I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) (20 page)

A man like that would’ve followed his
training and copied
exactly
what he saw in that lake. The
reflection
.

Dora and I had the stones in the flipped,
mirror-image of the proper pattern.

Mitchel hit the barrier again. This time, he
used his tiger fangs to bite into the wall of green fire. Flames
lit up his skull, turning his visage into a ghastly rainbow of
colors, a cartoon character on a rotoscoped acid trip.

He continued to bite down. Began to peel the
wall back, like a dog tearing a tough piece of hide off of a
particularly stubborn carcass. Dora stumbled backwards again. This
time, she went to her knees before slowly getting back up. Sweat
poured from her brow as she raised her hands, magical energy
flowing from her palms, trying desperately to hold Mitchel
back.

I couldn’t just sit and watch this
anymore.

One last look at the parchment. I ran out
across the plateau. Wind lashed at me, tearing at my throat. Gusts
of rain, like needles against my skin. I ignored it all as I kicked
at the first little magic stone. Nudged it roughly, into the right
order. Then the next. And the next.

The lights looked like they got a little
brighter. I wasn’t sure.

Now for the other side. A
ka-WHAM
of
lightning as I dashed for the remaining stones. One of the pine
trees at the edge of the clearing shattered. Splinters rained down
around me.

Droplets of sticky sap against my cheek. The
awful, antiseptic smell of roasted pine cleaner jammed up my nose,
down my throat.

I skidded, fell to my knees. Felt the rough
ground shred the knees of my jeans, tear the flesh of my palms.

A scream from Dora. She fell to her knees.
Face pale, arms still outstretched, holding her magical-barrier up
as best she could. Mitchel tore chunks out of it now. He pushed his
head through, snarling and snapping. In his beast form, he finally
saw me. Growled at me. I didn’t flinch away.

Instead, I crawled the last few feet to the
final stone. Touched it. Felt it warm under my fingers, like a
freshly printed roll of film. I gave it a nudge, and the magical
pattern fell into place with a high-pitched
SNAP!
that
rattled in my ears.

Dora got up. Color returned to her face.
Mitchel roared in frustration as the barrier blazed anew. The
stones all around the plateau erupted in light, casting brilliant
plumes of red and white flame into the dark sky. The plumes
crossed, forming an arc of fire that burned without heat, an aurora
borealis brought down to earth, a lake of lava pumped into the
backyard swimming pool, hissing and popping and entrancingly
beautiful.

“Now is the time!” Dora shouted, over
Mitchel’s animal keening. “Cassandra, do you wish to maintain your
bond to the third Horseman?”

My voice didn’t waver. “Hell, no!”

“Then deny him, three times!”

I swallowed, squared my shoulders, and looked
Mitchel in the eye.

“I deny you.”

He roared, and the very tree branches around
us shook.

“
I deny you!
”

Mitchel shifted again. This time, into his
human form. The form that I’d first seen and fell for. His white
ribbed Princeton sweater, his perfect male form. And his eyes were
liquid, pleading.

“Cassie, please! I fell in love with you.
Surely that means something? Surely you could come to love me?”

Nuh-uh.

I screamed my final words of the ritual at
the apparition before me.

“
I! DENY! YOU!
”

Mitchel didn’t scream, didn’t beg, didn’t
plead anymore.

He simply stared, sadly, and his eyes filled
with tears.

A final rumble of thunder, and the storm
around us stilled. The clouds stopped moving in their Wrath-of-God
nightmare swirl. The wind died down, and one by one, the radiance
from each omphalos stone winked out.

The clouds did a fade-dissolve, and soon the
clearing was bathed in the clear, milky color of moonlight.

Mitchel shifted back into his bear-tiger
body.

He raised his blunt, furry muzzle to the moon
and let out a mournful howl that rang out against the heavens.

And with that last note of despair, he turned
back to the tree line.

Silently, he loped off into the darkness of
the night.

As soon as my husband – my
ex
-husband,
that is – vanished into the trees, I felt my knees buckle. A jolt
of pain as I all but collapsed to the ground. I felt like I’d just
run the New York City Marathon.

Hell, I felt like each and every friggin’
person jogging in that damned marathon had just run over
me
.

I felt drained. I felt weak. I
felt…relieved.

I stared at the bright ivory coin of the moon
as it rose over the treetops, lost and entranced by it until I felt
a warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up at Dora’s kind face. She
helped me to my feet.

“Well, now,” she said, “that wasn’t so bad,
was it?”

I snorted. “You’re kidding me, right?”

She nodded, and a twinkle of mischief danced
in her eyes.

“As a matter of fact, I am.” She guided me
back over to one of the tables outside her cabin. We sat down next
to each other on one of the padded wooden benches.

Dora
tsked
as she looked at my torn
jeans, the scrapes on my hands and knees.

“I’ll have to put something on those scrapes
for you,” she said. “We don’t want them getting infected.”

“Sure, perhaps you have some other wonder
herb to heal scrapes and cuts?”

She gave me a wry look. “Actually, I was
thinking of bandages and peroxide.”

“I appreciate it,” I said, and then, seeing
no other way to bring the subject up, I decided to blurt it out.
“Dora, I need to know something. You’re the…mother of the Four
Horsemen?”

“Only in the metaphorical sense.” Dora looked
off into the distance. And then a lot further than that. “I was a
foolish young girl, a long, long time ago.”

I thought of Circe and the Sphinx then. How
they referred to Dora as ‘one of the oldest’ among them.

“Do you mind if I ask how long ago?”

“Back when the only structures the Egyptians
built were out of straw and mud,” she said softly. “Back when men
were just learning how to put down their history, by pressing the
tips of reeds into little clay tablets.”

I stared at her. Like I said, she
still
looked young.

“I was a maid at the most sacred temple in
the land,” she continued, “at a place which would someday be known
as the Oracle of Delphi. I was given charge of an alabaster chest
that the Oracle said contained four great evil spirits. But like I
said, I was young, foolish. I was curious. Too curious. And late
one night, when the temple guards and priestesses had gone to the
spring festival to drink the sacred wines of the Peloponnese, I
opened the chest.”

I sat up as my mind finally made the
connections.

“Dora…Pahnn,” I said slowly. Just like with
Tomasara’s parchment, I flipped the portions of her name around in
my mind. I let out a breath in wonder. “
Pandora?
That was
your
legend, the one where you opened the box?”

“Indeed. And ever since that ancient time,
I’ve had to live close to where the brothers choose to settle. To
keep an eye on them. To make sure they don’t run any more wild than
they do.”

This was all too much for me. “I…I guess that
I don’t know what to say.”

“Say that you’ll stay for some more tea with
me,” Dora replied simply. “It’s been a long, long while since I’ve
had company I can really talk with.”

I blinked. “I’d love to.”

Unbelievable. As if in a daze, I joined
Pandora, the Honest-to-God real life Pandora of Greek myth, for tea
at her cabin.

I grinned at the thought, and it was the
first real smile I’d had on my face in what felt like forever.

…
and let’s have one more take
of the final scene.

Pan to a shot of Cassandra Van Deene.
Miss
Cassandra Van Deene, that is. Medium-length shot, then
dolly in for her close-up.

She closes her eyes for a moment, inhaling
the night air, as if she is smelling that most elusive of scents:
freedom
.

Keep on the close-up as her eyes open.

Let the audience watch as Cassandra gazes off
into the distance, her face aglow for the first time with
excitement.

At what the future may hold for her, now that
evil has been banished from her life.

Now that she is her own woman once again.

Yes, I know this all sounds corny, therapy
buddy.

We’ve all seen endings like this at the
movies.

That doesn’t make it a
bad
ending,
though.

Not in the least.

Fade to black.

Michael Angel's worlds of fantasy and science
fiction range from the unicorn-ruled realm of the Morning Land to
the gritty 'Fringe Space' of the western Galactic Frontier. He's
the author of the bestselling
Centaur of the Crime
, where
C.S. Lewis meets CSI. His many books populate shelves in languages
from Russian to Portuguese.

He currently resides in Southern California.
Alas, despite keeping a keen eye out for griffins, centaurs, or
galactic marshals, none have yet put in an appearance on Hollywood
Boulevard.

Find out more about his latest works at:

www.MichaelAngelWriter.com

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Very Truly Yours,

Michael Angel