A tear trickled down her cheek as she realized that Jamin had given Lucifer the bond that she herself had refused to give to her husband. And because he had, Lucifer chose to drain the life-energy from his own body rather than lose him to his wounds.
And Zepar was furious!
She could see the filth pour out of him like some great, dark mallet, trying to pound its way back into Lucifer's body, clamping around his head and squeezing it like a lion's jaws. A limitless funnel of the putrid energy poured out of the ethers as Zepar used it to try to regain control. Lucifer fought it. He fought it because he wanted to save his lover.
Words to the Song of Ki came into her mind…
True love will in inspire the Other One,
To pierce her heart upon a thorn,
And bring back hope where there is none,
For agape can access Ki's song.
Her?
Him…
Jamin was the Agent of Ki?
One of the nurses pushed aside the stark, beige curtain which separated the scrub area from the main part of the operating room and trudged out, his pale wings drooping with bad news.
"His blood type is H-negative," the nurse said. "We don't have any of that type in stock."
"Sata'anic blood?" Doctor Halpas blurted out. "Where in Hades will we get Type-H-negative blood? His blood pressure is fatally low."
The nurse held up a bag of clear, amber fluid.
"All I have is plasma, Sir," the nurse said.
"Well get it started," Doctor Halpas said. "It's better than nothing at all. If nothing else, it will keep his blood pressure up."
The nurse stuck the amber sack upon a pole, and then took some sort of clear, flexible reed and pushed it into Jamin's arm.
"Mister Prime Minister," Doctor Halpas said. "You need to step back, Sir, so we can get to work on him."
"I'm not leaving him," Lucifer said.
"Sir," Doctor Halpas wore a hint of frustration. "Your friend has almost bled out, and you are injured yourself. Let one of my nurses attend to your wings and let us work on your friend."
For the first time Ninsianna noticed that Lucifer's pale, white wings were splattered with scarlet, pierced by at least a dozen arrows and atlatl darts. An odd sense of pride fluttered in her breast as she saw the fletching. Those were Ubaid weapons!
"I'm not leaving him until he's out of danger," Lucifer said.
With her goddess-kissed eyes, Ninsianna could see that the moment Lucifer stepped aside, Jamin would die and Lucifer would stop trying to channel the light of She-who-is. The filth which had controlled him would take over worse than it ever had before because, without his mate, Lucifer would have nothing left to live for. All he would care about is revenge.
It was time to flip this situation on its head.
“Stop telling him to leave!” Ninsianna snapped. “Don’t you people know anything at all?" She stepped right up to the oversized Angelic nurses, poking her finger up into their faces like a tiny, angry weasel. "Humans are different from you cold-blooded Angelics! Jamin needs his mate at his side. It's the only thing keeping him alive!"
She moved up to Jamin's head as if she knew what she was doing, the place where Doctor Halpas had said she'd be out of the way. She remembered what she had done to keep Mikhail in this world when his ship had crashed.
"You must touch him," Ninsianna said, "and talk to him while they put him under so he knows that you’re still here.”
Lucifer whispered something into Jamin’s ear. Jamin grimaced. There was no mistaking the tenderness in Lucifer’s face as he pleaded with her former fiancé to stay.
“This is ludicrous!” Zepar protested. “Lucifer, you are badly wounded yourself. You need immediate medical attention!”
For the past several months, it had not been just her words which had helped the mind-broken women in Lucifer's harem find their way back to their sanity, but her touch paired with those gentle words. She touched Lucifer's forearm, the flesh of the man who for months had inhabited her nightmares. It felt just like the flesh of any other man, not the fire she had sensed when he had touched her before. She formed an image, and then she pushed it through her fingers.
“Jamin needs to feel you,” Ninsianna said. “So long as he can feel you, he will fight with every fiber of his being. But his wounds are too egregious to heal all on his own. You must stay with him and help him heal."
Lucifer met her gaze for the very first time. Ninsianna gasped as she realized he had the most beautiful silver eyes she had ever seen. A breath, a whisper, a voice she had not heard for months, whispered joyously into her brain.
Morning Star…
Her mouth opened and shut, but there were no words in existence to give shape to what the goddess had just revealed. Speak. She must speak to him. She must find the words to sway him…
She remembered something the disgruntled Angelics had said as she'd encouraged them to bond to the women in the harem.
"The emperor took this ability away from your kind because he grew tired of losing mated pairs," Ninsianna said. "But you still possess the echo of the ability; the ability to heal your mate.”
Zepar lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm.
“You killed her husband," Zepar shrieked. "You just blew up her parent's house, her village chief and her friends. Why in Hades would she want to help you?”
“My husband is still alive,” Ninsianna said, "and Jamin was once my betrothed. I spurned his love when I chose one of your kind to be my husband. It caused Jamin to turn away from my people because he was angry that I had hurt him."
"Why would you help?" Lucifer asked. There was no tenderness in his face as he looked at her, but neither did he wear a sneer. He wore the look of a man who had often known betrayal, and as he spoke, Ninsianna could feel the intrusion into her mind.
"I shall not help you," Ninsianna said, "for you have kidnapped me and held me prisoner upon your ship. But I will help him. Because once upon a time I cared for him, and I do not wish to see him die.”
She felt Lucifer probe her memories, but his touch was much more gentle, less intrusive than when the Evil One had done it, a seeker searching for the truth. He found that truth and he felt her regret, that she had treated Jamin callously. She realized now that she had set him off on his downward spiral. A tear slid down her cheek. All along, he had offered to her the same gift as Mikhail, and she had spurned it because Jamin had been inarticulate about giving voice to the wish which had lived inside his heart.
Lucifer's trachea bobbed as he swallowed and nodded his consent. He believed her. He could see she was flawed, but he also saw she was sincere.
Zepar grabbed her from behind and physically tried to pick her up.
"Get her out of here!"
Ninsianna shrieked and struggled to get free. Zepar's dirty white wings knocked over the rolling tray of implements as he shoved her towards the two cold-eyed goons who were every bit as dark as he was. She bit the hand which clenched around her bicep.
Zepar howled. "Ow!"
“Unhand her!” Lucifer moved to stand between her and the cold-eyed goons. "Ninsianna stays until I tell you otherwise."
He gave Zepar with a look which said he would not be dissuaded, and then turned back to her.
“Tell me what to do.”
“But …” Zepar sputtered.
Ninsianna could see the dark storm cloud gathering around Zepar's corpse, which she understood was a corpse, an empty shell which had been reanimated by an evil spirit.
“Eligor said you are a healer,” Lucifer said. “Eligor said that you can help. Tell me what to do, and I will move your sun to make it happen.”
It was an awesome, fearsome leader who stood before her now, a chief of chiefs, a man who controlled the powers of an empire so vast her mind could still barely grasp its scope or scale. She could see why the Evil One had chosen such a vessel to inhabit, especially if the ability to rule the galaxy was innate.
“I can make n
o promises of miracle healings or cures," Ninsianna said. "All I know is that my husband healed from an equally grievous wound when his ship crashed because I refused to leave his side. Let Doctor Halpas repair his body, but you must give him the will to live.”
“I am a destroyer of worlds,” Lucifer said. Anguish tinged his voice, “I don’t know how to heal!”
“And yet, he is still alive,” Ninsianna said. “You called him back from the dead, didn't you?"
Lucifer's silver eyes were like brilliant, silver stars, filled with tears as he groped for the hope she offered to him.
"Teach me?"
"I will teach you what I can," Ninsianna said.
Zepar shoved Lucifer aside and grabbed Ninsianna's arm as he roughly attempted to shove her out of the room. The two goons moved to help him and shoved aside the two nurses.
"This is madness!" Zepar shrieked. "Lucifer is insane. Tell them, Eligor! Tell them how the Prime Minister is unable to function unless he has his antipsychotic medicine!”
All eyes turned to Eligor.
Eligor shrugged.
"I'm just paid to fly," Eligor said. "Not to think. But I do know this. The last few months, the Prime Minister has wanted me to take him everyplace and not Zepar. He hasn't trusted him since he ditched him to rot in the Emperor's prison. It was me who asked the Speaker of the Commons to file the Writ of Habeas Corpus before Parliament that sprung him, not Zepar."
Doctor Halpas stepped forward and stood in front of Zepar.
"In all matters of mental health," Doctor Halpas said. "It is my judgment which rules this ship. Not yours. And not even Lucifer's."
"Lucifer is insane!" Zepar hissed.
Three more Angelic guards came into the room, guards that Ninsianna recognized. One of them nodded at Doctor Halpas and handed him something in a box.
“It was a strange story that Lerajie ran to me and told today," Doctor Halpas said. "According to them, it was you who ordered them to hold twenty human females as sex-slaves and a Sata'anic prisoner-of-war." He reached into the box and held up a bag filled with a dark red substance. "I just sent a crewman down to verify there is a lizard on this ship, and if there is, to bring me two pints of H-phenotype blood."
“How dare you speak to me that way!” Zepar snarled. “Do you have any idea who I am???”
“You are my assistant,” Lucifer interrupted, “and right now you are not being very assistive. So please. Leave this room and let Doctor Halpas get to work.”
Zepar's rage was physically palpable as a blue vein throbbed visibly on his forehead. Doctor Halpas and the nurses sensed it too as they instinctively stepped back, back away from the evil which animated the empty shell which was Zepar. The hair stood up on Ninsianna's arms.
Eligor stepped between Zepar and the two cold-eyed goons, his expression absolutely unreadable and flat.
“You're very upset, Sir,” Eligor said. He signaled three new Angelics who had just come into the room. “Let’s let the doctor get to work now, Sir. You can discuss things with the Prime Minister after his friend is out of danger.”
Ninsianna noted the pulse rifles pressed into the backs of the two cold-eyed goons. For a moment she feared the room would erupt into a firefight, but then Zepar turned to them and subtly nodded. They trailed out of the room as if there had been no disagreement at all. Eligor and the guards followed them, but before he left, Eligor met her gaze and gave her a subtle nod. The rest … was up to her.
“I have to put him under anesthesia now, Sir,” Doctor Halpas said to Lucifer. “If you would like to stay, you must get prepped so you don't pass an infection into his wound.”
“I'll stay with Jamin while you do," Ninsianna offered.
Ninsianna watched as the most depraved creature in the galaxy caressed his lover's cheek and spoke lovingly into his ear. She could not hear what Lucifer said to him, but Jamin's dark features grew peaceful as he drifted in between the worlds. Lucifer hurried away. Ninsianna bent down to whisper in Jamin's ear.
“Jamin,” she said, “you have won the most unwinnable heart in the galaxy. You proved capable, flawed creature, of accomplishing in your darkest moment what I, favored creature of the goddess, could not do when blessed with the brightest light. Please … you must fight to live for him.”
Lucifer came back, clad in the same hideous blue tunic as she wore and anxiously retook his place at his lover's side. Doctor Halpas injected something into the clear, flexible reed which terminated in Jamin’s arm while the two nurses cut the clothing right off of Jamin's body, dabbing at the wound with various cloths and liquids. Ninsianna watched, fascinated, as they placed green cloths around the injury until only the wound was visible, as if only that existed and not the man it was attached to. Jamin relaxed as the doctors put a clear mask over his mouth and nose. In the background, the subtle beep of a machine told her that his heart beat far slower than it should.
“Put your hands on either side of his head," Ninsianna coached Lucifer, "and picture you can send white light into his body.”
“My mother had this gift," Lucifer's voice sounded mournful, "but she kept it hidden. She was always afraid of what the Emperor might do if he found out she was a better healer than he was. She cured me once of a bullet to the heart.”
“The life-gift flows from the goddess,” Ninsianna said. “If your heart is pure, she will help you heal your lover.”
“I don’t have a heart,” Lucifer said.
“Obviously you do,” Ninsianna said, “or you would not have been able to bond with him.”
A soft, feminine voice whispered into her mind.
‘His name means Morning Star,’ She-who-is whispered. ‘I sent him to the Emperor to keep him safe, but Hashem failed me when he abandoned him to chase his mother into the dreamtime. Moloch sent his Agent to twist him to his purposes. I thought he was lost to me forever, but your angry young prince snuck right past Moloch's defenses and bonded to him right underneath his nose.’
Ninsianna glanced down at the progress of the surgery. Doctor Halpas's hands moved with speed and skill, but the monitors which kept track of Jamin's heartbeat said his life energy was erratic. Lucifer was not able to compensate for the injuries. The goddess' energy made her entire body ring, but only a trickle got through to the two people who needed it.
‘How do I fix this, Mother?’ Ninsianna asked She-who-is. ‘How do I help a creature that is so dark and damaged heal another creature that is dark and damaged?’
‘You must make Lucifer trust you enough to remove the blockage.”
‘Lucifer trusts no woman,' Ninsianna thought. 'He only allows me near his lover because he is desperate to save him.’
She sensed a giggle.
‘You do it just like this…”
The cone of golden-white light suddenly disappeared.
The heart monitor flat-lined and began to screech.
"We’ve got a code blue!" Doctor Halpas shouted. "Prepare 240 cc's of adrenaline and get the defibrillator charged!"
The two nurses rushed around. One pulled out a small, clear tube with a long, sharp, vicious-looking needle at the end.
"Doctor Halpas!" Lucifer said. His eyes were desperate and filled with tears.
"Step back, Sir!" one of the nurses shoved them both aside.
"Administering adrenaline."
Ninsianna winced as the nurse shoved the needle straight into Jamin's heart.
"Charging now, Sir."
"Two hundred, two twenty, two fifty, three hundred…"
"Clear!"
Doctor Halpas rammed two flat panels onto Jamin's chest. Jamin's entire body jerked. The scent of lightning filled the room. The beeper beeped, and then went flat again, never stopping its incessant shrieking.
“He is leaving me!!!” Lucifer cried out. "Ninsianna! Please! You have to help me save him!!!”
Lucifer quivered with emotion, so beautiful in his grief that she wondered how she could have ever feared such a beautiful, helpless creature? His bea
uty was like the first rays of light of hope piercing the darkness that precipitated the dawn. Love moved her heart for this poor creature that had had its light obscured by darkness, and she reached up to kiss him, the kiss of a mother for her child.
All her life she had feared the dead, but the dead woman who pleaded with her now to allow her to take possession of her body so she could tell her son what he needed to hear so greatly moved Ninsianna that she stepped aside and allowed Asherah to use her body as a vessel.
“Lucifer, my son,” she-who-had-been-Asherah spoke in a voice that neither sounded like, nor even looked like Ninsianna. “I did not abandon you, my son. I wait for you to join me, as does the mother of your mate.”
“Mama?” Lucifer trembled. “Is that really you?”
“Your father did not abandon us,” she-who-had-been-Asherah said. “He was taken from us as you have been taken from us. He was twisted as you have been twisted. But now you are in grave danger.”
“How?” Lucifer asked.
“The one whose voice I speak through is about to bear a child more powerful even than you are,” she-who-had-been-Asherah said. “When Moloch could no longer control your father, he killed him and seized you, just as he intends to kill you now that you have slipped his control and he has found a vessel to replace you.”
Beneath her possession, Ninsianna trembled at that warning.
“All I care about is saving my mate,” Lucifer cried out. “Please, Mama, how do I save him?”
“You must forgive me, my son,” she-who-had-been-Asherah said. “For I know you feel the compulsion to follow your mate into the Dreamtime. You must now understand I did not leave you entirely by choice.”
Lucifer began to cry great, wracking sobs. He leaned upon her for support and, as he did, Ninsianna hugged this evil creature who had done nothing but cause her harm, for She-who-is herself had stepped into her body to welcome home the brother she feared she had lost forever.
“The time has come to choose, Luciferi,” She-who-is-Ninsianna spoke with a voice that made the entire ship resonate with her words. “Love … or power. Choose love, and you may draw upon the life gift which I offer you to heal your mate.”
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 103
