Making Midlife Madness: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Forty Is Fabulous Book 2)

by Heloise Hull

  The images began to dissolve. “What’s happening?” I asked frantically.

  “Feed it again. It requires more blood,” Hypatia suggested.

  Coronis and I lunged to prick ourselves, but Coronis beat me to it. Her blood dribbled to the floor, but nothing happened. She turned to me with questions dotting her face. Slowly, I pricked myself, more droplets wetting the ground like a macabre abstract painting. Instantly, the images reformed.

  “It’s only your blood,” Hypatia noted, studying me closely.

  My mouth was too dry to answer.

  All around, the landscape turned bleak. We stared at a large battlefield filled with melted metal and charred bones. Disease ravished the living. A Greek temple lay in ruins, black smoke spiraling from the center and blotting out the sun, giving the field a hazy red glow. Elsewhere I saw pyramids and ziggurats, pagodas and temples I had no names for.

  A bearded mountain of a man wearing a diamond chest plate and helmet with glass greaves roared as a scythe swiped at his exposed cheek. The scythe-swinging warrior wore armor decorated with yellow and black stripes, and golden ichor trickled down his face like warmed honey.

  “Oh my God, that’s Mak!”

  “He battled Ares,” Coronis said. “I remember. I’d forgotten, but I remember.”

  “You were there?”

  She nodded. “I told you in the basilica that first day that crow shifters were awarded healing powers as an incentive to side with the gods. Apollo knew his son had given them to me, but he refused to look me in the eye, still ashamed of scorching me. Instead of fighting, I preferred to fly around healing our warriors.”

  “And the other crow shifters?”

  “I don’t know if there are others.”

  Gray smoke washed over the images, transforming them from desolation to emptiness.

  “What year was this? Rosemary said it was during the Dark Ages, and that it lasted two hundred years.”

  “I can’t remember exactly,” Coronis said, squinting. “But I know it was no coincidence that the Dark Ages arrived simultaneously in MILF history.”

  “So how did Thoth end up on Aradia?”

  “He either escaped the battlefield before the pillars fell or he had help,” Coronis tapped her chin. “I don’t know which is more frightening.”

  “I think we all have more questions than answers at this point,” I said. “Like, why does only my blood activate this room?”

  “Do you think the room required god magic to activate it?” Coronis asked.

  “Why wouldn’t yours do the trick, then? We both were made human by gods.”

  “Yes, but I’ve never exhibited god magic like you,” she countered. “And you have this connection with the moon as well as your nurturing mother magic.”

  “Maybe the moon connection is from being the She-Wolf. You know, moons and wolves and all that,” I theorized.

  “And the god?”

  “Maybe it was a moon god!”

  As Coronis and I celebrated our brilliance, Hypatia was thinking out loud. “The only male moon god I can think of is the Egyptian Khonsu and Mesopotamian Nanna.” It was nice to have a walking encyclopedia as a new friend. “Nanna was deeply in love with his wife, but Khonsu…”

  “Was an ass?” I guessed.

  “He liked to make wagers,” Hypatia allowed. “He’d give you more time by holding the moon’s progression back, but always at a steep price. Having both mother magic and access to godly moon magic, even infrequently, makes you formidable, indeed.”

  “So you’re the She-Wolf who has all this power from being a mother but also a touch of god magic from the moon god cursing you?” Coronis mused.

  “That would be cool, except for one problem,” I said. They both looked at me, confused. “It also makes me dangerous, which makes the Council scared of me.”

  Hypatia floated over the ground, hovering above our blood art. “You are right. You’ll always be a danger to them. Something unknown. I know first-hand how perilous this sort of life is.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I commented. “My magic is half-learned. Like an ancient ritual that was shrouded in mist and forgotten, save for a few old memories.”

  “I had no magic, only my intelligence. I threatened men by my very existence at this library.”

  “What happened?” I asked, a dull sort of foreboding suffusing me.

  “I was dragged from my carriage, taken to a church, beaten, flayed, my limbs cut off, and my body burned.”

  I shuddered. “That is horrific!”

  “I lost consciousness before the end.”

  I straightened up, my hair floating in a sheet behind me, currents of power crackling across it. “Don’t you want revenge? Don’t you want to go rip the skin off of those ghosts and banish them to some deep part of the plane? Torture them like they tortured you?”

  “No. I have made my peace,” Hypatia said.

  “You’re a lot more compassionate than me.”

  Coronis grimaced. “Your murder effectively ended the Classical period. All intellectual life in Alexandria ceased after you died. You really were the lynchpin. The empire was shocked that a philosopher was killed, as they were seen to be untouchable.”

  “Whoa.” I took a step back. “They should have been. The empire should have been outraged and brought justice to your murderers.”

  Hypatia shrugged one elegant, bared shoulder. “Even centuries after my death, small-minded men were still scared of me. They claimed I was nothing more than a sorceress. That I dabbled in dark arts instead of learned subjects.”

  “That rings true. Men claimed that about Catherine de’ Medici, too.”

  “And many other women besides. It’s a convenient fallback where intelligent women are concerned.”

  “Today, they just call women they fear bitches.”

  Coronis was quiet, like she was hedging on a question. Hypatia turned her large eyes on her, until Coronis swallowed loudly and asked, “Did you really throw your menstrual rags at a man who kept harassing you?”

  For the first time, Hypatia allowed herself a small smile. “That story is true. I believe I told him, ‘This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake.’ He slunk away.”

  “You are officially the most badass woman I know,” I decided.

  Hypatia took her praise with ease. “Now, what history were you looking for?”

  “I wanted to know about the end of the Archon Wars and specifically, the formation of the Council of Beings. I guess if you have anything on the Eye of Ra and Khonsu, that would help in the curse department. Also, I noticed most ghosts weren’t surprised by corporeal beings. How often do supernatural creatures come to the Library?”

  “Not often,” Hypatia allowed. “Although, when they do come, they seek knowledge just as you do.”

  Coronis and I exchanged a look. It had to be Council members. They were the only ones besides Nonna with the power to astral project. Somehow, they gave this ability to their mercenaries like Manu and Aurick so they could transport their prisoners.

  I let out a squeak.

  “What?” Coronis asked at once.

  “I just had a terrible premonition. I think I know what’s under the Arch.”

  “There’s something under the Arch?” she asked.

  “Yes. I heard it in the bathroom. It was trapped under an oubliette in a stall. Quite frankly, it scared me. There was this hunger in its voice…” I broke off in a shiver.

  Coronis’s voice was hushed. “What are you saying, Ava?”

  “What if the Council is keeping an archon prisoner? Thoth escaped somehow. What if an archon did as well? What if they’re siphoning its powers for themselves and that’s how they are able to astral project?” I pictured the bone daggers. Somehow, they used an archon’s power in those bone daggers. I was sure of it.

  Before Coronis could respond, Nonna’s translucent face flickered in and out on the crystal wall. “Mamma! What are
you doing way down here? Get back to Aradia as fast as you can, we’re under attack!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Memphis, Tennessee.

  August, 1958.

  Gladys Presley.

  I woke up panting. Something felt wrong. It hurt to breathe.

  They called me paranoid and unstable. They worried about my health. Of course I was paranoid. Elvis was all I had. My darling son. His twin died at birth, and I failed to have any more. He almost died in a tornado as a baby. Destruction was around every corner. But this was not paranoia. This was death.

  The train Elvis arranged to transport me to a doctor in Memphis clacked loudly on the rails. Its swaying had already put my husband Vernon to sleep. I leaned my head on the cool of the window and watched the South fly by in vibrant greens, but underneath, brown desiccation from the August sun was already cutting through the life. I watched and I prayed. Please, God, let Elvis survive the war.

  As much as I hated to see him shipped out, it had quelled the incessant negative press. That was all he received. Their words weighed on me like the stone they used to press witches to death in Salem. I felt it on my chest, day after day. When they were not accusing him of being the source of all juvenile delinquency, they claimed he was nothing more than a hillbilly singer. As if they could have it both ways. Which was it? Was he the source of all evil or inconsequential?

  One journalist—and I say that with the utmost disdain—accused him of smoking marijuana and even shooting me once! Elvis barely smoked or drank. He was a good boy, always polite to his elders and obsessed with giving back to the less fortunate. There had never been a more devoted son than my Elvis. I was his best girl and he told me constantly how he lived his life for me only.

  But sometimes I wondered…

  How did we get here from Mississippi? How did he raise an empire of music? It seemed like something out of a dream. I used to sing to him every night in bed. Now with him gone, I took solace in drinking. I cared little for myself. I only wanted Elvis to be happy.

  I feared this was it. My dying wish was to see my beautiful baby, my sweet Elvis, one last time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Elvis? Really?” I groaned. More than anything, I needed to find a way to dampen these past lives. How many more could I possibly have? That one was from the twentieth century.

  Coronis rolled me to my feet and flew us out of the cave and down the coast. We were both tense and quiet in our thoughts. After the nothingness of the Library, the smell of seaweed and rotting fish assailed our senses.

  To say I felt shaken after the crystal room was like saying Pompeii got a little warm one day. The gods created the seven archons. All of them were trapped together in the Axis Mundi, except for one. Nothing could convince me otherwise. That thing under the Arch was an archon. And it wanted its freedom. Worse, only I could hear it, and only my blood activated the crystal room. My head spun trying to fit the pieces together.

  Nonna told us to meet her at Villa Venus. Thessaly had felt another demon, or perhaps a monster, approaching from the water—and fast. I told Nonna to make the siren stay near my boys, just in case.

  When we touched down, Nonna, Aurick, and Tiberius were there, spread out in a semi-circle around the yard.

  Aradia was quiet, except for a soft breeze rustling the autumn branches, and the weight of the moment settled over the island like an iron lid on a pot. Every once in a while, someone shifted their weight and became the loudest thing for miles.

  The sound of ripping tree bark was unmistakable. Something was sharpening its claws. Something big. Coronis flew up on currents and soared over the edge of the cliff, keeping height between her and whatever was below. She circled back, transforming into a woman at a swooping run. “It’s a sphinx!” she stuttered out, just as the creature came over the ridge.

  Enormous golden paws with nails whittled to deadly points appeared first. A woman’s head with kohl-rimmed, green, lioness eyes, and long, stringy hair followed. Jagged teeth protruded from her mouth.

  I could see why she terrified the Egyptians and Greeks. My stomach swooped in panic, and I had the distinct urge to pee. The sphinx took one look at me and snapped her jaws, which were approximately the size of a cockpit. “I only want her. The rest of you are free to live.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Coronis yelled defiantly.

  The sphinx turned her luminous eyes on her. “Which part? Me taking the wolf or you getting to live?”

  “Don’t play riddles with me, sphinx. I am not a MILF.”

  “I haven’t eaten a supernatural or rent magical flesh from bones in a long time,” she purred. “I’m so hoping you’ll fight first.”

  Aurick kept his eyes on the creature, but he spoke to me. “I assume there’s no chance you’ll listen to reason and go in the house while we handle this.”

  “None at all.”

  “Very well. Will you at least promise to stay behind me?”

  “I would, but I’d hate to break my word.”

  “Fine.”

  “Great,” I said brightly. “What’s the plan?”

  “Attack, I’d say.”

  With a roar, Aurick threw his glass globules, letting them twist and form into a super conductor of molten metal. Immediately, the sphinx batted it away like a ball of yarn, and the molten glass splattered me as it hit the earth and shattered.

  I let out a yelp of pain. Coronis rushed over, a cornflower blue color working its way up her arms as she covered my burn. Her touch cooled it to a dull ache.

  “Ava!” Aurick yelled.

  “I’m okay,” I promised. I mean, it was a lie, but there was no way I was leaving.

  The look on Aurick’s face told me he wanted to go caveman and tie me to a chair to keep me safe, but that he was resisting—with difficulty.

  He strode two steps in front of me, blocking my body with his own. “I’ve faced creatures more ancient and powerful than you, and I am still here. What reward for Ava is worth death?”

  The sphinx stretched her thin lips wide. “Many things. Death is small-minded, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Perhaps. How grand could a reward truly be without risk? No, you’re right. You will certainly earn this death.”

  The sphinx hissed like a cat, her putrid breath wafting over the yard.

  “Still, how many sphinxes are left in the world?” Coronis asked. “You’re rather on the endangered list, aren’t you?” She tutted. “Such a shame.”

  All around me, my new family came to my defense. Tiberius chitted from the top of a walnut tree, angrily throwing nuts, while Nonna flung flour at the creature and murmured under her breath. Coronis put up a brave front, but we all knew she was a healer at heart. I loved them, but warriors they were not.

  Fur and fangs cut off the conversation as the sphinx attacked. I shot forth feelings of protection, which wrapped around us like a thick blanket. It slowed the sphinx, and I tried reaching out to feel her life force, wondering what I could do with that, but my own life force couldn’t sustain the effort. I was fading fast. I still felt tired and weak from all of the astral jumps and from continually feeding the crystal room my own blood.

  Aurick pointed to a spot behind the flour Nonna was flinging like snow. “Stay back. Nonna’s wards will offer some protection.”

  Then he surged forward, his fashionable waistcoat flapping in the breeze. From somewhere, he pulled out twin daggers with intricate etchings on the blade and executed a series of maneuvers my brain could barely process.

  Was Aurick a… warrior?

  The sphinx immediately went on the offensive, lunging forward with huge swipes of her paws. Faster than I could’ve imagined, Auric parried each one, like an Olympic fencer. He ducked and bobbed, expertly keeping just out of reach.

  The sphinx roared, and swung her hips, her tail becoming a deadly weapon. I screamed and Aurick paused, turning slightly to make sure I was okay. The sphinx had no such compunction. Her tail caught the side of Aur
ick’s head with a sinister thump. The force of the blow threw him off his feet, and he landed on his back, blood oozing from a gash under his hair. Had he not been a mummy, he would’ve been dead. Again.

  I shook off Coronis and raced toward him, but before I could get more than two steps, Aurick ninja-jumped to his feet, crouched and ready. “Stay back, Ava,” he yelled, spitting out a glob of blood.

  The sphinx laughed. “You would die for this woman? Reckless, isn’t she?”

  Aurick twirled his dual daggers, and they glinted in the light, practically mesmerizing the sphinx. I knew he relied on his grave goods and his wits to fight, but I had to admit it was pretty hot to watch him suddenly go all Chris Hemsworth.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” he taunted. “If you sit and stay like a good girl, I’ll give you some catnip.”

  The sphinx’s outraged roar rattled the trees and shook bird nests to the ground. “I will feast on your magic for days,” she growled.

  Aurick grinned. “Good luck, you mangy old stray.” With a feint to the left, he jumped right and springboarded off of a tree trunk. He came down heavily on the sphinx’s massive mane of hair, his gritted teeth visible as he fought through the pain.

  The sphinx's yowl was simultaneously human and so cat-like that it sent shivers down my spine. Tentatively, I reached out with my senses to feel if I could summon more mother magic and trap her, but only a pervading sense of weakness met my probes.

  “Coronis, how quickly can you heal Aurick if I distract the sphinx?” I asked anyway, picturing myself running in a weird circle to make her chase her tail.

  “I don’t know,” she began before pausing. “Look!”

  The sphinx’s front legs went down first, her face in shock. Aurick clung to her back like a rodeo cowboy, his twin daggers embedded in the space between her lion and human neck. For a moment, I winced and looked away. Besides a few Missouri mosquitos, I’d never seen anything die in front of me before. Certainly nothing as ancient or majestic as a sphinx.