Questions crowded her mind. Where had he gotten them? How many were stolen? All of them? He slammed the Jeep"s rear door. Then the questions flew out of her head as he joined her. She noticed how p.r.o.nounced his limp had become. She handed him containers of food and a fork. Then she opened a c.o.ke for him while he bent his head and ate with quick economy.
She gave him the drink, opened a container of yogurt and pa.s.sed it to him when he was ready. She told him, "I packed the less perishable food into one bag to take with us."
"Good," he grunted.
He made an amazing amount of food disappear. At that moment he could have been any tired, hardworking man after a long day. Then he paused to strip off his flannel shirt in the heat of the early evening. She saw the bandages and bruises on his wide, taut torso, and the illusion vaporized.
She finished most of her own yogurt before she became too full to eat anymore. Taking a deep, replete breath, she sipped at her c.o.ke as she looked around the scene.
The dense gathering of trees and underbrush shimmered with the Van Gogh effect that had started yesterday. She frowned. When had she last noticed it? She couldn"t remember. She had become too depleted to notice, and then she became preoccupied with other things.
"Michael," she said. He looked up from finishing the ham. "Ever since I-what did you call it-ripped through the veil in the Grotto, something funny has happened to my eyesight. Everything has this transparent shimmer around the edges. Or it has whenever I"ve had the time to notice. I"ve been calling it the Van Gogh effect."
"The Van Gogh effect." He slanted an eyebrow at her.
"You know, because everything has rippling, wavy edges. It reminds me of his paintings. Do you know what it is?"
He studied the surrounding scene, then gave her a quizzical glance. "You"ve been coping with everything so well, I forget how new your memories are and how much you"ve yet to recover. What you"re seeing is energy."
"Energy," she repeated. She c.o.c.ked her head and squinted doubtfully at a tree.
"Everything has energy and movement," he replied. "Everything has a vibration, even things that most people think of as being stationary and immobile. Take a rock." He bent and picked up a piece of gravel. "Even this has vibration and movement. Think of the basic elements contained in an atom."
She squinted at him. "Do you mean electrons, neutrons, protons and a nucleus?"
"Yes. Do you know how the electrons and the protons rotate around the nucleus?"
"Sure."
He pressed the piece of gravel into her hand. "Movement is present in everything in the universe. It"s our human senses that tell us that the rock is inert and stationary. The reality is quite different. The rock is in motion, just as the entire universe is in motion. The vibration of the rock"s energy is simply at a much slower frequency than other things."
"Vibration," she echoed. She hefted the rock in her hand as she thought back to the moment when the Deceiver had taken Michael. She looked up at him. "Back at the cabin, when the Deceiver had you pinned to the ground, he made some kind of humming noise. It was a horrible sound. I wanted to stab things in my ears to keep from hearing it, but it wasn"t actually a physical noise, was it? It was psychic, right?"
The angle of his mouth turned grim. "It was both psychic and physical. He was using vibration as a weapon. A vibration at a certain pitch and frequency can destroy us if it comes from both the physical and psychic realms at once, and if it is strong enough. Buddhist monks make use of physical vibration in their chants. Legend has it that with the right frequency they can cause a mountain to avalanche. When I"m fighting creatures in the psychic realm, I use the vibration of my energy to shape a weapon. A physical sword is useless in that kind of fight. It pa.s.ses right through them."
She thought back to the tall, blazing figure that she had seen with her mind"s eye. He had wielded what had looked like a spear of white light. "So you really were fighting psychically the same time that you were fighting physically?"
"Yes."
She looked down at the piece of gravel she held. In her last life, she"d had a teacher who had taught her about Eastern dragons and astral projection.
As you know, there are four realms, her teacher had said. The inner realm, the physical realm, the psychic realm and the celestial or heavenly realm. Each realm is distinct, yet they are intricate in their entwinement.
Michael, Astra and the Deceiver were all adept in more than one realm. Michael had entered her mind when she had been locked in the past. Both Astra and the Deceiver had the ability to enter her dreams. She realized all over again how much she had to recover of her true self and her abilities.
She muttered, "That"s a whole lot more complicated than being ambidextrous."
The grim line to his mouth eased. "When we have time, I"ll lend you my copy of Zen Keys so you can read more about it. To go back to your question, you"re seeing what you call the Van Gogh effect because you"re getting more attuned to the energies around you."
She stared at the rock. "That"s also how I saw the golden stream you poured into me when you found me by my car. You were giving me energy."
"Of course." He smiled at the expression on her face. "You know all of this already. You just haven"t remembered it yet. Like you said, you need more time to process and connect all your dots."
"I"m starting to realize how much work I have to do to catch up," she said. She was struck by another thought. "In the recurring dream I"ve had, when all of us who were in the original group drank the poison, I could see colors all around us but they were really emotions. When I woke up, I wondered if we"d had the ability to see pheromones."
"Maybe we did, or maybe we had an ability very like that. Are you feeling better?" She nodded. "We"ve had to push too hard. I knew eating good food would help. I have just two things to say."
She looked up when he paused. She wasn"t the only one helped by the good food. He too looked better for having eaten, stronger and more vital. The marks of tension on his face had eased. "Yes?"
"First," he said into her upturned face. "You are a talking, walking miracle. Don"t ever apologize to me again. I know how hard you"re working on all levels and I"m doing my best to help. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Second thing," he said. He drew a light finger down her cheek. "You"re not in a dead-end alley. That was your fatigue and fear speaking. You may not know how to survive as a fugitive in the age of information, but I do. You have to keep reminding yourself I"ve been training for this my whole life. It"s what I do."
She nodded and gave him a small smile. "Okay."
He stroked her lower lip, his callused fingers gentle. "It is also a big mistake to discount Astra"s abilities. I know from your perspective it must seem like things have gotten really outlandish, but have faith."
"I"ll try." This was the first real chance they"d had to talk since the battle. She felt the tension ease from her neck and shoulders.
He checked his watch, and his mouth tightened. "First we had to stop at the house and now here. Well, it can"t be helped. We needed to eat and change vehicles and we couldn"t have done it any faster. Ready?"
"Not quite. Give me a few more minutes."
She put a hand on his leg, closed her eyes and sank her awareness into his body. Refreshed and bolstered by the food, she found it much easier than she had the first few times.
She journeyed through the vital pathways of his circulatory system with an almost lazy pleasure, exploring the strong, elegant lattice of his spinal column, checking the healing process on his various wounds and nudging them closer to completion.
She spent the longest time on the wound in his thigh. Whatever had caused the puncture had narrowly missed his femoral artery, which was just another example of their incredible luck in that confrontation.
His wounds were physical and spiritual. That meant healing needed to be both physical and spiritual. If he could fight in both realms at once, maybe she could heal in both realms at once as well.
She had already physically healed herself, and she had given him energy. Now she just had to combine them.
Be healed, she told his wounded flesh.
Energy in the form of argent radiance poured from her hand. His thigh grew hot to the touch. She lingered over the blissful sensation and then, because he had suffered and because she could, she spilled that bright cascade over his psychic wounds, the long clawlike marks along with a faint, shadowy web of fracture lines that lingered from the Deceiver"s abuse.
His spirit and body resonated in instant, magnificent response, not with the strained keening she remembered from earlier, but with a healthy harmonious vibrancy.
Then the radiance she poured into him doubled back on her in a tremendous gush. She too began to resonate in a deep, melodious thrumming that was as old as their existence.
She had intended to be as sensible and sparing with him as she had been with healing herself. She had meant to focus her energy on his worst injuries and let the rest heal as they would, but she quickly lost control of the connection.
Helpless to stop, surprised by joy, her energy poured into him, and his came back into her, doubling and redoubling. As he healed, so did she, completely. All of the aches, pains and bruises she had collected over the last couple of days smoothed over, until together they reverberated throughout the realms with a pure belling power like Roland"s horn and a sweetness like children singing.
Gradually, she became aware of their bodies. They had come together, wrapping around each other. Michael bowed over her, his head resting on top of hers. She had one hand splayed at the back of his neck, the other arm locked tight around his waist.
He lifted his head, and her eyes slit open. He glowed with such a fierce, arcane light she could hardly look at him with her human eyes. He laid his cheek against hers. Either his face was wet or hers was, or perhaps both.
"Holy cow, Batman," she whispered. She touched his face, ran her fingers over the planes and angles, reading him like Braille. "Talk about having so much to relearn. I had forgotten this. I had forgotten that I"d forgotten. How could I do that? How stupid, how wrong of me."
"You were bent." His voice was gruff. His presence felt steady again, and as powerful as ever. He kissed her fingers as they pa.s.sed over his lips.
"You"re being charitable," she told him. "I"ll never get c.o.c.ky about what I think I know again. I don"t deserve it."
"You deserve to have the world laid at your feet." He hooked his arm around her neck. Her head fell back against his forearm as his head came down, and he kissed her. His hard mouth moved over hers with a gentle reverence that brought fresh tears to her eyes. She murmured and touched his lean cheek as she kissed him back.
He lifted his head, looking blinded. She gave him a tentative smile. Gradually the blind look left his eyes. Together they had banished Mister Enigmatic again. He looked like a different man from the hard-bitten, expressionless stranger she had first met.
He said vividly, "Well, that"s got to have p.i.s.sed him off."
"I beg your pardon?"
He grinned, a rakish, wicked sight on that dark, unshaven face. "Sweetheart, we were making about as much noise just now in the psychic realm as a couple having s.e.x in a cheap motel."
"Ooh-kay," she said, her cheeks burning with heat. She laughed. "That"s certainly an image I didn"t have in my head before."
He looked unrepentant. "I like it, but what we did was definitely an attention grabber, and the Deceiver will have heard it loud and clear. Now we"ve really got to haul a.s.s."
"I know." She wiped at her face and saw that her hands were still emitting a silvery glow. She spread her fingers and turned them over, staring at them. She gave her hand an experimental shake. It still glowed.
He had started to tear off his bandages. He paused to look at her. "What on earth are you doing?"
"I can"t get it to stop," she told him. She shook the other hand.
He started to laugh. "That isn"t going to help."
She gave him a fierce frown, delighted with him, his laughter, the forest around them and the whole universe. "It might."
He was still laughing. "You need to stop it the way you started it."
"Right, but what did I do?" She thought back.
Michael tore off the rest of his bandages, tossed them on the floor of his old car, shrugged on his shirt and grabbed the bags of food. He gestured to her. She ran to collect the pillow and blanket and her purse from the Ford before clambering into the Jeep"s pa.s.senger seat.
He dug into his weapons bag and pulled out the nine-millimeter, which he set in the driver"s door pocket. When they had both snapped on their seat belts he turned the SUV around and inched past the Ford toward the main road.
Then she remembered. She had to will it to start. She flung out her hands and commanded, "Stop!"
Michael slammed on the brakes. He scanned the surrounding scene. "What?"
She waved her hands at him in triumph. "I did it!"
He looked at her from under lowered brows. "Try doing it silently next time."
It was a look of such ordinary exasperation she grinned. "I will," she told him. "Come on, lighten up. I just remembered how to do something else. This is a good thing."
A corner of his well-made mouth lifted. Really, he was s.e.xier than any man had a right to be.
"Yes," he said, as he accelerated the Jeep again. "This is a very good thing."
Chapter Six.
AFTER ASTRA LEFT the dream with Mary, she cast her awareness through her house, checking on her uninvited guests.
Jerry lay in the bed of one of her guest rooms. He had been a big, strong man in his youth. Astra remembered his childhood well. Now his body looked shrunken under the covers, and his copper skin had an unhealthy pallor. His grandson Jamie had pulled his long, dark gray hair out of the ponytail, and it rippled over the pillow. She sighed. Jerry was a good man. It was hard to watch him die.
Jamie had dragged a chair in from the living room. He sat in it, slumped sideways in a dejected heap, resting his head on the crook of one arm on the bed beside Jerry"s right hand. Like his grandfather, he wore his hair long and pulled back in a ponytail. Leather and silver bracelets adorned his lean wrists.
He was a good-looking boy, Astra thought, as she studied him. He was tall and rangy, around twenty-two or twenty-three. His body had yet to finish filling out the promise of power in those wide shoulders. His hair gleamed black like a raven"s wing, and he had his grandfather"s strong, proud features, only Jamie"s were molded with more sensuality, with large, dark eyes and full, sensual lips.
There was a third person in the room, a ghost of a tall man.
He was a faint shimmer in the quiet bedroom, a strong, steady presence. Jerry wasn"t awake, and apparently Jamie didn"t have the capacity to see or sense him, because the boy never reacted when the ghost laid a hand on Jamie"s shoulder.
Astra, however, could see the ghost very well. He had short black hair, distinguished aquiline features and the same copper skin as his father and nephew.
Nicholas Crow had indeed come, and just as she had expected, he had gone straight to his father"s sickbed.
She couldn"t do anything for any of them. She had no plat.i.tudes to speak. Nicholas was already dead. Jerry was going to die. And she didn"t have a clue what she was going to do about Jamie.
Thanks to Jerry, now Jamie knew where she lived. And soon Jerry would no longer be around to teach the boy. Left alone, Jamie would mature without either Nicholas or his grandfather"s discipline or steadying influence.
In Astra"s mind, that turned him into a loose cannon. She might very well end up having to kill the boy just to ensure his silence, and wouldn"t that be a pretty turn of events. Then the deaths of all three males in the Crow family could be laid at her feet.
She turned away and put the sadness in that room out of her mind. She had work to do, and being maudlin wasn"t going to get any of it done.
As she regained energy, she worked while her old body rested.
She sent out psychic calls and waited for responses. When they came, she issued orders. Her creatures flew off to do her bidding. The Deceiver might have his spies, but so did she.
She still couldn"t discover how the Deceiver had traced Michael and Mary to Michael"s cabin. She knew he hadn"t found them through conventional means. As far as legal doc.u.mentation went, the cabin didn"t exist. Finding the discrepancy in the county records would take a land surveyor with a significant amount of extra time on his hands.
Besides, nothing Michael carried or used could be traced back to his original ident.i.ty in this life. Michael"s name and his Social Security number were pristine. From the time he had been a young boy, Astra had constructed several different aliases for him, complete with work, family and credit histories, mailing addresses and medical records. She created an elaborate web of smoke and mirrors that Michael had taken over when he had become an adult, and through which he now walked as easily as he breathed.
Perhaps it mattered how the Deceiver had found them. Perhaps it didn"t. Spies were everywhere. Michael had already admitted to being exhausted and overstretched. Either the issue would become relevant or it wouldn"t. She decided to concentrate her efforts on more productive tasks.
Then she heard something in the psychic realm, a sound so faint at first it was a mere tickle at the distant edges of her consciousness.