Don't Call Me Kitten! (16 page)

“Shit, I never
meant for Ally to get the guilts over it, although I wish she’d
told me sooner.”

“People mostly
take the easy path George. She hoped you’d lose interest. She
feared the very reaction you’re having now. She doesn’t want to
lose you George.”

“Hell, I’m
lonely Simon. I rather fancied Ally would be the one.”

“Note your
choice of word - fancy. Ally’s too much like you George, you never
would have gotten past the intellectual discussion stage. It was
all you had in common. Your true mate will aggravate you, excite
you, stir your blood, be the very air you breathe.”

“Yeah, but
where is she? Good grief Simon, you had to wait several millennia.
I don’t think I’m that strong.”

“You won’t
have long to wait. We’ve just been on hold until you got past this
hiatus. When you’re ready I’m sure Thex would be more than happy to
introduce you.”

Realisation
dawned on George. “The communications officer on his team, Orea.
That’s who you’re referring to? What’s she like?” His excitement
now was like water on moss, bringing him back to life where there
had only been a parched heart before.

“Actually I’ve
never met her in the flesh. I’ve visited her stone occasionally and
those that watch over her but there’s not much to tell. Her spirit
is strong, indomitable even. If you want to know more you’ll have
to pick it from Thex’s mind.

For the first
time that day George smiled. “Well then. Where is he?”

“Right behind
you.” Thex dangled some keys in his hand. “Fancy a drive in my new
toy?”

George noticed
the Mercedes tag on the key ring. “You can’t have gotten rid of the
Hummer.”

“Actually I
gave the Hummer to Daniel O’Rourke. Now he’s moved in with Frieda
he’s finding it a tad inconvenient having to take his big rig out
every time he want’s to go somewhere.”

“But a Merc.
That’s so not you Thex.”

Thex grinned
from ear to ear. “It ain’t no ordinary Merc. Try a 6x6 G class with
a 5.5-litre V8 twin-turbo.”

George wasn’t
that easily conned. “Can’t be. They’ve only ever made a couple of
those. They don’t even make a production model.”

Thex tossed
the keys at George. “Simon pulled a few strings.”

George was
dumbfounded. One of those had to be in the six figures. “Cripes
Simon. Just how much money do you have?”

“A bit.” Simon
answered evasively. He’d pleasured more that a few kings, queens
and wealthy merchants in his time. He’d made some good investments
with what they’d bestowed on him. “Now before you two disappear off
to play just remember it’s pizza and darts night at the pub
tonight.”

George didn’t
look too sure. “Yeah right. I get that you can use a gluten free
base but pizza without chilli, mushrooms, cheese or garlic? How the
hell’s that going to work?

“Ye of little
faith. Jeff and I have worked up and already tested a recipe but
I’m not giving you any spoilers. Just be there okay.

“I’m not sure
I want to wake from this dream Zex.” She leaned back into his
shoulder, enjoying the companionship and the moment.

“Yeah, I know.
I’m not real keen to get back home either.”

Helena winced.
She didn’t like the thought of the beautiful man contained so
brutally within his crystal prison. “You know I’ll be coming for
you.”

“I know.”

“Just don’t
get any ideas about making some claim on me. I’m a free woman. I
don’t want to be imprisoned in a relationship any more than you are
in stone.”

Zex sighed but
knew that any future with this woman would be on her terms. “Just
let me into your life, Helena, that’s all I ask. You make the
terms. I’ll do my best to abide by them.”

“Hmm...”
Helena didn’t sound convinced. “We’ll see.” She had her career, she
had Anya to protect, although maybe not now Anya had Andrew. Helena
frowned, her world was changing. “I’ll speak with this Simon
character you all talk about and once I know the how I’ll come and
set you free.”

Zex had no
doubt his woman would keep her word, even if she didn’t yet think
of herself as his woman. “I’ll look forward to taking you to meet
my people.”

“Your people?
You’ve got friends? How? Do they see you too?”

“The shamans
do, although I’ve never appeared to them as anything other than a
condor I have communicated with them telepathically. I’ve tried to
guide them as best I can. It’s been frustrating not being able to
help more. I see them suffer Helena and I cry.”

Helena raised
an eyebrow at that. “I’ve never actually met a man who could cry,
or at least admit he did.”

“Oh I cry
alright Helena. When you’ve seen some of the misery, violence and
oppression you’ve seen on some of the third dimensional worlds I’ve
visited you cry. I doubt it would surprise the commander that I’m
such a softie.”

“The
commander?”

“Thex, you
obviously haven’t met him yet. He’s the one that asked me to come
on this mission. I don’t think he was convinced of my value but on
the advice of the seer, the Council requested I tag along. They’d
hoped I’d broker a deal with the Din.”

“Kit’s
explained a bit to me about them. They seem a pretty greed ridden
bunch. How would you have negotiated with them exactly?”

“Negotiation
is always about finding out what each side wants. We wanted to them
to leave the Earth as it is, a place where beings can exercise
choice. The main choice being whether to reawaken and claim their
destiny. The Din wanted to avoid the lessons of this plane. They
didn’t want to spend many lives learning compassion and the need
for reconnecting with the all-spirit. All they wanted were the
pleasures and comforts of the material world without the downside
of entropy, mortality, loss and pain.”

“So knowing
that?”

“It needs a
carrot, so to speak. They have to see what they are missing. They
need some reason to go beyond their current model of enslaving all
beings to mine their wealth and feed an ever growing economic
empire.”

“I doubt
they’ll stop while there are still beings to work for them and
still wealth in the ground. When they run out of stuff here they’ll
just move their operation to another planet.”

Zex’s jaw
gaped, she’d hit on the answer. He kissed her passionately. “That’s
it! Brilliant!”

“What, what
did I say?” But at that precise moment her dream faded away and she
woke. Opening her eyelids she looked up, straight into the worried
eyes of her sister. “Don’t you hate that Anya, when you think
you’ve dreamt something fundamentally profound and the whole thing
evaporates as you wake.”

Anya helped
Helena to sit up, adjusting the pillows behind her head. “What I’m
glad about is that you’re alive and awake.” But at Helena’s frown
she knew the dream must have been important. “Maybe it will come to
you later.”

“Suppose so.
Any chance of a cup of tea around her, I’m dying of thirst.”

Anya passed
her a glass of what looked like bright green sludge. “Drink
this.”

Helena sniffed
the glass and looked at its contents with a certain amount of
doubt. “That’s not tea, Sis. It looks and smells like pureed
grass.”

Anya laughed.
“Slightly better than lawn clippings. Try it. It will help to detox
the snake poison from your system and help you with the other stuff
your body’s going through?”

Helena notice
the slight edge to Anya’s voice. “What other stuff?” Come to think
of it certain bodily functions did seem rather urgent. She clutched
her abdomen as a cramp tried to strangle her gut. Her insides
hadn’t been the best since she’d woken this morning. Must have been
the Thai curry. “Shit Anya. Help me find a bathroom will you.”

Anya winced,
feeling for her sister. Helena was older than her. The change to
Malakim would be a little harder than for someone in their
twenties. Already Helena’s scar was fading. Anya was grateful she’d
only had the retrovirus. Its change was slower. It was up to the
DNA repaired inhabitants of the town, like herself and Andrew, how
far and how fast they evolved before ascending to the level the
Malakim were at. Helena instead was getting an instant makeover.
She didn’t know how angry to be with Kit or whether to be angry at
all. What Jnarn’s adopted daughter and Tyra’s semi-sister had done
last night had been timely to say the least. She certainly didn’t
begrudge her sister the extra powers that would start to come
online after she completed the change. Anya would catch up with her
in her own good time without the trauma her sister was now going
through. They both had all the time in the world now and no-one was
going to take it away from them. She would make damn sure of that.
What she wasn’t sure of was how her sister would take being told
she was now immortal.

“You asked to
see me.”

“I’d ask you
to take a seat but you’d see me as a male giving you an order.”

Helena
laughed. “You’re probably right.” She decided she take the seat.
“So you’re the all knowing all powerful Simon I’ve been hearing so
much about.”

It was Simon’s
turn to laugh. “Maybe. Here, have a cookie, I just baked them. And
no that’s not an order either.”

Helena kind of
liked the man. She took a bite out of a cookie. “Well you’re a
damned good cook, that much is obvious.”

“You seem to
know I have a bit of a, how should we say it, a discomfort with
men.”

“They often
rub me the wrong way.”

“And that’s
the problem Helena. That combined with the fact that you are now
Malakim. As you are you will never achieve your body of light. You
will be stuck on this planet in physical form long after we have
all evolved on. Hundred’s of millions of years from now when the
sun swells then burns out you’ll still be here but then Earth will
be a cold rock, drifting in space until it eventually gets vacuumed
up, hundreds of billions of years into the future by the black hole
at the centre of this galaxy.”

“You’re not
painting a very pretty picture Simon.”

“Sorry but you
need to know what you are up against.”

“So achieving
this body of light would probably be a good idea. What’s stopping
me? How do I do it?”

“A good first
step would be to forgive your father.”

Rage instantly
flared within her but she squelched it, outbursts were never
conducive to rational discussion. “Like that’s going to happen in a
hurry.”

“Note what you
just did Helena. You felt rage but your rational mind over-ruled
it. Have you ever wondered where that natural tendency comes
from?”

She had. She
feared the answer. She’d done some analysis on her own genes.
Letting out a deep sigh she relaxed into the chair. She’d never
bared the darkness within her to anyone before but ... “I’m a
borderline sociopath. Brain the size of planet, a natural
aggressive instinct to survive that comes from certain genes within
me, including a genetic attraction to alcohol which I’ve avoided
like the plague since I discovered that particular flaw in my
genome. I have the ability to block emotion that gets in the way of
me doing what I need to do. I enjoy pain, both the giving and
receiving. How’s that all for a hell of a mess?”

“You’re
honesty is breathtaking. What if I was to tell you you chose those
traits?”

“My preference
would be to hit you over the head but that wouldn’t achieve
anything would it?”

“No, it
wouldn’t. For one thing your arm would just go through me if I
didn’t want you to connect with the material manifestation I’m
projecting.”

Got to give it
to the man, he was the equivalent of a metaphysical nerd, she could
appreciate that. “So how do you think I ended up this way?”

Simon took a
seat across the table from her. “Several reasons. Firstly and most
obviously the genetic makeup and circumstances you were born into
and the experiences that came after. Secondly the habitual habits
chosen and honed through previous lives. But more important than
any of that you took it on because you knew you had the capacity to
be a transformer, that rare ability to take the worst and turn it
around, purify it and make it whole.”

“So how is
being a borderline sociopath a good thing.”

“It isn’t but
what gives you that tendency can be harvested for good. It gives
you a powerful mind for one thing. It also makes you a leader and a
warrior, someone who can make the hard decisions even knowing the
consequences. But you could be so much more if you reactivated your
heart.”

“I love my
sister.”

“No you
protect your sister. You’ve cared for her, done what was in your
power to make her life the best you could but I wouldn’t call it
love. A moral sense of duty and family honor perhaps. Isn’t that
why you avoid long term relationships? You think you can’t be what
other people want from you. You’re even afraid you might become
like your father.”

Shit. As much
as she wanted to rail at what he was saying she knew it was true.
“I’m not going to argue with you Simon. I’ve looked into the
psychopathologies that commonly manifest in people with my genes.
If you have a loving upbringing you can bypass most of it but when
you’ve had the trauma I’ve lived through...Hell, Simon, I have the
potential to be cruel.”

“And yet you
have it in your power to heal your DNA, not just your own but
others too.”

“How?”

“I have it
within my power to express the persona of any soul. Would you allow
me to show you your father as he was?”

“Role
play.”

“Oh more than
role play.” He went to retrieve a bottle from a shelf in one of the
kitchen cupboards. It was empty but he filled it with water from
the tap then placed it on the table with two empty glasses. “Let me
set the scene. We’re at a bar, somewhere in downtown Moscow, not
far from where your father lives with his family. He’s too young to
be legally drinking yet but he’s snuck out with the little pocket
money he has. You’re a good friend, not his daughter so call him
Ivan, not dad, ok?”