Dark Storm (Dark #23)

Dark Storm (Dark #23) Page 7

Little by little the sky darkened, a great shadow drawn slowly overhead. A loud rumble heralded the continuous shaking of the earth. A dense ash cloud erupted, shooting straight into the sky like a voluminous black tower, expanding and churning as it rose. Within a matter of minutes the blackness was nearly impenetrable. Rain began to fall, a fast flurry of powdery drops.

Exhausted, mentally and physically, Riley could barely lift her head. Her body felt leaden, drained of all strength. She knelt in the dirt, trying to think what to do next, but her brain refused to work. She peered at the three men through the veil of darkness. They appeared misshapen from head to toe. All three crouched low on the ground trying to ride out the never-ending tremors. She realized the drops weren't water at all, but a heavy, powdery ash covering their bodies, blanketing the mountain, the trees, every bit of foliage surrounding them, and making it impossible to look up.

Lightning cracked across the sky. Thunder crashed. Electricity crackled around them all, sparks dancing around their bodies while halos surrounded their heads. The sound of cannonballs exploding hurt her ears and reverberated through her head. The smell of sulfur saturated the air.

Ben pushed himself to his feet, trying for balance when the ground rolled relentlessly. "We've got to make a run for it. We can't stay here. We're too close." He coughed, covering his mouth and nose. Anxiety edged his voice, but he clearly was trying to hold it together.

"Ben," Jubal said, his voice calm and steady. "You can't outrun a volcano. It isn't going to help to go charging off. We're either safe or we're not."

"If we're lucky, the main blast will be on the other side of the mountain and we'll survive if I can build us a shelter fast enough. Hopefully Miguel and the others are out of the danger zone," Riley tried to assure him, when she wasn't even certain herself.

Ben gaped at them, and then exploded with fear and outrage. "A shelter? Are you kidding me? That's a volcano! If we stay here, we're going to die!"

"She's not talking about a tent," Gary snapped.

"And if we run, we're definitely dead," Jubal added calmly. He turned to Riley. "Riley? Can you do it? We really need that shelter, and we really need it now."

Riley sat back on her knees and wiped at the ash falling on her face with a weary hand, trying to find the strength to call on Mother Earth once more. She closed her eyes. She wasn't certain she could do anything at all to save them. She'd come here to stop evil from entering the world, but so far, all she'd done was fail. She'd failed to save her mother, failed to keep the evil caged, failed to stop the volcano. Odds were she'd fail to save them, too.

Even though she'd suggested it, the idea that she could build shelter that would withstand a volcano did indeed seem as ludicrous as Ben declared. What had she been thinking? She took a deep breath and coughed, her chest tight, lungs burning.

"Riley?" Jubal prodded.

Fiery streaks of molten rock spewed into the air and hurtled down toward them. Purplish-red scoria and fiery stones rained down on them. They covered their heads, the three men trying to shield Riley with their bodies. She heard Gary gasp as a stone hit his back. Another glanced off a rock near Ben's head.

Jubal was right. They would die if they tried to run, and they would die if they stayed here without one heck of a volcano-proof shelter. If building one was even remotely possible, she had to figure it out immediately.

Riley covered her mouth and nose to try for a clean breath of air and then once more plunged her hands into the soil. There was desperation in her voice as she chanted.

"Square, cornucopia, spindle, scythe, salt and shield, I call upon Auriel's might." The words came out of their own accord, and they felt right. She felt as if she were tapping into a long-forgotten memory.

To her shock, the ground began to rise, following the circle of salt to form thick walls of rock and dirt, expanding fast, moving above their heads, curving and growing until they were inside a cave.

"Agate, jasper, tourmaline, line this place so none may burn."

Ash was everywhere, in her mouth and nose, clogging her throat. The shower of incandescent stones continued, making deep holes in the ground around them and sending hot shrapnel spraying over them. A small fissure opened up, running right up to the circle of protection, but stopped abruptly.

Riley closed her eyes, sending up a prayer that she would have the strength to do this. She felt the earth responding to her touch, a comfort that was fast becoming familiar. Around the circle of protection the walls continued to grow, lined with solid rock to add to the thickness, giving additional protection against a superheated blast. The walls climbed high, curving to form a ceiling overhead. Only a narrow opening remained.

"Ruby, garnet, diamond strong, seal us safe from fiery harm." As she chanted, all colors of red from fire lined the walls and began to build a door at the entrance.

The roar from outside dimmed, although the tremors continued relentlessly as the last remaining open space closed and sealed. Riley slumped to the ground, there in the darkness while the ground tossed and rolled. She was so exhausted she couldn't think. She'd done her best. Either they would survive or they wouldn't. She'd managed to protect them from gases and anything falling from overhead, but if the mountain blew and superheated lava found their cave, it wouldn't matter if they were inside or not, the heat would melt the rock and they'd probably suffocate before the fiery lava found them.

Darkness was absolute in the cavern Riley had created. Jubal flicked on a light, pushing it into the ground. The roof and walls sparkled with gemstones, giving off a beautiful, almost soothing glow.

Jubal looked around in amazement at the gem-lined cave. "Amazing, Riley. Whether we get out of this alive or not, let me just say thank you now."

Gary handed her a bottle of water he pulled from his pack. "Here, drink this. You have to be exhausted."

Riley found she could barely lift her hand to take the bottle. Her arms felt like lead and shook almost as hard as the ground. "If the mountain really goes up, it won't matter. You know that, don't you?"

"You managed to build us shelter from the ash and debris," Jubal pointed out. "I'm going to believe you minimized the explosion and pushed it away from us."

"This is nuts," Ben burst out. "How did you make this cave out of nothing? What are you? If someone told me about this, I'd never believe them."

"There are a lot of things in this world people have a difficult time believing," Gary said. "It's easier to dismiss the incidents as fantasy or pretend they didn't happen. Riley's obviously extremely gifted ..."

"That's not gifted," Ben said. "No one can do what she did. Is this some kind of black magic, not that I know if I believe in that, either, but I've seen some freaky things when I've traveled, but this ..." He trailed off again.

Riley snuck a look at his face. In the shadows from the dim light, his face appeared lined and stressed. She couldn't blame him. She'd grown up seeing the strange things her mother could do, but even as a child, she'd known others would never accept that plants grew beneath her mother's feet when she walked and reached out to her whenever she was close. There really wasn't an explanation she could give Ben that would make sense. The things her family could do were normal to her, but clearly weren't for others.

"Call her psychic," Jubal said. "She has an affinity for the earth and it responds to her. Hopefully, that connection was strong enough to direct the volcanic blast away from us."

"Affinity for the earth? Directed a volcano blast? That's bullshit," Ben said. "It's impossible. I just saw crazy shit with my own eyes, but damn it, it's impossible."

Gary's eyebrow went up. "Is it? How do you know what's possible and what isn't? In Indonesia the people believe their sultan has tamed and calmed the volcanos for centuries. They are certain he can protect them from the fury of eruption. And we've all seen inexplicable happenings on this trip."

Even as he spoke, outside the cave, more stones and debris pummeled the roof, landing with shocking force. Riley resisted the urge to cover her ears. Every jarring blow sent her heart jolting hard in her chest. Fear tasted like copper in her mouth.

An explosion rocked them a second time, the mountain shuddering, sending them reeling from side to side. Riley clung to the earth, digging her fingers deep, trying to get a feel for where the worst of the eruption had taken place and just how big it had been. At the same time, she tried using the soil to anchor herself. As it was, she sprawled hard against Gary, knocking her head against his. His glasses went flying. Ben fell over Annabel's pack, slamming his shoulder into the gem-studded wall of the cave. Jubal was the only one who maintained a semblance of balance, riding out the swelling ground waves as if he was surfing on his knees.

"Is everyone all right?" Jubal asked.

They all nodded, shock taking its toll on their voices.

"That sounded far away," he ventured after a few minutes.

Riley's heart settled into a steadier beat. She swallowed several times, testing her ability to speak. "It feels far away, the other side of the mountain. I can tell there are several vents open releasing pressure, and that blast wasn't catastrophic, but more of a burp. But it's out." She met Gary's gaze grimly. "I couldn't hold it and calm the volcano at the same time. So if we're right and the blast was on the other side of the mountain and we're not going to get burned up, we're going to have to deal with it-whatever it is."

She tasted the bitterness of failure. Fear skittered down her spine, yet deep within the earth, her fingers curled and held on tight to ... hope. She caught the elusive presence of another. Male. Power. Strength. Yet his touch was subtle, a child of the earth as she was. At once she felt comfort. She wasn't entirely alone in the world. She had a brief glimpse of calm. Of determination. Of someone who would never surrender or back down.

Her breath caught in her throat. For one moment he seemed to touch her mind, a stroke, no more, inside her mind, a caress. She knew he was every bit as aware of her as she was of him. He didn't feel anything at all like the evil one had. This was so different. Gentle. She had the very vivid impression of a powerful being unafraid of his own strength and entirely confident. She wanted to cling to him for a moment, a strong anchor in an exploding world gone chaotic and mad all around her.

He was gone before she could catch his path. A soft, protesting cry slipped from her lips. She'd felt hope for the first time. In that brief moment, she couldn't explain it, but she wasn't so alone. He understood the whispering of the earth, the information she gathered when she sank her hands deep into the soil-that complete affinity with and the need, even compulsion, to care for the plants and environment around her. She was the guardian, the sentinel, and somewhere another walked the same planet and held that same job.

It occurred to her that she was a little mad after the murder of her mother-that she'd suffered some deep psychotic break-and she barely managed to swallow the bubble of hysterical laughter. She couldn't afford to lose it. Not now.

"Whatever the evil entity is-and it feels masculine to me-it speaks the same language as the porter chanted when he killed my mother. And I think it managed to escape with the blast." She swallowed hard, her eyes meeting Jubal's. "I'm sorry. I tried my best. If my mother hadn't been killed maybe she could have done more."

Ben carefully picked himself up, scooting across the dirt to put his back to the wall, careful to keep his movements short. "Someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on here." He pushed his hair back, his hand coming away filled with ash. "Because I feel a little bit as if I'm going insane. Did she really stop the volcano? I mean, we're still alive aren't we?"

"For the moment," Gary said. "I think she managed to minimize the blast and direct it to the other side of the mountain. The vents opening closer to us are just relieving pressure."

"How long have you had this particular skill?" Ben asked, his tone somewhere between awe and sarcasm.

"Since my mother died," Riley replied, feeling a little distracted. She wanted to brush up against that elusive feeling of comfort and strength and draw courage from it just one more time. Trapped in a cave, waiting to cook to death, exhausted beyond anything she'd ever known, she wanted to curl up in the fetal position and hide.

"How did you do this?" Ben demanded. "Are you some kind of devil worshipper? No one can make a cave grow over their head or stop a volcano from exploding."

"Clearly, I didn't stop the volcano," Riley pointed out. "And that's the second time you've accused me of worshipping the devil, and I really don't appreciate it. You were right here. You watched everything I did. I called on the Universe, not the devil." She couldn't keep weariness-or disgust-out of her voice, and it wasn't entirely fair to Ben. Given everything that had happened, his fear and need to lash out were understandable. If everyone weren't looking for her to save them, she might be tempted to lash out, too. Moreover, how could she explain what was happening to him when she didn't understand it herself?

Grief welled up without warning, and she blinked back a hot rush of tears. She wanted her mother-needed her. Everything was happening so fast, and Riley didn't have a clue what she was doing.

Gary stepped in smoothly. "Calm down, Ben. I know what's happening seems crazy, but just because you've never encountered something like this before doesn't make it less real-or less dangerous. Fighting among ourselves is only going to make things worse. Jubal and I have witnessed things that would send most people screaming their way straight to the loony bin. But the truth is, evil does exist, monsters come after us in the night, and people like Riley are sometimes the only thing standing between us and total annihilation. I wish you hadn't had to be a part of this, but unfortunately for you, you're a brave man and you chose to protect Riley instead of running away like the others. That choice, while admirable, has put you in harm's way and exposed you to powers beyond your comprehension. As long as you stick with us, you're going to be in the middle of this, and I can pretty much guarantee it's going to get worse before it gets better. So we need you to keep your cool, and lay off Riley. Sniping at her isn't going to help any of us."

Riley had to admire his calm, matter-of-fact explanation. There was something very reassuring about Gary. No drama. No ego. Just his presence. She took another drink of water. Her throat felt parched, her body thirsty. She needed ... but what she didn't know. Only that she was suddenly craving something. Despite her exhaustion, her blood was on fire, rushing through her veins, her pulse leaping, finding a strange rhythm.

She felt more alive than she ever had and had no idea if it was because the volcano had come to dramatic life, breathing fire, or if it was because she'd connected with someone who had given her a brief moment of comfort in the midst of total madness. Maybe it was the intensity of her emotions, the fear, the grief, the adrenaline. Whatever it was, she felt every bit as vibrant as she did weary.

"It's just hard to wrap my head around all this," Ben said in a calmer voice. "The funny thing is, I've always been interested in folklore, everything from Bigfoot and the Yeti to werewolves and vampires and I've traveled all around the world in an effort to prove where there's smoke there's fire. I've been in a minisub searching for the Loch Ness Monster. You name it, if it was unexplained, I went to find it, but after all the disappointments, I didn't really believe anymore. Maybe I never really did. But this ..." He shook his head and wiped his hand over his mouth. "I'm sticking with you, although I have to tell you, I'm just a little scared."

Jubal smiled at him, a flash of white teeth in his ash-blackened face. "Welcome to our world. You'd be crazy if you weren't a little afraid."

Riley pushed herself up and scooted to the far wall facing the three men. She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. "I'm definitely scared, Ben. I've come to this mountain several times and nothing like this has ever happened before."

Ben sent her a strained smile. "Thanks for the cave, however you managed it. Melting in hot lava isn't the way I want to go out."

She tried to find a smile and hoped she pulled it off. "Pyroclastic clouds aren't exactly my idea of fun, either."

Jubal cleared his throat. "Are you certain whatever was locked in the volcano was able to get free?"

Riley nodded reluctantly. "He's free. I couldn't hold him." She tasted the bitter flavor of failure. "You know what he is, don't you?" When neither Jubal nor Gary answered, she sighed. "Look, we're in this together now. He's out. I felt him. I know he's real. You have to tell me what we're dealing with."

"I'd like to know, too," Ben agreed. "No matter what it is, it can't be much crazier than what I've already witnessed."

Jubal rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes meeting Gary's. He sighed. "No matter how we say this, you're going to think we're insane."

Ben shrugged. "I already think maybe I'm insane, so just come out with it. None of this seems real."

Still, both men hesitated. Riley didn't like the way they looked at one another. She felt her pulse jump. She couldn't get any more scared, could she? Fear of the unknown was worse than the knowing. At least then she could try to prepare.

"I need to know what this evil thing is, Jubal. I heard it speak. Its voice was in my head for a minute, and it felt foul." She shuddered. "I think it's going to come after me."

"What did it say?" Gary asked.

"He spoke in that same language the porter used just before he killed my mother." She closed her eyes, drawing on the same phonographic memory that let her reproduce bird and animal calls perfectly and made her so adept at linguistics. "He said, 'Arabejila. Emni han ku kod alte. Tõdak a ho a��asz engemko, kutenken a��asz engemko a jalleen. Andak a irgalomet terad it.'"

She didn't know what the individual words were or what they meant, but she reproduced the sounds, inflection and pitch precisely and the sickening foulness of the tone made everyone flinch.

"The only word I recognized was Arabejila. It's a family name and it's very unusual. My great-great-grandmother was named Arabejila and she was named after another great-grandmother."

Gary and Jubal exchanged another long look.

Riley sighed. "Just tell me what it means. At this point, like Ben, I don't think I'm going to be surprised by anything."

"He must have thought you were someone he knew," Gary ventured. "If you have an ancestor who was called Arabejila, when he sensed your presence, you must have felt familiar to him, which means her genes and gifts are strong in you. He probably believes you are this Arabejila."

"No relative of mine with that name has been alive for ..." She trailed off, glancing at Ben. Whatever had lived in the volcano had to be a very ancient evil. How long had the women in her family been coming to such a remote part of the Andes and performing the ritual?

She pressed her lips together tightly and rubbed her cheek along her knees. If that ancient being had been sealed in the volcano by one of her ancestors, it stood to reason he might be a little angry and looking for revenge.

"Never mind. Can you translate what he said?"

"Repeat the phrase for me," he said. "I'll do my best."

She did so, speaking as slowly as she could without affecting the rhythm and inflection of the words.

Gary rubbed his jaw, stared for a moment at his blackened hand, rubbed the ash onto his jeans and then shrugged when his hands remained dirty. "Emni han ku kod alte. I know that means 'cursed woman.'"

"I thought that phrase was familiar," Riley said. "The porter chanted it over and over. He was calling my mother a cursed woman."

"And now you," Jubal said.

Riley instinctively buried her fingers in the soil, needing comfort. She already knew that evil entity was going to be coming after her. She didn't need Gary to tell her that; she'd heard the hatred and rage in the thing's voice. But she'd also heard fear. She wasn't Arabejila, but if evil feared her, Riley was more than happy to claim kinship with the woman.

"Tõdak a ho a��asz engemko, kutenken a��asz engemko a jalleen, I believe is, I don't know how you ..." He frowned at Jubal. "'Escaped'? 'How you escaped me'?"

Jubal nodded. "That's what I got. And something about 'not again.'"

Gary nodded. "'I do not know how you escaped me, but you will not again.' That's as close as I can get. Clearly he thinks he knows you."

"And the last part?" Riley insisted. "Andak a irgalomet terad it."

"That means, 'I will have no mercy for you this time.'" Gary said the words in a rush, as if he wanted to get it over.

"So who is he? What is he?" Riley demanded.

Gary wiped at the ash on his jeans, not looking at her. "I'm afraid you're dealing with a vampire. A very powerful vampire. The real deal. He'll tear out your throat and drain you dry. He feeds off the suffering and terror of people. There's no doubt in my mind that's what was locked in that mountain."

Riley stared at him, openmouthed. She hadn't expected him to say vampire. Vampires were mythical demons in horror movies or novels. She didn't have a clue what she thought he'd say, but certainly not vampire. He was serious, too. She snuck a look at Jubal. He was just as serious.

"All those weapons you have, you were expecting this. Clearly, from the beginning, you knew."

Gary shook his head. "No, that's not true. We actually came here to research a particular plant we thought long extinct. A small group of adventurers had come here last year and one had a picture of the plant on his blog on the Internet. A friend of ours just happened to stumble across the photograph and sent it to me knowing my interest in rare plants. Jubal and I were both excited about it. I got in touch with the miner who described the plant and I became certain it was what we were looking for. We contacted a guide and came."

"But our guide was ill," Jubal said. "Just like yours and Dr. Patton's guide."

"And ours," Ben added.

Gary nodded. "So we threw in with everyone and figured since we were all going to the same general area, we could travel together and then go our own way when we got to the mountain. At that point we didn't have a clue anything was wrong."

"We began to suspect we were dealing with the undead when all the strange things began happening and they were clearly directed at your mother," Jubal added. "There's a certain feel to evil, and we've both felt it before."

Ben shook his head. "No. No way. I've studied vampire lore around the world, and I'll admit, there's a part of me that wanted to believe something like that existed, like in the movies. I ran into a group of people in my travels that totally believe in vampires and claim they hunt and kill them. They were all nut jobs. Completely whacko. There are no such things as vampires. The people they killed were ill, or lived differently or had trouble being out in the sun. I investigated each victim and none of them were vampires. The few people who act like vampires, killing for blood, are in mental institutions for the criminally insane."

"True enough," Gary agreed. "I know exactly the people you're talking about. I was mixed up with them once, a long time ago, and yes, they kill indiscriminately. They target someone and then twist facts to fit what they want to believe, but that doesn't negate the fact that vampires exist."

"If that's true," Ben argued, "why doesn't anyone know about it?"

Riley had to admit it was a good question. She kept her head on her knees, but watched Gary's face carefully. He truly believed what he was saying. Jubal did as well. Neither struck her as insane. She'd felt evil when she'd plunged her hands into the soil. Even more, she'd heard it-heard its voice. There was no denying it, as much as she'd like to.

"How was he able to get the bats and monkeys, even the piranha and that snake to target my mother if he was trapped in the volcano?" she asked, not waiting for Gary or Jubal to answer Ben's very logical question. She believed Gary, and that was just plain terrifying.

"Vampires can be very powerful. If this one has survived locked in that volcano, we're dealing with an extremely powerful one. He has been around for more centuries than we can imagine, growing in power."

Riley closed her eyes briefly. She'd let something truly evil out into the world. "There are stories, folklore we believed, about the devastation of both the Cloud People and the Incas living here, that something had killed their best warriors and destroyed their villages. They thought it was an evil god who demanded sacrifices of children and women, yet never was appeased. Could it be that old?"

"Yes," Gary replied simply.

Riley wanted to curl up into a ball and lay in the comfort of the soil. She hadn't had time to grieve for her mother and she felt overwhelmed with sadness so abruptly she could barely think. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to talk or hear any more. She wanted to be a child and cover her ears. She sighed instead and forced her weary body to sit straighter. "So do you carry stakes on you along with those weapons?" It was a halfhearted attempt at humor, the best she could muster under the circumstances.

Ben snickered. "Wooden stakes? Are you kidding me?"

"Stakes don't work," Jubal said. "You have to incinerate the heart. You can shoot them, stab them, stake them and even cut off their head, but if you don't burn that heart, they can repair themselves."

A groan escaped her. Of course you would have to incinerate the heart. Anything else would be just too easy.

Ben rolled his eyes. "Now I know you're crazy."

"I wish I could tell you I'm making this up," Gary said. "But I'm not. Everyone is at risk now. All of us. Every tribesman. Every member of our party that tried to get away from the volcano. He'll be looking for blood and he'll kill anyone he comes across. Not only will he take blood, but he'll take their memories and learn at a rapid rate so that he'll fit in anywhere he goes. His lack of knowledge of the past centuries won't mean anything within a matter of days."

Riley ran the pad of her finger back and forth over her eyebrow, trying to ease the beginnings of a headache. "Then we have to find the others and make certain they're safe."

Ben frowned at her. "You're actually buying into this? An honest-to-God vampire who won't die even if you drive a stake through its heart. Even if we stab or shoot it."

She nodded slowly. "I don't want to buy into it, Ben, but I do. Those animals behaved completely against their nature, and something drove Capa to murder my mother. So call it whatever you want to call it, but I want to know how to kill whatever it is. I want to know exactly what to expect when I come across it, because I don't want any more surprises."

Ben scowled at her but nodded his head. "I suppose you have a point."

"Vampires can be very cunning," Jubal explained. "They're masters of illusion. They appear to be charming and handsome, but in fact, they mask what and who they are. They can get inside your head and make you do whatever they wish. You'll go to them when they command it and allow them to rip out your throat. You will give them your children or any loved one if they demand it."

"Great," Riley said. "The worst monster imaginable, right? That's what you're saying. Just say that. So, along with a gun I need a flamethrower. I noticed you had one, Gary. Can I borrow it? I'm fairly certain it's me Vamp doesn't like. He made that pretty clear."

"I say we get the hell out of here the minute we can," Ben said. "Whatever it is can live off the piranha."

"But he wouldn't," Gary said. "A vampire feeds off of humans."

"I agree that you and Riley need to get out of here as fast as possible," Jubal said. "We should find the others and get them moving out of the rain forest and back to civilization as fast as possible."

"Has anyone considered how we're going to get out of here?" Ben ventured.

Riley felt their eyes on her. If the vampire couldn't get in, she might just consider staying for a very long time. She shrugged. "I don't know, but I'm not even sure that it's safe to go out yet. The ground is still shaking, and when I put my hands into the soil, I feel heat."

As she spoke, she thrust her hands deep into the soil. As before, her body reacted to the energy coiling around her palms and fingers. That soothing warmth seeped into her pores. She stayed very still and listened. The ground creaked and moaned-whispered softly. She caught the sound of her mother's voice, just a faint echo as if she was laughing and the merry notes traveled through rock and soil to find her. Tears clogged her throat.

She closed her eyes, inhaling. At first she could hear the men breathing. An occasional jarring crash resounded on the roof above her head. She forced herself to block out the distractions and pushed her awareness deep, searching for a connection, a way to tap into that vein of information that seemed to be just out of reach. She could hear rumblings and knew if she just tuned in, she would understand what was happening in the world around her.

She had a message center willing to impart information to her, she just hadn't learned how to use it yet, but each time she pushed her hands into the rich soil, she found she unlocked more of the mysteries surrounding her mother. Whatever gift exchanged from mother to daughter was locked here in the ground waiting for her to discover the legacy that had been left to her. She just needed to find the right words to draw the secrets to her. With others depending on her, she needed to figure it out.

She took another breath and let it out, pushing away the need for action or hurry. The men disappeared, taking with them the sounds of their presence. The walls of the cavern melted away. Fear and grief left her until there was only the sound of her lungs moving in and out rhythmically. For a few minutes she breathed, allowing the mechanics of that simple process to clear and open her mind completely.

She became aware of a pulse beating-an eternal thrum, coming from the very center of the earth's core. Through the pads of her fingers she felt an expanding cloud of extremely hot gas, and felt an intimate connection with that older star exploding violently, yet giving birth to new stars, to the sun and moon and planet Earth. She actually could see the creation in her mind, the nebula collapsing and cooling into a flattened, slowly spinning disk. Earth's surface covered by the pulsating ocean of molten rock.

Riley felt the bubbling magma beneath the surface, the shifting of plates and pushing up of mountains and the roots spreading out, like great chains and vines, deep beneath the sea, under every continent, connecting every part of the planet together-connecting it all with her. The first soft whispers came to her, murmurs filling her mind, voices of women long past, welcoming her to their sisterhood.

Her heart sang when she recognized the familiar, comforting feel of her mother and grandmother.