The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (49 page)

‘But what about the week’s crossover?’ I was perplexed by the conundrum this posed and held my head as it was starting to hurt. ‘Are you saying there are another two of us hiding out in Giza when we arrive here?’

‘Of course not,’ Sinclair assured us. ‘I will drop you both home after your quest here is complete.’

‘So if I were to call home right now,
I
would answer the phone,’ I said. The premise made me laugh. ‘I wonder what I’d say to myself? I’d probably reassure myself that everything went okay.’

‘I’m sorry to say that you won’t have time to make that call.’ The captain looked up at the ceiling and the light in the room began to fluctuate; blue-green waves engulfed the interior of the ship in a stunning and beautiful display. Despite increasing to a blinding intensity, the light was both calming and empowering. Then the room faded back to normality.

‘Good lord,’ Albray murmured, still frozen in awe and bliss.

‘Welcome to 1906,’ Sinclair announced, shocking us out of our delirium. ‘The year Rolls-Royce was registered, Mount Vesuvius erupted and devastated Naples, and an earthquake flattened much of San Francisco. Due to our aforementioned tight schedule, you won’t be able to do any sightseeing up top, however.’ He headed for the open hatch door.

I had expected being dragged back through time to be a little more uncomfortable. ‘Up top?’ I asked. ‘If you refer to surface Earth, then where are we now, captain? Underwater?’

‘Underground,’ he grinned, knowing that as an archaeologically inclined linguist, I would be most excited by our location.

‘Truly?’ I joined the captain at the door. ‘Underground where?’

‘We are parked in the Cave of Mamer,’ Sinclair advised and my excitement trebled—I had read of this place in Lady Ashlee’s journal.

‘It exists,’ I whispered, overwhelmed by the prospect of seeing it for myself.

‘Well, of course it exists!’ Albray was annoyed by my lingering scepticism. ‘I keep telling you: everything Ashlee wrote in her journals was true!’

I could only smile. The supernatural had scared me once, and I’d never wanted to believe Ashlee’s tales because they seemed far too full of promise and excitement to be true. But now I knew I was not going to be disappointed: the captain was real, my psychic ability was real, and for the first time, I dared to believe that the Dragon Queens and Amenti were real.

‘To hell with sightseeing up top!’ I said, and headed down the spacious passageway. Just as I realised I had no idea where I was going, I collided with a fellow exiting another cabin.

‘So sorry,’ the dark-haired gent said, and reached out to steady me on my feet. Then he gazed at me, stunned. ‘It’s you!’ he said.

‘And who might that be?’ I queried with a smile, for he was very dashing with his straight shoulderlength dark hair and deep blue eyes. His neat beard and moustache, along with his English accent, made him seem something of an upper-class rogue. I was quite sure I’d never met him before. ‘Who are you?’

‘Taylor!’ Albray yelled from behind me, and my new acquaintance immediately unhanded me.

‘Ah, you must be Ashlee’s mysterious ghost,’ the man reckoned, noting my husband’s choice of weapon. ‘The swordsman.’

‘But you cannot be who you appear to be,’ Albray said, wondering if
he
was addressing a ghost. ‘Ashlee saw you perish in this cavern, in the claws of a winged Dracon.’

‘She saw me fall; she did not see me die,’ the man pointed out.

‘But how—’

Albray’s query was cut short by my gasp, for in the cabin Taylor had just exited was a reptilian. The
sight, coming so close to my recent horrendous visions of the lizard warriors, sent shockwaves through my system; for a moment I could hear nothing over the pounding of my own heart in my ears.

‘Mia!’ I realised Albray was trying to tell me something. ‘It is Taejax,’ he said.

My fear ebbed a little as I recalled that this particular Dracon had managed to free himself from the reptilians’ hive-mind long ago. He had also lent a hand to destroy the unnatural physical form of Pintar, the Dracon leader and mastermind.

‘The enemy of your enemy is your friend,’ Taylor reasoned, attempting to bring me out of my shock.

‘I am so sorry,’ I apologised, my eyes fixed on the Dracon warrior. ‘I have never been so close to one of your kind before.’

‘I am the one who should apologise,’ Taejax granted, ‘as this is merely a disguise I wear for missions.’ And before my eyes his form morphed into that of a tall, slender, fair-haired being of exceeding beauty.

‘You have become one of the Anu,’ I realised.

The Anu appeared in the ancient legends of every culture, just under different names—in Britain they were the Fey or the Fair Folk, and in Ireland the Tuatha De Danaan. This otherworldly race claimed to owe their existence to one Great Mother goddess, Danu, Don or Diana. It was she who provided for their evolution in the subtle realms of this world, where they could observe and aid mankind without being seduced and corrupted by the desires and emotions of the physical world. For the Anu—like their lesser-evolved physical manifestations, the Nefilim, Draconian and
Anunnaki races—could not fully comprehend emotion.

‘I am not of the Anu yet,’ Taejax explained, ‘but upon my physical departure from this world I feel confident that my soul-mind will have developed enough to ascend, via the Hall of Amorea, which the Great Mother Goddess designed for the very purpose of allowing repentant Anunnaki souls, like mine, to transcend into the Anu evolutionary scheme on Sirius. It was the personal sacrifices made by your pending daughter that assured my spiritual evolution,’ Taejax informed me. ‘She has offered a spiritual alternative to damnation for all the fallen Nefilim, Anunnaki and Draconians who choose to break free of their selfish ORME addictions and their lust for human domination.’

I remembered something about this from Ashlee’s journals, although the references were very vague. I realised that not even she had known the full story behind the earthly mission of my daughter-to-be. Still, it was clear that Taejax believed the child I was carrying was the human incarnation of the Great Mother Goddess of the Tuatha De Danaan.

‘And Taejax is the reason I am not still locked up in an oubliette in the Dracon underworld,’ Taylor said, finally answering Albray’s question. Then he turned his attention back to me. ‘As to who you are to me, well…we have met in many lives, but back in the days of the Amazons we had a clash of wills and you were killed, an error for which I am eternally sorry.’

I had read this part of Ashlee’s tale only this morning, thus it was still fresh in my mind. But Ashlee hadn’t mentioned recognising Taylor’s soulmind. He filled me in.

‘I was the warrior Herakles at that time, and you were Asteria, champion and commander of the Hamazon armies.’

I was absolutely stunned at the idea that I had been one of the greatest warriors of the ancient world! Taylor found it delightfully odd that I was so amazed by the news of my murder at his hands.

‘And Ashlee could not have recognised me in her past life, as we have yet to meet in this one,’ I said, mostly to myself.

‘But what is more important,’ Taylor went on, ‘is that you are the one who will finally release my love from her slumber.’ He smiled. ‘I have been waiting an age for our reunion.’

‘Hear, hear,’ added the captain.

‘Which can’t happen soon enough,’ Albray finished, not liking the way the two men were doting on me.

Not that I was complaining; I had never had the pleasure of being in the company of so many good-looking males at once. And I had been jealous so many times of Albray’s close relationship with and attraction to Ashlee Granville that it was nice to see my husband being the jealous one for a change.

Taejax joined us in the corridor. ‘But the most important thing of all,’ he said, looking from me to Albray, ‘is that you are the parents of the woman who will wake the consciousness of every being evolving in this world.’

The fact was sobering, although Taejax had not meant it to be so. ‘No pressure, of course,’ I said, and forced a smile of pride that probably looked more like bewilderment.

‘Never fear,’ the captain said, ‘Tamar will have the greatest army of guardians ever assembled on the Earth to protect her.’

‘That
is
reassuring,’ I admitted.

‘Well then, let us get on with the task of waking them, shall we?’ Sinclair motioned us to the exit hatch. ‘I hope you don’t mind a wee climb.’

The wee climb required us to scale the huge metal panels that constituted the
Kleio
’s sails in order to reach the earthen bridge that spanned the width of the immense cavern. As Albray and I climbed—Sinclair simply levitated to the bridge—I thought how it was no wonder Ashlee had been so in awe of the
Kleio
, for even to my eyes she was a vessel from the future, though she was the product of the ancient past. Her sails were not of cloth, but magnetic panels designed to absorb the different free energy sources available on Earth, including blue flame energy.

‘Sorry we have to position
Kleio
beneath the bridge, but it’s a bit of a tight squeeze parking her in here,’ Sinclair explained as we finally reached the top of the mast and, with his aid, stepped onto the bridge.

As I gazed around the giant underground chasm, lit in part by the exterior lights of the
Kleio
, I recalled Ashlee’s tale of Taylor boldly challenging a winged Dracon here in order to save the woman he secretly loved.

‘Do the Dracon still have access to this place?’ I asked as the captain got us moving again—this time towards a small antechamber with three portholes, one of which I knew led to the subterranean complex hidden beneath the Giza plateau.

‘Of course. The underground world has always been their domain,’ he advised. ‘But they cannot follow us through the portholes; their genetic structure is not developed enough to endure the passage.’

‘They didn’t have any trouble gaining access to Giza when we pursued Levi there,’ Albray said warily.

‘That is because our presence in the Amenti antechamber lowered the frequency enough to allow the Dracon the opportunity to penetrate its defences,’ Sinclair explained. ‘Had we stayed away, they could not have breached the security shields.’

‘But we are supposedly more spiritually mature now, is that it?’ Albray queried.

‘Your association with your twin flame,’ the captain motioned to me, ‘has heightened both your personal frequencies more than you know. Otherwise you could never have conceived the living key to Amenti.’

Albray was still not entirely convinced. ‘But surely there are certain activations one needs to perform before attempting such a passage?’

‘You have performed those activations in past lives,’ Sinclair explained, showing great patience in my opinion.

‘But what of the astral seal that gave Ashlee so much trouble in her lifetime?’

‘Mia and yourself are the exceptions to the rule, as you were born too early to be affected by the seal and Mia was born too late.’ The captain looked at Albray quizzically. ‘Can we not go into the reasons why—the full explanation is rather lengthy. Can’t you just trust me?’

I was more than convinced, but Albray still had a chip on his shoulder. ‘You never trusted me, so why should I return the favour?’

‘Because we’re on the same team!’ Sinclair said, exasperated. ‘And I am eager to see your wife and pending child on the far side of this porthole, where they will be beyond Dracon reach.’

‘A valid point,’ Albray conceded. Turning my way, he kissed me. ‘I shall go first.’

‘I’ll be right behind you,’ I assured him.

Albray gave Sinclair a warning look, then strode into the central porthole and vanished.

‘It is a delight to see him jealous,’ the captain commented. ‘Do you think me mean to enjoy the frustration of another?’

I had to laugh as I could empathise completely. ‘In the case of Albray and yourself, I’d say a little delight may be justified. Still, Ashlee never loved Albray romantically, you realise that?’

‘I do,’ Sinclair admitted. ‘Still, he did not make my life as Earnest Devere any easier.’

‘From what I have gathered from Ashlee’s tales and my own research,’ I said, ‘it will be the soulmate of Lillet du Lac who will have a bone to pick with Albray.’ I felt a little uneasy about Albray being reacquainted with the woman he’d endured a seven-hundred-year curse for.

‘And Taylor has a bone to pick with Lillet’s soulmate, and so on and so forth,’ the captain emphasised. ‘What we have done through the ages to help each other cannot be held against us now that the bigger picture has been made clear, for we were only acting upon what we knew at the time. We are all bound to be attracted to other staff holders, for we share a group goal and see a little of ourselves in one another.’

I smiled, feeling a little more comfortable with our destiny. ‘And what part of yourself do you see in Albray, captain?’

‘The part of me that will fight to the death to defend those I love,’ he replied. ‘He is a good man, and as soon as I have finished equalising the annoyance karma between us, I am sure we will be fast friends.’

I found this amusing. ‘Now that you have walked the Halls of Amenti, aren’t you supposed to be beyond revenge?’

‘Polaris, my higher self, is beyond redress, but I am not,’ Sinclair advised. ‘So long as we entertain a human form, we retain our human nature. And how boring would we be if we did not?’

‘Indeed,’ I agreed, comforted by the fact. ‘So I am not going to emerge from Amenti with a great saintly consciousness?’

‘Heavens, no.’ Sinclair looked amused. ‘The saints and saviours of humanity were exactly that: human. However, we Ceres, the Staff of Amenti, were never part of the human consciousness of this planet. We were not condemned to this physical existence; we chose it—which makes us more insane than your average human.’

I laughed. ‘That explains a lot,’ I said, considering Albray and his heroic tendencies. ‘So Jesus Christ was not one of us?’

Sinclair shook his head. ‘But the Magdalene certainly was…guess which one?’ His grin was discomfiting.