Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1)

by YatesNZ, Jen

Still she fought him as if her mind was so crazed that no sense of what he said could penetrate it.

  ‘Frannie!’ he yelled again. ‘You're going to be all right now. Don't you recognize me? I'm that arrogant, fat-headed British jerk you fell in love with in Peru! The same bastard who walked out on you in Auckland last August. Fran, it's Torr. For chrissakes stop screaming!’

  A medic slipped a chloroformed mask over her face and she slowly sagged in his arms. With a heavy heart he acknowledged there had been no awareness in her of who he was, no light of sanity at all.

  It was nearly midnight when they returned to the inn.

  Outside their rooms Case asked, ‘Can you manage, George? You look absolutely bushed.’

  Georgina tried to smile at him and knew the effort was ludicrously wan. There didn't seem to be another thread of animation left in her.

  ‘I am,’ she admitted, ‘but I don't think I'll sleep. My eyes feel as if they're held open by springs.’

  ‘Yeah, that's how they look. A bit like giraffe's eyes.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Case grinned unrepentantly.

  ‘You're welcome. How about you get into bed, tap on the wall when you're ready and I'll come in with a cuppa and see if I can bore you to sleep? Actually it might be a good time to ring home. They should be having breakfast about now. I'll slip down to the lounge and borrow the phone. We can fix it up with Mrs. Graham tomorrow. Your Mum and Merryn will be desperate to hear how things really are. They've probably only been told the yacht's been found and that Fran and Gould are alive.’

  Georgina felt the silly weak tears fill her eyes again. She'd been wiping at them uselessly ever since she'd roused for a second time in Case's arms.

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said huskily. ‘Better write Mrs. Graham a note in case she comes looking for the phone in the middle of the night and thinks it's been stolen.’

  ‘Don't worry, little sister. Get into bed and I'll be there.’

  Torr just leaned against the wall watching her from beneath frowning brows. She didn't dare look in his direction. Fragile was the word that probably best described them all at this moment and nothing could be gained by teasing weak defenses. She longed for nothing more than to be held in his arms, crushed against his chest and to have him never let her go. All of that was promised in the virescent smolder of his eyes but if he touched her now she'd shatter and doubted she'd ever find all the pieces to put herself together again.

  Like Humpty Dumpty.

  She needed to get away before she dissolved into weak, hysterical giggles but it was impossible to end such a day with a banal ‘goodnight’.

  ‘Thanks,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Thanks for all your support today. The outcome might have been very different without you.’

  ‘No need for thanks. We were meant to work together.’

  ‘I know we need to talk—but—’

  A slow smile chased the weariness from the craggy lines of his face. ‘—but you're afraid you won't be able to resist me,’ he finished for her.

  A dull heat throbbed in her cheeks.

  ‘I wasn't going to put it quite like that,’ she countered, with a futile attempt at hauteur.

  The smile became a grin wide enough to cut a swathe through her heart then vanished as he said huskily, ‘Tonight I could probably manage just to hold you, and it would be a comfort to us both. But waking with you in my arms in the morning would be—a different matter. Will you invite me in?’

  Instinctively and instantly Georgina shook her head, whispered ‘goodnight’ and hurried through the door. Dropping down on the edge of the comfortable sprung mattress on the old-fashioned four-poster bed, she hugged herself and rocked for a moment with her eyes shut. Ever since she was a child she'd rocked herself when she needed comfort.

  Torr had offered her comfort. Why had she turned her back on that which she wanted more than anything else she could think of at the moment? To be held in Torr's arms, to touch the smile lines radiating from his eyes, to trace the dark, hooked brows and lose her fingers in the crisp black curls of his hair. To hold him—

  The thoughts faltered to be replaced by the image of him leaning against the wall in the hallway, watching her from eyes so strangely reminiscent of Taur's—and yet not. Taur's eyes had been green too, a clear, vibrant emerald that flashed green fire when he was angry. Torr's flashed green fire when he laughed. Today when dealing with the skepticism of Commander Abernathy and some of his staff she'd seen the occasional flash of gold fire as if his eyes were not true green. More hazel maybe.

  She had to remember Torr Montgomery wasn't Taur of Nyalda and that she knew far less of him than she did of Taur. The whole of her body throbbed in recognition and need of Taur of Nyalda when she looked at Torr Montgomery. That didn't mean she loved him the same way Gynevra had loved Taur. She'd only spent a few hours in his company over a total of three days. How could she judge? Torr wasn't the same personality as Taur reincarnated just as she wasn't the same personality as Gynevra. He was his own man. What if he proved not to be as much of a man as Taur? Cadal Isidor II of Nyalda had stridden through life with the powerful and sure-footed directness of the bull that symbolized the royal house of Nyalda and the fire and passion of the Dragon Blood that had flowed in all their veins.

  He wouldn't have allowed her to walk away from him as Torr just had. Did she wish he hadn't? Slowly she rose and gathered her things to go along to the bathroom. Her thoughts and feelings confused her. The hidden, ancient memory in her of Gynevra was disappointed he'd not wrapped an arm round her and shouldered his way into her room. Twentieth century Georgina would have been deeply disturbed if he had. Would she always compare them? Could she ever separate them in her mind and still love the one as she'd once loved the other? Did she even have the right? With a shudder she dropped back to the bed and dragged her hands down her face.

  If Gould had lost his mind along with half his face, how could she leave him?

  Harmony met them at the military hospital at Fort Lauderdale next afternoon as agreed and the four of them began a program of intense energy therapy on Gould and Fran. The man who'd jumped overboard had been found but had died before reaching hospital. Without exception those rescued from the ‘Astrid’ were severely mentally disturbed and had to be restrained and sedated. All had burns of varying severity to face, arms and legs from the strange plastic material that had melted into all areas of exposed skin. Those parts of the body covered by clothing were much less affected as the cloth had absorbed the stuff. With the consistency of dried egg white but the thickness of the plastic in ice cream containers, it was an alien material for which no one could account.

  The yacht had been towed into a quarantine berth at Fort Lauderdale Navy Base and forensic experts called in. Within twenty-four hours the unknown substance, which had coated every exposed surface of the vessel and hung from it like tattered rags had dissolved into the atmosphere and completely disappeared, leaving scientists baffled and disappointed with nothing to test. To the relief of the hospital staff, and the small band of healers, it dissolved from their victim's bodies too, relieving them of the need to remove it. The raw, burnt flesh however became instantly septic.

  Looking back on this time in America Georgina would always be deeply grateful for Harmony Whistler, for so her name had proved to be. She insisted they move into her home, a two-bedroomed beach house only minutes north of Fort Lauderdale. By dint of borrowing from friends, some of whom she admitted were gemstone dealers, they'd been able to fill both Fran and Gould's rooms with large chunks of rose quartz and even a few pieces of the much scarcer flame agate Georgina had ‘known’ would be beneficial. But what Georgina would never forget was how the small woman had put her own life on hold and placed herself, her healing abilities and her local knowledge entirely at their disposal.

  That very first afternoon they'd begun working as healing teams, Georgina with Case, Harmony with Torr and they'd alternated between Gould and Fran. Both were heavily sedated
and inclined to be fractious and disturbed when the drugs began to wear off. Fran's burns were over her head, the back of her neck, and on her hands and arms. She'd been wearing long trousers and the doctors thought she must have covered her face with her hands.

  Though completely naked, Gould had only been burned all down one side of his head and face, as if he'd been asleep on his side under a cover that had protected his body. His burns were deeper than Fran's and it seemed he'd had his mouth open and inhaled the terrible substance. For the first three days his condition had been critical.

  The scientists, loath to accept any theory of dematerialization, suggested the crew had been engaged in manufacturing some sort of substance aboard the yacht even though evidence of equipment or elements for such a project hadn't been found.

  By the sixth day the medical staff had begun to notice a huge discrepancy in the rate of improvement in their seven patients. Fran and Gould's burns were clean, rapidly healing and they needed less and less sedative to keep them settled. Family members of the other five victims had started arriving from Europe and Britain and it was one of these, a diminutive, bird-like English woman who'd asked if her son could also receive the benefit of crystal and energy healing. Gradually, they'd begun to work on all the victims.

  Their days were so busy there was scarcely time to talk with one another and every evening they dined as guests of the Coast Guard and Navy, usually with the company of Commander Abernathy or Captain Hogan, Navy scientists, or their superiors. The public had been told that the force field had dissipated as mysteriously as it had formed and the yacht had been found drifting in the area with its crew ill and disorientated.

  But within the discreet world of the US Navy the truth had created its own shudder of fascination. Commander in Chief Holworthy, whose brass had obtained them the cooperation they'd needed to get out on the water had spent three days on the Base and dined with them twice. Late at night as the four of them drove back to Harmony's house they would mull over the exigencies of being alternative-thinking civilians in an orthodox-thinking naval enclave.

  They'd all become inured to the raised eyebrows, sideways smiles and sudden body-slams against chair backs as they explained about the origin of the ancient crystal, how it came to be on the ocean bed and how they knew about it and how to deal with it. It seemed there were few within the hierarchy who, even with the irrefutable evidence presented to them, could open their minds to the possibility of past lives, let alone highly technological life some eleven thousand years or more before current time. Most were stuck in the ‘evolution from the cave to the sophisticated high-rise’ syndrome and the perception that this life was the only one they were going to have and so they'd better make it count.

  Of them all, Georgina knew only Captain Hogan and Commander Abernathy were in total sympathy with them, for they'd been present when they'd programmed the crystal and they knew the force field had only started to dissipate once Georgina indicated the programming was complete. When Abernathy had questioned them about maintaining the secrecy all were able to assure him they had no desire to expose themselves on a worldwide scale to the kind of skepticism and cynicism they'd encountered from US Navy personnel. Abernathy had been a little embarrassed and inclined to apologize.

  ‘We've all been where those people are, Commander,’ Georgina assured him. ‘Personally, I'm very happy to have it all kept quiet. Though when the ‘Astrid’s crew gets well and start talking about their experience that may be difficult. They've already mentioned some very strange phenomena. But none of them know of our part in all this and I'd prefer they didn't. I just wanted Fran and Gould back—and I've got that. I don't need the world breathing down my neck for details. I don't think I could handle the sort of sensation it would cause.’

  ‘You should understand, Commander,’ interposed Torr, ‘scarcely two weeks ago we were both as straight and normal, for want of any better terms, as anyone else. Speaking for myself, this stuff has blown my mind wide open and there are times when I feel like a wind-whipped flag and I'm scrambling to haul in its tattered remains. Trouble is, I know if I ever get it back together it'll show me a totally different set of symbols to those it bore when I unfurled it before the storm.’

  Case favored Torr with a teasing look of open-mouthed admiration.

  ‘You should write that down, man. It's poetic. We'll have you writing articles for spiritual magazines next!’

  Torr sat back and let his gaze rest lazily on Case. The two had become good friends and Georgina waited with quiet amusement for his riposte. He didn't disappoint her.

  ‘I already have a couple of topics in mind—‘Aging Bikie Discovers Alternative Thrills’ or ‘Tattooist Saves on Suntan Oil’.’

  The two of them grinned fatuously at each other and Georgina knew they'd spend the next few minutes in the age-old game of friendly one-upmanship. Torr was easy and relaxed around Case, Harmony, the Navy personnel, everyone it seemed, but her. The reverse was also true of course. Emotions were something she'd never learnt to verbalize and there was so much emotion between them waiting to be discussed you could just about build the Great Wall of China with it.

  With him on one side and her on the other.

  What would happen when Case left? She knew he was missing Merryn. He rarely let his laughing, teasing mask slip but occasionally she'd catch a faraway expression in the depths of his sunny blue eyes which belied his usual cheerfulness. Fran and Gould were improving by the day and both were having longer and longer lucid periods. They'd both improved noticeably after the introduction of their Atlantean signature stones into the healing sessions. Large quantities of Gotham’s citrine were easy to come by. Phryne's diamond was another matter.

  Torr had solved the problem by buying a diamond pendant and hanging it round Fran's neck. Georgina hadn't questioned the cost or his feelings for Fran. She'd have had to speak directly to him to do that and increasingly she felt the need to retreat behind her wall of silence. What would happen when he finally breached it, she didn't dare contemplate. At moments when she watched Fran's long slim, burn-scabbed fingers fondling the diamond at her throat and remembered Phryne's similar attachment to a black obsidian teardrop, she wondered if she could ever bring herself to speak to him. The virulence of her jealousy surprised her. It wasn't an emotion she was used to dealing with.

  A legacy of unbelievable antiquity from Gynevra?

  As the days slipped by Georgina found herself worrying at the problem whenever she was alone. Often when she wasn't, Case or Harmony would call her back to awareness with quizzical smiles and gentle questioning. But how could she begin to explain something to them that she couldn't explain to herself? Gynevra hadn't tried to explain it beyond understanding it only affected her in regard to Taur. With Gotham or anyone else it hadn't been an issue. Gynevra had reasoned it was because she loved Taur, and only Taur.

  Was that what she felt for Torr? How could she know? She'd ‘recognized’ him on some elemental soul level. He'd triggered memories so ancient they'd no right to exist any longer! Dammit! How could she know what she felt when they hardly spoke to one another even though so much begged to be shared?

  Looking at him hurt. The green of his eyes was so strong, so startling, scoring tracks of need deep into her viscera. So tall and broad and dark, he drew women's eyes like birds to the trees at dusk. With Gould she'd discovered great sexual pleasure but her knowledge of the ecstasy Gynevra and Taur had shared made her suspect Torr Montgomery could take her places in the realms of sexual joy and satisfaction she'd never dreamt existed.

  But that was lust, not love. What did she know of love? She who thought she'd found it twice in her life only to find her judgment so far from base she'd been dumped on the stony beach of her own foolishness like a stranded porpoise. Twice!

  How could she ever hope to judge her real feelings for Torr Montgomery if she couldn't even talk to him? And how was she supposed to talk to him when she knew the moment she did would be the moment she begg
ed him to take her, hold her, and never let her go?

  Chapter 37

  ‘George! There're pink turtles swimming in the sea!’

  ‘What? Where?’ Georgina jolted upright in the canvas chair under the single stately palm on Harmony's front lawn.

  Case chortled.

  ‘Gotcha, little sister.’ Then he shook his head gently at her. ‘Time you started talkin' to that man 'stead of wearin' the turf off that race track in your head.’

  Georgina hunched back in her chair and stared balefully at her brother-in-law.

  ‘I sometimes wonder how Merryn puts up with you,’ she muttered.

  It was the first afternoon in a fortnight they'd permitted themselves to relax. Torr had gone off somewhere straight from the hospital with a brother of one of the other crew members and Harmony had gone to spend time with her daughter and grandchildren further up the coast. Georgina and Case had decided they wanted nothing more strenuous than to swim in the ocean and lounge under a tree with a cold drink.

  ‘I've been talking to you for the last five minutes and you haven't heard a word I've said. If I was the nasty sort, which I'm not, I'd say—Nah, that's too nasty even for me.’

  ‘What?’ Georgina demanded. ‘What would you say, Casey Valois? Tell me or I'll throw this ice at you!’

  Miming terror, Case whimpered in a childish falsetto, ‘That it's no wonder Gould went off with Fran 'cos he probably got sick of trying to get your attention, too.’

  She threw the ice and he dodged it with laughing agility.

  ‘That is so-o low,’ she seethed.

  ‘I know,’ Case responded, falsely repentant and eyes dancing with merriment, ‘but I also know it's probably not far off the mark 'cos your head—and heart—has definitely been otherwhere for the last few months. Since a memorable, if very brief, visit of one Torrens Montgomery, to be exact. Now, George,’ he said, holding up his hands, as she began to rise menacingly out of her chair, ‘you know I wouldn't say something like that if I thought it would hurt you. I understand, as do Merryn and your Mum, it's not so much that you've stopped loving Gould, it's that you've discovered you love Torr more.’