Okay, here's the second Gede story. It is due by the end of July to the publisher, so I thought I would post it here first!
Finding release with Georgia, the last earthbound spirit to summon him, Gerard was left still longing; longing for something more than a simple joining with another spirit. He was lonely. The realization caused a jolt to his system. He knew that The Baron, ruler of the Gede, had foretold of his joining with the one soul-mate that would complete him. He also knew it could be centuries before that happened. Time was unpredictable for an immortal who resided in the veil.
“I suppose I should be satisfied, I could think of worse things than to be a God of death and the libido.” Gerard murmured to himself, as he once again tuned into the multitude of voices that always seemed to emanate from the veil, the world between the living and the dead.
It was often hard for him to differentiate between those souls truly wanting release. There were those who still thought themselves alive and others happy to retain any part of the living. Then there was the ever present threat of the Death Walkers. Death Walkers go by many names. The one he chose to use seemed the most appropriate.
Death Walkers also, like Gede, walk a fine line between the veil and the living. The big difference is their role. Gerard was not just any Gede; he was the guardian of the veil. His powers were great on their own, but when he had a willing participant to lend their own libido to his, he was the most powerful Gede, aside from the Baron.
Death Walkers are the destroyers. They walk among the living, although they belong in the veil. Any soul that they claim, remains in the veil until one such as Gerard, could bring them release. Gerard thought Death Walkers an abomination. They were once mere mortals who now claimed God-like powers; the power of life and death over the innocent.
Gerard closed his icy blue eyes. His black lashes fanned out contrasting with his pale iridescent skin. Tilting his chin up, his raven hair fell in shiny waves past his shoulders. He took several deep breaths, trying to focus in on any one of the tormented souls crying for release.
***
Amelia had known from the start that she was dead. She still had the stark memories of her murder, for that’s what it had been, to keep her company in this purgatory. She also had her murderer to keep her company. Lissette looked nothing like the monster that Amelia knew her to be. The woman, if that was truly what she was, was tiny in stature. Her long blonde hair fell to her waist in a cascade of golden waves. The features that made up her heart shaped face were almost child-like in their perfection and innocence. Her eyes were the only thing that showed her true nature. Such a dark mahogany, that they often appeared black. Black soulless eyes, Amelia had often thought.
“I expect you to follow my instructions Amelia. What I offer you is the chance to be free of this hell, as you call it, and to be free of me. The Elders have given me a task, one I will not fail. It’s quite simple, really. Wail to your heart’s desire, just as I know you do on the inside. I can feel it when I am near. Your pain does not lessen with time, my dear. If you wail long and loud enough, he who is of the Gede will come to you. They are predictable and pathetic creatures.”
Amelia was unsure how much time had passed since Lissette had issued those orders to her. As of yet, she had not uttered a single cry. She had no intention of helping Lissette. That is until she reappeared. Now she knew that she would do anything she was told, to protect the innocence that was threatened.
Amelia gazed down into the crib of the newborn child. She had chosen to remain in the house she had once shared with her husband and own small child; a child that she had saved from Lissette, by offering herself willingly. Now Lissette had given her no choice, once again. The child that lay sleeping was not her own, though she often sang to him, and watched over him as she was never allowed to do with her baby. She would not stand by and watch Lissette drain every drop of blood from the child, just to prove her point. If it was wailing she wanted, then it was wailing that Amelia would give her. She raised her face to the heavens and started to scream. A scream that she felt could go on and on, a scream that contained all of the anger, sadness, helplessness and angst that she had building in her since her death.
***
As Gerard focused on the voices, he was overcome by the unexpected intensity of one that penetrated all others. He followed the voice through the veil, until he stood before a young woman. He watched her without showing himself. Her auburn hair caught up in a chignon. Tears streamed down her splotchy red face. He knew at first glance that she was one of the damned; a victim of a Death Walker.
Her screams forced him to show himself. It was too hard to maintain his shield while her emotions swirled about the room. Gerard was startled, not something that happened often. The woman stopped screaming and spoke.
“You are Gede I presume? Lissette should be pleased.”
Gerard felt, more than heard the sarcasm in her voice. His eyebrows creased together as he stared intently at the woman, wondering how she could possibly know what he was. In all his days, he had never met a soul, damned or not, that knew what a Gede was, much less that he was said Gede.
“Lissette would be the Death Walker who condemned you to the veil?” Gerard had never before felt the need to do anything more than comfort before he sent a spirit on their journey from the veil. This was new territory. His skin tingled with warning. Searching the room, he saw no one else, but he was aware of a presence in the room; a presence that was so overwhelmingly female that it momentarily distracted him from seeking answers from the woman before him.
“Lissette would be the monster who murdered me. Call her whatever you like. Are you a killer like her?”
Gerard was taken by surprise; otherwise he might have been insulted.
“Nay, I don’t take life; I give it…in a way. Do you know where you are?”
“In hell.” Amelia answered without pause.
Gerard chuckled. “I suppose it could be considered hell, a purgatory that this Lissette has banished your soul to. You are in the veil. I can release your soul to cross to the other side.”
He watched her carefully. Never before had a Death Walker divulged the secret of the Gede to one who was damned, at least not that he had ever come in contact with. There had to be a reason, and he wanted to know what that reason was.
As Gerard watched the shock on the woman’s face when she realized he could truly end her suffering, he saw the hunger start. Her eyes glazed over, and she stepped toward him. He needed answers, but this woman’s pain caused such an intense hunger in her, that it overtook him. The need to know about the Death Walker, Lissette, and the need for the woman before him battled for his attention. Being the God of libido, her need won.
He stepped forward, enfolding her in his arms. Her life force was strong. The damned always were. It was hard to control his need. Crossing over one such as her always left him energized. His mind went blank the moment his spirit joined with hers. As one they writhed in the eternal dance of release. Amelia threw her head back to scream, only this time it was not agony that escaped her lips, but the purest sound of joy; then she was gone.
Gerard felt intensely male, testosterone raged through him. His breath started to become more regular, and he was about to disappear back into the folds of the veil but he stopped himself when he caught the movement from the corner of the room. He turned and locked eyes with another woman. This one, however, was not like the last. She was there by choice, she was there to watch. He felt this as soon as he saw the startled expression on her face, a face that took his breath away in its beauty and innocence. Then she was gone. Try as he might, he couldn’t sense her, or where she had gone.
Gerard made a promise to himself that he would find this woman again, he knew deep down in his soul that he was somehow connected to this woman, and he would find out why, no matter the time, no matter the cost.
Terri Rainer copyright 2008
Showing posts with label published author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label published author. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Congratulations Lisa!
My writing partner, Lisa Venter, has just gotten a contract to have her short story published. I think it is absolutely phenomenal, so I got her permission to post it here. Feel free to leave comments, I will make sure she sees them.
Going Home
Her lover had been coming more often of late. Sometimes it would be just a brief touch like the wind on her face, but she knew he was there. It was that same tension she had felt with her back turned; just as he would enter a room she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him. He was in the room; she could feel his hands on her before he came close enough to touch her. That honing ability had always fascinated her. Why did her body come alive for only one man, why the thrill, the quickening of her breath, the flush of heat, the fluid release. It had always been that way with Warren when he was alive, and it was just the same after all these long years since his death.
The rocking chair swayed rhythmically beneath her. She felt the incessant movement of it so familiar like the rocking of a lover in the throws of passion. She was not an old woman, she only felt like one. She sat in the rocking chair on the wide porch that wrapped around the entire length of the large antebellum home. Their home-it had been in Warren’s family for four generations, but they were all gone now. The children were buried up on the hill under the arms of a great oak tree whose branches spread out like the loving arms of a mother, the roots reaching down deep to take a part of them up to the sky again. The tree stood alone, a giant sentinel on the hill to represent the one great thing she had accomplished in life, a living monument to all those who were gone. Her husband’s parents were there too, but he was not. His body still lay in some unknown location, where it fell on May 5, 1863 in one of the largest and most devastating battles that the South had ever seen. She had not needed the letter that arrived to tell her that Corporal Warren C. Parks of the 2nd Virginia 3rd brigade had fallen doing his duty to God and country. She had known the moment he fell and the life had left his body. Just as she had known he was alive through the long years of battle with the Yankees, she had known the instant that death claimed him.
She looked down at the journal in her lap, her lifeline to sanity. It was the only thing that consoled her all these years after Warren’s death, and then the children. She had taken care of Warren’s parents too until now they were both gone. She had no one left on this earth to keep her here now, no one to nurse or care for, no one to be strong for. Orphaned from a very early age, she had become one with Warren and like the passage in Ruth; his people had become her people.
Again her eyes fell to the writing in the open journal and she re-read the last passage as if it had been written by someone else. My beloved, it has been 21 long years since I last touched your face. The battle scars on your body are deep. I fear they are no deeper than the wounds on my heart. Our children got fever long ago. I buried the both of them under the tree where you asked me to share your life, and the place I lay with you last before you left home. I cannot continue on in this life. There is no need. I have learned what I must learn and lived what I must live. I want to feel your arms around me once more; I want to know your touch. If I cannot feel that in this life, than I am ready to try death, at least it will be an end to my suffering.
Lydia knew the time had come to go to him. She knew somehow as strong as she was she could will it to be so. She had the bottle of laudanum that she had given to her mother-in-law to manage her pain. She knew there was enough of a dose to take her to Warren. They would find her later, and while some would not forgive, some would wonder how she had lasted so long. She would go to him, her body released from its bonds as it always did when she and Warren were together.
She prepared that night by lying on the large bed that she had shared with him. She had bathed and put on his favorite perfume, the scent he had brought her from New Orleans. She was not an old woman, as she had looked in the long oval mirror on a stand in her room she had seen a figure that was still womanly, with curves and shapes in all the right places. Granted they were not as firm as those of the young girl that Warren had rescued from poverty and fear, but she could have found someone who would have loved her and who she could have lived with the rest of her years. She had not wanted to. There was only Warren for her.
She drifted down into the beginnings of sleep; this was when she knew he would come for her. Suddenly she felt his presence above her. Her body still knew him so well that there was no need for a build up. Indeed, there was no gentle foreplay like they had known, abruptly and completely he was in her. He was a raging hunger that claimed her instantly, a tempest that was all consuming. The depth of it was heavy and crushing until she could no longer breathe. A tightening of her entire body, tighter and tighter, she went into a spiraling darkness, a throbbing remnant of time which seemed to hang on eternity. Then as suddenly as it had begun she lifted, floating lighter and lighter. Then she saw his face smiling, his beautiful blue eyes shining brightly, a brilliant glow around him and she actually felt his arms encircle her. She was coming home, she was home. A peace like she had never felt drifted into her being. Warren grazed her lips with a gentle kiss and said “Welcome home darling, I thought you would never come”
***
The Daughter’s of the Confederacy turned the Park’s home into a historical monument. The city paid for its upkeep and the lands and orchard surrounding it was preserved. A journal lay in a glass case on a stand inside the bedroom that was also preserved just as Lydia had left it. Crowds of people paid to tour the home and hear the stories of the people that had lived and died there, the revenue of which helped to keep it as an example of the perfect antebellum lifestyle. The large rocker on the long cool porch was big enough for two. Oddly, even with the faintest breeze it was often seen rocking, rocking in a motion not unlike that of two lovers in the throws of passion.
Lisa Venter copyright 2008
Going Home
Her lover had been coming more often of late. Sometimes it would be just a brief touch like the wind on her face, but she knew he was there. It was that same tension she had felt with her back turned; just as he would enter a room she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him. He was in the room; she could feel his hands on her before he came close enough to touch her. That honing ability had always fascinated her. Why did her body come alive for only one man, why the thrill, the quickening of her breath, the flush of heat, the fluid release. It had always been that way with Warren when he was alive, and it was just the same after all these long years since his death.
The rocking chair swayed rhythmically beneath her. She felt the incessant movement of it so familiar like the rocking of a lover in the throws of passion. She was not an old woman, she only felt like one. She sat in the rocking chair on the wide porch that wrapped around the entire length of the large antebellum home. Their home-it had been in Warren’s family for four generations, but they were all gone now. The children were buried up on the hill under the arms of a great oak tree whose branches spread out like the loving arms of a mother, the roots reaching down deep to take a part of them up to the sky again. The tree stood alone, a giant sentinel on the hill to represent the one great thing she had accomplished in life, a living monument to all those who were gone. Her husband’s parents were there too, but he was not. His body still lay in some unknown location, where it fell on May 5, 1863 in one of the largest and most devastating battles that the South had ever seen. She had not needed the letter that arrived to tell her that Corporal Warren C. Parks of the 2nd Virginia 3rd brigade had fallen doing his duty to God and country. She had known the moment he fell and the life had left his body. Just as she had known he was alive through the long years of battle with the Yankees, she had known the instant that death claimed him.
She looked down at the journal in her lap, her lifeline to sanity. It was the only thing that consoled her all these years after Warren’s death, and then the children. She had taken care of Warren’s parents too until now they were both gone. She had no one left on this earth to keep her here now, no one to nurse or care for, no one to be strong for. Orphaned from a very early age, she had become one with Warren and like the passage in Ruth; his people had become her people.
Again her eyes fell to the writing in the open journal and she re-read the last passage as if it had been written by someone else. My beloved, it has been 21 long years since I last touched your face. The battle scars on your body are deep. I fear they are no deeper than the wounds on my heart. Our children got fever long ago. I buried the both of them under the tree where you asked me to share your life, and the place I lay with you last before you left home. I cannot continue on in this life. There is no need. I have learned what I must learn and lived what I must live. I want to feel your arms around me once more; I want to know your touch. If I cannot feel that in this life, than I am ready to try death, at least it will be an end to my suffering.
Lydia knew the time had come to go to him. She knew somehow as strong as she was she could will it to be so. She had the bottle of laudanum that she had given to her mother-in-law to manage her pain. She knew there was enough of a dose to take her to Warren. They would find her later, and while some would not forgive, some would wonder how she had lasted so long. She would go to him, her body released from its bonds as it always did when she and Warren were together.
She prepared that night by lying on the large bed that she had shared with him. She had bathed and put on his favorite perfume, the scent he had brought her from New Orleans. She was not an old woman, as she had looked in the long oval mirror on a stand in her room she had seen a figure that was still womanly, with curves and shapes in all the right places. Granted they were not as firm as those of the young girl that Warren had rescued from poverty and fear, but she could have found someone who would have loved her and who she could have lived with the rest of her years. She had not wanted to. There was only Warren for her.
She drifted down into the beginnings of sleep; this was when she knew he would come for her. Suddenly she felt his presence above her. Her body still knew him so well that there was no need for a build up. Indeed, there was no gentle foreplay like they had known, abruptly and completely he was in her. He was a raging hunger that claimed her instantly, a tempest that was all consuming. The depth of it was heavy and crushing until she could no longer breathe. A tightening of her entire body, tighter and tighter, she went into a spiraling darkness, a throbbing remnant of time which seemed to hang on eternity. Then as suddenly as it had begun she lifted, floating lighter and lighter. Then she saw his face smiling, his beautiful blue eyes shining brightly, a brilliant glow around him and she actually felt his arms encircle her. She was coming home, she was home. A peace like she had never felt drifted into her being. Warren grazed her lips with a gentle kiss and said “Welcome home darling, I thought you would never come”
***
The Daughter’s of the Confederacy turned the Park’s home into a historical monument. The city paid for its upkeep and the lands and orchard surrounding it was preserved. A journal lay in a glass case on a stand inside the bedroom that was also preserved just as Lydia had left it. Crowds of people paid to tour the home and hear the stories of the people that had lived and died there, the revenue of which helped to keep it as an example of the perfect antebellum lifestyle. The large rocker on the long cool porch was big enough for two. Oddly, even with the faintest breeze it was often seen rocking, rocking in a motion not unlike that of two lovers in the throws of passion.
Lisa Venter copyright 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
I am now PUBLISHED!
I took the Pre off of Published tonight!
Here's why:
Love Unlimited, the quarterly magazine that Guardian of the Veil; Gerard the Gede will be in, comes out on the 20th! The cover art is wicked (Thanks Marsha for sending it to me)!
I should be receiving my first check in June. Pretty cool stuff...Too bad I'm not taking one of Mel's classes right now, he'd owe the class a pizza!!!
Here's a link if anyone would like to check out the magazine. It's a bound paperback!
http://www.lulu.com/content/2531490 (Scroll to page 4 and you'll find my story in the contents!)
Now I am just waiting for the response from the agent I queried...that would be the icing on the cake...well, icing if it's a positive response, some other form of topping (hint: It's brown, and is STINKY) if it's negative...
With any luck that will be my next post...I'll let you know what type of topping my cake has arrived with!
:) Terri
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)