The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy) (20 page)

From the space station above, a golden beam of light extended into the Telos Aarkhara. From deep space, two more beams extended from the Pleiades and Sirius into the universal tear at different angles to form a pyramidal structure that met at the centre of the Telos Aarkhara; these energetic golden beams powered and reinforced the capstone.

‘Are you taking mental notes?’ the captain queried, respectful of my awe.

‘So many,’ was all I could say, my joy so immense it caused tears to flood from my closed eyes.

As we entered the Blue Fire Command space station everything went dark outside the
Klieo
. I opened my eyes, deflated to be deprived of the splendid scenery. ‘Now what happens?’ I asked. ‘Do we have a stopover?’

I was excited by the notion, but Polaris shook his head.

‘Even though our souls are of the Ceres, and therefore spiritually more adept than those beings in command here, our physical composition is human and therefore…’ He shrugged.

‘Unreliable?’ I suggested, and he nodded.

‘Well, although ultimately the Nefilim are responsible for the advent of the Kali rift, humans helped.’ Polaris explained humanity’s bad reputation.

With a slight jolt, the ship docked. Outside the shield windows, all was dark. I held my breath in anticipation of the next occurrence, and when the door to the control deck opened I nearly jumped out of my skin.

‘Back again,’ Levi strode across to take his place behind the
Klieo
’s control panel. ‘Prepare yourself,’ he advised as he placed his hand on the metal plate. ‘This is going to feel like a bit of a whirlwind, as we’ll be moving through both time and space to get to our destination.’ Then he looked at me. ‘Oh dear.’

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Advising you of my involvement with Montauk was ill timed,’ he replied.

I realised he must have been telepathically advised of the computer’s translation of my daughter’s missive. He looked devastated at having unintentionally undermined my trust in him.

‘Can I assure you—’ he began, but I cut him off.

‘The captain has already assured me that Kali wasn’t referring to you, Levi. And in all honesty I knew she wasn’t. Still, I thought you might have some idea of who she was referring to.’

Before Levi could answer, the huge chamber surrounding our vessel was flooded with Blue Flame light, which poured in through the ship’s sails and down through the light funnel. I was standing by the windows to admire the view and was completely bathed in the light frequency to which I was so empathetic.

‘See you in 2003,’ Levi said, and waved to me.

‘But what about our pit stop on Mars?’ I asked.

‘There is no pit stop,’ Levi clarified, ‘but when you become conscious of movement again that means we’re slowing down and we’ve passed the Montauk interchange po—’

Reality dissolved into beautiful, awe-inspiring light and I couldn’t have cared less where I found myself afterwards. The bliss of the moment washed over me in ever liberating waves as I was propelled to the Earth’s not-so-distant past.

My passage through the light energy felt both eternal and instantaneous. I seemed to drift in the wholeness of that illumined benediction for an age, yet gradually the light and energy ebbed and I was downcast to realise I was individualising. My union with the immensity of the quantum world had ended all too soon.

The light began to thin and take on shadow and colour as it streamed past me. My perception was my own once more but I had yet to take physical form. The soaring sensation was rather pleasing and I began to feel better about my return to the realms of physical expression, until I saw the spirit of a beautiful young boy go screaming hysterically past in the opposite direction—towards Mars in the future—with several other young male souls following him.

Then the
Klieo
’s control deck reconstituted around me and I was again inhabiting my body. ‘Those children?’ I immediately asked. ‘They were Montauk Boys?’

‘Timewalkers. Given the opportunity to go from destitute orphan to elite secret agent in a couple of weeks…what homeless boy wouldn’t jump at the chance?’ Levi said with a distinct chill in his tone.

‘They use orphans because no one will miss them,’ I realised, shocked.

‘A particular kind of orphan…the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan-Nordic type.’ Levi turned his baby blues my way, having just described his own appearance, and I understood how he’d managed to get himself enlisted. ‘Still, if you prove reliable as a timewalker, you might be inducted into the Secret Crew. Only a few years of excruciating torture and you too can become so desensitised that your brain severs contact with all your pain sensors, making you so fearless that you can be programmed to perform superhuman feats.’

‘But why seek to foster psychic power thus, when it can be achieved as easily through love and compassion?’

‘That would involve the psychic realising they are the source of their own power, which means they could not be controlled,’ Levi pointed out. ‘So much for the Montauk Project being shut down in 1984.’

‘What are the Secret Crew capable of?’ I asked.

‘Given one strand of hair,’ Levi held his thumb and forefinger together, ‘they can track a person, see and hear all they do, no matter where they’re located on Earth. What’s more, they can influence the thoughts of their victim and even possess their mind completely. They also have telekinetic powers…they can move objects, shatter windows, or even a victim’s vital organs. That’s what they’re independently capable of, but when coupled with the Montauk Chair, the elite among the Montauk Boys can create unstable passages through time. The only difficulty is finding the means to source reliable information about the distant past and the future.’

‘The Montauk Chair?’ I asked.

‘Not now.’ Polaris came up behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders and steered me towards the Blue Flame funnel, which was no longer streaming with light. ‘Showtime for you, Meridan.’

Spread out before our craft was a huge body of extremely dark clouds alive with electrical activity and waves of coloured light. It looked like the aurora borealis, which was truly spectacular on the eye. Inside the ship, the lights and instruments began to flicker on and off.

‘Are we losing power?’ I asked, and felt a lurch of panic in my gut that I would let everyone down.

‘We certainly are,’ Polaris said, sliding his arms beneath my own and raising them so my hands were aimed into the funnel. ‘So be a goddess for me and channel your flame into my vessel.’

I was so surprised by his cheeky banter that my insecurity vanished. ‘Anything for you, Captain,’ I said, mimicking his adoring ship’s computer, and shrugged him off to stand alone. I’d done this before, and having just been doused in Blue Flame energy I was radiant with excess. I felt the force gathering to my will, and at my command a stream of Blue Flame energy burst forth from my chest, down my arms, out through my palms and into the funnel that powered the
Klieo
.

T
AMAR
D
EVERE
—KALI

Into the darkness I fell, my only wish to keep hold of the soul I was clinging to, for he was my beloved and the missing link in the Amenti chain, even if he was yet to remember his destiny.

Emmett seemed even more determined than I not to lose contact in the abyss. His embrace felt sincere, like my mother’s or father’s; although he did not feel like a relative—rather, as if I were clinging to some long-lost part of myself. A massive orb of energy was building between his chest and mine; its intensity caused tears to stream from our eyes. The power, beauty and excitement of this energetic fusion reinforced our auras, preventing the dark energy surrounding us from penetrating beyond the outer reaches of our light-bodies. I felt great peace in knowing that, after a millennia of waiting, I was finally embracing my lover in the flesh. Even if I died this day, I would do so in the arms of my soul mate and prince. How cruel fate was to have revealed this now, when our only route back to Amenti was via the seven gates of hell.

The rolling and spinning motion of our descent slowed and our feet touched down in a dark cavern. Above us we could see only darkness; all around the walls were dismembered skeletons, visible in the grey light of the electric torches positioned either side of the only exit.

‘Where the hell are we?’ Emmett eyed the human remains.

‘The seventh and most outer gate of Irkalla,’ I replied, looking around for the keeper of the twin stone doors. ‘Each gate is guarded by an evil thought form that embodies one of the seven stages of death.’

‘So I guess these souls didn’t meet with the gatekeeper’s approval?’ Emmett asked, and figured out the answer just as I replied.

‘They didn’t have the toll,’ we both said at once, then had a quiet laugh at our common knowledge and interests. Obviously Emmett was familiar with the ancient Sumerian text
The Descent of Inanna
, which detailed Inanna’s journey into Irkalla to save her lover.

‘You are totally amazing, Kali,’ Emmett said. ‘It just figures that when I finally meet a girl I relate to, she’s an ultra-terrestrial…No offence to ultra-terrestrials, of course.’

I smiled, delighted by how completely clueless he was about his own true identity. ‘You think that supernova that occurs when you hold me close is because we relate well?’ I thought that a bit of an understatement.

‘You felt that?’ He was surprised and delighted. ‘I thought it was just me.’

‘You couldn’t be that in love with yourself, surely?’ I rolled my eyes and headed towards the large rectangular stone doors.

‘That’s not what I…Hey! You’re not seriously going to go through the stages of death in order to save Labontè, are you? Can’t a superwoman like you just fly us out of here?’

‘I’m afraid not. The low frequency and lack of cosmic light in the Underworld ensures that goodwill receives very little support here. And quite apart from that, if I take you back up into our previous reality where time lines are about to change, I’ll lose you, remember?’

‘Sorry,’ Emmett said. ‘I’m new to all this inter-time war business.’

‘Besides, it’s not really a question any more of whether I’d go into hell after Killian,’ I added. ‘There’s only one route out of here for us, and that’s through those doors.’

‘But what about the tolls?’ Emmett made haste to catch me up. ‘What’s the first stage of the death process?’

‘Shock, of course.’ And before I could even consider what toll Shock might extract from us, my Amenti suit vanished, my weapon,
which had been tucked into the back of my jeans, dropped to the ground and I was left completely naked.

The human in me stopped in her tracks, stunned, but my Anu side allowed me to shrug off the shock quickly and see the loss for the minor inconvenience it was. I pulled my long dark hair around me like a cloak just as Emmet wrapped his jacket around my shoulders.

‘Why didn’t Shock take your clothes too?’ I wondered.

The huge stone tablets before us vanished, to reveal a stone tunnel stretching ahead.
It is you who must honour the sacred rites, Kali,
a voice said,
for it is you who has business in Irkalla. Your companion may travel toll-free alongside you. Ill has decreed it.

Shock manifested as a huge fellow who looked like a reject from the punk era. He wore only a leather vest on his upper body, which was covered in obscene tattoos and bound with chains. The studs on his wristbands were like knives, and it was easy to see how the souls who had not made it past this gateway had died. His legs were clad in tight leather chaps, which left his buttocks and genitals exposed, emphasising his huge erection. His hair had been fashioned into a mohawk using coagulated blood, and his eyes were deeply sunk in his pale, gaunt face.

Should you fail to meet any toll along the way, however,
Shock added,
your companion shall, of course, perish along with you.
He grinned horribly.

Emmett retrieved my weapon from the ground and placed it in my hands. It was all I had left, and I still had six tolls to pay between here and Irkalla. I knew that Ill was trying to humiliate and degrade me in the eyes of my love.

‘Can’t I leave my companion here, and retrieve him when my business in Irkalla is complete?’ I asked, hoping that Ill was not yet aware of Emmett’s true identity.

Shock eyed Emmett with relish.
Trust me with your prince, would you, goddess?

‘I’ll take my chances in hell,’ said Emmett, stepping around me and away from the demon, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’

I was left with no choice. I just hoped the fire that burned so brightly between us now would still hold a spark by the time this journey was over.

It seems your mortal friend wishes to stay with you.
Shock shrugged, as if unable to understand it, then gestured towards the dark tunnel ahead.
Enter, my lady. May you find all you seek in Irkalla.

‘What choice do I have?’ I said.

There is always a choice…I could use a little company.
The demon sidled up beside me and slid his hand over my behind.
And without your suit, you’re a half-attractive proposition.

I clutched his throat in retaliation, and he vanished.

‘Come on.’ Emmett took hold of my hand to encourage me forward. ‘I have complete faith in you.’

‘The whole point of this exercise is to diminish that faith,’ I said, holding a hand to his face and caressing his cheek.

‘Then it is a pointless exercise,’ he assured me with a smile so broad that it melted the frosty Anu coating over my heart. I wanted to kiss him, until I noticed the stone doors before us were beginning to close.

‘Trust me,’ he pleaded, and I responded with a huge smile and ran with him into the passage that led to the next gateway, that of Denial.

The huge squared-off tunnel was composed entirely of large stone blocks and I felt dwarfed by its immensity. Behind us the stone doors closed, leaving us to walk in darkness.