Kissed by Smoke (24 page)

My headlights illuminated street after empty
street as I avidly followed each turn barked out by Lucy, the
trusty GPS with a saucy Australian accent, on the way out of town.
A sharp left had me turning into a wall of trees, where the road
became narrow and only roughly paved. Within a minute, I was
creeping down a dirt road, the arc of my headlights hitting nothing
but deep darkness.

“You have reached your destination,” Lucy
said in her phone sex voice. I turned her off as I came to a stop
in a small clearing, the screen going black and plunging the car
into darkness. A tan SUV—color me corrected—of indecipherable make
waited for me, parking lights on. A white haired man was leaning
against the back bumper, and as I exited my vehicle, he came to
shake my hand, long tan coat swishing. His smile was genuine, the
hair at his temples light gray in deep contrast to his chestnut
hair.

“Miss Avari, so nice to meet you,” he said
kindly in an impeccable English accent. “I have spoken at length
with your father of you. I’m Edward Nice.” He pronounced his last
name like the Paris vacation hot spot, not the adjective.

I nodded and glanced around, gesturing to
the dark forest. “I’m not about to be kidnapped and sent to a
military lab for testing, am I? I don’t do well in small
spaces.”

His laugh was hearty as he clapped a hand to
my shoulder. The smile that accompanied the sound made him
intensely handsome, for a man who was old enough to have borne and
raised my parents. “Heavens no, my dear! Here, your unusual talents
could well come in handy and will most surely be commended. If you
would follow me?”

We crunched across a bed of fallen leaves
and into the trees, surrounded by the symphony of the night. The
insects droned in a ceaseless wave of noise, broken only by our
footsteps on the ground. I caught the eye of a fox, sliding
silently through the underbrush about ten feet to the right, and
his tongue flicked out at me as he licked his lips. I’ve got damn
near perfect night vision, a plus when I played nighttime Capture
the Flag back home. It gets boring in small town America.
Population 996 on a good day, my hometown was 75 miles from the
nearest city and nothing but woods and river. You learn to amuse
yourself early in a setting like that.

“So, from what I understand, you’ve got more
powers than you know what to do with. An all-purpose kind of girl,
eh?” His smile was infectious, but his gaze too intense, too
seeing.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my
hoodie and averted my eyes. “You could say that.”

“Levitation, including of yourself, if I
understand correctly.”

I nodded, blowing out a breath that was
visible in the air. “I can use a vessel of some kind to levitate
myself, like a broom or a carpet, but I can’t
fly
.”

“Ah, a modern day witch!” We both chuckled;
not the first time I’d heard that little joke. It tickled my
parents to death. “So, night vision, super strength, telekinesis,
some psychic abilities, am I right?”

“I can speak to spirits if they come to me,
but I can’t summon them. I’ve never had the training. And I can
hold objects and,” I searched for the word I wanted, “just,
know
things
about them.” I certainly didn’t want to talk about the most
embarrassing power I have; thankfully, he didn’t bring it up. Score
one to my dad for keeping some things to himself.

It came out when I hit puberty. I remember
it was cloudy and cold outside, or as cold as it gets in southern
Mississippi. Our school had been about forty years old, with a
heating system to match. I’d worn old, wool gloves to school and
had been chilled enough to sit through three class periods with
them on. At lunch, I was surrounded by bodies and warmth. I took
off my gloves to pick at the vile chicken-based product that passed
as protein and crunchy mac and cheese on my plate, only half
listening to my friends.

We were talking about kissing, oddly enough.
At that age, everything’s interesting if you haven’t done it. Aaron
Stockholm, one of my best friends, was turned around and
gesticulating wildly with a classmate across the room, when I
reached over and grabbed his forearm to get his attention. I
watched in shock as the touch of my hand gave my thirteen year-old
classmate his first orgasm.

A month later, I was being home schooled. No
big deal, with both Dane and Theresa being Literature and Biology
professors, respectively, at the local community college. Sprinkle
on top of that my tendencies toward the anti-social, and it was a
good recipe. The revelations of my adolescent years shaped my
entire outlook on growing up and unfortunately chose to make a
skeptic of me. Until I learned to control my powers, I wore black
leather gloves despite the season.

The boys in town used to think it was funny
to call me Michael Jackson. You don’t even want to know what they
called me when that whole child abuse thing went down.

“Anything I missed on that list?”

I shrugged, evading the question. “To be
honest, I’ve been discovering powers constantly. At least every
couple of years something else surprises me. When you call me
all-purpose, it’s not a joke.”

We crunched along. “Dane told me they found
you? As a baby, he said. How magnificent!” Edward smiled, his bushy
mustache twitching. “I would say that was quite a shock for
them.”

Truth was it didn’t faze my parents one bit.
They live their own odd lifestyle, believing in fate and the
never-ending web of destiny. Finding an infant in the woods behind
their house was life mundane to a pair of practicing Witches.
Worshippers of the misunderstood religion of Wicca, my parents
dance naked beneath the swollen moon each month, burning incense
and tossing seasonal herbs into the fire pit with yells of
exaltation. Little makes them stop and double-take.

“No, not a shock,” I replied thoughtfully,
picking at a lump of dryer lint inside the pocket of my hoodie. I
wondered if the path we were on would ever end.

“A gift.” Edward nodded sagely.

The trees broke and I stopped abruptly with
a gasp, my jaw dropping.

Rising in a circular clearing before me was
the most beautiful structure I’d ever seen. Like some medieval
castle, it loomed in the night, one central tower growing from the
sloping roof, dark brown wood thick with distorted glass windows.
The body of the building was comprised of large gray stones, pieced
together around visible support beams the color of the tower. Eight
large columns paced down the side, each a swirl of muted green and
cream.

“Magnificent, isn’t she?” he said fondly,
clasping his hands behind his back and rocking onto his heels.
“Those columns are hollow Connemara green marble from near Galway,
in Ireland. They’re only about forty years old. They replaced the
original wooden columns when the structure was compromised years
ago. The stone is mainly all original, dating as far as we can tell
from around two hundred BCE, but the wooden tower and supports have
been replaced several times over the centuries.”

One lone spotlight was trained on a far
corner, alternately illuminating and shading the temple. It was at
least three stories high, not counting the tower, and as big around
as a pro football field. “What is this place?”

Tucking my hand into the crook of his arm,
he led me toward a door hidden in the shadowy walkway behind the
columns. “This, my dear, is a very rare temple to the goddess.” He
turned to face me, his blue eyes twinkling. “Each night you’ll come
to the clearing at ten p.m. and leave your car. Follow the path we
just walked to the Temple, where the evening shift guard will meet
you at the door, pass off the keys, and then drive your car back to
base. When morning shift arrives at 4 a.m., you will take that
individual’s car to the base, where yours will be awaiting
you.”

He fumbled through several pockets of his
coat before locating a small, silver ring. “This ring must be worn
when you are at the Temple or on the grounds. We are heavily
protected against intruders. It will allow for you to pass through
the wards unharmed.”

Sliding the little piece of metal on my
middle finger, I asked, “Wards?”

“Surely, you know about magic?”

If I could levitate small children and fly
on a broomstick through the night sky, I could certainly believe in
magic. Theresa and Dane did. All I could manage was, “Huh.”

It took three keys to open the giant oak
door. What a process. I shifted from foot to foot behind him,
alternately raising my eyebrow at him and trailing my fingers over
the chill marble of the column beside me.

As the door closed behind us, the night was
silenced. We stood in a large, dim chamber lit only by the
flickering of a single torch directly to the right of the entrance.
The ceilings soared maybe forty feet, disappearing into darkness
where I assumed the tower stood. I felt a presence to my right and
whirled in time to see a man conjure fire with his hands and toss
it lazily to the walls, where dormant torches lit one after the
other until the entire room became visible.

“Edward. Good to see you,” Flame-man said in
a brisk voice, before training his pale gray eyes on me. His pupils
were so dark they made his irises seem white in comparison. The
corners of his mouth turned down, and I could taste the disdain. “I
assume this is the new girl?”

“Yes, Jordan, this is Vale Avari,” Edward
introduced me, patting my back gently. “Vale, this is Jordan
Brinkman. He works the shift before yours.”

I didn’t like the way Jordan was eyeing me,
like a bug to be crushed. “Vale. Nice to meet you.” His
condescending tone belied his words.

I stared at the big hand he offered and
looked back to Edward, giving a direct cut to the man, as they say
in romance novels. I gestured with my head. “Who are they?”

Edward smiled fondly up at the three immense
statues in the middle of the chamber, illuminated merrily in the
firelight. Seated upon three massive thrones were three equally
impressive females. The central figure rose close to the ceiling,
while the other two flanked her at not quite thirty feet each, if I
had to guess. They were so immense I almost couldn’t believe I was
seeing them. “In the middle is the Celtic goddess Cerridwen, to the
right you have the Egyptian goddess Bast, to the left you have the
Norse goddess Freya. Three very important personifications of the
goddess, each in their own way. They’re not the original statues,
of course, time has a way with destruction. These three are only
about two hundred years old.”

Edward stepped aside with Jordan, giving me
a moment to reflect. Theresa and Dane worshipped a god and goddess,
yet I’d not studied their beliefs or composed any of my own. I was
twenty-four years old and nowhere near understanding the bigger
picture or believing in an all-powerful being controlling my
existence. I wandered over to the statues for a better look.

I traced my fingers over the deep carving of
“Bast” at the feet of the figure on the left, each letter bigger
than my hand. The throne upon which she sat was a rough block of
stone with a squared back; what parts of it could be seen were
covered in brightly colored hieroglyphs. The goddess sat demurely,
bare feet planted on the floor and her knees lightly touching, long
legs flanked by a pair of regal, golden colored cats with shiny
eyes of emerald. One hand rested in her lap and the other was
firmly anchored to the base of an upright Ankh on the opposite leg.
Her face was a working mixture of predator and mother with flawless
features feline in shape, and skin the color of mocha. The goddess’
eyes were yellow and slit like a cat’s. She wore an ivory tunic
over a tiny waist and curvy body, topped by generous cleavage and
bare shoulders. Her headdress was an elaborate carving very close
to the color of her skin, tiny braids falling in a halo around her
shoulders. Two splashes of bright green graced her in the shape of
a headband and costume necklace. Rising from above the headband
were two dainty cat ears, perked like Addie’s when she listens to
me speak.

Before I had a chance to move on to the next
statue, Edward was beside me. I jumped, unaware he’d come so close.
When he smiled, his eyes crinkled with years of laugh lines. I
would bet he was a cool grandpa. “This is where I leave you, Vale,”
he told me, patting my shoulder. “Jordan will take care of you.
He’s staying overnight to teach you the ropes and get you settled
in.”

“Well, that was awful kind of him,” I
answered, sweetly mocking, and I batted my thick, black eyelashes
in the sour man’s direction. He frowned at me, crossing
overly-muscular arms across his large pectoral muscles. I could
hear his plain black T-shirt screaming in agony.

“Behave yourself and listen to what he has
to say,” Edward warned, wagging his finger. He paused, standing in
the open doorway, and his face went serious. “I almost forgot. This
is very important, so listen carefully.” He put a warm hand on each
of my shoulders. “If there’s ever an emergency, you are to call me
or another coworker. The location of this temple is unknown to the
people of this village. Its exact location is protected at all
costs. If you need help, for whatever reason, you are not to call
emergency services.” He dropped the deep tone and smiled. “Of
course, this is quite possibly the safest place to be in
Quicksilver, as you can very well see.” He chuckled, gesturing to
the fortifications on the door.

For as large and bulky a door, it made not a
sound when it closed. Jordan stepped up to it, methodically locking
each of the five locks. There were three deadbolts with three
different keys, a sliding bar, and a hook and eye; the last two of
which must have been undone when Edward and I arrived.

“When you’ve entered the Temple for the
night, you lock each one,” Jordan grunted as he worked. His back
was to me, his blonde hair shaggy and loose around his thick neck.
When he turned, he latched cold, gray eyes to mine. “It’s
imperative that you do this.”