"I have every right. It is what I am." He lowered his arms. The wounds in his arms had healed, leaving thin horizontal scars crossing those already present. The being's grip had seared the print of its fingers into his pale flesh, leaving rings of bluish bruises, a symbol of joining. What he offered had been forever claimed.
Suicide or sacrifice? Julienne thought, her breath scraping her dry throat. I don't think he knows anymore. The lines are becoming blurred for him.
"I'm afraid to ask what you have given."
"I have reclaimed my self--my whole self."
To prove his words true, he willed himself to stand. He was unsteady, looking as if he might faint at any given moment. Nevertheless, he shook off her hold and stepped out of her reach.
Urging her back, he turned and extended his arms over the altar. The long sleeves of the robe spread out like black wings.
"Aiseirigh tine!" Rise fire.
All light died. Inside the altar, gray ashes stirred. Embers came alive, hot and glowing, called to life by the force within his mind. Blackness retreated as yellow sparks burst to life. Flames lit the lion's slanted eyes and roared in a sheet from its gaping stone mouth.
Atop the altar, the muses' lifted arms worshiped the fire flaring high in their circle, and their stone bodies grew warm by its light. Flames leaping inside their sacred circle licked at their naked forms. The fire the lion breathed was searing hot.
Morgan lowered his arms, pressing his hands together as if in prayer. When he turned to her, there was a strange radiance in his eyes and new color in his flesh. Exhaustion had been cast aside, enveloped by the energy of the fire.
Approaching, he extended his hand. Her eyes followed it, but she did not move. His frosty features seemed unreal, illusive. The pitiless light gave his face an imprint of cruelty. Something hard and vicious seemed to lurk behind his demeanor.
Was he a man…a demon…or a god?
Standing tautly posed, he had a new kind of sharpness, as if he were in focus and she but part of the blurry edges.
"Do not fear me."
She hesitated, afraid.
"Come to me of your own will." His accented voice was firm but gentle. "Take my hand."
She sank into his compelling gaze, was swallowed deep and drowned. She slowly held out her hand, linked her fingers with his. His skin was warm, the terrible cold chased away by the fire.
"Of my own will." Her lips trembled.
Morgan pulled her to him. He crackled with energy. One arm he slid around her waist, crushing her close. "You will be brisht stiagh," he whispered. "Baptized with fire."
Julienne's skin thrilled to his touch. His caress was demanding. His fingers traced from her lips to her chin, the side of her neck down to her firm breasts and flat stomach, arousing in her fierce desire. Her breathing grew shallow, ragged under his touch. Blood pounded in her temples. The yearning engulfed her when he undid her tight braid, freeing her hair to fall in waves around her shoulders as he combed his fingers through it.
"You are more beautiful this way," he whispered, guiding her lips to his. His mouth captured hers and her world spun.
A wave of electric shock went zinging through her body. She'd never imagined he could possess such gentleness, a gentleness so sensual her knees began to quiver. Small eager sounds escaped her throat, and she returned his kiss with equal passion. She longed for this tenderness, felt the trembling in her hips. The intensity of him seemed to enfold and engulf her. An exciting, wicked warmth filled her, and she felt as though she would dissolve into a sticky puddle. He was so close. Aroused.
He had made love to her before, and she recalled every nuance of movement: his touch, his scent, the weight of him between her thighs, penetrating her most secret places. He alone possessed the spark that ignited the delights of her deepest longing. Her limbs seemed molten. Her knees nearly gave. She could feel his essence flowing through her. With a start she realized the blood they shared did, indeed, forge a physical, psychic and spiritual link. The intensity in his body seemed to fuse with hers, settling in her center as a taut, wired force passed between them.
He's seducing me, seducing me to follow him into damnation, she thought giddily. And I don't care. Head and sense be damned. She wanted him, and she believed she could gladly sacrifice her soul to have him.
The brief time he held her was heaven. It was sheer hell when he drew away and halted the roaming of his hands.
"It is time," he directed in a low voice. "See this invisible world open to your eyes." He ripped open the front of her caftan with an impatient growl. The silky material pooled with a soft hush when he cast it aside. Her panties suffered a similar fate.
Julienne lowered her eyes, feeling a rush of heat to her cheeks. She was conscious of the black tendrils coursing through her body just below the surface of her skin. Tangled in myriad emotions, she felt an unforeseen stirring deep inside her heart. She was both aroused and afraid. She had fallen in love with him the day she first saw him. She'd eaten her heart out when she knew he was with another woman, felt the wretched twists of jealousy. Then, she'd tried to tell herself she was an idiot to want someone so selfish, self-destructive. He had every bad habit a man could have--and then some. Instinct warned he would put her through hell. Of that, she had no doubts. Was he worth that?
Yes, she decided. He is.
Even if the gods above damned her.
At the time, she was not thinking of consequences. Later, she would.
She barely knew it when Morgan swept her up in his arms, carried her to the altar and lowered her to its surface. She was inert, half-conscious, her mind drowning in things she could not comprehend. Her body fit within the triangle of candles, and beside her the three goddesses rejoiced in their own nakedness. Though the fire blazed hot, the surface of the altar was not. Instead, it was infused with a force beyond heat or light. Beneath her skin she felt a gathering of energies, lulling away her fears, her doubt.
He bent, his lips only inches from her ear.
"When you awaken, your old life will be gone and your new one begun."
He stood straight and stretched out his left hand over her. Beside her, the goddesses also seemed to beckon. He spoke a few words; and the wicked athame lifted from the altar, propelled into his hand. The lion's head carved into the hilt seemed to animate and roar. Ruby red eyes mocked all.
Morgan raised the dagger and held it outstretched. There came the distant cry of a thousand merged voices as the fire in the altar flared. The blade in his hand began to glow, red and sullen white, blazing with unearthly energy. Light glowed in a streak across his face, the aura of power and majesty giving his pale skin a translucent radiance. His resonant voice rang out; words came pouring from his throat, echoing and reechoing though the unimaginable infinity of time and space.
In a swift downward arc, he plunged the blade deep into her chest. "I evoke and conjure thee, O spirits…"
Julienne heard nothing more. She saw only an exploding kaleidoscope of lights. She pitched headlong into a chasm that encompassed the beginning, the end and all in between. In a whirlpool of color, the shimmering radiance of energy drawn from another realm pulsed and flared, wrapping itself around her. She felt as if she were drowning in a luminescent corona of heat and light.
The distortions continued to twist, closer now, dizzying her with swirling and sparking. She collided with the light and slipped below it. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no air for her lungs to take in. She saw a flash of brilliant color, heard her mother and her grandmother calling her name.
Part Two
Retributions
Chapter Twenty-One
Megwyn sat cross-legged, naked, her hands resting placidly palms up on her knees. On each side, to her right and to her left, bronze braziers were positioned, fashioned into the shape of Celtic lions. Incense burned in their depths, a dark, rich mixture of brown sandalwood and black musk. The air was hazy, heavy with dusky smoke.
Directly in front of her, three smal
l statues of nude men were precisely arranged. Their outstretched arms provided the base for a flat, circular pane of cut crystal. This was her gazing pool. She preferred to practice the natural way, sky-clad, unencumbered by the negative vibrations of any clothing. Four black candles, a dagger and other implements were arranged within easy reach.
Like other witches who perverted legitimate magic, she worked in secret with the ancient forces of the netherworld, shunning the light for the magnetic, alluring gloom, just as her father had. Such practices only served to strip her of all humanity. She had no sympathies for the 'lesser species'.
"Thrice 'round, thy circle's bound. I call to thee, spirit guides, bring to me the power of three." A wall of silver-blue flames burst into brilliant life, circling her. Apparently fed by no source and giving no heat, the flames snapped and danced, casting wavering shadows along the walls.
"Mee shirrey…mee shirrey…ionsar jeeagh," she murmured, gazing into the depth of the glass. I seek…I seek…to see…
A fitful gust of wind from a mysterious source stirred the hazy air, causing the silver-blue flames to flicker wildly and bringing with it a whispering echo--a voice intoning in a strange, raspy pitch, curiously rhythmic and tenuous. Images began to form, seeming to float up from silvery depths. She saw a chamber, walled in gray stone, an altar in its center.
Her face changed, and for a moment the sternness grew almost tender. Her brother was present, as was the red-haired woman who was his lover.
"We are reborn."
A still, small smile touched her lips. You've come back, brother, as I knew you would.
The scene progressed, and Morgan shifted to another ritual. He undressed, then lifted the naked woman onto the altar...
…as her own father had once lifted and placed her upon the cold gray stone…
Always sensitive, the connection she shared with her twin gave her an awareness of him that was uncanny in its completeness. Though he had long ago cut their psychic links, she could, with unerring instinct, sense his emotions. He was not pleased to return to his legacy, to reawaken his shunned past. A sense of duty motivated him. And love. The red-headed woman. Julienne…
A strange longing filled Megwyn, an emotional turmoil she could not fully analyze. Her lower lip began to tremble.
The way he touches her, kisses her…
Her eyes glazed over. Numbness curled around her as a quicksand cold dragged her senses into a dark mire. Something malevolent slithered into the forefront of her brain, assuming control of her fragile psyche. She wanted to fight the coming entity, scream for it to go away, leave her; but the screams died in her throat. Without quite knowing or understanding what was happening to her, she fell deep into a trance induced by the spectral force sharing her body. Her body, the citadel of her soul, was no longer her own but had been invaded, defiled.
Celeon's image arose, his blue eyes as cold and remote as arctic glacier. She imagined more than saw the brutal set of his jaw, the indomitable edgy line of his mouth. His eyes stared out through hers. Seeing all. Missing nothing. Inside her skull, a writhing storm of voices rose, the volume increasing as it became a single intonation.
What he possesses should have been yours, daughter. If you wish to survive, you must take it back. Make right the grievous sins of your mother.
Passive in the grip of his ghostly hands, there was little she could do to resist Celeon's invasion of her will. Since the day of her birth, he had owned her.
"Yes, Father," she murmured, deaf to her own voice. "Always I listen, and obey."
Nothing must stand in the way of taking your brother.
"The body you need to live again I shall conceive of him." Her hand drifted to the flat plane of her belly. Though not a virgin, she'd never taken a mate nor borne a child.
Megwyn watched the rest of Morgan's ritual. Seeing him brought back all the yearnings she had sought to repress. Flames of passion rose in her, all rationality lost in her desire for him.
She loved Morgan.
Wanted him.
Not as a sister cherished a brother, but as a woman loved a man. That was the source of the strife between them, the thing that repulsed him about her. He could not tolerate the thought.
Her brother had struggled for years to come to terms with their abusive childhood. Though he'd never made peace with it, he'd managed to rise a little above it.
Megwyn had not.
A shiver coursed up her spine, sending a slight, telltale trembling through her. Not fear or cold, but hatred. Hatred directed at the woman who held Morgan's heart. A vague discontent tickled at the back of her mind, wriggling through her being. Jealousy sprouted in her heart, taking deep root and spreading malicious odium. The images of her brother and his lover were emblazoned in her head.
Her vision blurred as burning tears dropped onto her cheeks. Her hands, usually so controlled, clenched into fists. Her fingernails dug into her palms until she drew blood. If she had once known sanity of any sort, it was a thing long gone. She wanted to possess her twin, utterly and completely. If they were ever joined in body, mind and spirit, she would, like the succubus, drain him dry, take everything from him. That is why he fought her. And the more he resisted her, the more she was determined to have him.
Driven by the dementia of demonic spiritual possession, it did not occur to her that such incestuous desires were perverse. She only knew she must obey or be punished.
Morgan has a mate now, her father's voice continued. One who completes him. This cannot be!
Julienne Blackthorne. His mortal lover. She should have been dead, no more than a corpse rotting in Xavier's charnel rooms. That she had survived to escape must have taken an incredible amount of will. That she had escaped also showed great laxness of the part of Xavier's Jansi. What were those idiots for, if not to guard?
Megwyn's chin dropped, then lifted in resolution.
She is strong, Celeon stormed through her mind.
"An obstacle," she murmured.
Take care of it. Celeon's voice began to fade, receding into a dark recess carefully guarded.
Then he was gone, and she forgot his presence inside her. For a moment, she was confused. Her mind seemed to have drifted away. On a deeper level, where her thoughts were not clear, she was afraid. She tried to remember, but all was a fog in her mind. She believed her father's desires to be her own and questioned not for, as always, he left no sign of his habitation inside the body of his daughter.
Shaking her head in brief confusion, she frowned and raised her hand, sending the hateful visions away. Control somewhat regained, she drew her arched brows down in anger. Her eyes were cold and stormy, brewing thunderclouds. Her mind began to tick, methodically planning. A perverse desire to inflict injury upon her twin clutched her. To punish him, she would get rid of Julienne.
She will not last long, she vowed, her lips firming at the thought. As Nisidia did not last.
Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of what she wanted.
What Celeon wanted.
She made a brief gesture, snapping her fingers. A signal. A silent figure glided out of the shadows, a black man of tall and solid stature.
"Naylor?"
"Yes, lady." Ever-vigilant and sensitive to her wants and needs, her undead familiar was ready to serve.
"Tonight you will cross over into the mortal world. I want you to keep an eye on this woman who has so bewitched my brother."
"Shall I…" He smiled, showing many teeth, his voice brittle as ice. "…slay her?"
Megwyn nibbled her lip. "For now, just watch."
"Yes, lady." He seemed disappointed.
Megwyn flung back her head and laughed. "If all goes well, she will be your reward. It will be an irony, indeed, that she fall prey to one who shares her coming hunger. Very clever of Morgan to restructure her so. Too bad he wastes his talents on the likes of a disposable human."
"A shame indeed," Naylor affirmed.
The witch began her spell work again, con
juring a new view in her scrying glass. This time, the great hall of the witches' council was revealed.
The Chamber of Justice had been carved into the side of the highest mountain overlooking the Eastlands, taking advantage of a naturally formed cavern. A mammoth undertaking of manual labor, it had been designed to recall the great coliseums of the Romans. Built around pillars of stalagmites, the great hall was circular in shape. On three sides row upon row of bench-type seating had been carved into the stone. At the rear of the circle, set high on a dais, were twelve seats, also carved from stone. Like giant teeth about to gnash, stalactites dripped down from the ceiling.
Between the amphitheater and the dais was the Floor of Judgment, where those who had defied or inarguably broken occult law were brought to be judged. Xavier had once stood before the justices, as had Morgan. The difference between them was that Xavier was judged fit to live and Morgan was not. There was a warrant of execution on her brother's head should he ever again be caught and brought before council.
The atrocities Xavier had committed could, after a fashion, be forgiven. Morgan's could not, for his was the ultimate blasphemy--renouncing the occult and turning away from his race. That he favored mortals above his own kind was unforgivable.
There were only four justices in chamber this hour. The matters were petty, hardly worth bothering the whole of the council with. Later, at the specified hour, all twelve would convene.
Megwyn tapped the face of the crystal gazing glass.
"Does the council yet know?" Meaning, were the rest of council members aware of Morgan's return to witchcraft?
"They watch as you watch," the revenant replied.
"Are they still with us?"
"For now, they stand. But you must tread carefully. There is much talk among them. Some suspect your turning, that you betray them."
"That talk shall have to be silenced."
Her face intense with concentration, Megwyn arranged four slender black tapers around her viewing glass. Passing her hand over one at a time, she said, "I summon the elements, invoke them, conjure them to do my bidding."
Descent of Demons Page 24
