Blessed (29 page)

“I think it’s the stress of knowing that he’s so close. I’m still waiting to wake up from this. It’s just so weird, you know?”

She stretched and sat up while rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes and chasing away the remaining echoes of the nightmare. The clock that had been placed in the living room chimed five times, letting her know that the sun would be coming up soon. She was surprised at the time. She had gotten four solid hours of sleep and felt a lot better for it.

A big yawn and a final stretch had her up and moving toward the fridge for some yogurt and a banana. As she walked, she drew the energy up from her core and pushed it out of her. The result being thousands of tiny little tendrils that she was hoping would save her life.

She stared in wonder as they snaked out from her entire body while she ate her yogurt. Thinking back to only a few short weeks ago, this had
not
been part of her plan. She could never have seen herself where she was at that very moment: Standing in the kitchen, both of her parents dead, eating yogurt, in love with a dog and preparing to participate in a mystical battle to save the world and avenge her parents.

“How does this stuff happen to me?” she asked of nobody in particular.

Kaiser huffed a deep breath as he lie down and put his head on his paws.

The sky was beginning to lighten to the east, heralding the official arrival of Spring. The shadow of the Wasatch front was a distinct cut out against the dark blue sky. The frigid air beating into his body as he passed a small town called Nephi helped keep his mind focused on the road and not too much on the battle that was quickly approaching.

A few miles north of the tiny dot on the map he had just driven through, he ran into the strangest thing.

As he slowed the bike, a smile started tugging at the edge of his mouth.

“They must be getting really desperate if you two codgers are all they’ve got left to put in between me and the girl.” He said to the two women who stood like a feeble roadblock in the middle of the highway. They smelled of dirt and rotting leaves. He had never found the smell appealing, but it was a sure-fire way to pinpoint Druidic magic.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself, minion. Just because we’re old, doesn’t mean we’re stupid.” The younger of the two spouted combatively.

“Good. That makes me feel better about having to kill you both.”

He let the darkness snake its way out of his body in what he knew had to be a terrifying display of something that most humans would never see in their lifetimes. Neither of the women batted an eye. He had hoped that it would put them on the defensive so that he could gauge what kind of power he’d be up against. Instead, both women stood stalk still in the middle of the road, hands clasped in front of them.

“Well thanks for making it easy on me then!” He rushed forward and lashed at them both, a single shot aimed at each of their heads.

A moment later, he was sailing backwards through the air with molten lava running through his veins. He let out a scream that shook the mountains in the distance before he landed on his back on the cold asphalt. He looked around through blurred eyes in an attempt to see what had hit him. Nothing green stood out in the darkness. At least not in any direction he could see from his back.

He phased for a split second and was back on his feet with the speed of thought and turned once again to face the two old women. This time, the older one spoke, “You’d be wise to listen to her next time.”

The green bubble that surrounded the women had come out of nowhere and the single tentacle in the younger woman’s hand seemed to extend from a chop stick shaped hair pin that she had pulled from the bun at the back of her head.

“Ahh.” He let a menacing grin creep across his face. “Borrowed magic I see! My last encounter with your ancestors must have really taken a toll on the gene pool!”

Again, neither woman reacted to his jibes. They both stood in the relative safety of their shield with that accursed whip at the ready. His blood was cooling now from the last blow and he touched his fingers to his side where the blow had landed. Still warm, but quickly healing. If he was going to take on the last Druid with a direct connection to the natural power that the women before him had borrowing, he was going to need to leave them alone for the time being. He couldn’t afford to expend the energy on them. Even if their trinkets were only filled with the second-hand power of their ancestors.

“Well ladies, I’d love to continue our little dance but, you see, my boss gets
really
 upset when things don’t go according to plan. And I’m sorry to say, but neither of you are part of the plan. I bid you adieu. Perhaps we can continue this another time.” He bowed to both of them and phased out for several seconds, pushing himself north as fast as he could in case they had any other tricks up their sleeves.

He phased back to his physical form and dropped onto his motorcycle simultaneously. He couldn’t afford to travel all the way to Salt Lake in his natural form. Sadly.

So he rode on. The sky to the east lightening rapidly and it was the dawn of the day that would mark the end of his servitude.

He’s close, Ardra.

“I know. I can feel him now, too.”

She took a deep breath to steady herself and fight down the rising panic that was swelling up in her chest. She let spiked balls that she had been flinging around the room evaporate into the air and return to their natural state.

“So what do we do now? Sit here and wait for him to show up?”

No. There’s a place nearby that will add to your power and provide a lot more protection. We should head there. That’s probably where he’ll go searching for you anyway.

“You’re the boss.” She said to the dog. She took a few more deep breaths to calm herself as best she could and headed up to the kitchen to grab her keys and jacket off of the counter.

She let Kaiser into the front seat before taking her place behind the wheel and asking. “Where am I heading, captain?”

You’re gonna love this part!
He thought with a thump of his tail. He paused for dramatic effect and held her gaze until she raised an eyebrow in response.
Temple Square.

She laughed out loud and shrugged her shoulders as she put the car in reverse. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

As he dropped into the valley, the first thing he noticed was the bright green glow at the northeast end. That was where he needed to be for sure.

Using the temple as a beacon and slowing his pace to account for the traffic, he continued north on Interstate 15, his blood beginning to hum at the promise of the battle to come.

He settled into the flow of traffic, letting his mind drop the practice drills that he had been running through for the last couple of hours. It was his blood’s turn to lead the way and its battle cry was hard to ignore.

Ardra parked her car along the curb and went around to the passenger side to pump the parking meter full of change.

Kaiser, who had climbed out of the driver’s side, followed close on her heels.

No time! No time!
Kaiser urged as he ran past her, heading for the entrance to the temple grounds.

Ardra was still in awe of the Astral side of the temple she had never seen before all of this started. Now that Chaos was so close, the gigantic green bubble that now surrounded the temple had familiar green tentacles waving and snapping maliciously in the air. The other passersby seemed not to notice. She felt the power inside of her surge at the recognition of the threat. She picked up her pace to catch up to the dog that was now approaching the reflection pool just outside the gates.

As she approached, the tentacles seemed to calm and the gates swung open before her. She wondered to herself where the security guys were as she walked between the massive walls. Normally, if someone so much as sneezed too close to those gates, they were swarmed by men in black and escorted off of the property unless they promptly supplied a temple recommend. The grounds immediately surrounding the temple were very closely protected. There was a more public area to the west of the building that had a visitor center and the Tabernacle.

There wasn’t a single black suit in sight. Or any other kind of suit for that matter. The grounds were more desolate than she had ever seen them.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, every hair on her body stood straight up and she spun on her heels to face the direction that she had just come from. The man she had been looking for in the black suit had suddenly appeared on the east side of the reflection pool leaning against the wall of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

The massive green limbs branching off of that side of the bubble were snapping and sparking and straining to reach him and all at once the pieces fell into place.

At last, the thing that had left a trail of destruction across the country in his search for her was standing a few hundred feet away looking like he had just stepped out of a department store catalogue. If it weren’t for the black tendrils that had begun snaking out from all over his body and the reaction of the bubble around the temple, she would never have guessed who he was.

Kaiser was standing barely inside of the shield barking and snarling in his direction. She was almost afraid of the dog herself. She didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that hostility, that’s for sure.

She braced herself as best she could for what was to come and released the energy that was thrashing around inside of her. Green spikes shot out of her body and the dense shell that she had practiced formed at the base of them—effectively turning her into a walking sea urchin. She drew in the energy from the supercharged air around her and created a tornado of the tiny, razor sharp crystals she had perfected around herself. Then came the spiked projectiles that she had thought up with the help of Kaiser.

She was now armed to the teeth and shielded about as much as one could possibly be from any kind of onslaught, and still, the few passersby that happened to wander by paid her no mind.  It was as if she wasn’t even there.

She prayed this would be over soon.

It was obvious that he wasn’t going to step foot within reach of the temple’s shield, so she was going to have to go outside of it. She reached out and placed her hand within the green energy that created the protective coating around the grounds. The familiar warmth filled her and the defenses that she had put in place glowed brighter with the influx. Her confidence level shot a little higher and she found that she was almost excited for what was about to go down.

She took a step forward and saw him smile. Kaiser let out a warning bark and danced in place next to her.

Chaos stood up from his position against the building across the plaza and motioned for her to join him.

“He must have somewhere to be.” She said to Kaiser. “Let’s make him wait.”

He let out a bark of approval and sat down on his haunches. She dropped her hand to her side and ran it over the soft fur on top of his head. The picture in her mind of herself at that moment made her smile; A girl and her dog, surrounded by a swirling green tornado of razor sharp particles, her body covered in a dark green shell and two fist sized sea mines floating over her shoulder a few inches behind her head.