Gift From A God Ch. 10

"You want me to stop?"

"Oh!" gasped, then issued a low, throaty giggle. "No, that won't be necessary." I saw her hips begin to grind beneath the water and it continued up her stomach and into her chest; a long wave of desire. She sent off slow ripples that lapped in to Katie and I and it felt like her passion was being carried along with them. "It's getting a little lonely over here," she hinted, eyes still closed.

"Go ahead," I whispered to Katie. She looked back at me, smiling, and then moved the couple of feet over to Kristel, my shorts forgotten for the time being. I wasn't concerned though. I was about to see what I'd been waiting weeks for. Hell, if you count the time I've lived with Kristel, I'd been waiting almost two years.

Katie's hand stretched out slowly and began to caress the skin of Kristel's arm as it floated out in front of her. Kristel knew it wasn't me by the timid way the fingers moved over her, and the delicateness of the fingers. Not that I can't be delicate, but I'm not a woman, no matter how hard I try (nor do I want to be) and a woman will always do it differently.

"Hey," Kristel said softly.

"Hey," Katie replied. She began to get bolder and brought her other hand up to Kristel's neck. Her hand came down, moving slowly over Kristel's body and staring at her naked form in wonder.

*She likes to have her nipples played with* I sent to Katie. She was feeling a little hesitant and I thought some encouragement would do her good.

She glanced up at me distractedly and I gave her a grin. Smiling back, she allowed her hand to travel up the slope of Kristel's breast and gave it a squeeze. Kristel sighed and leaned in to Katie's hand and opened her eyes to watch. Without warning she reached up and grabbed Katie by the back of the neck and pulled her down into a long kiss, their hands exploring each other beneath the water. Kristel's came to rest on Katie's ass and gave it a healthy squeeze and Katie had worked up the nerve to allow her free hand to come to rest between Kristel's legs.

I watched enthralled as I saw her fingers part the folds of Kristel's pussy and start to move her middle finger around in little circles, probing gently. Kristel showed her appreciation by moaning in to Katie's mouth and pulling her closer.

This is where I've stopped for the time being.

If I was dreaming, I don't remember, I just remember being kicked in my sleep. I'm a light enough sleeper and getting a heel jabbed into your calf would wake just about anyone up. As I attempted to pull myself up through the layers of sleep I also recall smelling something slightly sour and tinged with panic. It was the smell of sweat. Not post-coital sweat, that musky, somewhat heavy smell, filled with remembered pleasures, but the harsh, rancid smell of fear. I felt the bed jerk again. Someone was having a hell of a nightmare. Whimpers reached my ears. Cries muffled by the Egyptian cotton pillowcases holding what felt like twelve pounds of goose feathers. Something wasn't right here.

[Everything is fine, go back to sleep.]

Yeah, it's okay, I thought. Just a nightmare, people have them all the time. The clouds of sleep began to cover me again and I forgot about it.

There was a sharp pain in my arm. Five sharp pains to be exact. Fingernails. Damn it, can't a guy sleep around here? What the hell?

[Shhh...It's okay.]

Yeah, okay. It's all goo- OW! Sonofabitch! The fingernails cut through my skin and I could feel the blood running down my arm. I awoke then, to the scene of horror that was filling the bed chamber.

Kristel was to my right, her body bare, the sheets long since having been kicked to the edge of the bed. She was pale and trembling and every sweat gland she had was working overtime. The sheets beneath us were damp with her terror. In that ephemeral god-vision of mine, I could see us connected by a sickly looking green and black cord. It erupted singular and solid from my forehead and lead down to her face, where it became a mass of tentacles that has wormed into her mouth, eyes, nose, temples and forehead.

The pain erupted in my arm again as her fist tightened. I looked around for Katie, suddenly terrified, but found her resting peacefully at the far end of the bed, not a care in the world. I pried Kristel's fingers from my arm and the tears closed up almost instantly. She pulled her fist back to her body and clenched it to her chest.

[Uh oh, someone went and called the fun police.] He said sarcastically from my head.

*What are you doing!* I tried to push into her mind but was blocked. It's similar to walking into a glass door.

[Wouldn't you like to know.]

"Cut it out!" I screamed, baffled by my inability to get in her head.

[Make me.]

I tried to actually grab at the connection, but my hand passed right through it. It wasn't something physical. If I moved away, it stretched without effect. I watched as it rippled softly the wave flowed back to my head.

"Momma!" Kristel cried out, her body twisting, her eyes squeezed tight, locked in her night terror. "Somebody help my momma."

[She does love her momma. Remember that big black mother-fucker, Paul Coffey, in The Green Mile? What did he say? Oh yeah, 'He killed 'em wit dey love,' or something like that. Brilliant idea.]

I pushed again but met the same solid resistance. I started breathing hard, terrified of what could be happening in her mind. Knowing him, there was no telling.

"Kristel, wake up baby. Wake up!" She only started sobbing and her body began to curl into a fetal position. Just like Amber.

"Oh no, you bastard, you are not doing it again!" I needed help. "Aphrodite! Hermes, you son of a bitch!" I called out loudly, "Get down here and help me!"

Nothing. In the mean time, Kristel's sobbing became more violent.

[If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make any sound?]

Goddamn him.

I started to panic, I didn't know what to do. Kristel was probably going to die and then what? Katie next. If he could take Kristel right out from underneath me, then how could I stop him from taking Katie as well?

I'd have to fight him again. Last time I wound up in the hospital, unconscious for three days. If that happened again, or worse, Kristel and Katie would be stranded here. We weren't exactly close to civilization. At this time of year unless you came in on a Snow Cat, the only way here was by helicopter. There was enough food, not even counting the stuff I brought with me before bringing the girls, the owner also had a huge dry goods pantry and a deep freeze with enough meat to feed half the NHL. They'd be okay. Assuming I won, of course. What would happen if he won? Still, there was nothing to be done about it. I had to either face him or surrender to him, there was no middle ground. It was time for round two.

[Bring it on, bitch.]

I closed my eyes and jumped inward.

I should take a moment and describe the whole inner-mind thing. When the average person is deep in thought, pulling up past memories, or analyzing feelings, whatever, they're still very much in the "now". What I do is totally different, because of my gifts. They give me access to a deeper, more real level of consciousness. I separate from 'this' reality and enter my own reality, if that helps. It's the same when I'm in someone else's mind. When I go deeper then just skimming the top layer for thoughts and inner dialogue, things begin to take shape.

Think 'The Matrix'. When I saw it, I was a little freaked out by the similarities of what it's like when I do it, and what happens when the characters are connected by the spike in the head. (It also made me realize that I could have Monica Bellucci, but that's another story altogether). That might give you a better frame of reference, actually, then all my fumbling attempts at a description. If you've seen the movies, that is. If not, you'll have to take my word for it.

I went inward and was...independent from my body. I was dimly aware of it, like you're dimly aware of your feet when you're laying on the couch watching TV. You know they're there, but it's not important.

I landed with a jarring thud on...nothing. There was a floor where there wasn't a floor. There was nothing there to act as a floor, just empty nothingness. Still I stood and gave myself some clothes. I was naked back in the world and showed up naked here, but it was a mental shrug to give me some Levi's and an old t-shirt.

"Come out come out, wherever you are." He was around, I could feel him, but what he was doing I couldn't tell. Every time I probed at him, I met with the same results as when I tried to enter Kristel's mind. Blocked. Truth be told, it scared the hell out of me. He knew it too, he could sense my fear, just as I could sense his anger. What he was angry at, I had no idea. It's not like this was my fault. I didn't ask him to show up. He went out of his way to cause pain and suffering and didn't seem to understand that I cared what he did.

Colors began to form around me and soon enough a desert vista had coalesced into existence. It came complete with a distant mountain range and rocks digging in to my feet. I'd forgotten about shoes, but it was easily rectified.

The landscape was barren and lifeless. Not even a dead bush. It was a flat plane filled with rocks and slightly bigger rocks and dirt, stretching for miles. The sky was a cold blue and cloudless, the sun was white ball of molten fire hanging midway in the sky, and it felt real enough, too. Sweat had begun to form on my forehead and between my shoulder blades.

I heard the sound of footsteps behind me and spun around and saw...me. Me, but not me. To the casual observer it was me, but to the person who's been looking at that face for the last 22 years, it wasn't me. The face was harder, the cheekbones more defined and the nose sharper. The chin was too arrogant and had somewhat of a cleft in it and there was an Adam's apple. And then there was the eyes; they were just pools of blackness.

"You really suck, you know that?" He told me. Or...I told me or...I don't know. It made my head hurt trying to figure it out. The problem came in that he even felt like me. Sort of. A 'me but not me' feeling. I can sense a person when they're close enough, even without trying, and especially when I am. I sense their energy. When I felt him, it felt like feeling me. I took a step back. He eyed me with a disdainful look.

"Yeah, well you're not a bowl of peaches either. What's with the outfit." I asked him, referring to appearance. "You think that if you look like me, I won't stop you?"

"I kept hoping you'd figure this out on your own, it would indicate that you're aren't totally stupid, but since you're not able to, even when it'sliterally staring you in the face, I'm going to explain it really slow. And I'll use small words."

I already new what he was going to say, I could feel it in my gut, but I refused to believe it.

"I don't care if you believe me or not, it's irrelevant. I'm you. You're me. We're one. We're all part of the great circle of life. Hakuna Matadda, you know. It really was you that tried to kill Amber. It's really you that's giving Kristel a nightmare so bad that would make the old nag herself bow down in awe. You. All you. Us. Me."

"You're a liar." I said in a low tone, my eyes at the ground, trying to block his words from my mind. "You're some kind of side-effect of what they did. Some demon that snuck in and possessed me." My voice did not sound very convincing, even to my own ears.

He ignored my pitiful assertion and said, "You want to know what she's seeing?"

I looked up at him sharply.

"I can tell you or I can show you, which one?" He smiled maliciously at me.

"Stop it." I commanded, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.

"It's a great piece of work, if I may be allowed to toot my own horn. You really outdid yourself."

"IT'S NOT ME!" I shouted. A ripple of energy pushed outward from me, sending the rocks skittering away. He was caught slightly by surprise and I took the opportunity to strike. I lunged at him and tackled him around the shoulders, taking us both down. As soon as we made contact there was a shudder and the ground began to heave and crack.

I straddled him, pinning his arms beneath my knees and glared at him. "Make it stop. Stop torturing her." I said in a ragged growl. The ground pitched beneath us and I struggled to keep him pinned.

He laughed, apparently not even concerned that I had him on the ground. Ignoring it actually, as if it was of no consequence. "Aren't you even curious why you couldn't enter her mind? Do you want me to tell you? It's because deep down, you don't want to. In the ghetto of your mind, where I live, you don't want to. You like that's she's suffering. Just like Amber's pain. And just like when you came in your pants when you sucked her soul from her body. You love it! It's the fucking air you breathe and the blood in your veins!"

"Liar!" There was a tremendous crack and the ground we were on surged upward, throwing us both wild. I scrambled for purchase and my fingers hooked into a crevice, but out of the corner of my eye I saw his body tumble over the side. The rock jerked to a halt, almost throwing me off again. By the skyline I'd guess he had a hell of a fall. I got to my knees and crawled to the edge but couldn't see anything on the ground below through all the dust. The rock plane around us was split with cracks though, all radiating out from we we'd been standing. I jumped and appeared at the bottom of pillar and found him, coughing and bloody, on his knees.

I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. My other hand went for his neck and then picked him up and slammed him into the side of the rock wall with a wet thud.

"Make it stop." I told him, tightening my grip on her throat.

"You make it stop," he grunted, and laughed sardonically. "If you want to."

I punched him. Then again, even harder. I lost myself in the rage and beat him repeatedly. He just slumped there taking it. After a moment I stopped and let him fall to the ground. He hadn't even resisted.

"Do you feel it," he called up from the ground, his voice dry and rasping. "Feel how the rage fits you like your favorite pair of jeans. You can't escape it. You can't escape me." He chuckled. I stood silently, glaring down at him, somehow disgusted with myself, and said nothing.

He winked at me and said, "Be seeing you." And disappeared. I didn't try to stop him. I'd won, I could feel it. I also got the feeling that he had let me win. He was setting me up for the fall, like with Amber. Giving me enough rope to hang myself.

I was left alone with my thoughts. What he said couldn't be true. I wasn't twisted and evil, like he was. I don't care what he said, or how much like me he made himself look. He was lying.

I emerged back in my body and opened my eyes just in time to see the connection between Kristel and myself dissolve away. Her whole body relaxed and she sagged visibly into the mattress, the lines disappearing from her face. Her eyes still leaked tears, but she was too exhausted to wake up. I entered her mind gently, unhindered this time, and tried to erase what he'd done, tried to clear out her memories of the dream. I did the best I could without actually seeing it. I didn't want to know what she'd had to watch. I couldn't bear to look. I smoothed out her hair and kissed her cheek, a tear of my own mingling with hers. No one was safe.

Katie had slept through the entire thing. Not that it had lasted very long. While it felt like hours that I was trapped in my head, in reality I was only in there with him for about fifteen minutes. He'd done something to keep Katie asleep while Kristel had cried out; Probably the same thing that he had done to keep me from waking up too soon. Katie had never batted an eyelash.

I got up slowly from the bed, grabbed a robe and went to find some water.

In the realm of the Gods...

"It won't be long now," Zeus said.

"What do you intend to do," asked Hermes.

"Absolutely nothing. It'd be foolish to interfere, not without a lot of protection at my back. Who knows what would happen if he lashed out. That boy is a walking time bomb. I'd prefer not to be in the blast radius when he goes off."

"Maybe Coyote is right, you could always come clean with him."

Zeus stared blankly at him for a moment, not comprehending. "You mean the truth?" He barked a laugh. "The truth is only a last resort. And even then, it's not an option. When he cracks it's going to unleash a helluva shit storm and I don't need that kind of headache."

"You really don't think you're going to get out of this unscathed, do you. He's putting off way to much power. Half the upper realm will have felt him by now. First you unleash a Transcendent upon the world and then don't convene the Council, you do all you can to conceal it, in fact, and then don't warn the one God who wants him the most. That's not a wise move."

"I didn't unleash anything," Zeus said moodily. "He was born that way. There was no way we could have known, or any of them. We aren't doing anything we haven't done countless times for the last three millennia. This was just a coincidence. And Set needs to learn to not be so greedy. Damn crazy bastard. Him and his personal war," Zeus said disgustingly. "There is no war to fight anymore, I don't know why he can't accept that."

"Even so," Hermes cautioned. "You think the Council will hold you blameless. As soon as you knew, he should have been killed. Now it's too late. They wouldn't dare risk an attack on his life, especially if he comes fully into his power."

"You know as well as I do that he could die before that happens, by his own hand." Zeus snapped.

"And the odds on that," Hermes inquired. "He's doing remarkably well. Aphrodite was very astute: he is a good person. A weaker mortal would have already self-destructed."

"You're not without blame in this little scenario, either, my darling son," Zeus grumbled. "You could have just as easily requested a Council gathering as I, oh messenger god. You have the authority."

"Me?" Hermes looked questioningly at his father. "I was just following orders."

"Tell that to the Nazi's," Zeus said.

[b]Back on earth...[/b]

"Hey, what are you doing out here? It's freezing?" Kristel said, as she emerged onto the patio, wrapped in a huge blanket that she'd pulled from somewhere. Her feet were covered in large fuzzy slippers.

I didn't take my eyes off the valley between the mountains. The deck had a spectacular view of the countryside. I'd been sitting out here for about three hours, since I'd gotten out of bed, and I'd had the fortune of seeing a mountain sunrise. On a different day it would have been beautiful. There was a large stone fire pit that the deck chairs were arranged around, with plenty of seasoned logs stacked in a row against the wall, but I hadn't bothered to light it. I had much the same as Kristel to keep me warm.

"I was looking all over for you. I thought you might have gone off and left us." She came around to the front and sat down awkwardly on the edge of the chair, searching my face. I tore my gaze from the scenery and searched her right back. She looked a little tired, but none-the-worse for wear.

"How are you," I asked her, tenderly.

She gave me a puzzled look, probably curious about my tone, but answered. "I'm alright. I feel a little out of it, but some breakfast will probably help."

"Did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah, that bed is a great, we need one of those. And after all that we did, how could I not." She winked at me. "I think...I think I had a bad dream, but I can't remember it. When I woke up I really wanted to call my mom, I think it was about her, but it's to early to call her right now, she'd think something was wrong and I'd hate to worry her over a nightmare. Especially one I can't even remember.