The Sword of Michael - eARC (3 page)

It looked like a black ball with a knurled surface twisting tightly into itself in reaction to my vision.

“Maryka?” I said.

She spoke in a subdued whisper. “Yes?”

“I’m speaking to the True Maryka here, your True Self as you came into this flesh, the True Self never touched by the Darkness…Maryka, direct your attention to any feelings in your belly…do you feel something? A presence?”

“Yes,” she said. “Low. In my belly.”

“If it had a color, what color would it be?”

A long pause. “Black. With red all through it.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Hate. Anger. And…it’s afraid now. He’s afraid of you.”

“It’s a he?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to move your True Self to one side, Maryka. I want to speak to that male energy there. I want you to listen to him and to tell me what he says. Will you do that?”

Another long pause. “Yes. I’ll do it.”

“Just say the first thing you hear or feel. Don’t edit or elaborate.”

“I understand.”

The ball drew itself even tighter.

“My name is Marius Winter,” I said. “Do you have a name?”

Maryka twitched. “He doesn’t want to tell you.”

“Thank you, Maryka. Spirit, do you know where you are?”

“Yes,” she said. “He knows.”

“Do you understand that you’re not in your body? Your body is gone. Do you know that you’ve died?”

“He knows where he is.”

“What do you get from Maryka by staying in her body?”

She shuddered. “He gets to own me. Control me. Forever.”

“He doesn’t own you, Maryka. He doesn’t get to control you. Not now, not ever. He can’t do that. It’s time for him to go.”

“He’s afraid now,” she said. “He doesn’t want to go to Hell. He knows he was bad…”

“He won’t go to Hell,” I said. “He can choose to go into the forgiveness of the Light. He could have gone before. He can go now. It’s time to go.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been to Hell,” I said. “He doesn’t have to go there. He can choose to pass into the Light right now.”

My arm throbbed. I’d been injured there on an excursion to Hell. It wasn’t a trip I’d undertake lightly. I was glad it wasn’t called for today.

“He can go now,” I said. I silently called on the Angels of the Crossing, and with my shamanic vision, I saw the Great Gates of the Crossing swing wide, the brilliance of the Light behind it bursting free, and the Angels of the Crossing standing there, the mighty Warriors of Light who guard souls in transition from this world to the next.

“He sees them,” Maryka whispered. “Above him…he sees them…and the Gates…”

“Does he see someone there in the Gate waiting for him?”

I could see, but it’s important for the client to participate in the process. It’s a way of reclaiming power and soul-energy stolen by the possessing being, and it’s the most direct way to involve the client in their own healing.

Her voice shook with emotion. “He sees his mother…my granny…she’s there and she’s calling to him, telling him he’s forgiven…”

“He can go to her now…it’s time for him to go…”

I watched the Unfurling, when the tight capsule a frightened lost soul draws tight around itself begins to open as a flower unfurls in the light of the sun. The black ball unfurled into the gray shadow of a man, dim, the face twisted and thin lips pinched tight, rising like a smoke from water towards the Gates. The Angels of the Crossing drew close, both to guard him and to keep him going in the right direction. Now Maryka’s father sped towards the Light. I saw him illuminated with the Light of the Creator and the beginning of The Transformation, the burning away of his transgressions, and he turned just then, with sadness and regret across his face, mouthing the words
“I’m sorry…”
before the Light filled him and transformed him—

—and he crossed, into the arms of those waiting for him on The Other Side.

The Angels of the Crossing turned and looked at me, as they always did, and nodded. Then the great doors swung shut.

It was over.

For him.

Maryka shuddered and opened her eyes. I shook my rattle over her energy field and studied the aftermath written there. There was residue. She’d have a lingering sense of the presence for awhile. Deep tears in the energetic body around the second chakra, the seat of sex, that would need to heal before she could enter into healthy sexual relations again. This was the arena of Mother Mary, and I felt her Divine Presence swell in the room.

She’s always near when there’s healing to be done.

I saw Her in my shamanic vision with her choir of angelic helpers fill Maryka with Light. The deep tears in the second chakra closed together and it began to spin…as it spun the muddy color of it began to clear and deepen into the healthy colors of the chakra as it’s meant to look. The final step was her reconnection with the Divine Light we are meant to stay connected to.

I stepped back from the table and bowed my head. I am always humbled by this Work. I am grateful for the opportunity to be of Service, and I am richly rewarded in these moments when I stand in the presence of grace and divinity and the Holy Spirit. When the Gift first awakened in me, I remember the first channeling I had, a clear crystalline voice that spoke to me:
Not me, God, but you through me…
That was the prayer I was gifted with long before I understood what it meant.

Not me, God, but you through me.

Maryka lay there and came back slowly to full consciousness.

“Take your time,” I said. “Notice the sensation of the table against your back, the weight in your body on the table…bring your consciousness back into your body and feel yourself filled with Light…”

The shadow had left her face. Her eyes were different. Her face glowed with the Light.

“Welcome back,” I said.

I left the room and came back with a bottle of cold water for her. “Here you go.”

She emptied it in one long draught. “Thank you.”

“You’ll want to drink more,” I said. “I’ll give you another bottle downstairs. You should get a few more. Spring or filtered water. Lots of it. Stop at the drugstore and get a big box of Epson salts. Find one with lavender if you can. For the next seven days, every night, pour a full quart of Epson salts into your tub and soak in it as long as you can. While you soak, visualize any sludge in you being drawn out into the water. You’ll be thirsty so keep drinking lots of water.”

“What was that like?” she said. “Did you see…I felt like…”

I held my hand up and interrupted her. “Best not to think or talk about it now. Best to just let it go.”

She stood.

“You need to take some time to get grounded,” I said. “Do you know how to do that?”

“I do tai chi…”

“That’s great. It will work fine for that. Be grounded. Do you have far to drive?”

“No.”

“Best thing now is to go home and rest.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I feel different…”

I nodded. “You are. It gets better as it goes along.”

She went ahead of me. I reminded myself not to be distracted by the winking rivets of brass on her hip pockets, swaying gracefully as she walked down the halls and the stairs. She paused at the front door.

“What do I owe you?” she said.

I dislike this part.

“I don’t charge a fee,” I said. “If you want to make a donation or gift, you can leave it in the glass bowl there.”

I pointed at the conspicuously empty glass fish bowl on the old oak table beside the door.

“The article said you had a sliding scale…”

“I was misquoted,” I said. “I don’t charge fees. People make a donation or gift based on what they feel my services are worth to them. I’ve been paid nothing at all, and I’ve been paid thousands.”

I hoped I hadn’t emphasized that last part too much.

She nodded, two quick bobs of her head. She wrote a check and dropped it in the bowl.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thank you…” she said.

She stood there. I knew what this was about. There’s this moment at the end of a treatment, especially the kind I do, where the client feels the need to disconnect—or tries to stay connected. If the practitioner is an ethical one, he’ll have already let go of the session and disconnected from the outcome. It’s a test for a healer to let go of the rush that comes from being a channel for the Light, to let go of the ego and not allow your clients or the community to make you into something more than just a human with a special gift.

The temptation is always there. Especially if the client is a beautiful woman and looking to cling to the man who helped facilitate her healing.

I closed my eyes and did the visualization of Severing The Chords and saw the disentanglement of our energetic connection begin.

Oh Spirit…why do you tempt me so?

I laughed.

“What is it?” she said.

“Private joke,” I said. “Take care, Maryka. If you feel you need to call or come back, just call me. We can talk. You’re already feeling relief and it will get better. Like any other healing it’ll take a little bit of time.”

I watched her go. Then I gave into temptation and looked at her check. Two hundred fifty dollars. I could afford a box of cigars!

And more sage and sweet grass.

Chapter 5

I ran my tongue up Jolene’s spine, from the cleft of her buttocks to the deep muscled hollow above her sacrum. I tasted the sweetness of her sweat and juices, mixed with mine, when I’d rolled her onto her belly.

“Aaaahhhhh,” she moaned. It was like the opening of a holy song.

Jolene. The hottest woman in the world in one hundred words or less: tall, six feet barefoot though she favors heels, sleek and flat bellied, with small breasts that defy gravity, perfectly chiseled like Michelangelo on his best day would sculpt her, the palest white skin, a rich length of red hair like a scarlet wing across her back, a long muscular dancer’s back that swooped down into the glory of her waist and hips, eyes shocking blue and clear, high cheekbones and strange soulful lips—a thin upper lip curved like a bow, an obscenely full lower lip she sunk her teeth into when she thought about sex, which was often.

She’s a Scorpio and an avatar of the Goddess in all her passion and fury. A Wiccan priestess in her own right, a practitioner of the solo Wise Woman’s path, a Master Reiki energy work and an intuitive who worked most often with the Tarot. Cool and self-possessed to the point of otherworldliness until she came to me in bed.

I lay my cheek against her buttocks and ran my hand down the long smooth white length of her taut leg.

“I give you a lifetime to stop that,” she said.

“Mine,” I said.

Deep husky laughter, so sexy and surprising in such a slender woman.

“Caveman,” she said.

“Always.”

“Do you worship the Goddess, cave man?”

“Thoroughly. Otherwise she might cut me up and strew me in the field.”

“There’s a thought. Then I’d start over with some fresh flat-bellied boy.”

“My belly is flat. Fairly.”

She laughed. “It’s fine, Marius. I like men with substance. I like having some meat to hang onto.”

Lord, Lord, Lord. I am grateful.

She rolled onto her back, reached down and lay one long-fingered hand, nails clear and carefully polished, on my cheek. It was an infinitely gentle touch, in such contrast to her raw nature in bed. Contrast, contradiction…

Yes. She’s a Goddess.

And I’m lucky to service her.

“I feel that grin,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“This is complicated, dating a psychic. A man can’t have a single moment of private thought.”

She laughed that deep throaty whisky laugh and raked her nails across my scalp, then tugged at my hair, loose to my shoulders after she had undone my ponytail.

A long silence, that loving silence so essential between a man and a woman that so few couples seem to master. I love the soulfulness and ease between us in these times after our loving, in the lingering.

It’s a fine way to spend the afternoon.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

I stroked my fingers over her cleft, parted the fine red hair and tasted her. “Me, too.”

She tugged a handful of my hair. “Feed
me
, Cave Man. I’ll feed
you
later.”

“What if I insist?”

I felt her grin swell. “What if I deny you?”

“Then I’d go all Cave Man on you. Mine…”

Delighted throaty laughter. “It’s a dangerous thing to trifle with a Priestess of the Goddess.”

“I exist only to serve. She must be served properly.”

“Then serve her dinner, Cave Man.”

I have a problem with deferred gratification, but learning graceful capitulation to the will of the Goddess is an essential milestone on the shamanic path. Or so I tell myself about my dealings with women, who were many before I met Jolene.

“What shall I feed you, Goddess? What do you desire?”

A satisfied giggle. “Let’s see…it’s too nice to be inside. Let’s go out.”

“Picnic? Bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou?”

“No. Too buggy. Take me to…Lucia’s.”

* * *

We lingered over our early dinner, the seafood linguine special, and finished a fine bottle of Chardonnay before we went out for a stroll through Uptown.

“Somewhere outside?” I said as we entered the parking lot.

“Of course, love,” Jolene said. “Too early and too beautiful to be inside.”

We took the long route through town, up north on Hennepin and across the bridge into the North East Art District. I found a parking spot around the corner from The Ginger Hop and escorted Jolene in. She staked out a banquette with a view of the street, crossed one immaculate white leg ending in impossibly strapped shoes, and set her purse on the table.

“Macallan, sweet,” she said.

I went to the bar. The bartender, Ness, a beautiful and wise beyond her years woman who was also of the Church of Jolene, nodded to me.

“Hey, Marius, how you doing?” she said.

“Ness. How’s it?”

“Awesome. Let me guess…Macallan for Jo, Bushmills Green Label, neat with a shot glass of water on the side, for you?”

“Is it wrong to be so predictable?”

She smiled her gentle smile; she was the best bartender in town when it came to creating the hint of the confessional that only the best bartenders can do.

“Good to have you back,” she said. “Haven’t seen either of you in too long.”

I stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into the tip jar as an act of contrition and carried our drinks to the table. Jolene smiled serenely at two young college boys who gawked at her. I nodded to them as I sat down our drinks.

I don’t get jealous. It doesn’t pay to get possessive with an Avatar of the Goddess. She doesn’t tolerate even a hint of ownership.

She picked up her Scotch, tilted the crystal in my direction, tasted it slowly and with full attention, eyes closed in utter satisfaction. I worship her ability to be silent. Don’t get me wrong, she can prattle about her favorite TV show (
Justified
—she nursed a serious crush on Timothy Olyphant) or carry on a deep spiritual dialogue about our respective past lives in Atlantis. Her ability to hold peaceful silence is a gift that most couples never enjoy. She was happy to hold her space, sip her drink, and watch the world go by.

I love that.

It frees me up to sit and admire her, and to enjoy the men (and women) admiring her. She was all dolled up: devastating low cut little black dress, spiky-strappy expensive designer shoes, gleaming handcrafted silver earrings.

Nothing else.

At all.

Just raw Goddess in all her power.

I sipped my coffee and watched her watch me over the rim of her glass, how her lips left a crimson half-moon on the crystal edge.

Lovely.

The traffic was light outside. I noticed one car slowing as it passed us, as though the driver were looking for a parking spot. A fleeting impression of the driver: bulky, hair cropped close to a squarish head, pale skin, eyes black slashes above the turned up collars of a leather jacket…

A sudden chill.

My eyes narrowed. I leaned forward and set my drink down.

He passed.

Jolene noticed me noticing the driver. “Someone you know?”

“Not in this life.”

She’s a Wiccan High Priestess. She understands that. “Human?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What have you been into, Marius? Are you drawing something in?”

“There’s something I feel coming…”

She closed her eyes.

So did I.

With my shamanic vision I saw First In Front standing beside us, war paint on and brandishing his knife and bow.
“Brother, take care…”

That was enough for me. I visualized the energetic shields around me hardening the layers of energy that ward off Dark Forces. Jolene whispered a warding spell beside me. The two Powers, Male and Female, entwined to create a fierce fortress around us.

“What is it, Marius?” she said.

I tuned in. Nothing.

I sat back and picked up my Bushmills. “Let them come. Right now, I’m enjoying my drink. And you.”

She was still as a graven marble image. “I love your confidence. But sometimes I fear for you, my love.”

“Fear’s an old friend.”

“It can be useful. Even more so if you transcend it.” She sighed. “You’re such a male…”

“It’s part of my charm.”

She tilted her glass to me. “Yes, sweet. Truly said.”

The dark feeling had passed, so we enjoyed our drinks.

And while I enjoyed my woman and my coffee, part of me stayed with my watchful protective spirits who prowled around me in the unseen world.

We were safe.

For now.