Part Three

Chapter Thirty-Five

GOD, her mouth was dry. And she felt like shit. Mikki tried to roll over, but she was too weak. All she did was twitch and make a muffled moan.

"Oh, fuck! Call 911 - she's alive!"

Huh? Call 911? There weren't any phones in the Realm of the Rose. Nor did anyone besides her say "fuck." So what the fuck? She tried to move again, and this time she felt the strong hands that held her in place.

"Don't try to move, ma'am! It's going to be okay. I've called for help." Then he yelled, "Over here! Bring the EMTs over here!"

Mikki could hear the hurried tread of heavy feet, accompanied by a vaguely familiar voice.

"Oh, Christ! It's Mikki. Ah, shit, look at all that blood!"

Mikki's breath was coming in panting gulps. She placed the voice. It was Mel, the security guard at the Tulsa Rose Gardens. But it couldn't be Mel - she couldn't be at the rose gardens. She was . . .

Oh. She'd forgotten. She was dead.

"Mikki, hang on. The EMTs are here. You're going to make it."

She tried to say that she didn't want to make it. That her intention had been to save the roses, and the only way she could do that was to give them her blood. Unfortunately, it was a damn big realm, and a few drops in a bucket weren't going to do it.

But she couldn't speak. Her mind was working, but her body felt heavy and not her own. And she was wet, which made sense, because she was supposed to be in the fountain.

"Okay, on three roll her over."

They rolled her from her stomach to her back. Mikki blinked, trying to clear her blurred vision. It was morning. From what she could see of the sky over the EMTs' shoulders, the sun hadn't risen long ago. Then her gaze shifted to a blob to her right. She managed to let her head flop to the side to bring it more fully into her view. It was a massive stone pedestal, and it was even more familiar than her old friend the security guard. It was the base that had supported the great Guardian statue. Only now it was empty.

Mikki screamed soundlessly inside her head. Then everything went blissfully black.

"You look better today, Mikki. How are you feeling?"

"Is that a professional question? A test? Or are you showing genuine concern?" she said sarcastically.

Nelly flinched. "I don't deserve that, Mikki, and you know it."

Mikki chewed her lips and reached out to quickly squeeze her friend's hand. It was dead wrong for her to take out her shitty mood on her girlfriend. It wasn't Nelly's fault that nothing she could do or say would ever come close to making it "better" for her.

"Sorry. I'm just in a wicked bad mood today."

"Did something happen? Have the dreams returned?"

Mikki couldn't meet Nelly's eyes. She didn't want her friend to see the desperation she carried around with her every day.

"No. My dreams have been completely normal, which is to say I don't remember them. Everything else has been normal, too. I don't know what the hell's wrong. I guess it's just the weather that's gotten to me. I'm tired of the rain and the cold." She tried not to remember that once she'd commanded the rain to appear every fourth day, and that the first day rain had obeyed her it set up the circumstances that had brought her into Asterius's bed . . .

"Mikki?"

She turned her eyes and thoughts back to the present and lifted her cappuccino, trying half-heartedly to work up a thirst. "Just daydreaming. Sorry again. I'm not very good company today Nelly."

"You're my friend; you don't have to entertain or amuse me. You know that." The psychiatrist sighed. "Honey, what happened to you was traumatic. The men who attacked you and stole the statue from the rose gardens left you bleeding to death - and they have never been caught. It's normal to go through stages of anger and depression and resentment during your healing process, especially when you have no closure for the crime."

Closure for the crime . . . Mikki had the insane urge to laugh, which she quickly stifled. She didn't want to do anything that might make her appear nuts. She didn't want her story questioned too closely.

"I know. I just - " Mikki rubbed her hand across her forehead. For the zillionth time, she wished Nelly was right, that what she was feeling was just a part of a healing process. "I just wish I felt normal again."

"You will, Mikki." Nelly glanced at her watch. "Oh, hell! I'm going to be late."

Mikki managed to summon up a smile. "Is this a real kooky appointment, or just a kinda kook?"

Nelly laughed, standing and collecting her briefcase and purse. "Totally, absolute kook."

"Good job security."

"Exactly," Nelly said. "Hey, call me later if you need to talk."

"I will. Promise. See you tomorrow morning. Same time - same coffee place." She grinned at Nelly and then proceeded to feel guilty as hell at the relief she felt when her girlfriend walked out the door. It was so damn hard to talk to Nelly! She couldn't tell her the truth: "Hey, girlfriend. I wasn't mugged, cut up by criminals who ripped off the statue from the Tulsa Rose Gardens and left to die. I actually committed suicide, although I like to think of it as a sacrificial act - I'm not big on suicide, which should prove that I'm not really nuts. Anyway, I had to do it because the magickal Realm of the Rose in the crossroads between worlds was in danger and only my blood could save it. It was my duty as Empousa. So really, you shouldn't say I committed suicide because I was just fulfilling my destiny. And by the by, I'm desperately in love with a man-beast and the reason I'm so damn depressed is that I'm stuck here without him."

Uh, no. Nelly was her best friend, but even she would be sure to have her locked up in a lovely, yet totally exclusive, padded cell if she babbled the truth. She'd realized that as soon as she woke up in the hospital and they - social services and the police - had started to question her. The story that had evolved had come about more out of omission and accident than anything vaguely resembling the truth. But it still made her nervous to tell it, especially to her friend who just happened to be a savvy shrink who knew her too damn well.

Mikki checked her watch. It was only seven thirty. She didn't have to be at work until eight. She did have time for another cup of cappuccino before heading off to work. As she stood for a refill, she caught her reflection in the glass of the picture windows of Expresso Milano. Thin . . . she looked thin. And she could have done something with her wild hair besides pulling it back in a haphazard ponytail.

The problem was she just couldn't work up the energy to care.

Well, at least there were still plenty of her favorite, the giant orange sugar cookies that the coffee shop bought freshly made every morning from the popular Pani Del Goddess bakery just a few doors down the street. Mikki ordered two to go with her cappuccino and then changed her mind and ordered a third. She needed to put on weight, and the sugar rush added with the caffeine high might be enough to get her ready to face another meaningless, endless day at work. She grabbed a copy of the Tulsa World and made herself comfortable at one of the plush, silk-covered chairs while she waited for the multiply pierced coffee girl to bring her coffee and cookies on the cafe's elegant little silver trays. When she heard approaching heels on the tile floor, she didn't look up from her paper.

"Just go ahead and put it on the coffee table. Oh, and keep an eye on me. I have a feeling this is going to be a three-espresso morning."

"Is everything not well, Mikado?"

Mikki almost dropped the paper in surprise. "Sevillana! I'm sorry - I thought you were the coffee girl."

The old woman's amazing aquamarine eyes sparkled. "I have not been mistaken for a girl in a very long time."

Mikki smiled, and for a moment it felt genuine. "Would you join me?"

"Yes, I would like that." The old woman settled herself gracefully into an adjoining chair and rearranged her beautiful pale blue pashmina shawl around her shoulders.

"I didn't think you lived here." As on the first time they'd met, Mikki felt a little intimidated by the woman's presence. She was just so grand - in the old European fashion. There was an air of grace and culture about everything she said or did. And then, with a jolt, Mikki remembered, and in the remembering she wondered how she could have ever forgotten. "The perfume! Where did you get the perfume you gave me that night?"

Sevillana smiled, but the waitress's delivery of their coffee and sweets kept her from saying anything. Then, even when they were alone again, Sevillana took her time emptying the coarse sugar into her cappuccino and stirring carefully with the tiny silver spoon before she spoke.

"There is only one place you can find such perfume, and it is in a realm that is far from here."

Mikki felt a dizzying rush of an emotion she'd been missing for three months - hope. "You're talking about the Realm of the Rose."

The old woman nodded her head slightly.

"Oh, God," Mikki gasped.

"I believe, Mikado, that it would be more appropriate for you to exclaim 'Oh, Goddess.' "

"How? How do you know about it? How did you get there, and how do I get back? What are you doing here? Why did you - "

Sevillana's raised hand cut off Mikki's torrent of words.

"Everything has its order and its time. Drowning me in questions will not change that."

"I'm sorry." Mikki pressed her hand against her chest, afraid that her heart would pound out of her body. "I just - I need to know . . ." She ran a trembling hand over her face and began again. "I have to get back."

"I know, child," Sevillana said softly. "I know." Then the old woman's gaze went past Mikki, and when she spoke again her voice reminded Mikki of a sad little girl. "Did no one speak my name while you were there? Did they not remember me at all?"

"Your name? No. Why would they - " Mikki's eyes widened with realization. "It's you. You are the last Empousa."

"No, I was Empousa. I am no longer Hecate's High Priestess. I discarded that position when I was young and foolish. But I have paid for my betrayal. For two hundred years I have been separated from my realm and my goddess and have walked the mundane earth, restless and unsatisfied - a true outlander."

"Two hundred years!" Mikki could only stare at her. "But how?"

"I have never fully understood it myself. Obviously, I age, but I do so slowly. I used to believe it was Hecate's way of punishing me - extending my life long enough that I was well and truly sorry for my selfish actions. Then, in my travels decades ago I visited Tulsa and happened to attend the unveiling of its new rose gardens . . ." She paused, her expression pained. "I recognized the Guardian statue, and I knew it had been placed here for a reason, so I always circled back to Tulsa, waiting and watching . . . And then I met you, and I began to hope that perhaps Hecate had allowed me to live for so long for another reason." Sevillana's blue eyes returned to Mikki. "I hoped the Great Goddess had meant for me to give you the anointing oil so you could awaken the Guardian and return to the realm - and fulfill the destiny I left undone." Sadness filled the old woman's beautiful eyes. "Why did you make the same mistake I made? I did not mean for you to run away."

"But I didn't!" Mikki cried. Then she lowered her voice when several heads turned in their direction. "You know about the blood, don't you? Somehow you understand."

"Yes, your blood nurtures the roses. How could I not know it? We carry the same blood in our veins, Mikado." Sevillana touched her hand lightly in a caress that reminded Mikki so much of her mother that it made her breath catch. "At the hospital that day I told you my name was Sevillana Kalyca, and it is. But that is only part of my name. I rarely use my family name - it is too difficult for me to hear it and to know that I forsook it, even though the deed was committed long ago. My true name is Sevillana Kalyca Empousai. I was the first Empousa to flee from the Realm of the Rose. I had hoped when I met you and felt the strength of the blood within you that I was also the last."

"I didn't run away," Mikki said numbly, staring at the woman who was her ancestress. "I died."

"Time runs differently there, but still it could not yet have been Beltane in the realm."

"It was just starting to be winter." Confused, Mikki frowned. "But the weather didn't have anything to do with it. Dream Stealers got into the realm."

Sevillana's hand flew to her heart in a gesture that oddly mimicked Mikki's earlier one. "Oh, Goddess, no!"

"It was me. They fooled me. I let them in. Asterius killed them - or, I supposed they can't actually be killed, so that's not the right word, but he got rid of them, sent them back into the forest."

"Asterius?"

Mikki studied Sevillana, her mind beginning to catch up with her racing emotions. This woman was the one they'd all been forbidden to talk about. She was part of why Hecate had bespelled the realm and Asterius. Well, Mikki was no longer in the Realm of the Rose, and she damn sure wanted to know, once and for all, what had happened.

"Asterius is the name given to the Guardian by his mother." Watching carefully, Mikki saw the flash of surprise and unease that passed through Sevillana's eyes. "I want to know what happened between the two of you. All of it."

Sevillana stared out the window as she spoke, and her voice took on a faraway sing-song cadence, as if she was retelling a story that had been passed down from generation to generation. "I was young and worse than foolish. I was selfish. I loved the power of Empousa, so much so that I was not willing to relinquish it. As the days drew closer and closer to Beltane, I convinced myself that it was only right that I escape the destiny planned for me. That I was different. But I knew I could not cross through the forest without protection. I convinced the Guardian to betray his duty and escort me through the forest to the entrance to the mundane world."

"You seduced him?" Mikki felt very cold.

"Only with words. I would not bed a beast, but I made him believe I would. It was not a difficult thing to do. He had little experience with women. It was odd, though, that he allowed me to escape even after I rejected him." Sevillana shook her head. "I have long wondered about that. He should have turned on me and, at the very least, forced me back to face Hecate's wrath. Instead, he said one small thing and then stepped aside and let me go free."

"He thought he loved you," Mikki said woodenly.

Sevillana finally met her eyes, and Mikki could see the surprise there. "That is the one thing he said - that he loved me. But it made no sense. How could a beast love a woman?"

"He is not a beast!" Mikki hissed under her breath, anger making her face pale. "And you're not good enough for his love if you couldn't see the man within him."

"You love him!"

"I do."

Sevillana stared at Mikki for a long time without speaking and then she bowed her head slightly to the younger woman. "Forgive me for speaking so cavalierly. I was a young girl then. I have come to understand since that I was wrong about many things, this, then, is simply one last lesson for me. You have my admiration, Mikado, as well as my respect. I have never known such courage as yours."

Mikki took several deep, calming breaths. There was absolutely no point in getting so pissed off at the old woman. What she'd done had happened two centuries ago. It was over. Finished. And she didn't want to alienate her. Sevillana Kalyca Empousai was her ticket back to Asterius.

"I forgive you. I think Asterius does, too. And what I did wasn't that courageous. I didn't have any choice. Asterius had gotten rid of the Dream Stealers, but it was too late. They'd already poisoned the roses - all of them except the ones I'd bled on. I tried to stop the blight another way, but nothing worked. I knew it wouldn't. The only way to save the roses was by my blood."

"And you do not think it courageous that you went to your lover and allowed him to sacrifice you? It was not even Beltane, yet you met your destiny early and saved the realm."

Mikki frowned. "Asterius didn't sacrifice me. He didn't even know what I'd planned. I knew he'd try to stop me, so I snuck out. And what's this you keep saying about Beltane? That's in the spring, right? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You truly do not know?"

"No!" she said, exasperated and thoroughly sick of mysteries.

"They must have been afraid to tell you. Afraid that you, too, would leave them. Mikado, the Empousa serves one true purpose. She is there for the roses."

"Yes, yes, yes! I know that."

"You also know that Hecate's Empousa is bound to the roses through her blood. What you do not know is that every Beltane night the Empousa is sacrificed by the Guardian, because her blood insures that the realm thrives for another year."

Mikki felt everything within her go very still. "They were going to kill me?"

"Not they. He was. It is the Guardian's duty to protect the roses."

It all made horrible sense. Asterius's behavior when they first met and were attracted to each other . . . how he had said they could not be together . . . how he had struggled against loving her. It had been more than disbelief that she could ever see him as a man - more than the rejection of Sevillana. He'd known he would have to kill her.

The thought made her physically ill.

Sevillana's warm hand on her cold, numb one was a physical shock.

"He had no choice."

"And Hecate, she meant all along for me to die," Mikki said.

"Life and death is different for the gods. Hecate is stern and powerful, but she is also a loving goddess. She would see your sacrifice as just another link in the great circle of life. The goddess would not forsake you, Mikado, even in death. Had you met your destiny at Beltane, Hecate would have made sure you spent eternity in the endless beauty of the Elysian Fields. The goddess cares for those who belong to her; she only turns away from those who betray her."

"It's a hard concept for my mind to grasp. Everyone I cared about, everyone I loved, they all knew I was going to die." She paused as the enormity of it hit her. "So even if you could help me figure out a way to get back, I'd just be returning to die again."

"Yes. Do you still wish to return?"