DEMONS OF EDEN SERIES - UPON THIS ROCK - Chapter 2

Strapped into his dimensio gear, Mithra buried his hands deep in the layers of space-time. Though he tried to focus, his concentration fragmented as his mind drifted to the meeting with Sitri. The Principe had revealed too much, an indicator of deeper issues. Vassago never showed his intent until all facets of his plans were aligned. Sitri often indulged Vassago – placating his demands in exchange for peace and favors.

He had never feared Sitri’s interference before, but the direction of events required evasive action to protect Ashley. Mithra read the signs well and knew he had no time to waste. He had to bind his Tesorina, now, or risk losing her to other influences. Mithra cast aside all other distractions and focused on the unique signature of Ashley’s aura. Her bloodline drew his attention easily. Descendants of the Incarnate carried genetic traces identical to his own, a small but measurable aptitude for greatness.

Human myth called them Nephilim, born of the mating of the Incarnate and humans thousands of years past. Through the millennia, only a sliver remained of that noble race, a fragment of power spread across a handful of oblivious heirs. The once-great Nephilim had lost their heritage, genetics diluted by interbreeding with the masses. Except for Ashley. Her sliver of potential had deepened with his influence. Night after night, he sprinkled a touch of his power over her aura and that seed grew with her love and devotion to him.

Mithra had worked for centuries to reach this level of penetration, to develop a host with so much potential. She had become a shining beacon amongst the dull stars of Eden – other Devas would soon take notice – perhaps some had. Galos knew more than he should – more likely the mercenary swine employed by the cambion Vassago had alerted him.

Mithra experienced the familiar flavor of Ashley’s mind. She slept every night in anticipation of his visits. {{I am with you, Tesorina. The time has come to pledge absolute devotion to me. Together we will unlock the portals to the universe.}}

Her mind flared with love and devotion, as always, but she avoided speaking of it. His delicate Ashley had never known a lover, never experienced a physical relationship with another. Her infatuation tasted of adolescence. Mired in fears of rejection, she refused to voice her true feelings.

{{Say the words and it will be done.}} He checked his power reserves and hoped he had enough for a proper binding. Mithra smiled at the irony. Principe Sitri would have to accept the offered help from Ceres and Vassago to recharge systems once Mithra finished. By then Ashley would be conjoined in a soul-deep connection, protected from predatory Devas surfing the aether. His newly cemented bond with Ashley would block anyone from connecting to her mind.

“You know how I feel, Mithra. I can’t hide from you.” Ashley paused, ever fearful, ever cautious, his delicate, frightened Tesorina. Her soul radiated love for him, showering him in the wondrous sensation of her delightful affections. “I pledge my absolute devotion to you, Mithra. I promise to serve you however I can.”

Finally.

Her courage bolstered him. No going back now. He initialized his reserves and prepared to channel all available power into her. Suddenly, a disturbance pushed waves of energy across the dimensio.

Interlopers.

With fears of other Devas fracturing his focus, Mithra lashed out at the source of the disturbance, seeking any who dared interfere. Fury, frustration and impatience curled in his belly and lent power to his searching eye. He penetrated through the substrate and found the source stemmed not from across the Superum, but from Eden.

A particle accelerator.

Foolish human scientists dabbled in conjurings on the aether without knowledge of the forces they controlled, or the potential consequences. He delved deeper into the rippling waves of space-time and discovered a series of rifts … a splattering of minuscule singularities. They toyed with the dimensio like children with hammers, destroying everything in reach.

This hammer burned brightly, a dazzling wellspring of power. Bending, tearing, shredding, twisting and spinning gravitonic waves of space-time, the particle accelerator’s unfocused power inspired an idea …

He looked across the aether to Ashley’s sparkling aura. The opportunity was fleeting, but he took a moment to weigh his Principe’s system power level needs against his personal desire to create a more effective binding. He considered Ashley, the grave risk to her life, and the difficult challenges that awaited her.

What if …

The consequences of failure could be dire. He checked his reserves once more. Might be enough to ignite a fusion event. Normally a calm, patient conjurer, accustomed to waiting years, decades, even centuries for methodical degrees of progress, Mithra sensed now was the time to strike. No more would he tread the aether with caution.

He redirected his focus and activated full power reserves, harnessing everything at his disposal. Sitri would be furious, but he didn’t care. Mithra reached through the veil, pushing past the dimensio boundaries, to find the thrumming source of disruption. He poured his power into the particle accelerator device and amplified the output a thousand-fold. A concussive explosion opened the rift and shredded across the dimensio. He suddenly sensed Ashley, her mind touching his without interference.

“Mithra? What are you doing? What is that bright light?”

Though his system levels drained fast, he prayed his calculated risk proved worthwhile. An opportunity like this may never arise again during Ashley’s lifetime.

Focusing everything into a razor-edged lens, he boosted the dimensio-ripping anomaly into a sizeable singularity, a gaping hole in space-time that stretched across all boundaries. He guided the power, seizing it with his will, molding it into a funnel.

The particle accelerator exploded.

The buffering layers torn open wide, power hurtled across the dimensio without restriction. A glorious surge of power flowed straight to him, a fusion reaction equal to a small sun flooded Mithra with overwhelming cosmic forces he’d never before contained. Staggering at the precipice of a blazing inferno, screaming with all his intense focus, he siphoned away enough energy to strengthen his gravitonic containment. He harnessed the power of an infant star, but it could not last. Containment would fail any moment.

He recharged his own reserves, those of the Principe, and every bank and reserve across the system. Still the fusion reaction grew, shredding the boundaries of the dimensio. He could hold it no longer. Nothing left to do but let go.

Carrying the mass of planetary systems, this newborn sun collapsed into a singularity the size of his fist and blasted a wave of energies across the dimensio. With so much power entrapped in the electromagnetic fields of Eden, he risked destruction of the beautiful garden he sought to protect. Unless he directed the force to a willing, capable vessel.

Ashley Rowan, distant descendant of Nephilim rulers, ancient kings of Eden who once wielded powers gifted by the lost Empress herself. He poured the energies of a fusion reaction into his host and filled her empty cup with the light of creation. The keys to the universe lie within her grasp … if she survived the power transfer.

{{I bind you Ashley Rowan. I claim your life as my own. My breath is your breath. My strength is your strength. You are mine, and I am yours, until the end of time.}} His words permeated to the core of her soul – her aura, binding the fabric of her essence to his own.

* * * *

The glorious sound of Mithra’s warm, entrancing voice wrapped around me in a seductive spell. Something about claiming me. Searing, blinding flashes of light hit me with a fiery agony. Every fiber of my being turned white hot. I melted through my mattress and into the concrete floor beneath, swimming in molten heat, writhing in hellish torment. So much pain … every part of me blazed with excruciating agony. I screamed myself hoarse. Screaming, convulsing, every cell in my body vibrating as if I was about to explode, blessed black unconsciousness overtook me.

I woke to warm sun streaming through my bedroom window. I wiped a grey film from my eyelids and face. Blackened charred remains of my mattress surrounded me. I’d burned several inches into the concrete floor, a scorched cubby that fit the shape of my naked body. Charcoal-colored ash dusted my skin all over. The horrid taste of burnt synthetics coated my mouth and made me want to gag.

“I wasn’t dreaming?”

I’d been long accustomed to dark fantasies of faraway lands and my god-like Mithra. To finally experience something of that reality here, in my home – I froze in terror and my guts squeezed tight in coils of fear.

“It’s only a dream. A nightmare. How can … It was just a dream! This can’t be real!”

My naked, ash-covered body sitting in a charred hole in the concrete proved otherwise.

* * * *

I let him knock five times before I found the courage to open my front door. No man had ever set foot in my one-bedroom apartment. I could count the number of people who’d entered on one hand. He smiled, looking exactly like the picture on his website – shaggy brown hair with a slight wavy look, and a boyish grin. Perceptive hazel eyes glanced at and past me, assessing my living room and situation.

I didn’t catch any alpha-womanizing predatory vibes. I hated when men looked at me that way, how vulnerable they made me feel. He struck me as the geeky type, probably no girlfriend, and no real prospects.

“Hi. It’s Ashley right? I’m Nicholas Castro, from the Alien Answer. I investigate incidents of possible alien origin.” He held out his hand in greeting. Definitely the geeky type.

Avoiding his offered hand, I nodded quietly and shied away from his direct gaze. I sucked at meeting new people. I’d never contacted someone like this, from a website, and invited him to my home. We should have met somewhere else. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I almost lost my nerve and shut the door in his face.

He watched and waited. When I said nothing he looked past me again, into my apartment. “It smells like a fire. You were serious?”

I tried to hold his gaze with conviction. “Yes. I explained when you called me back from the contact form on your website. There was a fire … sort of.”

He stood expectantly, waiting to be allowed entry.

I shrugged, unable to find the words to explain what I didn’t understand. “I didn’t know who else to talk to.” Swallowing down my anxiety, I stepped aside and held my hand out, inviting him in.

“I realize how awkward it is to talk about these things. I won’t judge, promise.” He stepped in, closer to me, apology in his eyes. “I’m quick and professional. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

My fears must have been obvious, the way he tried so hard to placate me. I pulled my hair back away from my face and avoided his searching look. I hated when men stared at me, it was so … uncomfortable.

“You said it happened while you were sleeping? In your bed?”

I nodded again and closed the front door behind him. Mustering every ounce of my courage, I led a stranger to my bedroom door and let him in.

Two steps into the room he stopped and stared at everything. His gaze swept back and forth, over and over. He took in the dark soot marks on the walls where my bed once was, the blackened depression in the floor where I woke up, the piles of ash and charred remains of my futon left behind. I hadn’t cleaned the room, except to remove some personal items. I left the evidence untouched, in hopes of discovering an answer.

“If you’re telling me the truth, and you survived this without a mark, I would call it spontaneous combustion, except you didn’t combust. Everything touching you did. Another word for this is pyrokinesis, the ability to ignite and control fire with your mind.”

I stood and watched him. A sinking sensation in my gut told me that none of what he said was even close to the truth. He was tossing out canned theories, not explanations. I wrapped my arms around my stomach tightly, feeling very insecure with a strange man in my burnt bedroom.

He looked to the ceiling above my bedroom door. “Your smoke detector batteries are probably dead. That must be why it didn’t go off. Amazing the neighbors didn’t smell the fire and complain.”

“One neighbor did complain in the morning … I told him I burnt a pizza in the oven. The fire was out by the time I woke up. Whatever happened, it didn’t catch. The fire didn’t spread beyond my futon and the floor, the things directly in contact with me.”

He looked me up and down, my skinny legs and Khaki cotton shorts and peach-colored Pacific Sun t-shirt. I didn’t look like a woman who’d burned her clothes off two nights ago.

“You said something about melting through your bed and into the floor. You’re telling me you actually cooked several inches into the concrete?”

“Listen, Nicholas, I woke up in that charred depression in the floor. I remember dreaming I was on fire. I was so hot, like how metal turns bright white … arc welding hot. But it wasn’t a dream.” I kneeled and pushed the ashes away from the seared shape of my body in the concrete and looked up to him, hoping he could somehow explain the impossible.

“Are you fucking with me?”

I wanted to scream with my frustration and fear. I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have invited you here. This was a mistake.”

He sighed. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff. Crop circles, ancient carvings and cave paintings, hundreds of videos on YouTube with lights and flying objects. I’ve never seen this.” He rubbed the few hairs on his chin, a pathetic attempt at growing a goatee. “Maybe thermite. If you molded it somehow? There’s stories that thermite was used on the twin towers, that it was all staged, the way the fires burned through steel i-beams and concrete …”

“This isn’t 911. We’re not talking George Bush conspiracy theories. This is my bedroom, and I was sleeping here, where my bed used to be. Now it’s all ash.” I grabbed a chunk of charred wood, with a patch of dark brown stain finish. “This was my Ikea futon. I burned through it and into the floor. What possible reason would I have to lie? I don’t even know you and I don’t care if you believe me.”

He looked at the evidence in my hand, then glanced at the charred floor and the dark burns on the walls. “It’s like a flash burn … like it happened instantly, then fizzled out. That’s why I was thinking of thermite, which burns at over 4000 degrees Fahrenheit, but it takes 3000 degrees to ignite. It’s not a simple thing to create. It’s been used in film special effects before …”

“I don’t know what thermite is and I don’t care about your conspiracy theories. If you don’t have any answers then this is a waste of time. I think you should leave.” I stood up and pointed my ash-blackened fingers to the front door of my apartment.

“Either way, it’s totally weird.” He was still looking at the burns in the concrete, ignoring me. He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and angled it for a photo of the floor and walls. “I’ll get out of your hair in a minute – I just need some shots for my records.”

Panic set my heart racing and I pushed his phone down. “No! I told you no pictures. I let you in my home because your website claimed you investigate these things and look for answers. I brought you here to help me find answers.”

The geek turned serious and pegged me with a severe, searching look. “I know there’s more you’re not telling me. And that’s okay.” His eyes turned sympathetic. “You don’t have to trust me, and you don’t have to be alone. I work with a group of people. If you want help, the best thing you can do is come to our meetings. There’s one scheduled for tonight. These guys have experienced real things. Everyone pretends aliens don’t exist, but we know the truth. Or at least some of the truth.”

I couldn’t believe I was actually considering attending a meeting to talk about what happened to me, what was still happening to me. A family walked by on the sidewalk and drew my attention out the window. Each of them had a flickering touch of light, a hazy-smoky color surrounding their heads. The preschool-age girl walking between her parents carried an almost pure-white light. Her mother and father had various color streaks swirling around them. I turned to Nicholas. I didn’t need to study his blue-green aura to know he stared at me with curiosity and anticipation.

Since two nights ago, when the incident happened, every person I’d encountered was wrapped in a strange shifting light, an aura. Mithra had done something horribly agonizing to me, but I’d survived a changed person. I felt the difference, even now. The entire world looked different to me, especially people and their auras.

I debated how safe it would be to talk about this with anyone else. Then I wondered if someone in Nicholas’s group had gone through the same. Maybe I could find answers, if I took a chance on meeting someone with a similar experience.