Genesis (The Legend of Glory Book 3) (22 page)

“Yes.” That’s what I had needed to hear. To be reminded of the mission.

)o(       )o(       )o(

Rory texted White Bear, told him Kaia had been hurt, and asked him to come. He responded immediately that he was on his way. While waiting for him to arrive, her hands were full tending to all the wounded warriors.

Jezebel’s burns healed fast, and the vamps wanted to go home. Rory went to Dominic’s house to ask Raven to drive them to the airport and found her packing.

“So, you really are leaving?” Rory asked.

“Verily.”

“Can’t you just stow your crap and get on with the mission?” Rory
really
hated drama.

Raven’s expression was incredulous. “My crap? Mine? It’s Glory who’s full of it.”

“In your wildest drunken dreams you could never imagine what Glory’s been through, and she’s not going tell anyone because it’s too vile. I had to read her mind and I’m scarred for life. So, you got your feelings hurt? Get over yourself and do the job.”

Raven kicked her suitcase across the room. Then she chased it down and kicked it again. Finally, she sank to the floor and buried her face in her hands. “This is the only family I have left. I care about them. That anyone would think I’d betray them....”

“I never had family so don’t claim to understand all the emotional baggage that goes with it, but I think a big part of the package is hurting each other, forgiving, and then moving on. Glory is oozing remorse over this. Can’t you just let it go?”

“I’d die for her. I’d die for any of them.”

“Then slay your wounded ego. Your family needs you as much as you need them.”

Raven unpacked and drove the Goth Girls to the airport.

)o(       )o(       )o(

Rory watched Glory work feverishly to build flashbangs out of materials found around the house and stockpile them on the kitchen table. Glory trudged through the snow and collected anything that could be used as a weapon from every barn, outbuilding, and junk pile she could access. She added it all to the growing kitchen table arsenal. Dominic and Sasha stayed by her side and tried to assist, but she seemed on a one-woman mission and pushed everyone away. Finally, Rory fell into step with her and said, “You can play General Glory all you want, but this is an army and you need to let the troops help.”

Glory looked at her, but Rory could tell her mind was far away. “We need rosaries, and some holy water, and more warding.”

“Then delegate, sweetie. Generals delegate.”

Glory’s thoughts seemed to snap to attention. “Oh. Right. Okay. Dominic, you’re in charge of getting rosaries and holy water. Sasha, find Lailah and tell her she’s got to construct wards that will stop Lucifer.”

“I don’t think there are wards strong enough to do that,” Sasha said.

Glory’s voice grew harsh. “Just tell her to get it done. If they won’t stop him, then make them strong enough so he has to work for it ... for me. I won’t go gently into that Hellfire.”

Dominic nodded. “We’ll get it done.”

Glory stumbled and grabbed her belly. “Someone get that obstetrician, Dr. Walsh, over here to check little Gen out. Something’s not right.”

The troops scrambled to follow her orders.

Rory took Glory’s arm and tried to draw her back inside the house. “Let’s get you off your feet and put some food into you.”

Glory pulled away. “The storm’s coming. I’ve got to make things ready.”

Rory tugged harder. “Do I need to use my mom voice?”

Glory looked at her and blinked.

“Stop being a dumbass and get in the friggin’ house, you stubborn little bitch.”

“My mom would never say something like that.”

“Well, that’s what’s wrong with you; you were raised by parents using the whole Mr. Spock molly-coddling method.”

“You mean Dr. Spock.”

“Hey, I’m only thirteen. I can’t be expected to know it all.”

“You’re the biggest know-it-all I’ve ever met.”

Rory nodded. “I get that a lot.”

“Rory?”

She threw her hands on her hips and projected her most practiced tough-girl image. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Rory melted. “Hold that thought because there are things you don’t know yet that might make that really mean something.”

“Like what?”

Rory wondered if she should let the wildcat out of the bag and explain they were family, but decided it would make things more tragic if they all ended up with a bad case of death. “I’ll tell you if we get to the other side of this.”

“I’ll hold you to it, kiddo.”

Rory caught her breath. The only other person who had ever called her that was her own mother. Could it be an omen? In that moment, she chose to believe it was.

)o(       )o(       )o(

Kaia had still not awakened. Rory crawled into the bed, grasped her hand, and tried to see what she saw. “Show me,” Rory whispered.

The darkness glowed midnight blue, and glittering snow whipped around her in spirals. She had no sensation of chill, but the spiral dance created a dizzy, giddy feeling that disoriented. The wind carried hypnotic wisps of voices, and she found herself wandering in circles seeking their source.

“Hello?” Kaia called to them. “Don’t hide from me. It’s time we meet.”

Time
. Time was distorted and strange here. It also seemed to possess a powerful presence.

Rory felt the power and recalled Nyx’s tee shirt:
TIME IS THE MOTHER OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS.

A tremendous sense of urgency filled Rory as she realized that if she didn’t yank Kaia out of here soon, she’d be forever lost.

Rory straddled dimensions, reached deep into the center of her Earth, and drew upon its energy. Empowered, she managed to say, “Yes, Kaia Moonstone, it is time we meet. Take my hand.”

“Moonstone? My name is Flanagan.”

Rory transformed her gasp into a laugh and said, “Of course, I had forgotten. Let’s crawl out from under this cloak of illusion and dance together.”

Rory felt Kaia squeeze her hand, and they danced their way back home.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

†          †          †

Zane, his sister Trinity, her husband Caleb, and his cousin Leah, all became vampires in their late teens or early twenties. Since then, they had worked on various ranches as hired hands—a nomad’s life designed to hide their secret. Their latest home base was a four hundred acre Arabian horse ranch in north Texas where they lived in a small three-bedroom cabin. Zane went there directly from White Bear’s.

Trinity saw Zane get out of the truck, shouted “yeehaw!” and raced from the corral to leap into his arms. It was her usual greeting after one of his long absences. However, this time her intense body slam sent them both sprawling. Zane landed hard on his back and she somersaulted over him, leaping onto her feet in one easy movement.

He looked up and saw her staring down at him. “What the hell, Zane?”

The wind knocked out of him, it took a moment before he could reply. “Not as young as I used to be.”

She squatted at his side and whispered, “Seriously? It worked? You’re human again?”

“It’s a mite humbling,” he said.

She offered him a hand up, then retrieved both their hats. Plopping his onto his head, she studied his face. “You look different. The edges aren’t so sharp. Son of a gun.”

“We need to talk,” Zane said and headed into the cabin.

Caleb and Leah stood side-by-side at the living room window, their shocked expressions mirroring Trinity’s.

“Did we see what we think we just saw?” Caleb asked.

Zane nodded, eased down onto the couch, and resisted the urge to massage away some of the ache. The tackle on top of the long drive reminded him just how human he was.

Leah looked at Zane as if he were a two-headed calf. “What’s it like?”

“Like being a two-headed calf.”

“Huh?”

“Peculiar. It’s gonna take some getting used to again.”

Caleb sat down next to him. “So, it really worked. All this time I thought you were a fool to hope.”

Zane didn’t take offense. He’d had the same doubts. “I brought enough of the cure for each of you, like I promised. Gotta warn you, it’s grisly to go through, but I’d do it again.”

Trinity sat on Caleb’s lap and the two looked at each other.

“We could have young’uns,” Trinity said.

Caleb nodded. “We could settle down in one place and build a life of our own.”

“We’d get old and ugly.”

“And sick and injured.”

“Our diet would be more interesting.”

“Our sex life would be more boring.”

“We’d die.”

“We’d die.”

They both turned to look at Zane and he could tell the dying part was a deal-breaker. “It’s the natural order,” he reminded them. “To everything there is a season.”

Trinity reached out and caressed his rough cheek. “Little brother, I just don’t have the faith in my heart that yours holds. I’ve changed since we were kids filled with Heaven’s fire. Life is all I believe in anymore.”

It saddened Zane to realize that his own sister had been away from the inner light for so long that she was lost in darkness.

“What are you going to do now?” Leah asked him, her normally soft, whispery voice loud and harsh. “You still hell-bent on making Glory your bride?”

“That’s my plan,” Zane said.

“If that doesn’t work out, will you marry Jinx?”

“If she’ll go human.”

“If neither of those plans work out?”

“I’ll find a good woman and have a family. It’s always been my dream.”

“If I go human, would you marry me? I’d give you all the babies you want.”

Zane hung his head, his despair growing. He knew she loved him and didn’t want to hurt her, but he wouldn’t lie. “No, Leah. I’m sorry.”

Before Zane could look up, she practically flew across the room and sliced the side of his neck with her buck knife.

He grunted in shock and pain, Trinity screamed and tackled her, the knife went flying, and the two women rolled around the floor screeching and clawing at each other like two rabid cougars.

Zane’s hand tried to stem the flow of blood from his neck while Caleb peeled back his fingers to examine the wound. “At least the crazy bitch missed the artery,” Caleb said. “You’ll live.”

Caleb stood, pulled the two women apart and pushed Trinity toward Leah’s bedroom. “Pack her stuff.” Then he picked Leah up and tossed her out the front door. “You’re not part of this family anymore.”

Leah tried to come back inside, but Caleb held her off. From the doorway, she said to Zane, “I’ll kill you. For years I’ve tried to get Bo to kill Jinx so I could have you. I’m going to join his gang now, and we’ll be coming for you. You’ll be mine, one way or another.”

)o(       )o(       )o(

By the time White Bear arrived at Glory’s farm, Kaia was awake but feverish and disoriented. The angels had tried to heal her, but failed—Kaia’s wounds were magical and beyond their scope of expertise. Raven tried smoothing out the chaos in her auric field, and Rory had once again delved into her mind in an attempt to untangle threads, but their efforts didn’t make any difference.

Rory waylaid White Bear before he had a chance to see Kaia. As soon as his Sedona Vortex Tourmobile pulled into the drive, she ran to the
SUV
and hopped into the front passenger seat.

“You didn’t even take time to put on warm clothes,” Rory said in greeting, taking note of his ripped jeans, light shirt, and no coat in sight.

“I’m tough for an old man.”

Rory grinned. “Speaking of old men, did Zane’s cure take?”

White Bear nodded, but didn’t offer any details.

Rory didn’t pry.

“How’s Kaia?” he asked.

There was so much he needed to know, and she didn’t have a clue where to start. “Let me bottom line it for you. Kaia’s been flirting with the Legion of Doom since Micah first possessed her. It broke something open that she didn’t want any of us to see. On the way from your place to her covenstead, we had a showdown with the Flanagan clan. That widened the break. When she vanquished Nyx, she tapped something dark and fell into it. I pulled her out of there, but she’s totally messed up.”

White Bear sat quietly for a long time. Finally, he said, “All her life I’ve been trying to shield her from the shadows. We all have.”

Anger filled Rory. “Well, y’all have been a bunch of dumbasses. She wasn’t prepared, and now the monsters are eating her alive.”

White Bear’s expression and mind were unreadable.

“Just get the damn job done.” Rory jumped out of the truck, slammed the door with gusto, and stomped back into the house.

White Bear collected Kaia and settled her into the car, then went back inside to talk to Rory.

“I can see Kaia coming to a crossroads,” he said. “I need to know if you’ll be there to help her.”

Rory shrugged. “Depends which road she takes. I really don’t want to have to take her out, but I will if I need to.”

White Bear stared at her like the unreadable rock he was.

Rory sighed. “Ah, hell, are we going to have to fight now?”

“Not now. Maybe later. I’ll always be her guardian.”

“Well Mr. Medicine Man, let’s hope we don’t have to duke it out in Dr. Evil’s Lair, ’cause that would be one serious supernatural smackdown.” She said it with as much brass as she could shine.

Holy friggin’ crap
, she thought as the brass instantly tarnished.

*          *          *

While waiting for Dr. Walsh to arrive for the prenatal checkup, my phone rang and I was surprised to see Carmela’s number on the caller
ID
. We hadn’t spoken since long before my kidnapping. After I switched to home study for my final semester, we drifted. She was deep into her new love affair with Tina Nancy Turner—better known in our social circle as
TNT
—and I was trying to hide my mysterious pregnancy. Happy to hear from her, the news she called to share knocked me off my feet.

“Glory, my father’s dying.”

I stumbled and found purchase on the arm of the couch. “Of what?”

“They don’t know. There’s a whole lot of mystery illness going around. Talk is, it’s some kind of fallout from the pandemic.”

I knew better. The new diseases sweeping the world were due to the
NWO
’s triggering of latent genetic mutations.

“The doctors say there’s nothing else to do. He’s in hospice.” Carmela sounded shell-shocked, numb, half-dead herself. Her entire family died during the pandemic, and her father was all she had left.

“What can I do?” I asked, fully aware of what I had to do. I patted my belly and silently reminded Gen of the importance of her mission.

“Pray? Could you pray for him? I know you aren’t a believer, but it’s the only hope I have left.” She paused. “Of course, maybe that awful new priest was right when he told me that all the death in my family was punishment because I’m a lesbian. Or maybe you’re right and religion is just a bunch of hooey after all.”

My fist tightened around the phone as I made a cosmic connection. “Carmela, you listen to me, and you listen to me good. Remember you told me that the Virgin Mary appeared to you and said you’d someday be responsible for saving my soul? Well, you did. You did, Carmela. I can’t explain everything right now, but if it weren’t for that rosary you gave me, I would have literally lost my soul.”

She moaned. “Don’t mock me, Glory. Not now, not when—”

“I have never lied to you about anything. I’ve always spoken my mind, and I’m telling the truth now. I swear on my life that your Madonna is real. You pray to her, and I promise that I’ll pray to her for your dad.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. Isn’t there some special prayer you say?”

“The Hail Mary?”

“Yeah, that. Text it to me.”

A flood of tears poured through the phone, and I felt Carmela’s heart brighten with hope. I could actually read hearts now, just like demons did. Strange, the gifts I returned from Hell with.

At least there was that.

*          *          *

Professor Greenberg drove Dr. Walsh to my house. When summoning them, Lailah had explained the events surrounding my kidnapping and my concerns about how it might have affected Genesis. Since returning, something felt off with her. Admittedly, Gen’s entire existence in my body had been strange. The only thing I had to compare pregnancy to was Hope carrying Jeremiah to term in the nineteenth century, and my memories about that were fuzzy. But it felt as if Gen was twisted like a spring wound too tightly. Maybe she had been hurt when Jesse attacked me, or perhaps there was more in that wine he made me drink besides opium. I was scared. We were so close to the end, I just wanted it to resolve as the Caretakers had intended. I honestly didn’t care anymore if I survived, but Gen absolutely had to.

My anxiety spilled over onto everyone around me, and my entire crew gathered in the house waiting for Professor Greenberg and the doctor to arrive.

Raven let them in the front door, and I performed introductions. Pretty much everyone there had already met the professor, but on Dr. Walsh’s previous visit Lailah had everyone out on training maneuvers. However, shockingly, silence and wary eyes greeted the doctor. Well, silence except for Hallie’s low growl. I looked around and saw that Raven seemed transfixed by Dr. Walsh’s aura. Dominic and Rory moved in front of me, and she pulled a flask of holy water from her hoodie. Sasha and Lailah stepped forward with their blades raised.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Professor Greenberg said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “What’s all this?”

“Step aside,” Lailah said. “There’s a demon in this woman.”

“A demon?” Dr. Walsh asked. “Are you crazy?”

Lailah cocked her head. “You aren’t aware of it, are you?”

Dr. Walsh backed up toward the front door, but Raven blocked her path.

I could sense the woman’s fear and confusion, but beneath that was another, sinister emotion. Suddenly, the first conversation I had with Dr. Walsh hit instant replay in my brain and everything came into focus. “It wasn’t alien abduction at all; it was demonic abduction,” I said. “You’re an unwitting vessel for the demon that compromised our wards the day Jesse kidnapped me. Did it mess with them when you went to use the bathroom?”

The woman’s eyes flashed fire.

Rory stepped forward, splashed her with holy water, and she screamed. Rory splashed more, and she fell to her knees.

“Dominic, Archangel Michael’s army can exorcise demons,” Lailah said. “Do it.”

Dominic closed his eyes and said,
“Princeps gloriosissime divinae exercitu Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio contra adversarias principes et potestates, adversus mundi, qui volunt dominari in tenebris contra personam omnium spiritualium. Veni in auxilium hominum, quos Deus ad imaginem suam, et liberas eos de diaboli tyrannide.”