Blessed (27 page)

It was but a split second in real time, but felt like a slow awakening to him. The consciousness stirring and zeroing in on him, raising every hair on his body. Being acutely aware of the fact that so much power is focused in on you, expecting an answer you don’t have and
more
than willing to literally shred you over and over again for the rest of eternity for giving the wrong answer is, to put it plainly, scary as hell.

Another split second went by and Chaos felt a surge in the power that he was now connected to. The answer that the boss was looking for, unfortunately, wasn’t where it should have been and he wasn’t happy about it.

Another split second passed and a familiar presence flooded into him, filling his mind.

The terrifying voice in his head asked,
Why is she still alive? You’ve had plenty of time to locate and take care of this problem.

“Well, it’s turning out to be quite a bit more difficult than I originally expected  it to be. The wards around the temples have been well maintained and are quite powerful thus far. I thought all of the Druids had been eliminated during my absence but it appears that there are some with enough of the Bloodline to keep them strong. I took out two of them in one of the temples.”

He hoped the news would derail the anger that he felt growing inside the second personality inside of him and save his skin. It didn’t.

No excuse! You can reduce entire cities to nothing without lifting a finger! You are the most powerful tool under my command and you’re giving me these pitiful excuses as to why you have failed me? I’m very disappointed in you Chaos. You know I don’t like being disappointed.

Every molecule in his body became super charged at that instant. Speeding up and sending his temperature through the roof. He was being rent into hundreds of trillions of pieces. There is nothing like every cell in your body trying to disperse in every possible direction at once. He was swelling in size and shrinking in density all at the same time. After the longest five seconds he had ever experienced, he began to turn transparent as the force inside of him pushed him apart and the molecules that made up his being tried to fight back into the spaces they were meant to fit into.

It stopped as suddenly as it had begun and he collapsed to the ground, everything snapping back into place. Another second and he was positive that he would have been scattered to the ends of every plane, known and unknown, in the Universe. There really is no recovering from something like that.

Last chance Chaos. I won’t be seeing you again until you have completed your task, will I?

“Certainly not. I am so near complete that I will not need to recharge my energy stores until after the deed is done.”

Good. Hurry. I’m growing weary of waiting.

The master’s attention turned to other matters and Chaos could focus on drawing in the planar energy that he would need to complete this last step of his mission. His molecules slowly bound back together to form the solid cells that comprised his body. The energy in his chakras was slowly being replenished and he could feel himself growing stronger and returning to his normal state of strength and power.

Without thinking too much about it or drawing attention to himself, he tried to hurry the process as much as he could.

He unplugged himself when his energy stores were full and let himself quickly fade away.

 “He’s coming.”

She jumped up from the couch where she had fallen asleep, scaring Kaiser out of his own nap and sending him skittering across the tile.

What? Who’s coming?

He shook his head, trying to clear the confusion out of his muddled brain and focus on his surroundings.

“Chaos, Kaiser! Chaos is on his way here! This is not good! I’m not ready for this! What are we going to do?”

The panic rising in her voice cleared the rest of the fog out of his head and it was suddenly his only focus in life to get her calmed down and thinking straight.

Ardra, what are you talking about? How can he be on his way here? The last we heard of him was in Nauvoo.

“I was napping and I just got flashes, like I was seeing through someone else’s eyes, of him at the temple in Denver. As in Colorado. Meaning the state that shares a border with most of the eastern side of this state! It was awful Kaiser! There was darkness everywhere! He’s too strong, Kaiser. He sucked the life right out of the entire property. I watched the building turn to ash and blow away in the wind.”

She was up and pacing now. Voice rising more and more with each pass. She got more animated as well, her hair was shaking out of her pony and she was starting to look like an A.S.L. translator with her hands flying and flapping in front of her. He needed to get her focused and calm. Fast.

The bark that jumped out of his mouth surprised him and definitely got her attention. She jumped like someone jabbed her with a cattle prod and spun in a full circle in search of what he was barking at, panic instantly setting into her eyes. He took advantage of her moment of surprise.

Ardra! You need to calm down. You are not going to be prepared at all if you allow yourself to stay worked up like this. You may not be able to control the energy inside of you when you’re agitated like this, but if you can get yourself calmed down and focused, you have a fighting chance. There’s a degree of what you can do that will take over and do its own thing if you can just get your mind focused enough to channel it, bring it to the surface and give it a purpose. I need you to take a deep breath or two right now and get a grip on yourself.

Instead of doing what he had instructed, she stood stalk still and didn’t breathe at all. She had the appearance of a statue; not breathing, not blinking and not moving.

The only difference being; statues don’t change color.

After a good thirty seconds, she finally took a deep breath and folded herself into a seated position on the floor. A few deep breaths later, he could see her relaxing. The tension flowed out of her shoulders and she went from being rigid to deflated right before his eyes.

“What are we going to do, Kaiser?” She asked in a quiet voice.

He didn’t have any more of an idea than she did, but he wasn’t about to tell
her
that. He decided to go with a little white lie.

You’re going to get through this and I’m going to be right at your side the entire time. There is no doubt in my mind about that. I know what’s inside of you and I know what you are capable of doing with it. I know it better than you do. If you could just try to have half the amount of faith in yourself that I do, you would see that he doesn’t stand a chance.

The reaction she had to his mini pep talk was somewhere between what he expected and what he had
hoped
for. He decided to call it a win when she took a few more deep breaths and corrected her posture.

As her spine straightened out, small green tendrils started to snake out of her aura. It was a sign that they might have a fighting chance after all. There was no way to be absolutely sure because she didn’t have something to focus on, so they were just little green wisps drifting away from her body and waving around in the air around her.

As she relaxed and her mind fell into the state that she was forcing it into, the energy that she was channeling became more synchronized with her will and began to take shape. The wisps solidified into vines and began moving in a more orderly fashion. Taking different lengths and girths. One second, they’d be precision whips; flashing through the air as if in search of a target. The next moment, she resembled a sea urchin; large green thorns protruding from all over her body with a dense green skin hugging her figure, effectively creating a shield and a weapon all in one. A good idea really. Even better than it seeming so sturdy was the fact that it was a maneuver that he hadn’t thought of himself.  She was starting to get creative at last.

After weeks of no progress at all, his spirit soared as she displayed the first hint of promise.

Hopefully it also meant that she was starting to believe in herself.

Now that she was completely focused on the task at hand, it was time for a little bit of input from him. There were a few basics that he could talk her through that would give her a firm foundation to build on so that, with any luck, she could come up with more moves like the sea urchin.

He decided that the extra time away from the boss he would get by riding the bike into Salt Lake was more than welcome and a smart move as far as conserving energy went. It also gave him time to get his mind focused on the task at hand. At a time like this, the distraction of the mortal terror worming around in the pit of his stomach could prove to be lethal. Rushing into battle with the fear of failure in the forefront of his mind was absolutely the worst idea that had ever crossed anybody’s mind in the long history of bad ideas.

With the rumble of the beastly bike between his legs and the roar of the wind in his ears, it was difficult for him not to let go of the fear that had been nearly crippling him before. The ride forced him to focus on the open road ahead of him  and keeping his speed under control. While he could easily fade out of his physical form to avoid any damage to himself, the freeway in central Utah was oddly busy considering how remote the country to the north and south of the road was. There were a few small towns speckled throughout the red rocks, but nothing worth pumping for information.

He blew past a city with a noticeable population and probed for the name so he could get an idea of where he was in relation to his final destination. He blew past the exit for the city of Moab and continued west toward Interstate 15. Headlights flew by in a blur heading east towards either Moab or beyond, into Colorado. He was going fast enough that nobody passed him who was heading in the same direction he was, so he didn’t worry about watching the rear view mirrors.

In no time at all, the fear was completely gone from his mind and the task at hand was quickly on its way out as well. He had to mentally check himself every so often to keep his brain from wandering too far and getting him into trouble. He needed to focus on being ready for the confrontation that was now only a few hours away.

His very existence depended on it after all.

He ran through all of the scenarios that he could possibly imagine unfolding in his head as he drove: A novice who had no idea of the strength of the power that she held, a practiced warrior ready to put up a fight and make him really work for his kill, or maybe even someone completely unaware of what was resting on her shoulders who had absolutely no idea that she was a vital part of saving humanity.

The last possibility seemed far too much to hope for.

He decided to focus more on the possibilities that involved a well trained warrior. After all, that would be the situation that would pose the biggest threat. He ran through several battles in his head and tried his best to make a plan of attack for each. He figured out the best way to conserve his energy while dealing the most damage possible.

The biggest threat that he would have to face was the fact that the planet itself would be willing to aid his opponent. She’d be able to sustain her energy for as long as there’s a breath in her body. So his best chance at winning the fight would be to make sure that there is no longer air in her body. He made sure to remind himself that it would be harder than it sounded. He was preparing for the worst case scenario after all.

Still, something in the back of his mind kept hoping that it would be an easy kill.