The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (29 page)

But my recall was perfectly sound: the picture did unseal from the wall, swinging open to reveal the very safe I had dreamt about.

‘Oh…my…Goddess!’

I so wanted to unlock it and see if
The Book of Codes
was within, but when I held my fingertips to the scan-pad it didn’t transform into my mother’s as it had in my dream. Locked out. That was rather disappointing.

I sat down to think it through. Why hadn’t my parents ever mentioned this amazing text to me? Perhaps they had been waiting for me to read the Persian journal as an introduction to the divine genetic tool? Were the secrets of the ancients truly locked inside our study?

Neither of my parents were home at present. Dad would have left for the college early, as always, and Mum had just gone out to her meeting, so I couldn’t quiz them about it. Anyway, how would I explain how I knew about the safe without telling them about my alien penpal alter ego?

My journal!

The thought sent me dashing back to my room.

The night before last, Kali had left a cryptic message in my journal. Had she been as prolific last night? I unlocked my journal and opened it to the next blank page; only it was not blank any more.

There was no translation required this time; my alter ego seemed to have grasped English overnight and was now writing in it fluently. I began to read:

I am moving through the house—from my resting place, I head towards the room of references…

I realised it was a description of the dream I’d had last night. Only this seemed to indicate that it wasn’t a dream at all, but a record of my alter ego’s exploits whilst my own consciousness slept.

Well, at least my other half has found a way to keep me up to speed on what she gets up to, I thought, trying to make light of my horror. These
activations she spoke of meant nothing to me, bar the reference to the Ec-ka-sha code that Ashlee had mentioned in her journal.

Ten years later!
With great excitement I recalled how the last section of the Persian journal had begun. I’ll bet Ashlee had done heaps of work with the codes by then!

I dived onto my bed and grabbed the journal, ready to head back into the late nineteenth century. ‘Take me away, great-great-grandmamma.’

The Halls of Amenti have remained a mystery to mankind for aeons, but it is my understanding that they are time portholes. These halls serve as an outer defence system for the Sphere of Amenti, which houses the divine blueprint of humanity and is itself a porthole to the higher-dimension universe we once called home—Tara. Amenti’s halls permit passage between space–time locations on this planet, and must be negotiated by any soul seeking to return through the Sphere of Amenti and home to Tara. The Halls of Amenti link to the seven eras of evolution, in which the seven root races of mankind manifest, although not all of the races are manifesting on the physical plane of awareness. Each fallen soul-mind from Tara is required to incarnate into each of these root races many times in order to fully re-form their damaged human blueprint, for the Halls of Amenti are protected by a genetic lock system—so that if a soul has not successfully evolved through each root race, then the required co-resonance (or genetic frequency) to pass
through each hall in Amenti will not have been achieved. Direct passage through Amenti has been closed to humanity since before the downfall of Atlantis, after one of the many attempts by dark forces of the era to abuse the Sphere of Amenti for unsafe energy practices. The Sphere was removed from the Earth and placed in the central sun of the Pleiades system until such time as the Signet Grid could be reactivated to restore a satisfactory vibratory rate on Earth to again house the Sphere of Amenti—an event that has yet to come to pass by this the year 1865 AD.

I paused from my transcription of Miss Koriche’s texts, which I was compiling into one great volume for my descendants. I had dubbed this English translation
The Book of Codes
.

I had learned quite some time ago that the Sphere of Amenti had been sealed off to prevent direct human soul-mind passage for many an age, which had given me cause to wonder how my son Levi could gain access to the halls of this grand connecting station to the cosmos. The whole purpose behind moving the Sphere was to prevent access via Earth, but if the Staff of Amenti were still to be recruited, the masterminds and protectors of Amenti must have built a staff entry point into the Amenti system—an intergalactic back door into the fourth-dimensional realm within our Earth.

My contemplation was interrupted by my youngest daughter, Charlotte, the only one of our children still residing with us. She burst into the library in a state of alarm. ‘Mama, come quickly, there is a man at the door who claims Papa has had an accident!’

My heart leapt into my throat, pounding with a vengeance as the heat of my fear burned its way from my chest to my cheeks. ‘How bad is it?’ I ran to my daughter, struggling to remain calm and reasonable.

‘Mama,’ she held my hands in support, ‘it does not look hopeful.’

The news shot an invisible dagger into the burning core in my chest. ‘Where?’

‘Near the Abbey ruins at Bury St Edmunds.’

‘That is not so far afoot.’ The carriage would take too long to prepare. ‘We must ride.’

‘The horses are being saddled as we speak,’ Charlotte advised, keeping pace with me as I made haste to the stables.

I have never ridden a horse to such speed in all my fifty years upon this Earth, and the ailments of my aging body paled in existence as I rode with reckless abandon. Each time I considered life without my dear Devere, my tears became a deadly obstruction to my vision and so I was forced to rise above the crippling despair. The farmer who had found my husband had cautioned me to prepare myself for the worst; a doctor had been called to the scene of the accident, but he feared there was little to be done for any man who had been thrown from his horse so violently.

My husband had been returning from a visit with Lord Derby—a somewhat mysterious meeting as the peer had refused to enlighten Devere as to the subject he wished to discuss. We often visited the Cavandish family at their country estate in Derbyshire, a trip that took us through Bury St Edmunds, although usually by carriage. In this instance, however, my husband had insisted on
riding. As I had plenty of transcribing to do, I had been happy to stay in Suffolk whilst my lord journeyed unaccompanied to Derby. Had I not been so absorbed, would the accident have been avoided? Our love had kept us young, despite the mounting years, and Lord Devere was a fit and handsome man who, like me, had barely known a sick day in his life. We had always fancied ourselves as invincible, having survived vampires, entombment, bandits, plague and interdimensional transit! Today, however, all our delusions of being superhuman had been shattered. Life would be colourless and meaningless without my husband’s humour-filled, intellectually vibrant presence. I spurred my horse on faster.

As we neared the site of the Abbey ruins, our guide took the lead. We followed him to one of the outer walls of the ruins, where a doctor, a constable and several other people were locked in conversation. We pulled up our horses by my husband’s steed, which was grazing nearby. I turned about in search of my love but was unable to see him. I looked to my guide, who appeared as bewildered as I, as he motioned to the bloodsplattered stone wall where he had last seen my husband’s body.

‘Has he been moved?’ I queried, and our guide redirected my question to the doctor and constable.

‘Not by us.’ The constable was perplexed, and seemed ashamed to introduce himself as the man in charge of the investigation now that its subject was missing. ‘One minute his lordship was here, and the next…’ The man gestured helplessly at the ancient site now falling under the tranquil shadow of evening. ‘There were quite a few of us near Lord
Suffolk at the time of his disappearance, but no one witnessed the abduction. We have not spied anyone loitering although a thorough search of the area is still in progress.’ He pointed to various groups of men around the perimeter of the crime scene, searching through scrub.

‘Was my lord still living when he vanished?’ I asked the doctor, desperate for some hope that the diagnosis I had received had been blown out of proportion.

The expression on the doctor’s face stifled my hopes before he spoke a word. ‘I am very sorry, Lady Suffolk, but his injuries claimed him shortly after I arrived.’

The shock constricted my throat and lungs; I gasped for air, fearing that my grief would burst my internal organs if I did not release it. The burning ball of soul-shattering energy that had lodged in my heart chakra only intensified and I wailed in agony.

‘Mama.’ Charlotte embraced me.

My entire body was suffering for the ride I had just endured, and now, with the complete collapse of my emotional body, I fell to my knees.

‘Mama!’ Charlotte cried again, and crouched before me, as did the doctor. He opened his case.

‘I can give you something to help ease the pain,’ he said.

My youthful experiences in a mental asylum had given me a distinct aversion to painkillers. ‘There is not a drug known to man that will dull the loss of my dearest companion,’ I said. I knew that if I numbed the pain it would only fester into disease. I needed my wits about me if I was going to find my Lord Devere’s body. I was aware of supernatural possibilities at work here far beyond the reality of
the average county constable, and I had psychic expertise to bring to the investigation.

Taejax had never made good on his threat to my kindred and myself, but Dracon were timehopping entities and I had never stopped expecting that he might show up at any moment to fulfil his promise.

‘Did you have the opportunity to examine Lord Suffolk’s body before it went missing, Doctor?’

‘I did,’ the man advised, ‘and if you want my professional opinion, he died from internal injuries.’

The invisible knife that seemed to be lodged in my chest twisted; I took a few deep breaths to maintain my composure. ‘Were there any wounds to the back of my husband’s neck?’

The doctor frowned, clearly reluctant to elaborate. ‘I do not wish to be too descriptive, my lady, but his injuries were quite severe in that area.’

I nodded. It was obvious that the tiny red mark I wished to question the doctor about would not have been apparent. I turned to my daughter, to find that she was no longer at my side. Charlotte briefly hovered around the scene of her father’s death, then her attention was drawn to the crumbling Abbey ruins and she moved off in that direction.

I had a little trouble getting to my feet, but the doctor kindly lent a hand. ‘You should rest,’ he instructed.

‘I shall rest when my husband’s body is found.’

I approached the wall that had sealed my beloved’s fate and dipped my fingers into the pool of his blood there. His body may not be present for me to probe for answers, but his genetic memory was contained within every tiny cell of his body.
What caused this great tragedy to befall you?
I focused the
question upon the sticky liquid between my fingertips.

An apparition seized control of my senses…

My husband was racing home from Derbyshire to Suffolk, in a pressing hurry to share the news that weighed heavily on his heart and mind. Lord Derby—a man who had been more of a father to me thanmy own—was dead and my husband knew the event would sadden me greatly. My lord had been given a private audience with the dying man and fragmented memories of their conversation filtered through his mind as he rode.

‘I fear our Ashlee is in danger,’ Lord Derby had warned. ‘She was bred for a purpose.’

‘A purpose, my lord?’ Devere had queried.

‘She carries the genetic code of angels and demons, both of which will seek her loyalty.’

My Lord Devere feared that the dying man had taken leave of his senses.

‘She already knows the truth…she possesses her own mother’s confession to it,’ Lord Derby went on. ‘Tell Lady Suffolk, from me, that her destiny will not go away. She must seek her father’s counsel.’ The outburst weakened the dying man and he closed his eyes as he strained to keep breathing.

‘But Lord Granville has long passed,’ my husband said, failing to understand the instruction. ‘Are you suggesting we have a séance?’

Lord Derby shook his head, annoyed that he was too weak to get his point across. ‘Thomas…was…not…’ But Lord Derby had breathed his last.

My Lord Devere felt saddened and frustrated by the recollection as he sighted the ruins of Bury St Edmunds up ahead. He favoured a short cut through
the dilapidated Abbey as the crumbing outer walls provided some good jumps for the horse. As his steed cleared the stonework of the outer wall, my lord’s upper body collided with an invisible horizontal obstruction that knocked him backwards from his horse and cast his body upon the jagged rocks of the ruins. The impact was bone-shattering: his right shoulder, left leg, lower back and head all screamed in agony. It took a moment to register that he’d been ambushed and that his attackers now stood gloating over him.

My husband had not seen Draconians for many years and had often wondered if he’d dreamt their existence. Was he dreaming now?

‘Do you recall when you showed me mercy?’ said one of the four reptilians present.

My husband, hauled to his feet by the other three warriors, was sorry to concede that he recognised the speaker. ‘I remember you, Taejax,’ he gasped, straining to draw air into his winded lungs. He squinted to prevent the blood from the graze on one side of his forehead flowing into his eye.

‘I just wanted to be sure that you realised your mistake.’ The lizard commander made a fist, and from the knuckles of the electronic gloves he wore four long glowing knives protruded. They did not seem to be made of solid matter. ‘Etheric blades,’ Taejax explained, displaying them before my husband’s eyes.

Devere grinned at the creature, which was used to inciting fear in its victims. ‘Do you have so many friends that you can afford to kill one?’

‘We are not friends,’ Taejax growled, irate. ‘Give this to your wife from me.’ And the warrior drove the unearthly blades into the gut of my beloved.

The otherworldly weapon drew no blood, nor left a physical wound, but the internal organs pierced by the weapon went into seizure. The damage felt very real—the shock of the injury began to numb my lord’s physical senses.

‘The physical body cannot function without its etheric double,’ Taejax explained as he withdrew the blades back into the electronic glove. He activated the ORME injection needle of the module connected to the inner side of his right wrist. ‘Fear me now, human? Say goodbye to existence as you’ve known it.’

An abrupt gust of wind knocked Taejax from his feet. Rocks began to hurl themselves at his comrades, whereupon Devere was released and collapsed to the ground to nurse his injuries.

‘It’s the Anu,’ one of the warriors snarled. Taejax growled and the four Dracon vanished.

My lord looked about for his rescuers. Outlined by the early rays of sunlight streaming over the Abbey ruins, the silhouette of first one man, and then two more, approached. As the figures emerged from the morning light they solidified into tall, fairhaired beings.

‘We are not too late,’ said one. ‘His soul is still intact.’

‘A good thing,’ said another. ‘We can ill afford to lose Sinclair at this late stage of the game…and Devere’s essence is urgently needed to fortify the grid.’

My husband was fast fading from this world, but he resented being spoken of in the past tense before his time was done.

‘Mathu, shall I go and inform his wife?’ the third lofty fellow asked the being in charge.

‘I shall go,’ Mathu replied, and transformed his angelic appearance into that of a mundane farmer—the same farmer who had led Charlotte and myself to the site of my lord’s accident.

I broke from the trance and looked around for our escort, who was not within eyeshot. I struggled to my feet and began a frantic search for the only being who might know where the body of my beloved had been taken.

As I neared the main ruins, into which my daughter had disappeared, I picked up on the high-frequency energy that emanated from the old structure. A grid crossing, I deduced. From my own investigations into the Earth grid, I understood that the sacred sites of this planet had been erected by the ancients to fall into alignment with each other. All across the globe these sites marked the trackways of the Earth’s energy grid. Many of these energy pathways crossed at ancient sites, marking doorways between the Earth’s dimensions. Some of these doorways reportedly led to higher dimensions, some to lower, some to parallel Earth, and yet others led to time–space and inter-universal portholes, like the legendary Halls of Amenti. The crossings in the grid became positively or negatively charged in accordance with their history, and it took psychic skills to deduce which side was currently in control of the crossing during inter-time war.