Forever (14 page)

But Ram felt the tide of this interminable war might be turning at long last. The Bodywalker inside of his mate was a priestess. A Templar. She was also niece to Odjit and a being of such great power that when the priestess had tried to defect to the Politic, Odjit had hunted her down for it. It was in the process of that battle that her brother had nearly lost his life, sending him into the Ether where he had found Menes and the promise of a continuing existence.

“Menes,” he finally said to her.

That made her sit up a little straighter at his back. He felt the change go through her as tension took away the bonelessness of sleepiness.

“Jackson? What was it?”

“Ram!” The door to their outer suite crashed open as Cleo’s panicked voice filled the room. He was out of their bed in a flash of movement, Docia following a little more clumsily behind him as she pulled herself the rest of the way into the woken world.

“Cleo, what is it?”

“It’s Menes! I’ve had … there’s danger! Oh, so much danger! I can see the blood. The fire! Oh god, it feels so painful!” Cleo’s cerulean eyes had gone wide with fear, the wild tousling of her hair showing she too had been asleep when this had occurred. Cleo was not known for allowing herself to be seen unkempt. Nor was she prone to fits of panicked emotion. She had once been one of the greatest of Egyptian queens and she did not rattle easily. But when she spoke of fire burning she was holding out both of her arms and staring at them in abject horror as if she were actually on fire.

“I have felt this sense of danger myself,” he told her, while at the same time taking hold of both her hands
and pulling her arms up against his bare chest. He made her look into his eyes, drawing deep steady breaths until she was subconsciously mimicking him. “I will go to him this very minute and fetch him back to us. It is beyond time for him to be safely within these walls and within our reach to help him. Now, other than the things you described to me, was there some kind of clarity? You know a great many of your visions are symbolic and not necessarily accurate. So be calmed, Cleopatra. Be easy.”

“You must take this seriously,” she said, a tone of petulance entering her voice and turning her expression to one of consternation.

“I am taking this very seriously,” he assured her. “Did I not say I was going to fetch him? I would never take you less than at your word.”

“I did not speak of it earlier,” she said, “because there was only the sense of imminence, not alarm. I thought it was because you had told me that the Blending was almost complete and that he would continue to go about the business of withdrawing from Jackson’s old life in Saugerties. But it’s been stronger every day, this sense that something is on the horizon. Something … something is coming toward us.”

“Do you mean this danger?”

“I don’t know. The danger is new. Before this it was as though … as though we would be entering a time of discovery. Everything felt benign until just moments ago, or I swear I would have told you.”

“I know you would have. I don’t hold you accountable for anything, Cleo. You are of tremendous value to all of us. Your power has been an asset to us throughout the ages and it is very much appreciated.”

“Hm. For you maybe,” she said with no small amount of irritability. “You aren’t the one who has been cursed with this interfering ability.” She frowned very seriously.
“I feel as though it has weakened me. Where once I was a woman of great strength and conviction, I am now plagued with caution. Worry. Always desperately trying to interpret what comes to me.”

“I can understand that frustration,” Docia spoke up. “In a way, for me, it’s been the opposite. Tameri has given me strength I never knew as a mortal human. It can so easily make me overconfident. She is always so confident, even if I am not. Together it Blends in an extreme push me/pull me manner. I question something else entirely. and the l everything so very carefully now for fear of jumping all in and putting myself in danger.”

“Yes. Yes exactly,” Cleo said, the comfort of knowing someone else understood how she was feeling helping to calm her further. “Ram, you will go now? This moment? You should make time your enemy in this matter, I beg you. Take Asikri with you. Do not go alone. You must protect him at all costs. The Templars will do anything to take him from us for another hundred years. And to lose Hatshepsut as well … it would be a blow that could destroy our position forever.” Because they both knew Hatshepsut would not allow herself to be reborn if it meant leaving Menes in the Ether for another hundred years. Perhaps at one time she would have braved the abject loneliness that would have come with ruling alone, putting the well-being of her people above the needs of her heart, but every regeneration had cleaved them closer and closer together until they could no longer bear living, be it in mortal form or in the Ether, without the other.

Jackson had told him that Menes had delayed his return from the Ether because of Hatshepsut’s reluctance to go through the pain of being reborn only to face the inevitable rending away of life and, in the same sweep, their love. Being the central figures in their government made them the key focus of their enemies, and their
enemies knew as well as all other Bodywalkers that to destroy one was to rid themselves of the other. In the past they had survived because Menes had never allowed himself to go into the Ether without dragging Odjit or her lapdog Kamenwati with him. They were the Templars’ magnetic north, and without them the Templars stumbled around just as lost as being deprived of Menes and Hatshepsut would do to the Politic. But what kept the Politic above water was that the strength of Ramses, Cleopatra, and Asikri made it possible for them to keep the upper hand in the war. The Templars were so busy infighting that they could not claim such cohesion. Yet they remained enjoined enough to hold steadily against all efforts to bring the Templars completely to heel. Perhaps that was because the Politic had a nonaggression policy. As long as they were not aggressed upon, they did not aggress in return. This was, Menes had often preached, what kept them from becoming the enemy they fought. Kept them from being just another power-hungry faction trying to force others to their will.

It wasn’t a policy Ram had always agreed with. Especially in light of how long the war had continued on. It was, he was beginning to believe, time for them to be more proactive. Especially in light of the information that had come with Tameri’s rebirth; that there were many Templars who wanted to come home, so to speak, to follow Menes’s teachings and philosophies and move free of Odjit’s mongering ways. There were Templars who, as Docia had put it, were no longer willing to drink the Kool-Aid.

“Yes, Cleo, I will leave with all due haste. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to put some clothes on.”

She drew in a little breath of surprise, then looked down at his clothing-bereft body. She laughed then, her
familiar mischievousness climbing into her eyes and voice.

“Are you growing modest in your old age, Ram?”

“Hardly. But I’d rather not be arrested for public indecency.”

Cleo clicked her tongue and waved her hand at the laws of humans as if it were a pesky little fly.

“Honestly. All due respect to progress, and to colder climes, but I miss the days when we could walk in the warmth with li afraid of ag.ttle more than colorful beads to adorn our bodies.”

At Ram’s back, Docia snorted a laugh out of her nose.

Marissa had shouldered a great deal of responsibility in her life, but she had never felt the intensity of it the way she did while driving Jackson to safety. She didn’t like not having a game plan prepared for herself way in advance. Not that she couldn’t think on her feet. Being a psychiatrist required that constantly. But that had taken a considerable amount of training.

So the first thing she started to do was to make up a plan of action. It’s easy, she told herself. Just get him somewhere dark. Away from the sun. Like a vampire. Only, this vampire didn’t burst into ash at the touch of the sun. He merely went stiff and, when she reached out to touch his wrist to seek his pulse, he was ice cold. He had curled slightly toward the door, turned away from her as if to hide his condition from her. Probably because of some instinctive need to conceal his weakness.

“Okay, mister, we have to start with a place,” she said aloud to Sargent. “What about Uncle Bob’s? No, wait, he’s got workmen there while he’s away. Maybe Manon’s?” Manon was her cousin and he had a very remote cabin just a few miles northwest, in Sullivan County. She took a moment to debate whether the patrol car would be able to make it down the rough drive
to the house. It was a good idea to have four-wheel drive when attempting it, especially after snow or rain. It hadn’t snowed since the end of February, so it wasn’t as though she would be trying to drive through snow. It hadn’t rained in the past couple of days either, so the drive wouldn’t be pitted with thick mud.

“Sold! To the shepherd and his master,” she said, satisfied with the plan. She was talking to Sargent because if she didn’t she’d keep looking over at Jackson. There was absolutely nothing peaceful or sleeplike about the way he was just then. He was leaning awkwardly against the door, his skin as pale white as marble even though she knew he was tanned from his time training outdoors with his dog. He lay rigid, no relaxation, as though every muscle in his body was tensed to the breaking point. If he had not had color in his hair and brows, he would have looked like a marble statue. A light, misting steam lifted from him, though it didn’t fog the windows or feel like there was a great amount of heat emanating from him. In fact, when she reached out to touch him he felt so very cold that it was unnerving and alarming to her. She wondered if he could hear or even see. My god how horrifying, to be completely paralyzed and yet able to see anything and everything that was happening to you, with nothing you could do about it. No arguments, no ability to express wishes … no chance to scream or fight to protect yourself.

“It’s okay,” she kept saying on small rapid breaths. “It’s okay. We’ll be in the dark in no time at all and you’ll be just fine. You’ll be normal again.” She couldn’t sound afraid. She couldn’t sound upset or even empathetic for him. Just like she did when dealing with a patient, she tried to project calm, support, and confidence.

When she made the turnoff onto the rugged drive to Manon’s house she felt a small wave of relief wash over
her. After successfully traversing the half-mile drive she pulled up to the small cabin. It was deceptively rough-looking on the outside with its frayed log walls, but she knew it was quite beautiful on the inside.

There was an attached garage at the re supernaturalag.ar of the cabin and she pulled up in front of it. She reassured Sargent she would be right back and ran back around to the front of the house and up the steps. She glanced around before accessing the clever little hidey-hole Manon had built into the wall, a silly thing to do really with the only possible witnesses being the deer … or maybe a bear. She let herself in and raced to the back of the house. She went into the garage and hit the automatic door lift. Sunlight broke into the blackness of the garage, the lifting door creating its own sort of sunrise. She was ducking under the door as soon as it was halfway up and back in the driver’s seat an instant later. In her anxiousness she gave it a little too much gas and ended up jolting them to a stop to keep from hitting the supply cabinets in front of her. She dashed for the door lift once more and hurried to return to Jackson, pulling open the car door just enough to wedge her body in and push him upright, keeping him from tumbling helplessly to the floor.

“Jackson,” she said as soon as pitch-blackness had returned to the garage. “Jackson, we’re here. We’re safe. Can you hear me?”

How long did it take to reverse this crippling condition? She had foolishly thought it would be instantaneous, but five minutes later he still hadn’t moved. What was more, he was only taking a breath once every thirty seconds.

But at least he’s breathing, she told herself.

Leaving a hand on Jackson’s shoulder to make sure he remained upright in his seat, she reached to open the rear door, letting Sargent out. He jumped out with a
very subdued amount of energy and she realized that he must be just as tired as she was. And now that the adrenaline of the past half hour was bleeding out of her, she began to feel that exhaustion. She found herself pushing Jackson’s hair back, suddenly realizing he’d let it grow without his usual fastidiousness to a short nearly military cut.

“Jackson?” she said for about the thirtieth time. She could have closed the door and left him in the dark to come around in his own time, but she didn’t have the heart to leave him alone like that for however long that would be. She was running her fingers through his hair at that point, a slow touch plowing furrows through the soft, silkiness of it.

“Mar-iss-a.” Her name rasped from him in three struggling whispers, and she felt incredible relief blow through her, leaving a sting in her eyes and a lump in her throat. She shored herself up against tears and undue emotionalism.

“Jackson? Are you all right? Tell me what to do for you.”

“Dark,” he said. “Need darkness.”

“It is dark,” she reassured him. “It’s safe.”

“Inside?”

Inside the house, she realized, was what he meant. Crap. She’d forgotten about inside the house. “Are you okay to stay here while I darken the house?”

He nodded a brief, jerky nod, but she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. If there was one thing she’d learned about these alpha-male types, it was that they never admitted to their limitations very easily.

But she had to leave him otherwise they’d be spending the day in the garage. And as nicely kept as it was, she wasn’t willing to do that. She closed the car door again so he wouldn’t fall out, since he didn’t have all his strength back as yet. She then began to hurry through
the house, dropping blinds and pulling curtains. She had never realized just how many windows there were in the small house. Or how sheer some of the curtains were, all for the effect of bringing as much sunlight into the room as possible. Luckily for her the large bank of sliding doors that led to the deck and ran the entire right side of the house were fitted with thick vertical blinds that covered them completely when shut. Even so, there was still a lot of light peeking in this edge or that, so she ran for towels and began to stuff them into the spaces until the entire house was as dark as she could possibly manage. Then she hurried back to the garage. She flipped on the light switch and found Jackson on his feet, gripping the door of the car with one hand and the roof of it with the other. He looked incredibly unsteady and still very pale. He’d broken out in a sweat, his forehead beaded with it.