The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy) (7 page)

‘Some other time,’ I said as Polaris entered the cabin.

Killian left it at that, and let go of my hand as Polaris was giving him the evil eye.

‘We’re good to go,’ he said to me.

‘I’ll be back as soon as I have some solutions,’ I told Killian, and headed out the door past the captain, who was still staring disapprovingly at my suitor.

‘I suppose something to eat is out of the question?’ Killian asked.

Polaris gave no response, just closed and locked the door.

‘It’s all right for you time lords, angels and goddesses,’ Killian hollered after us, ‘but I’m only mortal! I need sustenance!’

‘You seriously think Mathu is hiding in that guy?’ Polaris commented as he accompanied Ishkur and me to the exit hatch.

‘It’s a strong possibility.’ I was trying not to let my first kiss colour my instinct, but that proved impossible; I wanted him to be Mathu, my attraction to him was intense.

Polaris was sceptical. ‘It’s just that I don’t ever remember Mathu being quite that full of himself.’

I looked at him, surprised by his observation. ‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but I’ve always had a high opinion of myself. Your beloved has not.’

‘A good point,’ I concurred as we exited onto the deck of the
Klieo
, parked alongside the great earthern bridge inside the cavern of Mamer.

M
IA
D
EVERE
—MERIDAN

I awoke at my desk the next morning, pen in hand, the above chapter sprawled in handwritten pages across my desk.

My mobile phone was ringing. Still bleary, I reached into my bag and answered it. ‘Hello.’ I smothered a yawn. ‘Mia Devere speaking.’

‘Bonjour, Mrs Devere. I am Sylvie Bruyere, promotions manager for the House of Chanel in Paris.’

Not the first person I was expecting to hear from this morning.

‘As in “the little black dress” House of Chanel?’

‘
Oui.
’ She sounded delighted at my recognition of her brand. ‘I am calling in the hope of contracting your daughter, Tamar, to be the new face of Chanel—’

‘What?’ I was shocked out of my skin. How did she know anything about my daughter?

‘I understand this must be very exciting for you,’ continued Sylvie.

‘Overwhelming,’ I said drily. ‘We’ll have to get back to you, I’m so sorry.’

I hung up the phone and it immediately rang again. I answered it.

‘This is Chuck Fix from
Rolling Stone
magazine—’

I switched my mobile off in a state of mild shock. It appeared that Tamar had got what she wanted: overnight fame.

I looked at the pages I had penned in my sleep, thinking that I should read them. I couldn’t recall a word of it, not even who the transmission was from.

It was only when Albray walked into our room that I realised that he wasn’t still asleep in our bed.

‘The morning papers are here,’ he said.

He sounded perturbed about the fact. He slapped one down in front of me and I saw that the front page was filled with a large photo of Killian Labontè and our daughter. The headline read:
Le visage de la beauté.

‘That would explain the call I just got from the House of Chanel,’ I said.

Albray forced a laugh. ‘Are you serious?’ He seemed unsure whether he should be deploring Tamar’s sudden notoriety or beaming with pride at our daughter’s success.

The sound of a car pulling into the site sent us racing to the door—we hoped it was Tamar and Labontè returning from their history-making date. However, it was Killian’s parents’ gold limousine that drew to a stop outside.

‘Not good,’ Albray commented.

The chauffeur opened the door and the sole occupant, Sabine Labontè, stepped out of the vehicle and looked straight to us. ‘Albray Devere?’ she said, ignoring me. ‘I need to speak with you—it’s about your daughter.’

‘Here we go,’ Albray said in an aside to me, and put on a smile for our guest.

‘Be careful,’ I warned, although he knew as well as I did what she truly was.

At the time, I didn’t think it odd that Sabine didn’t ask to speak with both of us. I was still half asleep, and with my overnight work yet to be read I was happy to let Albray deal with Sabine’s concerns. As one of the Council of Amenti, Albray had a far greater psychic advantage than any of the Nefilim and I didn’t for a second question whether he could cope with the situation alone.

Half an hour and a couple of coffees later, I was of a very different mind for I had finally read my daughter’s transmission.

I scrambled outside to find Albray waving goodbye to the gold limousine, and was relieved to see him apparently unscathed by the encounter.

‘All smoothed over,’ he assured me, ‘for the time being.’

He looked concerned momentarily, then smiled at me and headed off to the amenities block.

Albray joined me half an hour later, freshly showered, shaved and changed. This was a little unexpected, as when we were on location he reverted to his ancient knightly ways and didn’t bother too much with his appearance.

‘Where are you off to?’ I asked, thinking he must be going out.

‘Nowhere. I was just feeling a bit grungy.’ He noted my astonished expression. ‘What?’

‘Grungy? You! I didn’t think you knew the meaning of the word.’

Albray laughed. ‘Well, aren’t you pleased I finally learned?’ He embraced me in a very amorous fashion.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me what Mrs Labontè had to say about our daughter?’ I asked, trying to put him off without making my concerns obvious.

My husband was discouraged by my choice of topic and let me go. ‘She just needed reassuring that our girl is very chaste and so her son isn’t going to wind up being charged for having sex with a minor. She suspects that Killian’s only dating Tamar to infuriate his parents.’

‘And that took half an hour?’ I asked, trying not to sound like the suspicious wife, somewhat unsuccessfully.

‘Mia!’ Albray placed both hands on his hips, sounding perturbed. ‘I thought we had put all our jealousies behind us.’

I was immediately suspicious. Instead of answering my question, he’d turned the subject around to my faults—a sure sign that he was hiding something.

‘I have reason to believe you have been compromised,’ I informed him calmly.

‘Compromised!’ He was furious—he was definitely hiding something.

‘Sabine Labontè has acquired the ringstone your soul mind is attached to,’ I told him, staring him in the eyes to gauge his true reaction and in them I saw horror, relief, sorrow and remorse. ‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ he blurted out, relieved not to have to try and hide the fact. He took a seat and tried to recall what he could. ‘I felt horrible afterwards,’ he looked up at me in pain, ‘as if I’d—’ He caught his breath on the recollection. ‘As if I’d been close to her.’

‘You had sex with her?’ I choked on the question in horror.

‘No! Maybe? I don’t know!’ He was close to tears.

I had only ever seen Albray cry in joy, and felt ashamed that I was so quick to assume him guilty. ‘Well, that explains the shower,’ I said.

‘I know she hypnotised me with the ringstone. After that, all I recall is waving her goodbye. She may have just implanted the idea that I…’ He chose not to complete the sentence.

‘Holy mother, she could have instructed you to do anything!’ I said, realising that a sexual encounter with the woman was a minor inconvenience compared to some of the missions she could have instilled in Albray—and very probably had!

‘I need to probe your memory,’ I said. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘No,’ Albray said quickly. ‘You’ll only perceive what she wants you to perceive. The only way to truly be sure what happened is to be there when it happens.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Not for Polaris,’ he retorted.

It was true that Polaris was a time lord, but I couldn’t allow Albray to seek out any of the Amenti Council in case he had been hypnotised into killing them or ambushing the Amenti scheme. He was a major security risk now and I had to take him out of the equation until I could brief the Council on what had happened and they could decide how best to deal with the situation.

‘Wait here a second,’ I told him.

I grabbed one of my shoulder bags and made my way to the bathroom. Inside the bag was a weapon I had procured from a Dracon in battle. It shot debilitating darts that could keep even one of my kind motionless for hours. I had never thought to use the weapon, so it was buried deep in the bag, hidden inside the old hollowed-out book in which I had once found Albray’s ringstone. I remembered the ringstone with sorrow now; what I would give never to have lost it.

Weapon in hand, I paused a moment to gather my will to shoot my own husband. Then I burst into our room, took aim and found nothing to fire at. Albray had fled.

Fortunately it was a Sunday and there were very few people on site. I tucked the stun-gun into my backpack and headed down into the major excavation area. I needed to contact my fellow Council members and make them aware of the situation with Albray. I was able to go into a deep trance state and connect with my sisters, but if Albray had been programmed to do me harm, he would predict this action and my body would be a sitting duck whilst my consciousness was in flight.

My mission—to activate my station and then secure it from discovery—was now seriously compromised. I half-expected that Albray had fled into the labyrinth. Still, only I knew where the entry point to my Signet station was, and I was the key that granted access and activation. If I succeeded in activating my station and drawing down the Triogenes pyramid attached, then I could access Giza via Signet Station Four, whose pyramid, Thoth, had already been activated by Lilith. This course of action would kill two birds with one stone. For when I had completed this mission, I would collapse the outer labyrinth to ensure that my Signet station could not be entered from surface Earth. After that I could gain access from any of the other Signet stations, Giza primarily.

I dearly hoped that my hunch concerning my husband was wrong and I would not encounter him en route to Meridan station. Albray’s travel sword was missing from our luggage and his skill with his chosen weapon was a primary concern for me. I could only hope that we were not forced into a position of discovering who the swifter warrior was.

At Giza is the pyramid of Thoth,
the trickster,
the Keeper of Time and
Master of the Game.

Within the Hall of Records
human consciousness is calibrated
and higher experience stored
to fuel the planetary consciousness
for the return of the Sphere
and the opening of Amenti.

The first of the twelve pyramids,
Giza is the base station to all the matrix.
It is the geographical timepiece of Earth
that perpetuates the illusion of the cycles of time.

T
AMAR
D
EVERE
—KALI

My rescued kinsman, Ishkur, accompanied Polaris and me through the porthole from Mamer that led to the outer chamber of the Amenti complex beneath Giza. This chamber contained three inter-dimensional passages: one to the cavern of Mamer in the physical world; one to the Otherworldly realm of the Anu, which existed in the higher astral plane; and the third to the Underworld, frequented by the Nefilim and Dracon, which existed in the lower etheric realms.
This last porthole only permitted passage
into
the Underworld as the vibratory rate of the chamber was too high for any low-grade entity to pass through it and survive. The vibratory rate inside the Giza complex would have to drop dramatically for any of the Nefilim and their lowlife minions to gain access to Amenti, especially now that the Hall of Records had been opened. The Giza ante-chamber also provided entry to the Amenti complex, which my parents had opened before I was born.

This was as far as Ishkur could go, for none of the Nefilim were ever permitted to enter Amenti, even though the primary entrance to the Hall of Amorea was situated therein. In order to reach Sirius B, where the rest of the Anu race were evolving their emotional beings, Ishkur would have to take the porthole siutated within the realm of the Anu to the Hall of Amorea and pass through the Earth’s core. Thus it was that we found Lugh Lamhfada awaiting us to guide Ishkur on that journey.

Lugh was a great prince among my people. He too had once been one of the fallen, but as a son of En Ki he had secretly studied the teachings of Kianism and, like Mathu and me, had eventually overcome his Orme addiction to become a leader among the Anu on Earth. He had led many of the fallen away from the Nefilim centres in the Near East and settled them in Ireland, where they became the mighty Tuatha Dé Danaan.

Tumaz!
Ishkur was amazed to see his long-lost cousin. As they were both composed of the same astral matter, they embraced as brothers.

I have not gone by that name in a long, long time
, Lugh said, holding his cousin at arm’s length and looking him up and down, pleased to see him restored to his former Anunnaki self.

Ra then? Or Marduk?
Ishkur scanned his memory for his cousin’s many identities, but Lugh shook his head.
What then?

I am known as Lugh Lamhfada.
The Anu warrior knew the news would sting a little.

You are Lamhfada!
Ishkur could barely believe he was standing before the leader of the Anu, who had been ambushing the Nefilim agenda for all recorded history.
They have no idea who you are,
he assured Lugh and then laughed.
Heaven help you if they ever find out.

Heaven does help me.
Lugh motioned to the captain and me.
Heaven helps us all, even those as lost as yourself.

Ishkur smiled at the truth of it.

Are you ready to go home now, cousin?
Lugh motioned to the porthole that led to his dominion.