in on mortals every day.

No, it was easier just to call it a dream—a wonderful,
cleansing, heart-lifting dream—and leave it at that.

"Why are we in such a hurry?" she asked, taking a
small sip of water. "It's a beautiful day."

"Put that on," he said, lobbing a small packet her
way and glancing dubiously at the dripping sky. "It'll make the beautiful
day a bit easier to endure."

The packet contained a thin plastic rain cape, which
crackled as Lily let it unfurl. After slipping it on, she pulled up the hood,
realizing she'd been cold after all.

Then, still all business, Tony shoved her boots and socks in
her hand. She kicked her sandals off. After she'd laced up her second boot, she
looked down. The wrinkled cape was a putrid shade of green, hung well below her
knees, and was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen. The boots, already battered
from two long hikes they were never meant to undertake, ended a short distance
above her ankles and revealed a span of mud-covered leg.

Lily almost laughed. In all her life the only thing she'd
adored almost as much as the smell of fear and blood was clothing. What had
become of her?

She looked over at Tony, who crouched on the blanket pulling
on his own boots. Still in his loincloth, he was half naked, rain-soaked, and
covered with mud, but to her he seemed the most magnificent man who ever lived.

The other Lily, the one who'd lusted for blood and clothes,
had died last night. And this new Lily wasn't consumed with how she looked. She
found pleasure in simply being alive and with the man she loved, in
anticipating reuniting with the child she adored, and getting to know the Dawn
People better. She'd finally found a place where she belonged and she would
hold on to it the rest of her days.

"How are you doing, Tony?" she asked. "I'm
ready to go home now."

Home. She'd never used those words before. My house, the
house, my den, my hotel room, yes. But home? None of those places had felt like
a home.

Tony had already donned the rain cape and was lacing up his
boots. "Get the water bag, will you?" he asked, standing to fold up
the blanket.

"Sure." His melancholy perplexed her. She'd
survived the Tribunal. They were together. What more could he want?

He remained pensive during their walk to the village. At
first Lily tried to tell him about her dream, wanting to share and get his
feedback on what it might mean. But he responded so halfheartedly she finally
gave up.

Even though the river trail was more protected than the
higher ground, the desert's riparian washes channeled water across it in
several places. On one occasion, Tony carried her. She laughed and called him
gallant, but he only smiled weakly as he put her down.

What was wrong with him? For some reason, the question
brought to mind the man with the golden crown who'd told her she had one more
task before she was redeemed.

She glanced at Tony, who looked very morose as he resettled
the pack on his back.

"What's bothering you, Tony?"

"Nothing." He wiped the troubled expression off
his face before looking at her. Although he'd kept his thoughts guarded up
until then, she got a sudden quick flash of what was on his mind and all her
self-deception vanished.

"It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No, Lily, it wasn't."

She caught a second thought from him, which reminded her of
what day it was. Suddenly, she understood his urgency.

"Tonight's the eclipse of the moon," she said.
"Does my final task have something to do with that?"

His face remained impassive, but his mournful eyes told her
he knew what lay ahead even before he nodded. "But it isn't time to tell
you about it." He sighed, no longer bothering to hide his distress.
"The Stone People advised me to withhold that information until we meet
with Star Dancer."