The Bonds of Blood (35 page)

“Think of something else,” Grace
hissed, partially standing in alarm.

“Like what?” Joya said panicked,
gripping the edge of the table in a white knuckled grip. “What is
happening?”

“It is him …” Jovian said
despondently.

“He is trying to get in at us. Think of
something else, something to confuse him. Close your mind.” The old
lady looked from the small window to the door. “That is what they
wanted her for …”

“I don’t understand,” Angelica queried.
“What do you mean close our minds, think of something
else?”

“A brick wall, swirling mist, running
water; any of it; just start concentrating on it now, and don’t let
your attentions waver.”

“How will that stop him?” Maeven
asked.

“It will help because if your mind is
closed to his advances; he cannot get in.”

If concentrating on a brick wall was
supposed to halt the advances of Beckindal, Angelica soon wondered
what the full strength of his mind was. Time and again it seemed
that he was able to intrude on her, sending her mind spinning off
in another direction. Quick looks around the table told her that
all the others were having the same problem and those same worries
as they glanced around. Even Grace seemed a little staggered, and
Angelica was aware that this was the first time she had seen the
old lady shaken over anything.

With one last intense battering that
nearly sent Joya out of her chair and Angelica to the floor, the
mental attack abruptly ended.

“What happened?” Jovian asked
breathlessly looking around. Like Grace, his look informed them all
that he feared the attack was not over.

“How can he reach us in here? Aren’t
the walls blessed?” Joya asked.

“Hush, this is not the time for
questions,” Grace said in a low whisper. “Here, grasp hands and
concentrate on something in uniformity. If the power of our single
minds cannot thwart his attack, then the power of a group mind
might accomplish what we vainly try.”

“But what are we going to look at?”
Angelica asked as she wiped her sweating palms on her habit before
taking the hands of Maeven and Jovian whom she sat
between.

Grace cast a look around the room as
she took Jovian and Joya’s hands in her own. Finally her eyes
rested on the center of the table, and she nodded with her
head.

“That large rivet spanning the length
of the table. Concentrate on that, all of you. We need to be
thinking of the same thing so that our minds form as one to block
out his advances.” She closed her eyes and took a few steady
breaths before opening them again to look at the table. Grace
nodded to them saying without words that they should all do as she
just did.

Angelica closed her eyes and took a few
eager breaths, willing herself to relax. In the present
circumstance her attempts were futile.

“Maeven, pray for us if you will,”
Grace said, bringing them all back to themselves. One by one each
pair of eyes fell on the furrow.

“Holy Mother of the Ever After, wrap us
in your silver light …”

Angelica was aware of a sudden heat
rushing through her from Maeven’s hands. The sensation drifted
through her body in a gentle caress that filled her with courage
and love. Slowly the heat left her body and flowed into
Jovian’s.

“Keep us safe during this plight,
remove this threat from our sight.”

A shimmer could be felt rippling
through the room, and this time it was not a foreboding feeling
like it had been before when the verax-acis had attacked them, but
instead a calming serene feeling of protection and
power.

Angelica took a deep breath of the
energy and felt it wash through her, in through every opening.
Steadily it drifted through her, pumping in time with her heart,
throbbing and swelling in her veins, feeling for all the world like
her heart was beating so powerfully that it would burst.

The blood rushed like a torrent through
her ears, blocking out the drone of Maeven’s prayer, yet somehow
she could feel his words in her very core, sliding through her
being like raw emotion instead of words. She understood that
emotion better than she could have understood the words he was
using to bring it about, yet she could not exactly describe what
the feeling was that was taking her over.

Angelica thought, if she had to name
it, she would have called the emotion a feeling a being safe,
loved, protected. She knew within that interim that no matter what
happened, whether they triumph or died in the process of blocking
out this foe, it was all as it was meant to be and in that being
so, it was perfect.

In that instant Angelica understood two
things. No matter how much Maeven might say he didn’t have any
wyrd, he had an extreme power that none of them could touch. And
she finally realized what Bishop Madalain meant when she said, “As
the Goddess wills, so shall it be.”

Nothing happened without reason,
nothing happened without cause. And most of all, nothing happened
without the Goddess desiring it to be so.

Angelica focused all her will on the
furrow as she felt the power moving her. So smooth was the rivet
from age that it appeared to have been fashioned with the table, as
if the same hands that crafted the thick oak into this large round
table had purposefully created that crack, and then sanded it down
so that it would be as smooth as the rest of the surface. It ran
deep, wide, and along the whole length of the table. Angelica was
sure that she could have easily fit her finger down inside the
crack to the first knuckle.

And then, as she was focusing on the
table, the next attack came.

Even through the protections that
Maeven had put in place, the assault was enough to make them all
sway with the impact. Hands tightened in hands. Maeven’s reassuring
grip became strong in Angelica’s hand, and hers in turn gripped
Jovian’s lax hands in a tight fist. There was a steady, rapid sound
and Angelica realized it was Maeven praying, though through the din
of energy flowing through her she could not make out his words,
only that he was speaking.

The attack came several more times,
each time battering harder and harder on the resistance of her
mind. So intent was she on the crack in the table that Angelica’s
brow was starting to bead with sweat at the effort of concentrating
while withstanding the mental attack.

She wasn’t sure how much more Jovian
would be able to take …

Smooth, wide, deep,
Angelica thought louder and louder until she was
mentally screaming it at the walls of the room. Each mantra was
punctuated with a mind shifting attack. Each time she felt as
though her resistance would fail, and she would be the captive of
the deadly creature outside the temple.

Tears of effort came to her eyes, and
the last dredges of her sanity clung to the furrow.

Waving hay in the breeze, the smell of
lilacs in the wind, their plantation home glowing softly in the
pink light of evening.

NO!
she yelled as her mind was being taken over with false images,
thoughts, and ideas that were not her own.

Sweat poured down her face as she
fought desperately to bring her attention back to the table.
Jovian’s head sank lower and lower, and his grip loosened in
Angelica’s hand. In response, she gripped his tighter. She wasn’t
sure if her working harder on concentrating and holding his hand
would make up for his weakening mind, but she tried all the
same.

Hours it seemed to go on, and Angelica
wondered where the verax-acis was getting all of his strength. She
was glad that she was not faced with him one on one because she
knew that her strength would not nearly match his.

Suddenly, with a resounding, deafening
pop, the ancient table split in two straight down the furrow. As if
in slow motion the table swayed and then toppled in on itself to
lay in two separate pieces on the floor before them.

The mental attack of the verax-acis
suddenly stopped …

Unbeknownst to the group gathered in
the room above, hands joined, there was another reason there was
such intense, Goddess-energy flowing through the temple. It was not
the power of the votary-to-be with them, though his prayers played
no small part. No, it was due to the man and woman bowed low to the
ground before the altar in the secluded gardens of the
temple.

Incense of the holy red copal burned in
a small, pewter vessel on the ivory altar adorned with flowers and
lit candles. Behind the altar stood a life-size figure of the
Mother Goddess exactly as she was depicted in the entrance of the
temple; power oozed from the lifeless statue to wash over those
gathered and back through the temple.

Bishop Madalain watched, hands clasped
before her, head bowed reverently as the man and woman, robed in
azure satin, bent low from the waist to press their foreheads to
the ground, their arms splayed open in supplication, only to rise
moments later in a kneeling position, hands clasped in their
laps.

Their faces were veiled, as had been
the case since their arriving here at the Temple of Badock, and it
had been so long since Madalain had seen their faces in any other
way than through the gauze veils that she barely remembered what
they looked like.

Slight whispers escaped their lips as
they went through the routine of bowing and rising.

This ritual normally took a day or more
to work … Bishop Madalain hoped the Mother Goddess realized they
did not have that long. Maybe the prayers she was sending up right
now and the power of the Summoning would be enough to stall the
verax-acis, but what they really needed was the Holy Possession to
happen, and happen fast.

Come on,
Madalain thought in desperation; only extreme
willpower prevented her from tapping her foot
impatiently.

Suddenly there was a loud pop from
somewhere, and a raucous clatter. She paused in her praying and
looked around. The man and woman bowing at the altar did not even
flinch.

“What happened?” Angelica asked,
rapidly withdrawing her hands from the circle to stand, moving
quickly to place her back against the wall as if the table might,
at any moment, stand and attack them.

“The table split,” Grace
said.

“I know,” Angelica fired
back.

“I do not know what happened,” Grace
said looking at the mess of platters, plates, cups, and other
leftover items from their feast dumped unceremoniously on the
floor. Joya had, of course, been fast enough to remove her book
from the table before it had caved in on itself.

“Is it over?” Jovian asked as he sank
down on the bed. The look on his face was similar to that before
the feast; he looked nearly dead with lack of energy. “I need to
sleep,” he confirmed.

Grace nodded. “Right. Maeven should
stay here with you and keep vigil in case it happens again. If
something does occur he will be able to pray for you, and hopefully
keep the dalua at bay.” Even as she said it she knew that it would
be nearly impossible for Maeven to do such a thing. All of them
combined were nearly no challenge for Beckindal.

“Where is that energy coming from?”
Joya asked. It was the same energy Angelica had felt coming from
Maeven, only now it permeated the entire room.