The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

‘Whatever has become of the world is of no consequence if we can get back to the past and change it,’ Polaris added.

  I was quick to second his proposal. ‘You can occupy each instance of time only once, but any time missed is—’

  ‘—open as a destination,’ the rest of my teammates chorused, and I smiled. It seemed we’d all got the same message from the Elohim.

  ‘But how to get back, that’s the question,’ Dexter mused.

  I suggested the obvious. ‘The Klieo?’

  ‘Lost,’ Polaris said, looking gutted. ‘In the ion fire blaze.’

  ‘Montauk got us in,’ Levi suggested. ‘Montauk could get us out.’

  Ereshkigal put a damper on that idea. ‘They destroyed Montauk precisely to ensure that couldn’t happen.’

  ‘There is only one way left to us,’ Denera concluded, having already assessed all the possibilities. ‘The Rod and the Ring of Power.’

  ‘But since the grid was cut off from the Sphere of the Blue Flame, both tools have been rendered useless,’ Ereshkigal stated.

  All eyes looked my way. ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You are the living channel of Blue Flame energy,’ Denera reminded me, ‘and that doesn’t change in the future, in outer space, inner space, nor even in Irkalla.’

  It was true, my powers had not been hindered in Irkalla during my last visit.

  ‘That would also mean I can power up the porthole in Dexter’s station,’ I said.

  Denera nodded. ‘You can wield the Rod of Power and get us back to the past. In fact, you are the only one among us who can still utilise your psychic powers at all!’

  ‘So basically,’ Levi summed up, ‘you can complete this mission on your own.’

  ‘I don’t know why the Nefilim even bothered disposing of the rest of us really,’ Dexter added.

  ‘I am thankful they did,’ I told him. Facing this quest alone would have been far more daunting.

  ‘With all of us here, that means there’s no one left in the past to advise Kali,’ Arcturus said, obviously as alarmed about the damning reports about our daughter as I was. He gripped the edge of the metal table we were sitting at and the metal folded under his grip like paper. ‘What the…! Well, craftsmanship just isn’t what it used to be,’ he added.

  Ereshkigal was awestruck. ‘Arcturus, that table’s made from a super-alloy containing tungsten. Aside from Orme-reinforced metals, it’s the strongest metal known on Earth!’

  ‘Holy cow!’ Levi took a closer look at the damage.

  ‘Of course.’ Denera could have hit herself. ‘The orange flame you carry—it’s the standing wave pattern of Earth’s morphogenetic field and is composed of the frequencies of dimensions one through to three, which are the basis of the physical world.’

  ‘Meaning I have super-physical strength!’ Arcturus concluded.

  ‘Oh no,’ muttered Polaris.

  ‘Looks like I’ll have help on this quest after all,’ I said, and grinned at my husband, who grinned back. ‘Well, I guess that only leaves the question of how we get to Signet Station One?’

  ‘I can get you there,’ Ereshkigal said. ‘But I’m warning you, it won’t be the cushy ride you’re accustomed to.’

  Smiter and Ishkur, salvaged souls from the Nefilim ranks, had also joined Ereshkigal’s band, and were pilot and co-pilot of our vessel. This transport wasn’t the elegant, clean Ceres technology we were used to—such vessels relied on Blue Flame energy, or solar energy at the very least. Ereshkigal and her crew had been forced to resort to pirating Nefilim technologies, as they were specifically designed to function in a world without light. The ship clunked, rattled and was bone-shatteringly uncomfortable—not to mention being hideously designed.

  I had to admire this handful of Anu who had remained trapped here in the Kali rift in a physical form, cut off from their soul group and all the creature comforts of an astral form and lifestyle. I would do all within my power to ensure that their gamble paid off, so they wouldn’t be forced to endure this wretched crusade on our behalf in the first place. It was also plain to me—and to everyone else, I suspected—that Ereshkigal bore Killian’s demise like a cross; and given my chance to influence the final outcome, I would not let him die again.

  I stumbled my way towards Ereshkigal in the cockpit. She was listening to Smiter swear about ‘shitty Nefilim machinery’ when I entered and requested to speak with her a moment.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t my saviouress.’ Smiter acknowledged me with a wave. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not too sure which lifestyle was more hellish!’

  Still rather scruffy in appearance for one of the Anu, Smiter wore a large smile on his face and it was plain to see that despite the terrible working conditions he truly enjoyed his rebel existence.

  ‘I’m sure there are places we’d all rather be,’ I replied, ‘and I aim to see that we get there.’

  ‘I’ve lived in some pretty bad time lines in the past, but any change to this one will be an improvement.’ He punched a fist into the air to spur me on.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I assured him, and followed Ereshkigal into a small electronics bay located behind the cockpit. Once there, I apologised for the need to ask her the date she had last seen Killian alive.

  ‘The twentieth of December, 2017,’ she replied, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Morning or evening?’

  ‘Just before nightfall.’ She struggled to prevent tears welling in her eyes. ‘Killian went after Mathu when he failed to return from a secret meeting with Kali. You must not let him go into Irkalla,’ she stressed. ‘Ill has more power over him than he realises, and in Irkalla the Sanat Kumara cannot assist him. Once Ill has absorbed Killian’s vital fluids, he will possess all of his psychic ability and then the devil will have true power. You must not allow Killian to go to Mathu’s rescue.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, Ki-gal,’ Smiter called from the cockpit, ‘we’ve got a major blizzard down there.’

  We’d been flying above the weather, but now had to descend into it to land.

  ‘It’s about to get bumpy,’ Ereshkigal said, and advised that I go find something to grab onto.

  ‘What do you mean, about to?’ I jested, feeling that surely the ride couldn’t get much worse than it already was without this vessel being shaken apart.

  The Nefilim’s attempts to speed global warming in order to free their ships trapped at the South Pole had backfired badly. For although the fireball incident at the North Pole had melted the ice cap and flooded the globe, the resulting storms that had plunged the surface of the planet into the utter darkness of a nuclear winter had sped up the freezing process in Antarctica and plunged the lower part of the planet into a mini Ice Age.

  Ereshkigal followed me back to the mid-section. ‘We’ll descend to the ice flats and then drill through to the Signet station,’ she advised us all.

  We gave her the thumbs up and did our best to get comfortable.

  ‘You may as well kiss goodbye to any feeling in your arse for the next couple of hours,’ she added with a grin. ‘By the time this is over, any of the hells in Irkalla will seem an attractive proposition.’

  CHAPTER 34

  SLEEPING BEAUTY

  TAMAR DEVERE—KALI

  After my return to Irkalla and the ranks of the Nefilim, I resumed dabbling in the genetic research I’d carried out for Lord Ill once before. It hadn’t taken me long to pick up where I had left off. With all their brainwashing know-how, the Nefilim allowed me to remember just what I needed in order to aid them. Nevertheless, I suspected there were many aspects of our history that they had blocked from my memory, as the lab itself kept sparking a feeling of something gravely important that I’d forgotten about.

  It didn’t take much for me to learn to hate with the intensity the Nefilim did, for in order to prove my loyalty I was challenged to betray allies from my past.

  The day before the SAC alignment was to end—when I was sure the staff of Amenti wer
e not going to reappear—I arranged for Lugh to bring me the Rod and Ring of Power that Ill so desired. To my bitter sorrow, Mathu accompanied Lugh to the meeting and I was forced to kill them both before my kindred did so much more cruelly and painfully. I also handed over the Amenti stargate system to our enemies—not that the trade served the Nefilim for very long, for as soon as the last moment of the SAC alignment passed, the stargate system shut down. The rod and ring were rendered useless and, cut off from the Earth grid, the Sphere of Amenti returned up the Ark porthole passage towards the Pleiades star system where it had been hidden for aeons before this. Unfortunately, the event also cut off humanity from its soul group and all the guardian races. So although Ill’s plan to conquer the universe via the stargates was put on hold, his desires to dominate humanity and build an empire of darkness were consolidated, and I remained in favour.

  I was working in my lab the day I began to reawaken from my thousand-year nightmare. The sound of an explosion close by snatched my attention, then there was another. Could today be the day I had waited a millennium for?

  ‘Irkalla is under Dracon attack,’ Erragal advised through the intercom.

  I gasped as a flash of déjà vu transported me back hundreds of thousands of years to the last time the Dracon had declared war. I had been in my lab, just as I was now. In my memory, the six observation tanks, which contained several dead mutant Nefilim-human crossbreeds, transformed into six stasis tanks. I moved closer and was shocked to find they contained six Dracon females.

  My eyes widened with the revelation, then Erragal stormed into my lab and snatched my attention back to the present.

  ‘Ill wants to see you,’ he ordered, and waited for me to accompany him.

  He and Namtar led me to Ill’s main court; both Nefilim warriors were wearing their hideous true forms today. ‘Is it Halloween?’ I jeered, hoping they might disclose some information. ‘Or are we just trying to look a little scarier for our enemies?’

  ‘Shut up, slut.’ Namtar slapped me across the face for speaking out of turn.

  I was no longer considered a threat since I’d become Ill’s mistress and an Orme addict like the rest of them. I cursed Namtar under my breath, maintaining my shadow self and the delusion that suppressed my true reason for being in Irkalla.

  We passed a window that looked down upon the palace courtyard and I was distracted by the sight of Dracon and human warriors fighting it out to the death using all manner of weaponry, modern and old. This was a repeat of the same battle that had prompted Kali to suicide during her first life here on Earth! In this instance, however, the human contingent had been brainwashed to become the same mindless killing machines the Dracon had once been. The Dracon, on the other hand, had evolved enough to know that they were tired of being subordinate to the Nefilim, and so had decided to re-enact their infamous rebellion of the past. But who was leading them?

  ‘Took you long enough!’ Ill was slouched on his throne, wearing Killian’s form. The Dark Lord often assumed this form since Killian’s sad demise in order to hurt me as much as possible.

  When Lugh and Mathu did not return from their fatal meeting with me, Killian had come looking for the three of us. Once the SAC alignment ended, he was cut off from all higher dimensions and could not draw on the cosmic support of the Sanat Kumara or the Blue Flame of Amenti to defeat Ill.

  Ill did not get the privilege of sucking Killian’s soul dry as he’d planned to, however, for Killian was smart enough to take his own life, swearing with his final breath that this wasn’t the last Ill would see of him. If Ill had got to Killian whilst he was alive, all his incarnations in every lifetime would have ceased to exist! I had murdered my prince and the legendary Lugh Lamhfada for the same reason: to protect their existence in other lifetimes. Without Mathu I could not bring down the Sphere of Amenti and none of the Amenti team would be able to return to Tara.

  Ever since Killian’s death and my murder of my prince and Lamhfada, I had hoped and prayed that when I found the staff of Amenti in this the year 2976, I would be able to go back in time and save them all. I realised now what Killian had forgiven me for in his New York hotel room, and his words of forgiveness had been my only comfort since that time. My psychic senses had been dulled by my addiction to Orme, so every time I looked at Ill, I saw only Killian and all the unfulfilled potential of the man I had led to his death.

  ‘I plan to destroy this backwater hole of a planet today,’ Ill began casually.

  I panicked for a second as the staff of Amenti still had not manifested here in the future as I had expected they would—or had they? I had thought the Dracon uprising was the catalyst for this drastic move, or was there another reason Ill sought to destroy the Earth on this day in particular? I swallowed my panic and said composedly, ‘This is sudden, my lord.’

  ‘Not really,’ Ill advised. ‘I’ve had this event planned for over a thousand years.’

  This seemed to confirm what I suspected. Could I dare to believe that the staff of Amenti had finally returned to Earth? The thought brought relief in waves and my heart filled with joy. Although weakened by the heavy weight of my Orme addiction, the violet flame I harboured within me burned its way through the dense blockages in my being. Even the intense sadness and pain I felt at the loss of my prince and my friends was a blessing compared with the numbness of my past state of being. Nevertheless, I blocked the transformation yearning to take place within me. Not yet, I told myself. It could be a trick. But in truth, I did not care any more—damned to a state of nothingness would be paradise compared with life in Irkalla.

  ‘Treasonous bitch!’ Ill spat at me, but the way he squirmed denoted his fear. ‘Your very presence makes me want to hurl. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were the mastermind behind this Dracon rebellion!’

  I laughed, sincerely amused by his accusation. ‘I am flattered that you think me so resourceful and ingenious…but I don’t need an army to conquer you, my lord.’

  Seduction oozed from my mouth, sweet as honey, and as I walked slowly towards his throne I assumed an Anu form using an auric simulator. (My Orme addiction prevented me from doing this through my own power.) Ill held no feelings for me, but if there was one thing I had learned from our intimate association it was that he still had a thing for his long-ascended queen, Ninlil. He often ordered me to assume her form before we mated.

  Ill sat back, appearing unmoved. ‘Don’t think you can fuck with my heart, Kali. I don’t have one, because that whore,’ he pointed to my Anu guise, ‘ripped it out when she chose the Kian way over me!’

  ‘I know you have gone out of your way to rebel ever since then—’

  ‘I just embraced the dark truth, baby. I was sent to this little hellhole in the universe to take charge and I did!’

  ‘You’ve halted evolution in all five harmonic universes!’ I pointed out sarcastically and Ill laughed, flattered.

  ‘Now that’s power! I am more powerful than the Sovereign Integral, so why should I settle for its extensively long, harsh, insignificant plan for me?’ He leered at me. ‘I used you, sweet arse, and now that you are of no further use to me, I’m going to leave you. I do hope you enjoy the final holocaust we have planned for you this afternoon. Not much point sending you a postcard from the Eye of Ra, but I assure you that I’ll destroy the capstone and send every evolution in this universe and the next spiralling into my devolution within the Kali rift.’

  I managed to stop my jaw dropping as I learned of the Nefilim’s full aspirations. Whether or not they had the resources to back up Ill’s claims, it was still a very scary premise.

  ‘So this is goodbye, Kali—you always were a treacherous snake. And don’t worry—once I’ve defrosted my mother ship, I’ll finally dispose of your secret little science project. I’m hardly going to risk a repeat performance of today’s revolution in the future.’

  ‘I was under the impression you’d disposed of them already,’ I said. Ill had screwed with my brain so often I could no longer
trust my own memory. Then I noticed the presence I was speaking with beginning to break up. ‘Ill, you coward!’ I yelled. This was the second time I had been tricked in this way.

  The simulation laughed at how long it had taken me to realise that I was wasting my energy on a relay device. Killian’s form waved farewell as it broke down into a swarm of flying nanobots that quickly dispersed through a grate in the wall and were gone.

  ‘I have suffered long and hard for the privilege to uncreate this dark hole in the universe,’ I said, under my breath at first, for I was so used to repressing my thoughts and feelings. But then I spoke up loud and proud. ‘I will rewrite history,’ I announced determinedly, ‘and Irkalla will fade into myth where it belongs!’

  Overwhelmed by the task of finding the staff of Amenti and the means to return us all to the past, I fell to my knees and allowed myself to weep like I never had, never could. And for the first time in an age, I let myself recall the last few private hours I had spent with Mathu. How I longed to know him again…how I longed to feel anything again. With a mighty howl, my desire to embrace the horror that was my life shattered the casing around my light-body and all my withheld feelings rushed through my light centres like a whirlwind. My entire body went into spasm as the high frequency of the violet flame forced out the dis-ease and purged me of the dark fluid.

  The agony was unparalleled, and sparked in me memories of Kali’s experience of the same process during her first lifetime as one of the Anunnaki. There had been someone watching over her then, to ensure that she did not kill herself during the seizure—a loyal assistant. I recalled her words.

  ‘Great mistress, it is too dangerous to keep going.’

  Kali had implored her to be brave. ‘I must do this, Jezabel, for all our sakes.’

  I remembered how, in the midst of her delirium, Kali kept her focus on her assistant’s concerned face. Jezabel was not Nefilim, nor was she human; she was a rarity never before seen upon the Earth—a female Dracon. This top-secret project had been assigned to Kali by Ill himself, and had been long forgotten by all but a handful of the fallen still left on Earth. If the female Dracon were still in stasis on Ill’s mother ship as he claimed, and weren’t rescued before Amenti was opened, then these six souls would be left behind.