The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy) (42 page)

‘And there’s the small matter of your prince,’ Emmett ventured.

I took a deep breath as I thought about Mathu. ‘I’m a bit confused about him at present,’ I confessed. ‘I have mixed memories of finding him, but I’m not sure if any of them are real. He may still be trapped in Irkalla, or maybe he was never there at all.’

‘So you accept that the Nefilim have altered your memories?’ Emmett said.

‘I do.’

‘Then how do you know you’re right about Killian being in league with Ill?’

I fobbed off the possibility that I could be wrong about Killian. ‘Call it instinct. And considering what’s happened, I’d say I’m more likely right than wrong, wouldn’t you?’

A large liquid-light screen took up one wall of the room. It depicted a simulation of the SAC alignment taking place up through the harmonic universes, which was on the latter end of its alignment. I glanced up at it.

‘There’s only one way to find out the truth about Killian. And time is running out.’

‘You do know it was Killian who led the Amenti staff into Irkalla to rescue us?’ Emmett said.

‘And it was also Killian who led us into Irkalla in the first place!’ I retorted.
Us.
I dwelt on the sudden realisation that Emmett had entered Irkalla with me.

‘True,’ he conceded. ‘But he could have been under duress.’

My eyes opened wide as I recalled Emmett transforming into Mathu. ‘Deceiver!’ I accused him, backing away.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Then why are you still masquerading as Emmett Rich?’

‘Because Ill implanted false memories of me in you and I didn’t want to aggravate the situation.’

He transformed into his true self. I had waited aeons to stand before my love again, but I felt none of the rejoicing in my heart that I had imagined would accompany this defining moment. I doubted his motives and continued to back away from him.

‘How do I know it’s not you that the Nefilim have reprogrammed? Why would my prince trust Killian Labontè’s word over mine?’

‘Please, dear goddess, hear me out.’ He fell to his knees before me.

I shook my head. ‘You’re trying to distract me. I must hurry.’ And I ran from the room and made haste to the Hall of Records and locked myself in, so I couldn’t be swayed by his pleas. It made perfect sense to me that Ill would send the person I cared for most to distract me from addressing the peril of my fellow team members.

But why would an enemy let you out of solitary confinement?
I found myself asking as I approached the telekinetic control platform. I stopped dead in my tracks, for I had no answer.

Awful images of Mathu with other women flooded through my mind, sickening and confusing me. Part of me knew they were lies, but the images were so vivid that they cut into my heart like daggers. I could not bring myself even to look upon Mathu at present and resolved that I would be more effective handling Killian alone.

I stepped up onto the plate and viewed the tail end of the incident in Central Park, where Killian and the Amenti team’s Rainbow Round Table had averted a huge earthquake. In the wake of the event there was an unusual aftershock, which had left Killian unconscious and caused all those channelling the RRT to vanish.

I asked the Hall of Records to track the whereabouts of the Amenti staff at present, but it informed me that they were no longer within its sphere of detection.

They must be in Irkalla, I thought. Where else could they possibly be if the Hall of Records was unable to detect them? Time to visit my old friend Killian and get some answers.

I stepped down from the control platform and entered the green porthole at one end of the hall, heading for Polaris’s station in Nova Scotia. From there it was only a short trip to my desired destination.

The door to Killian’s hotel room was opened by none other than the Queen of the Underworld herself. She was disguised as a human, but I could see her true form behind the façade. ‘Ereshkigal…why am I not surprised to find you here?’ I said.

‘Kali!’ She was shocked to see me, and stood stunned for a moment, unsure of what she should do next.

‘I wish to speak with Killian, or is he Ill right now?’ I forced a grin.

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ she said and moved to close the door on me, but I prevented it.

‘I
am
going to see him,’ I assured her, and she gave up the struggle and stepped aside to allow me to enter.

‘He’s in there.’ She motioned to the bedroom.

‘I must say, I expected more of a fight from you, Ereshkigal.’ I paused to look her over, and saw that although her auric body had
some muddy patches, she was one of the Nefilim no longer; she had returned to the ranks of the Anu.

‘I have no fight left in me,’ she said, her tone defeated and her expression bitter.

‘Why are you here?’ I asked flatly.

‘I believe I have been exposed to the Nefilim for the Anu spy I am,’ she said. ‘I have been psychologically damaged by our brethren and have become a threat to everyone. Killian has been hiding me, so I have some time to sort my head out.’

‘You should have gone straight to Lamhfada,’ I lectured.

‘But I was programmed to come
here
,’ she snapped, ‘and
murder
Killian. Praise the goddess that Meridan was present to stop me.’

‘What?’ This made no sense to me. ‘Why would Ill want his future embodiment dead?’

‘Because Killian is too much of a threat now. They can’t control him any more and he is causing their plan real trouble.
Please,
’ she appealed to me, ‘you must trust him.’

‘Why should I?’ I was insulted by the plea.

‘Because he is the channel of the Sanat Kumara.’

I was shocked to my core by her claim, but it was delivered with such heartfelt devotion that she obviously believed it.

‘Who else but the Lord of the World would have the compassion to hide someone who had intended to murder him?’ She began to weep, something the Anu so rarely did, and sank to her knees to implore me. ‘Please,
please
, great queen, do not harm him.’

It was quite clear to me that she felt more than a devotee’s love for the man, and I took mercy on her for all she had apparently been through in the name of my cause. I placed a healing hand upon her head to calm her.

‘If the situation is as you say, then you have nothing to fear. Wait here,’ I instructed, and she nodded and raised herself to take a seat by the window. I entered Killian’s room alone.

‘
Tamar
!’ Killian was also surprised to see me, and, although his voice was weak, I could tell that he was unsure if this was a pleasant turn of events or not. ‘If you have come seeking answers about the staff, I have only theories,’ he said, assuming I wasn’t here out of
concern for his welfare. ‘If I was somehow to blame for the disappearance…’ He winced at the notion as it clearly pained him. ‘But I can’t tell you what my involvement was.’

As soon as I set eyes on Killian, the passion that I had been programmed to feel for him ignited in me; however, I had enough control to realise I had to ignore my desires. I had been prepared to storm in here and beat the truth out of him, but my suspicions about him dulled in his presence, for he exuded the most heavenly energy. I felt immediately calm and safe—like coming home to the security of my father’s house.

I climbed onto the huge, king-sized bed he was resting on and sat facing him. ‘Tell me what you think happened,’ I said.

‘I don’t know…the Sanat Kumara was in control of me at the time so I remember nothing.’ He sat up a little straighter against his pillows. ‘However, I can tell you what your mother predicts has happened to them.’

I was shocked. ‘You’ve spoken to Meridan since the event?’

‘No,’ Killian said, confusing me even more.

‘My mother foresaw this event then?’

Killian sounded uncertain. ‘Not exactly. The truth is, I’m loath to tell you how I know what I do. Circumstances may have changed since my source was put to paper…although everything else seems to have come to pass pretty much—’

‘Hold on.’ I had to pull him up as he was rambling. ‘You read this somewhere?’

There was a knock on the hotel room door and my body stiffened with alarm.

‘Expecting anyone?’

Killian shook his head and I immediately retreated to the lounge room to investigate, suspecting that the Nefilim had come for the rest of us. I hid and instructed Ereshkigal to open the door.

‘Oh my lord!’ she gasped when she saw the visitors and quickly invited them inside so she could close the door.

It was Mathu, still in the form of Emmett Rich, and Lugh Lamhfada, also wearing a very handsome human male disguise.

Lugh held a hand to Ereshkigal’s cheek. ‘Greetings and salutations, little one. I hear you have experienced some grief.’

‘Where have you been?’ I asked the Otherworldly lord, who turned and bowed deeply to me upon hearing my voice.

‘Why, Your Majesty, I have been looking into the disappearance of Amenti’s staff,’ he replied.

‘And have you discovered what has become of them?’

‘I have not,’ he said sadly, ‘although I do have a theory.’

‘Do tell,’ I requested, taking a seat.

‘What if the EMP blast that the Amenti staff dispersed with the RRT was more than just your average electromagnetic pulse?’ Mathu cut in, impatient. ‘What if the Nefilim rebuilt their time-travel technology at Montauk and then combined it with their—’

‘—electromagnetic field technologies,’ Killian interrupted. He was leaning heavily against the bedroom doorway to keep himself upright.

‘My lord, you are not strong enough to be out of bed.’ Ereshkigal rushed to support him and Killian did not object.

‘That’s right…’ he said slowly, as if beginning to remember details rather than confirming the statement, ‘…that’s what that aftershock was.’

‘It’s a damn shame,’ Lugh interjected. ‘The RRT’s Kundaray cleared far more dis-ease from the grid than even I expected. If the staff of Amenti were still here, it would be game, set and match to us. The only way for the Nefilim to thwart our victory was to take them out of the equation.’

For the first time since I’d awoken from the spell put on me in Irkalla, I felt as though I was heading down the right track.

‘If the Nefilim did intend to get rid of the Amenti team, where would be the best place to send them?’ I asked, then voiced my suspicion: ‘Irkalla!’

‘Where you could rescue them before D-day?’ Lugh said. ‘No, we need to think like one of the Nefilim.’ He paused and then went pale when he figured out the answer. ‘They have been sent into the future, beyond the SAC alignment.’

Mathu nearly choked. ‘If they have, that means we fail, as Meridan won’t be here to unite the rod and ring.’

Lugh nodded. ‘There would be no chance of an Anu rescue then, as the failure to bring the sphere down into Earth by the end of the SAC
alignment would send the Signet Grid offline, and the physical world and the astral world will again be cut off.’

‘And we have no way of telling to what time in the future Amenti’s staff have been sent?’ I asked.

Lugh shook his head slowly.

‘And so it unfolds,’ Killian, said, getting paler by the second. ‘They have been sent to 2976.’

Mathu gasped, knowing this year all too well. ‘The end of the Kali rift; the year of Earth’s final destruction.’

‘If they are in the future when we have lost and the Signet Grid is offline, then there is no chance they can get back to us!’ I began to pace as I pondered how I might rescue the Amenti team. ‘And I’ll bet my bloodthirsty brethren will be waiting to milk our staff mates of their pure angelic essence, and then it truly will be game over.’

I stopped pacing, having decided on the best course of action. ‘As we seem to have lost all our double agents in Irkalla, I volunteer myself for the job.’

Everyone protested at once.

‘I will go, and I’ll wait until my staff show up,’ I insisted.

‘That’s nearly a thousand years,’ Mathu appealed. ‘It will be too late to bring down the Sphere of Amenti by then, and all will be lost anyway.’

‘The pendulum of time swings both ways,’ I reminded him. ‘I can come back.’

‘How will you do that?’ He was desperate for me to reconsider.

‘I’ll have a millennium to figure that out,’ I said, and looked at Killian, who nodded sadly. ‘So this event was also prophesied?’ I asked him.

Again he nodded, with a look of utter devastation on his face. He waved me closer, and I approached and leaned in close so he could have a quiet word.

‘None of this is your fault,’ he said, far more emotionally than seemed warranted, but then I suspected there was much that he knew about the future that he wasn’t prepared to share. ‘I know what I must do and what you must do, and I want you to know that we forgive you.’

I could tell the sentiment was heartfelt and had to wonder what it was that I would do in the future to warrant such a sincere absolution.
We forgive you?
Who else did he mean? Still, as he’d made a point of keeping the information quiet, I didn’t question him further; besides, the man was obviously exhausted.

‘Keep doing what you have been doing,’ I said, forcing a smile, not pretending to understand what he was trying to convey to me. ‘If I do succeed eventually, I need to know that the world will be on track to host Amenti no matter when I return.’

I wanted to ask outright if I did succeed, but refrained. Still, as Killian smiled and nodded at me, I felt encouraged.

‘I cannot let you go back to Ill,’ Mathu said, assuming his true form as if that would add more weight to his statement.

‘Listen to him,’ Ereshkigal pleaded. She knew full well what the Nefilim were capable of doing to a being’s sanity.

‘I have but one task to perform on this Earth and one route to follow to achieve it,’ I said. I looked to Lamhfada for further argument, but, unfettered as he was by emotion, he offered no objection and thus I knew my reasoning was sound. ‘If I don’t make it back by the eleventh hour, you will see everyone here safely into your realms,’ I requested of him.

‘I surely will, Your Majesty,’ he pledged.