Perfection

by Larissa Emerald

  Venn opened and closed his fist, considering the tattoo on his wrist. Not even one more tree could be lost.

  “Benison,” the oak whispered.

  “Blessings,” Venn returned. “My strength and loyalty are yours.”

  With his vow, the door to the tree creaked opened, and he strode through the massive entry. He looked around the comfortable aboveground chambers and kept walking. Keeping watch wasn’t his intention this night. No, he sought the tombs within the root structure below and hoped the tree would communicate to him if something out of the ordinary was happening.

  He grabbed a nearby flashlight from the alcove next to the door, flipped it on, and started along the narrow tunneled path, down a staircase that had been fashioned by twisted knots of wood and roots fused together over centuries. It wound deep into the layers of knowledge, to the catacomb of interconnected scripts, like a true, living computer.

  Once in the belly, he ran a hand over an electrical switch. Battery powered lights illuminate the cave-like room in a pale glow. Venn glanced about and drew an awed breath. Holy shit. The place had grown.

  With careful steps, he moved from the tunnel into a cavern, where rough splinters jutted out of smooth swirls in the timber’s pattern, creating a golden wooden cave. He used to come down here often in the beginning, during the early years of loneliness, always expecting to discover something exceptional. Which he usually did.

  He’d learned that if he pricked himself on this special wood, a series of images would fire though his brain, teaching him something new, its lessons sharper and more thorough than those of any history or science channel on TV.

  Centuries ago, he’d stumbled on this cavern and its amazing phenomenon quite by accident. The power the tree gave him had become an obsession, the data exchange an addiction. He knew better than to come back again after that. But this time he had no choice, his duty demanded he use every means available to him. He was well aware of the risks and didn’t intend to overstep his limits.

  Something was off-kilter in the universe, and he needed to know why. The odd weather pattern—winter when it should be spring—was an ominous sign, Venn knew, even if humans simply took it as a fluke of nature. Just as humans showed symptoms of illness, so too did the machinations of the universe. And a shift between good and evil often triggered such nasty weather patterns.

  He needed to be on high alert. “Custos,” he spoke quietly to the ancient tree. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  There was no answer.

  Taking a seat in a worn cradle of wood, he felt the need to connect with the Divine Tree…and to his brothers. He squeezed the back of his neck. Perhaps that’s what the problem was. Not outside at all, but within him.

  He felt as isolated from everything as this tree was. What was it like to house all humanity but not feel humanity?

  The groan and creak of the tree, as if it were caught by a strong gust of wind, caused Venn to lift his head. Seth stood framed in the tunnel doorway. “I didn’t think you’d be down here,” the angel said, walking into the chamber.

  Now Venn knew there was trouble brewing. The angel rarely dropped in just to say hello. “What’s happenin’?” Venn asked in way of greeting.

  Seth shrugged, his wings lifting and falling with the movement. “I’m not sure. But you must feel it also if you’re down here.”

  “Indeed. Have a seat,” Venn motioned to another curve of wood.

  Seth sat and crossed his legs, resting his back and folded wings against the smooth inner walls of the tree. “I dunno. On one hand the off weather pattern seems like a trivial thing, but coupled with all the unrest in the world—with ISIS beheading people in the Middle East and people protesting over police in the US—I think we need to pay close attention.”

  “I agree. The planet is digressing into a state of anarchy and I’d bet my right arm that the Dark Realm is behind it all,” Venn proclaimed.

  “No doubt.”

  “I think you’d better hang around,” Venn suggested.

  “Fine. You got a room to spare?” Seth asked, firing a glance from beneath heavy eyelids without lifting his head.

  “No.”

  Seth shrugged. “Then I can’t help you.”

  Venn chuckled, knowing full well he’d just gained a house guest. “It’s hard to think back to when this guardianship began.” He rested his head back and closed his eyes, trying to see that far into the past. “You know you could have given us a little more information when you set us on this task.”

  “What for? You figured it out.”

  “Huh. It took me forever to learn to control my shifting. The hawk being able to manipulate time and space, and the wolf’s incredible strength. Shit, I was a mess in those days.”

  “You’re still a mess,” Seth said with exaggerated distain.

  Venn straightened. “Hey, I didn’t ask for this gig. You can head back up anytime.”

  * * *

  Emma sympathized with anyone who had to make transatlantic flights on a regular basis. The trip from Paris to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport had left her weary as a rag doll. Two hours later, she was still stifling yawns as she surveyed the snow-covered park where her mélange-metal statue would reside.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you stop here on the way from the airport. You must be exhausted.” Grams tugged the zipper of her trendy black leather jacket higher before passing the leash attached to her little, aging Yorkshire terrier, Izzy, from one hand to the other. The pup scooted around her legs. “It was thoughtless of me. I’m just so excited.”

  Emma shrugged. “I’m fine,” she assured her grandmother, then twisted to face the trunk of the enormous tree they stood beneath when the next yawn came. A whisper of energy coiled around her, heat seeming to seep out of the bark itself. She pursed her mouth and clasped her arms around her rib cage. As if the move offered any protection. Fatigue always made her paranoid. She even sometimes saw visions, though she didn’t like to admit it, even to herself.

  She sighed. No use in worrying about something she couldn’t control, and she’d long since learned she wasn’t in the driver’s seat where her visions were concerned. Instead, she engaged in her most prevalent form of evasion, her art.

  Nothing wrong with burying problems in a little work.

  She studied the space again. Which metals would capture the hues of oyster shells in the sky? What subject would best fit the colors? Emma jotted down some mental notes for her next project. She watched the changing colors of dusk descend on the park as clouds loomed, back-lit in an eerie coppery shimmer. The diffused light made the snow appear almost warm, the rocks somehow spongy, and the trees… They were mystical.

  Her apprehension escalated as the walkway in front of her blurred. Her knees grew weak.

  No. Not this time.

  She sucked in a deep breath and tensed, resisting. But she knew with sickening certainty that the vision was coming. There was no controlling it…

  An arrow shaft protruded from her chest, and air wheezed through her stagnant lungs. In the wake of the brutal, radiating pain, time slowed. Her heart stopped.

  Oh God.

  An image of a huge gray wolf materialized, howling a cry of grief alongside her lifeless body, and it lingered, dimming slowly to a sepia shadow. Had she…died here?

  Emma blinked, disoriented, as the brief manifestation faded, reality setting back in. Exhaling hard, she shifted her feet, peering down at her strappy, crystal-embellished, leopard-print sandals and seeking solid ground. Izzy licked at her toes where they peeked from her shoes, as if trying to console her as best he could.

  Her gaze swept up her own body, and she settled shaky fingers over her beating heart. No blood. No arrow. Definitely alive.

  Still, the suffocating sensation of a collapsed lung remained, causing her stomach to churn. How she even knew what one felt like alarmed her.

  Stop thinking about it.

  With determined strength, Emma overcam
e the pervasive mental intrusion, forcing her attention back to the grossly neglected Georgia park where she stood trembling, to the place her sculpture would call home. She’d had these dreams and visions her whole life, and when she’d researched the phenomenon, she’d discovered they were each giving her a glimpse of one of her past lives. If one believed in that sort of thing. Which she did. But knowing that didn’t make it any less disturbing.

  Emma’s breath swirled in a misty cloud as she focused on her surroundings. Cold, damp air patted her cheeks. The massive oak before her released a sad moan. Or was that just her active imagination at work? Whatever it was triggered a familiar warmth that spread into her limbs, and reminded her she possessed…talents beyond her visions. Heat radiated through her right arm, and she glanced down, opening her blazing hot fist to discover she’d inadvertently melted her grandmother’s butterfly key fob beyond recognition.

  Some talents. More like she’d been cursed.

  With an unsteady sigh, she pushed her hair away from her face. Geez, her life hadn’t changed one iota. Since she was a toddler, she’d been molding metal with her bare hands as if it were clay, both intentionally and accidentally. It was the latter that caused her grief. The episode with a neighborhood boy and his squished red Hot Wheels car came to mind. It always did. Her dad had been so angry with her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Her grandmother’s question snapped her back to the present. Would Grams know if she lied? She’d discovered when she’d moved to New York that the visions and dreams had lessened with the distance. She’d run all the way to Paris to avoid them. And they must have let go, too, because she hadn’t thought of them for a long, long while.

  “Sure. But I can’t say the same for this.” She dangled the key chain in the air.

  Her grandmother gave a chuckle. “I should have nicknamed you Hot Hands.”

  Emma managed to summon a smile, but it faltered as her gaze shifted back to that tree. Its spindly canopy of branches seemed to reach out. The hair on her arms prickled. Something in the fractures of time yanked free and another ripple of unease washed over her.

  Good and evil used this place as a playground. At the moment, evil acted the bully. She felt a bizarre tug-of-war for dominance, the power of it making her sway.

  Leave. Me. Alone.

  This evening’s vision was beyond vivid—a seven-point-five on the Richter scale, and it wasn’t passing as it normally did. She flailed her arms, trying to shake off her frustration. She usually had an easier time coming out of it. An erratic pulse thumped in her neck, bringing her circulation back. Her temples ached with the awakening.

  She shook her head. Ignore. Regroup. Move on.

  Thank goodness her grandmother, who tarried a few steps behind, wouldn’t know the depth of Emma’s latest episode, since time distorted or elongated only within her mind. What she needed was an anchor, physically and mentally. There was no way she’d allow her father to be right about her differences making her crazy. She didn’t have a psychotic disorder as he’d suggested when she was young. No, she would control the lapse, but, darn, this bout threatened her common sense. She’d never seen herself die before.

  Besides, wasn’t that supposed to kill you or something?

  Or was that just in dreams, not visions? She gave a mental shrug, figuring it didn’t matter because she had both.

  Focus. She was here on a job. The park.

  It was spring in Tyler, Georgia, yet the late-season snow masked the evidence. Weeds and yellow wildflowers nudged aside a layer of snow, and fresh green growth attempted to unfurl on branches. The square must have been lovely at one time, especially when everything began to bloom, but not now. A battered, rotten wood bench lay on the ground sideways, collapsed. The sidewalk that wound through the center of the park resembled a war zone, with chunks of concrete broken and upended. The branches of the old oak swept the earth. Clearly ignored for many, many years, the mammoth tree looked as if it had never been pruned or shaped.

  The untamed tree was so out-of-character for prim-and-proper Georgia. Just like her. Her dad had always proclaimed that her overactive imagination would lead to trouble. If he only knew the whole truth.

  A hand slid across Emma’s back and bony fingers grasped her shoulder. She almost jumped out of her grandmother’s hug.

  “Just think, a Grant getting the honor of creating a statue for the old town square. I can hardly believe it.” Grams heaved one of her exaggerated, bursting-with-pride sighs, the way she did when the family dinner table was landscaped to perfection.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Grams. The committee couldn’t say no.” And neither could Emma. Her grandmother had requested a sculpture of a confederate soldier on a rearing horse. Not very original, but Emma obliged, thankful for both the much-needed income and the chance to build her portfolio. She gradually relaxed into the woman’s solid embrace, somewhat grounded again.

  She touched her head to her grandmother’s salon-teased auburn one, in the same let’s-stick-together way she’d done since she was six, when she’d spent every summer vacation here after her family had moved to New York.

  “Thanks for your help,” Emma said. Nothing like getting paid to visit her favorite relative. Since the city had commissioned her sculpture for the park renovation project, she’d be hanging out for the next few weeks to supervise its placement and participate in the dedication ceremony.

  Grams nodded. “Anytime. Paris is too darn far away, if you ask me.” She picked Izzy up and tucked him beneath her arm.

  Actually, the greater distance meant fewer visions, so it wasn’t even far enough. Emma wasn’t sure why, but they seemed to be worse, more frequent, when she returned to her Georgia birthplace. Bonus points for Paris.

  “We talk and Skype all the time,” Emma pointed out.

  “That’s not the same as seeing your smiling face.” Her grandmother slid a hand down Emma’s arm and back up over her shoulder. “Look at you. You’re shivering.”

  Ominous gray clouds were moving in, and the sky was growing darker. Emma felt more than saw the clump of wet red clay that oozed into her Sam Edelman sandals. She tamped her foot against a rock to clear it. “What an awful spring. Can’t believe it snowed on Easter.”

  “Yes. The pecan blooms froze. The crop’ll be ruined.” A smile lit Grams’s eyes, and she tsked, seeming to dismiss the unfortunate prediction that might steal her pocket money. “But give it a few days. It’ll warm up.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Tree branches whipped one way, then the other, generating an eerie whistling. Emma shuddered, then tugged the neckline of her suddenly constricting turtleneck sweater as she turned to explore a staked-out plot of ground. “It looks like this is where they plan to put the statue.”

  Her gaze swept along the snow-patched ground, up the broken walkway, to the side of the park where fluorescent-orange construction fencing sectioned off individual trees, marking them for protection. Landscaping equipment near the road formed a neat line, ready to be put to use.

  A tiny ping caught in her gut, and her internal compass gravitated to the old oak standing center stage. Its trunk stretched out to the size of a small house, as if several trees had grown together. She frowned as intense golden eyes seemed to peer at her from the grained bark. A figment of her imagination? With her history, it had to be.

  When the eyes vanished, she angled her head, unable to shake the weird drag on her heart. As if she should know something important, yet couldn’t bring it forth. The feeling didn’t seem like a remnant of her vision but felt like it originated from an entirely different source. More like an unfathomable power or presence. She scanned the park and rubbed her chilled arms, but she didn’t see a single soul.

  * * *

  Io slipped behind the downed bulldozer bucket, in predator mode, his eyes fixed on his target: Emma Grant. The machine inched to the side as his back jammed against a metal support. In his eagerness, he hadn’t sufficiently contro
lled his brute strength. He grumbled at the oversight but kept tuned to the young woman. While in human form, as he was now, his senses were faulty. It was a weak form, practically useless, with few special powers.

  He’d known the moment Emma Grant had set foot on Georgia soil.

  Not such a difficult task, really. He’d been expecting her.

  Now, he was curious about the reason she’d stopped at the park on her way from the airport. Was the Divine Tree’s power already blooming in Emma? Had the old tree spoken to her?

  He’d met her quite by accident years ago when she was a little girl of five. They were in an ice cream shop and he’d accidently dropped a handful of coins on the floor—as fine motor skills was another issue he had with the human form. But it turned into a fortunate event for him, really, for Emma gathered the coins up off the floor. And to her great embarrassment, when she handed them back to him the lot was fused together in a solid clump of metal.

  He knew then and there that she was gifted. And he made it his business to discover why. Eavesdropping in on her dreams at night gave him the connection to her past. Even over the years after she moved from Tyler, he managed to keep track of her. He was damned proud of himself for discovering the reason behind her metal-altering ability.

  Well, it wasn’t precisely his discovery, but he would take credit for it nonetheless.

  When he’d killed Emma in her past life and she’d lain on the grassy ground with his arrow jutting out of her chest, her blood had seeped into this magical oak’s roots. Who knew such a simple act would create the catalyst to destroy a Divine Tree? He certainly hadn’t. Not until the High Counsel of Devils had recently congratulated him for it, that is. And he wasn’t disappointed.

  That arrow, her blood, and her reincarnation had caused a shift, something even he couldn’t grasp the implications of. It had taken him shitloads of long, painful, boring hours of watching before he discovered how he could use her newborn alchemist powers to his advantage. He deserved this boon, and the recognition from the counsel. He’d show his brother, Seth, that he was equally as favored by his superiors.