IMMORTAL (excerpt)
1/ SPECTER
SHE was in the basement again. It was pitch black, the only
illumination a glowing, quarter moon etched into the floor.
A burst of light split the darkness, and she moaned
low in her throat.
Please, I don’t want to see anymore…I don’t want to look.
Yet her feet moved of their own volition, inching toward the
mark…and the twisted bundle now lying in its center. A man was curled
upon the stone. He wasn’t breathing, and his limbs were tiny and
withered. But she knew he wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t human.
The daemon opened his eyes. I’ve been sleeping. But for how long?
He could feel his arms and legs, but the sensations were muted as
if they’d traveled from a great distance.
Then he remembered. He’d been imprisoned – snatched from his
body by the magic that had trapped him here. Even now sleep, like a
delicious drug, threatened to overtake him. But he fought it away.
How many centuries would pass while he slept?
A doorway appeared in his mind and just beyond it, a tattered
clump of flesh and bone…
Karla’s eyes flew open – the scream caught in her throat. It’s just
a nightmare. I’m Ok. I’m here now, at home.
The Indigo woman turned her head to look at the bedroom
console. Six-thirty glowed on the screen. She scooted out of bed, picked
up a remote from the nightstand and turned off the alarm.
Karla walked across the wooden floor of her living area into a
kitchenette. A press of her fingers on the first sphere of a triangular pod
started coffee brewing.
She filled a cup with chicory, walked back into the living area and
pushed the second button on her remote, activating a blue panel beside
the window. Jazz music filled the apartment. Like her bedroom console
the unit kept time, transmitted holographic images and played tapes.
Using the third button, she opened the curtains. Curled upon her
futon, the Indigo woman watched as the illuminae changed Topaz’s
violet sky into a mellow shade of peach. She thought of the dreams.
For as far back as Karla could remember, she’d had them.
Otherworldly, exquisite and always with an unsettling clarity so
different from the normal phantasms she read about. When I eat, I wake
up full – and stay that way until lunchtime. If somebody hits me, it
hurts like hell…
And her dream lover left her limp with satisfaction, even after she
awoke, sure he was still beside her.
At night Karla wrote them down, pouring all of her fears and
desires into the notebooks. She spent hours in the library, reading stories
of reincarnation and demonic possession, searching for answers. She’d
found them too – dozens of them. But none could satisfy the yearning
that burned inside her.
Every time she closed her eyes to sleep they beckoned, calling to
her. Mornings, she awoke like a swimmer who’d been underwater for too
long, grasping for the fabric of reality – moaning with pleasure or
trembling with exhilaration.
One night they’re going to swallow me whole. I’ll never wake
up or maybe I’ll just fall through to whatever’s on the other side…and
this new one, something’s different about it. I know the others but this
one – this one scares me so bad I’m afraid to sleep.
“What time is it?”
The top left knob of her console blinked. “The time is 7:00
am,” a pert, female voice replied.
Seven o’clock! I’d better hustle! Karla gulped down her coffee,
and hurried back into the bedroom to dress.
Tehotep watched the tall, slender woman thumb through her
closet. He wasn’t invisible, only dim. As long as he stayed in the
shadows,she couldn’t see him. But noise couldn’t be cloaked by magic.
The Indigo woman tossed a red knit, shirt and jeans on the bed,
slipped off her pajamas and walked into the bathroom. As she stepped
into the shower, the nozzle automatically clicked on, spraying her body
with water. He followed, standing just beyond the doorway …
Karla finished bathing, and Tehotep quickly moved back into the
shadows – all the while devouring her with his eyes. Her skin, dewy with
moisture, looked like melting chocolate her nipples, blackberries.
She toweled off her full breasts and long legs and he licked his
lips imagining the things he would do with her – to her – the endless
perversions he’d force her to submit to. Things she’d come to enjoy,
when she tried to please him.
The young woman walked into the bedroom. He watched her
pull up her panties, hook her bra, slip her arms into the straps. Image
after image flooded his mind. Tehotep felt himself harden; a soft groan
escaped his lips…
Karla froze then stared into the corner facing her bed. It’s only a
bunch of dirty clothes, you’re hearing things!
In that instant he appeared: an Indigo man with full lips, slanting
onyx eyes and a shaven head. Voluminous garments hung from his
muscular frame. Their eyes locked, and she gasped in recognition. The
dark man smiled, nodded his head…
And vanished.
Karla gazed at the pile of laundry – all that remained of him –and wondered if she’d lost her mind. With trembling hands she finished
dressing her thoughts scurrying about like rats in a maze.
It’s him! I didn’t imagine it! He was here, but that’s impossible –!
There was a knock at the door and she jumped. Get it together
girl, that’s the twins.
She walked into the living room, picked up her remote and
pointed it at the entrance. It slid open and the eight-year-old twins,
Carlos Jr. and Ashley, small and brown like their mother, ran
Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved
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