Veiled (9 page)

We had scarcely cleared the
top of the wings when we heard some weird noise coming from within
the dragon.

“
Stay together!” the
Second One’s voice warned. “We are Legion,” the united voice of the
dragon repeated.

We kept flying as fast as
we could, and the dragon was now in hot pursuit, flying swiftly
after us. We had no chance of out flying the dragon. It was too
fast for us, but we still flew on in spite of evident
doom.

It was about to take the
last plunge and overtake us, when the dragon began writhing with
unusual force, missing us by inches. Something or someone from
within was trying to get out, and was causing the dragon to go into
spasms. We took this opportunity to fly off, only turning once to
see if we were still being chased.

“
What the…?” Max exclaimed
as he saw us flying out of the planet, being chased by the
dragon.

“
No time, let’s go!” Alex
shouted and grabbed him by the robe and pulled him and Celeste
close to our little cluster.

“
NO!” The dragon’s voice
was thunderous. “We are…”

The tail of the dragon
twisted to one side and the body jerked to the other, the head
swinging from side to side unnaturally. Then something burst out of
the head and the whole dragon exploded into smaller pieces. The
spirits that made it were being thrown in all directions and the
dragon fell apart.

In the distance we could
hear the Second One laughing. His laughter was a strange mixture of
rage and pleasure.

We flew straight to the
gathering place after our escape; we had no inclination to wander
around the universe. We were among the first spirits to arrive and
watched as the rest of the host made their peaceful
entrance.

In the distance I felt
Agatha’s presence and turned to face her, while she was still some
distance away. She glided straight toward me, looking shaken and
less sure of herself.

“
You will never get me to
change my mind,” I told her, when she was near me.

“
I know,” Agatha answered
casually, like the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“
Then what are you doing
here? Trying to see what happy spirits look like?” I said
smugly.

“
My version of happy is
different from yours. You know, Tess, there are some spirits who I
like and some who I hate, you…I happen to hate. Nothing personal, I
just do, can’t help myself. Just thinking about all the different
ways in which I will enjoy making your mortality miserable makes me
happy,” she added brightly.

“
Well, that sounds like
fun…for about two millennia—then what? How long can you really
stand to watch others from the side lines without being a player
yourself? Even if you succeed in making my life miserable, it won’t
last. I’ll still have periods of enjoyment that will far outweigh
the misery that you might happen to cause me.”

From the distance we could
hear a fresh wave of laughter from my clan, they had been
recounting the story about Legion to Celeste and Max—proving my
point beautifully in the process.

“
So that’s why you are
here? To tell me how much you’ll enjoy making me miserable?” I said
with irony.

“
I just wanted to make
sure you were aware of how things are really going to be. It might
help you in your…preparations,” She said without her usual
arrogance.

“
Thanks for the warning.
I’ll keep that in mind while I prepare. I’m curious though, why did
you guys choose Max, of all spirits, to torture?” I
asked.

“
Because, he has a hero
complex. He would sacrifice himself for any of his loved ones, even
Eros who so obviously betrayed him.” She said with a sneer. “The
rest of you are not so self sacrificing.”

“
It sounds to me like Max
is not the only one with a hero complex,” I pointed out.

“
Oh yeah, tell me please—I
do want to know,” she said greedily. “Any information you can give
me will be truly valued.”

“
You.”

“
Me?” She was taken by
surprise.

“
You are perfectly willing
to sacrifice your own existence—for what? The Second One, Legion?
You may have an impact on my mortality, maybe even some of my
friends’, but when our lives are over—then what? What’s really in
it for you? You will never evolve. This is it for you—a spirit, not
even a ghost. You’ll always be a form that will never exist in a
tangible way.

“
Really Agatha, I honestly
had you pegged for someone who is in it for herself, rather than
‘the hero type’ as you so well put it.”

“
We will possess your
bodies,” she refuted.

“
Yeah…you and all the
cast-outs will be fighting for the one mortal stupid enough to
allow that. It sounds like it will be cramped in there. Good luck!”
I said brightly, and turned to leave.

My words must have struck a
chord, because she just hovered there, looking after me, hating me
even more for finding her weak spot.

I turned my head and looked
at her over my shoulder, and I saw that Eros was whispering
something in her ear. She ignored him for a while, then let out a
growl, and was gone in an instant.

Eros was still looking
down, but before he too turned to leave, he exchanged looks with
Max. For a moment they stared at each other, and then Eros spun
around and flew away after Agatha.

* * * * *

Chapter 7

“
Well...for better or for
worse the time has come,” Henry announced with a beaming smile.
Ever since he was able to use his smuggled alien explosives to save
one of our own, he had been in the best of moods. Not that I blame
him—it’s Russell and Alex that I blame for keeping the conversation
alive by asking him question after question. Henry was bad enough
without encouragement; with it he was downright vexing.

Richard, who left Ishtar
before we tried to rescue Max, kept to himself until Max got him to
come over. They had a long conversation where they patched things
up—Celeste, however, was not part of the patching up—she instead
came to my side with a smirk on her face.

“
Go ahead…you can gloat
now,” Celeste said the moment she was free of Max’s iron clasp. He
only let go of her while he talked to Richard, otherwise they were
pretty much an appendage to each other—not that she
minded.

“
What, me? I never gloat,”
I said faking innocence.

“
Yeah, right,” she said
through squinted eyes and pursed up lips.

“
You have to tell me what
happened. How did you ever end up going to Ishtar?” I
asked.

She let out a low growl and
took my hand just like old times. We glided some distance from the
group and floated aimlessly through space. “If you tell anyone I
will…never mind…you were right, Richard is an idiot,” she said
owning up to her mistake. “All he cares about is himself and anyone
who happens to make him feel good at the time.”

“
So…how did you get to
Ishtar?”

“
Some females came up to
him after one of his speeches and suggested we follow them to a
planet where a group of spirits needed
his
kind of persuasive power, so of
course, we did. It was Ishtar, but from above you can’t tell that
there’s anything wrong with it. Max and Eros were already there as
if waiting for us and that’s when I realized that something was not
right.

“
Max came to my side
immediately and told me that I had to leave right away. I had never
seen him like that before, he looked very worried, and he begged me
to leave. I told him I wouldn’t leave without him, and he said that
he couldn’t leave without Eros and Richard, but that I had to leave
at once. He said it would be too much, that he wasn’t strong enough
to deal with that.

“
You can only imagine that
when he said that I was more curious than ever to know what he
meant by it. So I insisted, and he just kept being stubborn, until
finally I wore him down and he said he loved me and if any harm
came to me he could never forgive himself.

“
That’s when a bunch of
spirits showed up and Eros told us how he had planned this and had
turned out better than he had imagined, and how he would be
rewarded and blah, blah, blah. Then Max went crazy and demanded
that they take him and let me go, I had no idea where Richard was
at that point, it was like he saw trouble and ran for it. Then I
looked back at Max and…it hit me!” She looked at me
significantly.

“
What, what hit
you?”

She looked at me with
dismay. “That I loved him and what an idiot I had been, for not
seeing it before.” Her face was expectant like I should be able to
relate somehow.

“
So…you are in Max’s clan
now?” I asked, a bit bewildered.

Celeste looked at me like I
was an idiot and started to say something about Alex, but he was
gliding over to our side, so she just said we would talk about that
later.

“
What are you two up to
now?” Alex asked brightly.

“
I was just telling Tess
that she was right and I was wrong. There. I said it. Are you happy
now?” She grinned and bounced off to join Max, and subject herself
to his tight grip.

Right then the Herald’s
trumpets started sounding through our calling stones. They were
quite musical, and their sound got better as more spirits assembled
together. Each individual’s sound coming from each call stone
sounded more triumphant and glorious as the crowds increased. Once
we were all assembled the music from the trumpets was at its height
of beauty and perfection.

“
The time has come,”
the Eternals announced.
“Prepare yourselves to choose.”

The meeting place was a
vast uninhabited span of space where, it was speculated, our future
planet would orbit. The spirits gathered were too numerous to
count, but somehow I could sense them all. Since I started seeing
auras my world had taken on a new awareness. As each clan arrived,
I felt as if a proverbial piece of a puzzle had just aligned itself
into place. Not that I knew them individually, but their presence
felt familiar to me.

The gathering of spirits
was even more grandiose than ever before. I could now see how
unique and different we all are and how beautifully we shone. Each
spirit had his or her own look about them—all unique in his or her
own way—and just as colorful as our auras were. My own clan was
very diverse both in aura colors and appearance. My hair was black,
and my skin darker than everyone, with the exception of
Dorian’s.

“
What is it, Tess?” Alex
asked with an intense look in his face.

“
Our aura colors, they are
all different…and beautiful,” I told him while I examined his aura.
I thought that it was probably one of the most distinct ones of
all. It was golden and bright, easy to spot and very, very
alluring, but I would never tell him that.

Off to my side, our whole
clan was laughing, and Katie looked as if she had been part of our
clan from the beginning. I still hadn’t talked to her. She seemed
nice, but for some reason I resented her a little and was putting
off our formal introduction.

The last group of spirits
arrived all together, fortunately as individuals and not as
“Legion”. Their auras were gloomy shades of murky green, red, or
just plain black. They were quiet and somber. Some looked proud,
defiant, and bold. Some others looked worn down, beaten, and low.
The Second One lead them as they entered the assembled group. To
his side were some of his most ardent followers, among them Agatha,
who didn’t look her normal impudent self. Those who had arrived
first were down low, closer to where the Eternals were. As more
spirits arrived they started placing themselves just slightly above
those in front of them, making tiers that went up higher and
higher, and then off to the sides. When the height was too great,
some other spirits started forming more tiers behind the
Eternals.

As usual the Eternals were
accompanied by two Seraphs, a male and a female, and two Cherubs,
both males and each holding a flaming sword. More Cherubs were
lined at each side and they were holding trumpets, two of them
females and the other two males.

There didn’t seem to be
much of a difference in size between the male Cherubs and the
females, they were both equally huge, and they both had long white
hair. Their clothing was made up of a white fur, the males had a
bare chest and the females wore a cropped top made out of the same
white fur. Their feathered wings sprung out of their shoulder
blades and went all the way down to their feet. They looked every
inch the fierce warriors that legend had them to be. The Seraphs
were no less impressive. They were golden and their upper bodies
looked human, with the addition of leathery wings. Their lower
bodies had hind legs and a tail, just like a lion. When they stood
upright, they were slightly shorter than the Cherubs, between eight
to ten feet tall. Their hair looked more like a mane that was
twisted up into dreadlocks. Their eyes were cat-like, and their
clothing was much like the Cherub’s attire except the fur matched
their golden skin color.