The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

  ‘Liar!’ Mathu yelled, which frustrated Ishtar no end.

  ‘Hit him with another dose of Viagra, ladies, and dope him up again,’ she ordered her sexy extras. ‘Give me some decent footage to feed his sweetheart, or I’ll toss your sorry arses into the Hell of a Thousand Wrinkles!’

  That threat got the girls moving quick smart.

  Ishtar turned to address her visitor. ‘Ereshkigal, this is a surprise. Are you finally getting over your frigid streak and coming to watch me work?’

  ‘Where are all the men?’ Ereshkigal asked, with some resentment in her voice—obviously she and Ishtar didn’t get along. I wasn’t really sure if any of the Nefilim liked one another—they were too self-serving and emotionless.

  ‘They’re at Montauk,’ Ishtar replied. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘I have had a report of a disturbance down in wash and emboss,’ Ereshkigal stated. Although I had no idea what she meant, Ishtar understood well enough.

  ‘The lab,’ she said, concerned. ‘Kali?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ereshkigal was most unhelpful.

  ‘Then why didn’t you go and look?’ Ishtar sounded exasperated at being expected to do everything herself.

  ‘Because I thought my Lord Erragal would wish to be informed first. But as he’s not here,’ Ereshkigal said cattily, and moved towards the door at a snail’s pace, ‘I’ll go and investigate myself.’

  Ishtar caught her up and had passed her in seconds. ‘Do us both a favour,’ she said, ‘stay here and organise this lot. I’ll go and see what’s happened.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your peep show and I don’t take orders from you!’ Ereshkigal said, following Ishtar to the door. She looked back briefly, perhaps to say goodbye or give me leave to complete my mission.

  Ishtar spotted the glance and stopped in her tracks. She turned back to face Ereshkigal, her hands on her hips. ‘Ha!’ she cried, as if catching her out.

  ‘What?’ Ereshkigal challenged. No doubt her heart was in her throat; mine certainly was.

  ‘There just might be a pervert in you after all,’ Ishtar said with a leer.

  ‘Sex is about as mysterious as your sterility,’ Ereshkigal responded coldly and pushed past Ishtar and out the door.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Ishtar retorted, and her angry footsteps pounded off into the distance.

  The women left in the room burst into tears, all too distraught even to attempt to flee.

  ‘Please, help me,’ Mathu mumbled deliriously, but none of the women dared to release him from his bonds—so I did, to their great shock. When I made clothes appear on their bodies they were doubly stunned, and when I appeared amongst them one of the girls actually fainted.

  ‘Don’t panic, I’m here to get you out,’ I explained.

  I switched off the camera transmission then moved to the bed to see how Mathu was faring. I held his angelic face gently between my hands and his beautiful violet eyes focused on me a moment. ‘Can you walk?’ I asked. When his eyes rolled back in his head I figured the answer was no. Not good, I thought.

  I looked at the women, now cowering in a corner. ‘Do you want to get out of here?’ I asked.

  ‘We dare not,’ one of them ventured.

  ‘Stay and you will surely perish,’ I told them.

  They went into a huddle to discuss the issue and it didn’t take them long to decide to take the risk. One of them began slapping the cheeks of their unconscious companion to wake her.

  ‘But there are guards everywhere,’ the bravest of the girls said. ‘How do you propose to get us out?’

  ‘I have an idea…’ And it was a good one in my opinion. ‘I’m an illusionist,’ I explained, and transformed into a Dracon guard. The women looked scared, but when I turned them into Dracon too, they screamed and ran from each other.

  ‘It’s just an illusion, ladies,’ I stressed, which calmed them enough so they dared to touch themselves and feel their own forms beneath their hands despite the Dracon guise they were wearing.

  Their spokeswoman smiled. ‘Very cool,’ she said. ‘I am Celestia. Who are you? The guardian angel of whores or something?’

  When I considered the reputation that history had fabricated for me during my past incarnation as the Black Madonna, I considered that could well be.

  The women, led by me, dragged Mathu’s dead weight through the palace. I could feel the tension in them every time we passed a group of Dracon guards, but when none of the guards bothered to question us, the women’s confidence grew.

  ‘Hey, Angel,’ Celestia whispered, keeping pace with me, ‘I think it’s working.’

  I had to smile at her nickname for me.

  As we approached the lift that would take us to the lower levels, we encountered a demon patrol. Sensing fear, the evil elementals flew in close to inspect one of the guards holding Mathu. Not surprisingly, their target was the most faint-hearted among our company and I feared she would black out again. She almost whimpered under the pressure of the close scrutiny, but I snapped at the demons with a growl and they hissed at me and moved on.

  ‘That was close,’ Celestia said with a sigh of relief as we reached the lift. But she gasped along with everyone else when the lift doors parted to reveal Ishtar inside.

  ‘Out of my way!’ she demanded. ‘Ill’s bride-to-be has escaped and I must get word to him.’ Then she saw Mathu. ‘Where are you taking my subject?’

  I shoved Ishtar back into the lift and my companions piled in behind me. The goddess had no weapons, no guards, and no true psychic power any more. The only threat she posed to me right now was if she had an opportunity to raise the alarm.

  ‘Are you insane?’ she yelled as the door closed behind us and I hit the button to the lowest level. ‘I’ll have you all drawn and quartered for this,’ she threatened, seeing only our Dracon disguises.

  ‘Your time among the Nefilim is at an end,’ I told her—for I couldn’t allow her to return to their ranks; it wouldn’t take her long to put two and two together and blow Ereshkigal’s cover.

  She realised she wasn’t dealing with a Dracon. ‘Who are you?’

  I pulled out my liquid-light gun and held it to her temple. ‘Your judge and redeemer,’ I said.

  There was genuine fear in her eyes as the lift door opened onto the cavern that led to the lair of Cerberus. ‘Kali?’ she said.

  ‘Guess again.’

  The women dragged Mathu from the lift and I grabbed hold of Ishtar to escort her out as well.

  ‘Why are we down here?’ she asked, playing the vulnerable female in the hope that the male I seemed to be would take pity on her. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  I cracked a glowstick, tossed it to Celestia, and pointed into the dark cavern. ‘Go quietly to the entrance to the labyrinth and wait for me there,’ I told her.

  ‘There’s no way out of here,’ Ishtar warned. ‘You’ll never get away with this. However, I might find it in my heart to help you,’ and her dress conveniently dropped down her arm to reveal her beautiful bare shoulder.

  I assumed my true form. ‘You have been enough help.’

  Ishtar pulled her dress back up, disappointed that I was female, but she smiled just the same. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t the wife of my favourite toy boy,’ she said and folded her arms defiantly.

  I was tempted to fill her full of liquid light and be done with it. However, Levi had warned that if we converted the Nefilim to the light by force, without giving them an opportunity to realise their mistakes, we ran the risk of their souls having to learn the same lessons all over again once they rejoined the ranks of the Anu, which could lead to a repeat of the entire Kali rift disaster. I recalled Ereshkigal’s advice: Empathise.

  ‘I’ve managed to undo the damage you did to Arcturus,’ I advised Ishtar. ‘He remembers nothing of your abuse.’

  ‘My abuse!’ Ishtar laughed. ‘I was the one left bruised by his enthusiasm.’

  Again her words got a rise out of me, and I was forced to restrain my
compulsion to lash out and make her suffer for all the hurt she had caused others. She is controlling you, I warned myself, why are you allowing her to waste your energy on a lie? Arcturus despises her. And she certainly holds no true love for him, as she has no idea what true love is; or does she? My memory of this goddess’s legends reminded me that she was once very much in love.

  ‘What happened to you, Ishtar?’ I asked. ‘Why must you destroy the relationships of others in order to feel good about yourself?’ My heartfelt concern seemed to unnerve her a little. ‘You were once a goddess of beauty,’ I went on. ‘You were happy and in love, don’t you remember?’

  She shook her head adamantly, but she remembered all right.

  Before their Orme addiction, the Nefilim had been mentally advanced spiritual beings who were developing emotional bodies. But with their addiction, their natural descent into physical matter had been rushed and their underdeveloped emotional bodies had perished under the pressure.

  ‘What happened to your love?’ I asked.

  ‘Marduk happened!’ she snapped. ‘He filled Tammuz’s head with all that Kian em-bed-path rubbish!’

  ‘Your love is one of the Anu?’

  ‘He ceased to be my love when he chose the Kian way over me,’ she spat back.

  ‘So you would rather be damned than admit that Tammuz loved you enough to try to save your soul?’

  Ishtar appeared stunned by the question; obviously no one had ever presented the scenario to her in that light before.

  ‘I didn’t realise the long-term effects of Orme when I first started taking it,’ she defended. ‘Tammuz did try to warn me, but I didn’t listen.’ She gasped at the thought that he may have been acting out of love and not selfishness. ‘It was against the will of Ill not to ingest back then,’ she explained. ‘I thought Tammuz was trying to get us expelled from the Pantheon!’

  ‘I understand your reasons, and he will too,’ I said, encouraging her to be brave. ‘The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but you can alter your destiny right now.’

  Ishtar shook her head and grinned. ‘I see what you’re trying to do. But I won’t relinquish my power on a false hope.’

  ‘Is that what you told Tammuz when he told you that he believed your souls could be saved?’ I retorted, and the goddess gasped; clearly I had touched on a memory.

  She dropped to her knees, clutching her hands over her heart as if it pained her so much that she wished she could rip it out. ‘He was all I ever wanted and I drove him away!’ she wailed. ‘I couldn’t conceive…and I wanted his baby so desperately. I didn’t know that my addiction had already ruined me for motherhood…I should have listened to him!’

  I saw the blackened heart centre in her light-body burst open and light come shooting out. She cried out in pain and tears gushed from her eyes. She raised her fingers to investigate the strange wet sensation on her face. ‘Tears?’

  ‘Emotion,’ I concurred. ‘There is no going back for you now, Ishtar; your heart has opened.’

  ‘There is too much horror!’ she cried. ‘My crimes have been too great!’

  The thought of facing her lover after all these aeons spent in darkness was just too overwhelming. Her voice cracked with shame and she collapsed to the floor to weep out her despair.

  ‘I forgive you, Ishtar,’ I told her honestly. I felt my heart burning strong with Blue Flame energy and it poured in a great stream towards her.

  ‘No,’ she begged, humbled by the heightened frequency she was experiencing. ‘Punish me!’ She tore away her beautiful persona to reveal the true monster she had become. ‘Throw me to the demons I have fed! Please! I would rather die than have Tammuz see me like this.’ She bowed low at my feet, overwhelmed by her newly found emotion.

  ‘You have suffered enough,’ I said, and placed a hand on her head in comfort. Then I shot a bullet of liquid light into her body and moved back—her purge was bound to be a messy one.

  ‘Steady on!’ Dexter called out, running down the tunnel towards me. ‘Do you plan on taking the whole of Irkalla back with us?’

  Ereshkigal, wearing her true Anu form, followed Dexter and was stunned to see Ishtar’s horrible physical form convulsing and spewing black muck all over the floor. ‘Oh no,’ she said.

  ‘I had no choice, she would have exposed you,’ I told her apologetically.

  Ereshkigal looked worried. ‘This is inconvenient. Ishtar is everyone’s favourite squeeze…my kin will certainly notice her missing.’

  ‘And Tamar, and Mathu.’ Killian arrived, counting off our rescues on his fingers. ‘And you’re going to cop the blame for it, Ereshkigal, whether it was your fault or not.’ He knew well enough how the Nefilim operated. ‘Perhaps you should also return with us?’

  ‘Then who will guard the porthole,’ she said light-heartedly. ‘Not to worry, I’ll convince them that Ishtar was tricked by Lamhfada, and that he rescued Mathu and Kali. Whenever anything like this happens Lamhfada gets the credit, which is why his legend has grown so great. He’s had nothing to do with half the feats accredited to him.’

  Killian found this amusing. The two of them stood staring at each other for longer than either of them realised. The Anu agent broke the spell. ‘I should really be getting back. I left the porthole open for you.’

  We all thanked Ereshkigal for her help.

  Killian trailed her to the lift. ‘So how long are you planning to stay undercover in Irkalla?’ he asked.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ she replied.

  ‘You never get a weekend off, no down time?’ he joked, sorry that he didn’t have time to get to know her better.

  Ereshkigal shook her head.

  ‘No chance of a dinner date then?’ Killian said, and she laughed at his wit.

  ‘We are soul minds apart, you and I. Perhaps in the next universe?’ She waved as the lift door closed.

  We had a bit of cleaning up to do after our journey to Irkalla. Castor saw our ladies of the night to safety via his station at Land’s End, England. Dexter delivered Ishtar to Lamhfada via the interchange beneath Giza; which left Killian and me watching over our unconscious patients at Polaris’s station in Nova Scotia.

  ‘How are they doing?’ Killian asked when I returned to the conference room, tired of watching them sleep.

  ‘They seem fine,’ I said, collapsing into a chair and resting my upper body on the table. ‘Oh goddess, that feels good. I can hardly wait to get back to 2017 so I can have a bath and recoup.’

  Killian smiled. ‘How long until the others get back, do you think?’

  ‘Hard to say.’ I closed my eyes.

  ‘Hey.’ Killian roused me with a shake on the shoulder. ‘I don’t know about you, but I could really use some fresh air.’

  I found the idea hugely appealing after being in the Underworld so long. ‘What a sterling idea.’

  It was dawn outside. The sun sparkled on the soft blue waters of the bay in the distance and the view through the trees from up high on the side of the island mountain was spectacular and invigorating to the soul.

  ‘I hope she’ll be okay,’ Killian said, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

  He didn’t have to specify who he meant. ‘Ereshkigal has been a player in this war for longer than you and I put together,’ I said. ‘She knows how to take care of herself.’

  ‘As do you, Meridan—you were amazing in the field today.’

  This was the first time Killian had used my staff name; he’d always called me Mia up to now. I guessed it was his way of removing any possibility of intimacy from our relationship, and I appreciated it.

  ‘You did pretty well yourself,’ I replied.

  Killian scoffed. ‘I didn’t do anything! It was predicted that some day I’d be of aid to you, but I don’t think today was it. At least, I hope it wasn’t.’ He gave a half-laugh, disappointed. ‘I’ve survived so much, I’d like to think it was for a valid reason. Still, I learned a lot on our journey.’ He turned to look me in the eye at last. ‘Thank y
ou for taking me with you, and trusting me, and mothering me for the past twenty years.’

  This was sounding suspiciously like a goodbye.

  ‘I have some really firm ideas now about what needs to be done,’ he went on, looking back out to sea.

  Now I was getting really concerned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m going to take your advice, Meridan: don’t rebel, excel! And I’ve bought myself an additional fourteen years to do it.’

  I took his arm. ‘You must come back to the future with us.’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Yes,’ I insisted. ‘This isn’t your proper time zone, Killian. Leaving you here could cause all kinds of disasters!’

  ‘Thanks so very much for the vote of confidence,’ he jested, ‘but the Lord of the Earth wills it.’

  ‘The Sanat Kumara?’ I didn’t wait for his answer; it didn’t matter. What mattered was talking him out of doing something potentially disastrous. ‘Killian, listen—’

  ‘No, Meridan, it is you who must listen. I have something of a mystery to share with you before I go.’

  Trying to dissuade him was like ramming my head against a brick wall, so I allowed him to sit me down and prepared to listen to what he had to tell me.

  ‘It concerns the Ring of Power,’ he began.

  ‘You told me you’d given it to Lamhfada for safekeeping,’ I said. ‘That’s what I asked you to do.’

  ‘Well, that’s the mystery,’ he said. ‘It turns out that I never had it to give him in the first place. The ring I gave Lamhfada was nothing but a small strip of material.’ He pulled the fabric out from behind his wristwatch and placed it against the leg of the Amenti staff suit he was wearing. ‘An exact match, wouldn’t you say?’ He handed the sliver of material to me.

  ‘So you don’t know where the true ring is?’ I asked in a panic.

  ‘No, but one of your staff members surely does.’

  ‘Damn it! Every time I think that ring is secure, it disappears again!’ I stood up to take a few deep breaths and calm myself.