The Sword of Michael - eARC Read online

  I hoped I hadn’t emphasized that last part too much.

  She nodded, two quick bobs of her head. She wrote a check and dropped it in the bowl.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Thank you…” she said.

  She stood there. I knew what this was about. There’s this moment at the end of a treatment, especially the kind I do, where the client feels the need to disconnect—or tries to stay connected. If the practitioner is an ethical one, he’ll have already let go of the session and disconnected from the outcome. It’s a test for a healer to let go of the rush that comes from being a channel for the Light, to let go of the ego and not allow your clients or the community to make you into something more than just a human with a special gift.

  The temptation is always there. Especially if the client is a beautiful woman and looking to cling to the man who helped facilitate her healing.

  I closed my eyes and did the visualization of Severing The Chords and saw the disentanglement of our energetic connection begin.

  Oh Spirit…why do you tempt me so?

  I laughed.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Private joke,” I said. “Take care, Maryka. If you feel you need to call or come back, just call me. We can talk. You’re already feeling relief and it will get better. Like any other healing it’ll take a little bit of time.”

  I watched her go. Then I gave into temptation and looked at her check. Two hundred fifty dollars. I could afford a box of cigars!

  And more sage and sweet grass.

  Chapter 5

  I ran my tongue up Jolene’s spine, from the cleft of her buttocks to the deep muscled hollow above her sacrum. I tasted the sweetness of her sweat and juices, mixed with mine, when I’d rolled her onto her belly.

  “Aaaahhhhh,” she moaned. It was like the opening of a holy song.

  Jolene. The hottest woman in the world in one hundred words or less: tall, six feet barefoot though she favors heels, sleek and flat bellied, with small breasts that defy gravity, perfectly chiseled like Michelangelo on his best day would sculpt her, the palest white skin, a rich length of red hair like a scarlet wing across her back, a long muscular dancer’s back that swooped down into the glory of her waist and hips, eyes shocking blue and clear, high cheekbones and strange soulful lips—a thin upper lip curved like a bow, an obscenely full lower lip she sunk her teeth into when she thought about sex, which was often.

  She’s a Scorpio and an avatar of the Goddess in all her passion and fury. A Wiccan priestess in her own right, a practitioner of the solo Wise Woman’s path, a Master Reiki energy work and an intuitive who worked most often with the Tarot. Cool and self-possessed to the point of otherworldliness until she came to me in bed.

  I lay my cheek against her buttocks and ran my hand down the long smooth white length of her taut leg.

  “I give you a lifetime to stop that,” she said.

  “Mine,” I said.

  Deep husky laughter, so sexy and surprising in such a slender woman.

  “Caveman,” she said.

  “Always.”

  “Do you worship the Goddess, cave man?”

  “Thoroughly. Otherwise she might cut me up and strew me in the field.”

  “There’s a thought. Then I’d start over with some fresh flat-bellied boy.”

  “My belly is flat. Fairly.”

  She laughed. “It’s fine, Marius. I like men with substance. I like having some meat to hang onto.”

  Lord, Lord, Lord. I am grateful.

  She rolled onto her back, reached down and lay one long-fingered hand, nails clear and carefully polished, on my cheek. It was an infinitely gentle touch, in such contrast to her raw nature in bed. Contrast, contradiction…

  Yes. She’s a Goddess.

  And I’m lucky to service her.

  “I feel that grin,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “This is complicated, dating a psychic. A man can’t have a single moment of private thought.”

  She laughed that deep throaty whisky laugh and raked her nails across my scalp, then tugged at my hair, loose to my shoulders after she had undone my ponytail.

  A long silence, that loving silence so essential between a man and a woman that so few couples seem to master. I love the soulfulness and ease between us in these times after our loving, in the lingering.

  It’s a fine way to spend the afternoon.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  I stroked my fingers over her cleft, parted the fine red hair and tasted her. “Me, too.”

  She tugged a handful of my hair. “Feed me, Cave Man. I’ll feed you later.”

  “What if I insist?”

  I felt her grin swell. “What if I deny you?”

  “Then I’d go all Cave Man on you. Mine…”

  Delighted throaty laughter. “It’s a dangerous thing to trifle with a Priestess of the Goddess.”

  “I exist only to serve. She must be served properly.”

  “Then serve her dinner, Cave Man.”

  I have a problem with deferred gratification, but learning graceful capitulation to the will of the Goddess is an essential milestone on the shamanic path. Or so I tell myself about my dealings with women, who were many before I met Jolene.

  “What shall I feed you, Goddess? What do you desire?”

  A satisfied giggle. “Let’s see…it’s too nice to be inside. Let’s go out.”

  “Picnic? Bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou?”

  “No. Too buggy. Take me to…Lucia’s.”

  * * *

  We lingered over our early dinner, the seafood linguine special, and finished a fine bottle of Chardonnay before we went out for a stroll through Uptown.

  “Somewhere outside?” I said as we entered the parking lot.

  “Of course, love,” Jolene said. “Too early and too beautiful to be inside.”

  We took the long route through town, up north on Hennepin and across the bridge into the North East Art District. I found a parking spot around the corner from The Ginger Hop and escorted Jolene in. She staked out a banquette with a view of the street, crossed one immaculate white leg ending in impossibly strapped shoes, and set her purse on the table.

  “Macallan, sweet,” she said.

  I went to the bar. The bartender, Ness, a beautiful and wise beyond her years woman who was also of the Church of Jolene, nodded to me.

  “Hey, Marius, how you doing?” she said.

  “Ness. How’s it?”

  “Awesome. Let me guess…Macallan for Jo, Bushmills Green Label, neat with a shot glass of water on the side, for you?”

  “Is it wrong to be so predictable?”

  She smiled her gentle smile; she was the best bartender in town when it came to creating the hint of the confessional that only the best bartenders can do.

  “Good to have you back,” she said. “Haven’t seen either of you in too long.”

  I stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into the tip jar as an act of contrition and carried our drinks to the table. Jolene smiled serenely at two young college boys who gawked at her. I nodded to them as I sat down our drinks.

  I don’t get jealous. It doesn’t pay to get possessive with an Avatar of the Goddess. She doesn’t tolerate even a hint of ownership.

  She picked up her Scotch, tilted the crystal in my direction, tasted it slowly and with full attention, eyes closed in utter satisfaction. I worship her ability to be silent. Don’t get me wrong, she can prattle about her favorite TV show (Justified—she nursed a serious crush on Timothy Olyphant) or carry on a deep spiritual dialogue about our respective past lives in Atlantis. Her ability to hold peaceful silence is a gift that most couples never enjoy. She was happy to hold her space, sip her drink, and watch the world go by.

  I love that.

  It frees me up to sit and admire her, and to enjoy the men (and women) admiring her. She was all dolled up: devastating low cut little black dress, spiky-strappy expensive designer shoes, gl
eaming handcrafted silver earrings.

  Nothing else.

  At all.

  Just raw Goddess in all her power.

  I sipped my coffee and watched her watch me over the rim of her glass, how her lips left a crimson half-moon on the crystal edge.

  Lovely.

  The traffic was light outside. I noticed one car slowing as it passed us, as though the driver were looking for a parking spot. A fleeting impression of the driver: bulky, hair cropped close to a squarish head, pale skin, eyes black slashes above the turned up collars of a leather jacket…

  A sudden chill.

  My eyes narrowed. I leaned forward and set my drink down.

  He passed.

  Jolene noticed me noticing the driver. “Someone you know?”

  “Not in this life.”

  She’s a Wiccan High Priestess. She understands that. “Human?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What have you been into, Marius? Are you drawing something in?”

  “There’s something I feel coming…”

  She closed her eyes.

  So did I.

  With my shamanic vision I saw First In Front standing beside us, war paint on and brandishing his knife and bow. “Brother, take care…”

  That was enough for me. I visualized the energetic shields around me hardening the layers of energy that ward off Dark Forces. Jolene whispered a warding spell beside me. The two Powers, Male and Female, entwined to create a fierce fortress around us.

  “What is it, Marius?” she said.

  I tuned in. Nothing.

  I sat back and picked up my Bushmills. “Let them come. Right now, I’m enjoying my drink. And you.”

  She was still as a graven marble image. “I love your confidence. But sometimes I fear for you, my love.”

  “Fear’s an old friend.”

  “It can be useful. Even more so if you transcend it.” She sighed. “You’re such a male…”

  “It’s part of my charm.”

  She tilted her glass to me. “Yes, sweet. Truly said.”

  The dark feeling had passed, so we enjoyed our drinks.

  And while I enjoyed my woman and my coffee, part of me stayed with my watchful protective spirits who prowled around me in the unseen world.

  We were safe.

  For now.

  Chapter 6

  Dillon Tracy is a half-Iranian, half-Irish madman cursed with Persian fire and Irish moodiness, given to drink and violence, and more than mildly obsessed with weapons. He ran a completely illegal firearms business out of his home and covered the proceeds with a part-time job as a spray-painter in an auto body shop. He’s my go-to guy for weapons and accessories, and he’s the best man—in this world—to watch my back when things got iffy.

  He’s a boon companion and my go-to guy for long meandering conversations over drinks and cigars as well.

  Dillon is long-faced, with furrowed wrinkles running from his eyes down to the corners of his mouth; tall and lanky with jet black hair worn long, an olive complexion that made his racial background a mystery to the uninformed, surprisingly mild eyes for a man with his history of violence and a deep voice all out of proportion to his lanky frame.

  We’d met when he came to me as a client, looking to rid himself of a Viet Nam Special Forces veteran who’d passed on and attached to Dillon when he was a Special Forces operator in Iraq, drawn by the fear and anger that had been the dead man’s last emotional resonance when he passed over. After that clearing, which had been a long one, Dillon and I became friends.

  He’s a great sounding board, and beloved by Coyote and Badger in the Spirit Realms—powerful and cunning warrior allies. He was grounded in the Middle World, and Creator knows that sometime I needed that just as badly as an armed friend at my back, and more to the point, he was completely comfortable believing in and working with the other realities that intersect with ours.

  So when I needed a gunfighter—or a good laugh—his was the door I turned up on.

  He tipped his second bottle of Harp’s lager at me. “Shooting zombies? You don’t need special bullets for that?”

  “Just plain old Remington Golden Sabers,” I said.

  “Good round. I thought you’d need a silver bullet and a blessing.”

  “That’s vampires and werewolves.”

  He twisted his mouth in eloquent distaste. “Don’t like fucking with them.”

  “Me, neither. I try not to if I don’t have to.”

  “Word.”

  He chugged down his beer. “Want another?”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “What you got going, Marius?” Dillon said. “You going to need me?”

  I laughed at the barely concealed eagerness in his voice. “What makes you think I need you, bro?”

  “I know you. I’m down. What’s up?”

  This love of the fight was a trait that I loved and endeared him to his spirit guides, warrior spirits all.

  “If you’re not busy, I’d like you to watch my back while I do some work.”

  “Is this the kind of back-watching I need holy water for, or will a Glock do?”

  “Both.”

  His grin widened as though a winch pulled on his mouth. He tossed the bottle up, spinning, caught it on the descent.

  “That’s the kind of Work I live for,” he said.

  “You’re quite insane,” I observed.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “To know me is to love me.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Tell it to Jolene, you lucky bastard. So. When do we start?”

  “Tonight. After dark.”

  He laughed. “Isn’t it always dark when we start?”

  * * *

  I retraced my chase from the night of the zombie. Dillon trailed behind me, his head swiveling in the practiced scan of an infantry man, leaving me free to concentrate on the subtle feelings that came to me as I followed the energetic track of my encounter. Every place has a vibration and a certain energy to it. Events and living beings leave an energetic imprint on top of that vibration. Magic—more accurately, in this instance, sorcery—leaves a distinctive imprint. It’s like a foul odor, but more than anything else it’s a feeling as though the air itself had become oily and roiled with darkness that cloyed and clung.

  I wanted to backtrack to the grave where the dead man had been animated by dark will. That would be the jumping off place for a journey back along the time-line to the origin of the sorcery, to see who—or what—I was dealing with. Clearly it was something that knew me and had a connection with me. That left me with many questions: This life…or another? Human or not? Souled or unsoiled? Being or thought-form?

  And what was the connection with the human-looking thing that had driven past Jolene and I at the Ginger Hop?

  The answers were here, somewhere. In Middle World Work, the world of magic and curses and sorcery, there’s no substitute for walking the ground and sensing the energy directly, watching the movie unfold in real time with shamanic vision.

  We started where I’d ended it, in the graveyard. The energy was clear here. The presence of Michael and the Mighty Warriors of Light on Earth will clear even the worst place. But the lingering essence was enough for me to track…

  …random images and thoughts, becoming clearer…

  …past life? No, this life…but knew you before, knows the work that you’ve done and the Dark Work you’ve undone on other’s behalf…Son of the Light, Warrior of the Light…who?…

  My White Tiger appeared and whispered, “Follow me, Marius…”

  …and I follows, the journey unfolding before me, as though I were walking like an apparition through an empty movie theater up onto the screen of a sepia-tinted film, and I was following the trace of the undead, like a ragged strip of black cloth frayed and fading into a light gray, still dissipating from the brilliant white light of the Warriors of Light…back to the grave it rose from and my White Tiger stood before me and bloomed with shielding L
ight…I watched a Dark Portal open, not into the Void, but the Dark Void beyond that…another dimension entirely…something there, something reaching through, orchestrating, a puppet master working the way the Dark Forces worked best…find a portal in the Middle World, a human with a resonance for and with the Dark…utilize them…obsess, possess, influence—the lean, we called it, the ability to lean on someone energetically—something I’d undone…coming back, returning for vengeance…

  “Wait,” Tigre whispered. “It’s coming forward…”

  The black beyond the Darkness altered, shifted shape…like a face pressed up against a sheer sheet of black rubber, rising up out of the fabric of Darkness itself, a face carved in long obsidian plates…

  “Shaman…” it whispered.

  My White Tiger stood in front of me. A huge Black Crow settled beside her, Black and White illuminated from within with the Divine White Light of the Creator, protecting me from the chill that roiled from that face.

  “Don’t speak,” Tigre said. “Only listen…”

  There was an unspoken dialogue, telepathic…an array of images passing before my shamanic vision: beautiful tall green crystal towers toppling and shattering beneath a wall of water, a huge tidal wave; tiny figures garbed in white and green and silver tumbling in the water, a temple collapsing around a huge red crystal shaped like a prism; a wave of Dark energy riding the wave, overcoming the heroic few holding space for the Light, holding the Darkness back…

  The War.

  The Sons of Light against The Sons of Darkness. The followers of the Law of One against the followers of Belial.

  …and now I returned…

  “Marius?” Dillon said. “Marius?”

  I stood at the lip of an open grave.

  “Did I just walk over that?” I said.

  “Nice,” Dillon said. “You okay? What you got?”

  I looked up at the night sky. Clear. A thousand stars gleaming above the city lights. An endless eternity of night. Somewhere out there, beyond space as we mere mortals called it, something pressed against the fabric of our reality and slouched towards us, ready to rend its way out of its dark womb.