Midheaven (Ascendant Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  “I’m sorry,” I managed to say. I could feel the air in the room whispering past the raw flesh just below my knees.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But it has been many years since she has gone from me. I feel the loss of her every day, but the sting has dulled.” He smiled. “Age eventually brings all experiences before us,” his eyes looked up to meet mine. “But you are young yet. It was long ago for me, but I still remember that time when the inevitability of becoming an old man seemed like an impossibility.” Mohan began to laugh loudly at himself and shook his head at his own private joke. “Ah, well. Youth shall come around again.”

  I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but when I glanced at Aaron, I saw him watching Mohan with interest now.

  Mohan sat back on his heels, swirled his knife in the bowl of water and folded the blade back into the ivory handle. He settled his chin between his index finger and thumb and stared at my bare legs before him. His mouth twisted into an ugly grimace. “We will need more than some of this and that,” he flicked his other hand across the surface of the water as if dismissing it with disgust.

  “What can we do?” Aaron suddenly asked from his corner.

  Mohan met his gaze and the two men stared at one another as silent moments passed. When I was about to repeat the question myself, Mohan stood up. “Carry her into my temple,” he said to Caleb and pushed aside a purple curtain hanging against the wall.

  I hadn’t paid the curtain any attention before, imagining it hid a grimy window with a desolate view of the dirt and brush surrounding Mohan’s home. With the curtain pushed aside, I could see that there was no window, but a narrow doorway that led to another room.

  “We shall see if this Not Yet Ascendant will earn the right to my key by healing herself.”

  I looked to Aaron for some clue as to what any of this might mean. He stared at Mohan for a moment longer, weighing his words, then settled his gaze onto me and gave a slow nod. “All right. But you’ll need to guard her.”

  Once Caleb lowered me onto the cushion in the center of the temple room, Mohan took another pillow from the edge of the room, placed it in front of mine, then gathered several pillar sized candles and positioned them in a circle around where I sat. “Leave us,” he commanded, never even glancing in Caleb’s direction.

  “What are you going to do with her?” Caleb asked.

  “I am going to teach her what she must learn to do herself.”

  Caleb didn’t leave, he stood and looked like he wanted to pluck me back up off the floor, carry me through the front door, and into the nearest hospital right before we hopped the first flight back to London. “It’s okay,” I whispered, even though I was pretty sure I was nowhere near okay.

  Caleb’s worried eyes held mine a second more before he shook his head and left the room, the way he clenched his jaw led me to believe he felt it was against his better judgment.

  Mohan struck a long wooden match and stooped over every candle until their charred wicks burst into twelve individual flames. With the last candle lit, he blew out the match and tossed it into a metal bin near what looked like an altar in the corner. He stepped into the center of the circle and sat down on his cushion facing me.

  Mohan closed his eyes and began a deep inhale of air that filled his chest and raised his shoulders, when he released it, his face looked deeply relaxed, serene. The whole presence of the room shifted, as if Mohan radiated waves of calm that filled the space around him. It made me want to close my eyes too. To lie back, close my eyes, and float in his pool of ‘everything’s going to be all right.’

  Mohan smiled then, opened first one eye then the next. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a chain around his neck, at the end was a pendant. Mohan held the golden pendant in the palm of his cupped hands, inviting me to touch what looked like a word in a foreign writing. As my fingers reached slowly and began tracing the graceful jeweled lines, I realized I recognized this symbol. “Are those emeralds?”

  “Yes,” Mohan smiled.

  “This is the Hindu key,” I said looking into his eyes.

  “This is the entire universe. This is the beginning, middle and end. This is sound. Aum.”

  “Aum?”

  Mohan inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Then a sound, a deep vibration filled the air around us, it took me a moment to realize that this resonance was coming from deep within the man sitting in front of me. “Oooooooommmmmm.” I could feel it, like a presence in my chest and throat, it was a sound my body wanted to copy.

  When the last of the sound stretched across the end of his breath, Mohan opened his eyes and templed his hands beneath his chin. “Aum,” he explained.

  I nodded my head unable to say more.

  “In Sanskrit, the first two sounds combine to become o and in Hindu, the three parts of Aum, ah, uh, mm, represent many important triads. The earth, atmosphere, and heaven. The three Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. And the three sacred Vedic scriptures, Rg, Yajur, and Sama. Thus, the sound, Om, is the mystic embodiment of the entire universe. All activities that begin with uttering the syllable om, can not fail to bear fruit.”

  Mohan smiled gently, as if he knew that I didn’t really understand but also felt this was okay. “Are you ready then?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “To cross the divide, slip into the ether…move closer to God.”

  I thought about his words, what he might possibly be implying. And then it came to me, the memory of my mother’s words—her journals. “You want me to cross into the astral plane?” The words came out timid, shadowed by my own uncertainty that such a place could even exist and the fear of sounding foolish for suggesting it.

  Mohan smiled encouragement, as if I were a student who had just blurted a correct answer to a difficult problem. “That is exactly it.”

  A cold fear seeped into my chest. According to the journals and Franzen’s own explanations, when my mother had crossed with Emerick, she had opened herself up to becoming possessed by another soul. Because of crossing into the astral plane, my mother now had another personality living inside her, Emerick’s mother, Lilith.

  Because of my burned legs, I couldn’t stand and run from the room, so I leaned as far away from Mohan as could and shook my head. “I don’t want to do that.”

  “I can feel your fear,” he nodded. “It’s true, crossing can be dangerous. When people dabble, play with what they do not even begin to understand…there can be serious consequences.”

  “My mother,” I said.

  Mohan looked intently into my eyes. “Yes, I am familiar with this story. The purpose of her misfortune is not yet clear to us, but have confidence that its meaning will one day hold illumination for you.”

  “Wait, you believe my mother is possessed for a reason? I can’t see how there could possibly be any reason for her to be driven from her own life.”

  “There is always a reason. It doesn’t mean that reason is always clear to us. Or one we would desire.” He reached his hand out to me and, without thinking, I took hold of it. His words had annoyed me, but the soft papery feel of his hands seemed to settle me somehow. “On the other side, you will see things. Amazing things, terrible things, but with me, I assure you, you will be safe. For many years and many lives have I practiced the arts. You are too new, you are Not Yet, and so can not know this enough to have faith, to trust in me. But here you are, and you must trust to move forward, or not and turn home to face what already is, without the tools to access the power lying at your feet.”

  “I’m not powerful,” my eyes fell to the pocked wooden floor exposed between our two cushions.

  “Not yet,” Mohan said. He turned my palms face up in his. “To become anything, we must take the first step towards it.”

  I looked back up into his eyes.

  “Will you trust me to keep you safe Charlotte Stevens? Trust me to protect you until you are powerful enough to protect yourself?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
r />   The Beginning

  I didn’t want to.

  What I wanted was to go back to Gaersum Aern, curl up in the library with a warm cup of tea and a book. I wanted to have normal problems. Would Caleb remember my birthday? Would he think to get me the perfect gift? Would Sophie ever give her brother and me a moment to ourselves? Would Ms. Steward stop being afraid for her children loving me?

  No. Ms. Steward couldn’t possibly stop being afraid her children’s love for me would eventually cause them harm because I didn’t have simple, everyday problems. I had unbelievable problems that involved powerful people. I had problems with people that could make your loved ones get hurt, disappear, suffer irreparable damage. All simply because of who I had the misfortune of being born to.

  It wasn’t fair. This was my silly childish thought. It wasn’t fair, not any of it. I didn’t want this life with these problems.

  But that choice was never mine to make.

  This was my life—the only one I had. Walking away, I glanced at my legs, being carried away, wasn’t an option. Everyone I loved was in danger, simply because I loved them back. For the first time, I understood what Franzen had said to me last year. My mother and I had made him vulnerable, there were people in the world who would use his love against him. To pierce him in a way no physical pain ever could—by hurting the ones you love.

  But Franzen did have power. He had the power to protect my mother and me—Grace.

  Until now.

  My mother, Caleb, Sophie, Ms. Steward—my father. Franzen and Grace, My Uncle Nigel. I couldn’t protect us all. Right now Aaron was in the other room sweating because we were taking so long while Emerick’s man probably moved closer to us every second.

  I couldn’t even protect myself.

  I took a deep breath and looked straight into Mohan’s patient eyes. “I need to learn.”

  His face softened into an expression of bright relief. “So we begin!”

  When I had read my mother’s old journals, I had understood that, despite any natural talents she may have, she had made several unsuccessful attempts to cross into the astral plane before actually doing it—and even then, the feat had surprised her. Back then, Emerick had never successfully accomplished it without my mother to guide him over. So when Mohan began speaking and chanting to me in a hypnotic rhythm, “To more easily induce the meditative state,” most of me believed that I wouldn’t actually be able to cross over on my first try anyway.

  I was wrong.

  “I’ve heard that you usually have to practice quite a bit before this will even work, so I may not even be able to do it.”

  “Oh, you’ll do it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m going to pull your consciousness out of your physical body and into your astral form.”

  Stunned, I stared at him. “Wait, you can do that?”

  Mohan nodded and smiled, “Oh, yes. Well, I can. Not everyone is that advanced.”

  “But don’t I need to learn how to cross on my own.”

  “Yes, yes. But we don’t have that much time today. This is the fast food version.”

  “That doesn’t sound very mystical,” I mumbled.

  “We’ll see,” he shrugged. “You will need to practice on your own when you leave here. But after today, you will have something very, very important to that practice. Something that takes others years and years to master.”

  I thought for a moment about what this thing could possibly be. My mother had written about how she would go into a deep meditative state before being able to cross. “How to meditate?”

  Mohan nodded, “Yes, but any simple yogi can meditate. You will gain something much more powerful than tricks for quieting the mind.”

  “What?”

  “You will possess the belief that the thing you attempt is absolutely possible. Armed with this, you are much less likely to be vanquished by the greatest enemy to all of mankind. The evil that has prevented millions from becoming their greatest self.”

  I imagined demons and evil things that I suspected lurked within the astral plane. “What enemy?” I breathed.

  “Giving up,” he said flatly. “Belief is the greatest of shields, hold it tight.”

  Lost somewhere among the deep and rhythmic vibrations rising up from Mohan’s diaphragm, time slipped, became irrelevant, a thing I forgot I should be tracking.

  Then, I felt it. At the edge of consciousness, almost like falling asleep or beginning to dream, an intent pulling on my presence. Like letting an egg slide from its shell, I felt like my insides were separating from my body. A quick rush of fear shot through me.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Mohan’s voice filled my head. “With as much energy as you have, if you start amplifying fear we’re going to spend all our time fighting off the nasties. Try to relax, breathe through your nose, and think of warm white light, think of love, think of God’s protection—they really hate that.”

  I inhaled through my nose and lowered my shoulders, the uncomfortable sensation of separation sped up and I tensed again.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got you now.”

  And he did, I could feel that Mohan had me. Where he had me was an entirely different matter. We stared down at our physical bodies sitting intently below us. Like they were oblivious to the presence of themselves. “This is weird,” I said.

  “You’ll become accustomed…someday…mostly.”

  I looked around us, it was just like the room we had been in. I remembered my mother’s journal entry where she described crossing for the first time. She hovered near the ceiling and looked down at all the other members of the group as they slowly gave up and began to move around, none of them realizing that she alone had successfully left her body. “So is this it?” I asked. “We just leave our bodies and watch them rest?”

  Mohan laughed, “It could be, yes. If one desired to never leave the prime material plane. We could just fly around the house, maybe visit your friends next door?” Mohan raised his eyebrows. “There are also other planes of existence. You move from plane to plane by changing the frequency of your energy vibrations.”

  “Change frequency…like a radio?”

  “Very much like that, yes.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  I felt his grip on me tighten. I will tell you, in a moment. But first you should know that if you suddenly changed frequency, and we didn’t change together, we would be on different planes. It could take me a while to find you again and I don’t want to lose you until you’ve learned to protect yourself. How about we start by staying here, in the prime material, and practice some of the most important aspects first.”

  “Okay, like what?”

  Mohan guided me closer to my physical body. “Well, first we will heal you.” He placed both his hands on my burned physical legs. “Reach out to them,” he instructed.

  I did as he said.

  “The key is to visualize the entity healthy, whole, perfect. Just the way God intended it. Just the way he created it. There is no sickness in God’s kingdom, no illness, no death…only his perfect creations. See this, believe this, bring all the light around you to illuminate that thought here in the astral plane and it will be so on the physical.”

  “Wait, you’re saying I can fix my burned legs?”

  “Most certainly.”

  I didn’t believe it and he must have realized that because he smiled and nodded. “With so many people, they must see with their eyes before they can feel with their hearts.” He turned towards my legs, lowered his head and closed his eyes.

  I watched his hands move down over my shins, ankles, and feet then back again. I watched my own face and wondered if what he was doing hurt—would I feel it?

  “I am focusing the energy, imagining the cells healthy and healed. It takes practice, but you will one day be a master too.”

  I stared at my legs, was it my imagination, or did the skin actually look like it was getting better?

  A m
oment later he opened his eyes and pulled his hands away. “The healing is started. When you return you will find there is much less pain, maybe almost none.”

  The burns did look better. Where the skin had been charred and open, there was now a new pink layer of skin. My legs didn’t look completely normal, but they looked like the burns had happened weeks ago, not hours.

  “That’s amazing,” I said.

  Mohan smiled and nodded. “Now that’s taken care of, we will tackle movement. Let’s practice moving into the next room. We can see how angry your large friend is becoming because we are taking up so much precious time.”

  “Okay.” Being in the astral plane, I actually felt the detachment from my body and an intense desire to get back to my body. Moving even further away, out of sight of my body, wasn’t something I really wanted to do. “Can we just do that one thing and then go back? I feel really strange.”

  “Yes,” he assured me and moved toward the wall separating the two rooms.

  I realized two things. First, this whole time I had been standing and my legs didn’t hurt. When I looked down I could see that they looked exactly the way they did before the fire. In the astral plane there were no burns at all. Second, without Mohan guiding me, I didn’t know how to move these perfect legs, or any part of my body for that matter, I was paralyzed. “Wait, how do I move?”

  Mohan stopped and looked over his shoulder, “Oh yes,” he laughed. “I have forgotten being brand new. You intend your movements.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You move with your will, think it with your mind, and then your energy will obey that will.”

  I tried, I thought of my body moving towards Mohan and was surprised when I moved.

  “See, so easy.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Yes, but easy once you adapt.”

  My body continued its halting movement towards him, it reminded me of being a kid and learning to swim, or ride a bike.

  “Now, this is fun and I used to do this all the time when I was a boy,” he practically giggled. Mohan leaned his upper body forward towards the wall. I watched as the top of his head, his eyes, nose, and mouth, followed then by his neck and shoulders, passed through the wall. He stayed there for a moment, as if giving me time to digest what I was seeing, then pulled back out.