Cat and Seth were silent. Even Bree looked captivated by the tale.
“What an amazing story,” Cat remarked.
“Well, it’s a lot more original than thinking you’re Napoleon Bonaparte,” Seth added.
“Excuse me?”
“So show us. Pretend I’m from Missouri. Show me your horse’s ass.”
Cat watched intently. Despite the crudity of Seth’s request, Cat wanted to see it, too. Lelani knew she was losing the woman’s trust to Seth’s cavalier attack.
“It’s not that easy. There are limits to what…”
“Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I’m just asking you to be yourself,” Seth said. “Horse lady from an alternate universe. Or crazy woman missing from an asylum.”
“Catherine, please believe you can trust me,” Lelani said. “Take as an assurance the fact that I have saved you and your family tonight.”
“I know. It’s the only reason I’ve gone along this far, but… don’t… I… I think… I should get Cal to a hospital.” Cat looked to Seth for support after she said this.
It was all unraveling.
“I can get arrested for what went down tonight,” Seth said. “I’m not going anywhere near where there are other cops. If he dies, they’ll pin two cop murders on me on top of fleeing the scene. I have to look after my own ass.”
For once, Lelani was grateful for Seth’s selfish nature.
Seth stood up and headed for the door. “Maybe Red can take you to the hospital on her flying carpet.”
As Seth passed them, a hand sprang from the couch and grabbed his wrist. In a grave whisper, Cal MacDonnell said, “Show them.”
Cat cupped her husband’s flushed, drenched face as he struggled to open his eyes. They were white with fever. “Cal,” she pleaded.
Seth tried to break the grip. “Show them what?” he asked.
Cal looked at Lelani through cloudy eyes.
“My lord,” Lelani said, “magical energy is in short supply here. My illusion has a high power cost. I…”
“Show them,” he whispered one last time. He passed out again.
Cat stroked her husband’s face, trying to revive him. Cal slept peacefully in her embrace.
Seth had difficulty breaking Cal’s grip. “Jeez, this guy’s stronger asleep than I am awake.”
“It takes a considerable amount of magical energy to create an illusion such as the one I’ve been maintaining,” Lelani explained. “I have a finite amount of energy with me, and I should be saving it for the mission ahead; however, I understand why a leap of faith on your part is too much to expect.”
Lelani reached into her shirt and pulled out an amulet hanging from a silver chain about her neck. She took it off. Then she said, “
VATRAS ETRUS MEHA AEODIN
“Would you hold this for me,” she asked Bree, handing her the amulet.
She felt nothing. She wasn’t changing form; the energy field that altered photons around her now dissipated. Her legs vanished and in their place were the limbs of a thoroughbred. The area behind her, clear only moments ago, was now filled with the hindquarters of a horse that was bigger than a pony but smaller than a police horse. Cat froze. Seth’s cigarette dropped, his mouth agape. Bree was smiling.
“I told you she was a horse-lady.”
CHAPTER 9
Cal MacDonnell saw white. No, that wasn’t right. He experienced white-an ever-expanding, inestimable, infinite whiteness. Not the color of a complete spectral blend, but instead, an abyss; the absence of all matter and energy-the universe had been drained… a page sans ink. He turned; white behind him. He looked up; white above. He looked down; white below, and what’s more, no him. He held his hand up… nothing. Where am I? He was sure he said it and yet the sounds, not sounds, reverberated in the void. It was not resonance as he remembered it. Cal yelled, uncertain he’d made a noise. A minute, an hour, nothing could be measured. He simply was, yet wasn’t.
“This is your past,” said a voice behind him.
He turned, and standing there like a cutout was a young girl, no more than ten, barefoot in a blue velvet dress with white lace trim. Her dark blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked almost like his daughter, Brianna.
Where am I? Cal asked again in the soundless voice. He wasn’t sure if she heard him.
“I told you, this is your past. Don’t you have ears?” The girl considered him for a second. “Oh, sorry. You understand me, though, don’t you?”
Cal nodded, or thought he did. His sense of self was a strange sensation, like the phantom limbs of an amputee.
“Good.”
You look familiar.
“I’m your sister, Meghan.”
I don’t have a sister.
“I just said you did. In fact, you have two. I’m the one you like best. Do you remember my nickname?”
No.
“Oh boy. Uphill all the way, I see. Please, look over here,” she said, holding out her hand.
There was a dot in the distance. He drew closer to it, or it to him. It was an optometrist’s eye chart, except the pyramid of stacked typescript was no alphabet Cal had ever seen. The letters reminded him of Sanskrit.
I can’t read it.
“Did I ask you to read it?”
On the right of the bottom-most line of the chart, a tiny character turned red and began to squirm and wiggle. It leapt off the diagram and ran around them aimlessly in search of something.
“That rune is one of the details,” Meghan said. “Very unorganized lot, the details. They’re always getting lost.” She put her fingers to her lips and issued a sharp whistle. The rune ran up to Meghan and studied her. Meghan thrust out her thumb like a hitchhiker and motioned to the right with quick jabs. It hopped into the empty air only to stick in the center of whiteness. It twisted and expanded like a bead of red ink dropped into a bath, then transformed into a black swirl. The swirl grew around them until they were enveloped in darkness. The air changed-humid and wet like summer in a swamp.
Where are we?
“Ground zero.”
A violent slash of lightning cut the world open from sky to ground. Bright light emanated from this tear in the universe. Cold emanated from the light, an odd sensation for one lacking corporal form. Cal tried to remain still but a powerful force pushed him toward the light. He threw his phantom arms out to the sides, hoping to find a brace in the darkness. His head plunged through the phenomenon first and emerged from a thicket. He glimpsed a world of madness on the other end-freezing cold, bright, a world populated by giant heads. Two flesh-colored mountains framed him. He clung with all his strength but the force was too strong. Giant hands came toward him…
“That’s enough of that,” Meghan said.
Suddenly, Cal was standing in a room with stone walls, paintings, velvet draperies, furniture, a library, and a massive stone fireplace with two midwives assisting a woman on a bloody bearskin rug. The eye chart, minus one rune, hung over the fireplace.
Meghan walked to the fireplace.
“No one should have to go through that twice in one lifetime. Recognize the screaming woman on the rug?”
Is this another weird dream? I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to… Erin. Oh my God, Erin is dead. I have to…
“You have to stick with the program if you hope to get your marbles back. So, this would be our mother. That’s you putting her through hell.”
Mother? Yes. I remember. Where’s…?