Wrinkles In Time Part 4 (long) free porn video

Book 3: Wrinkles in Time
Part 4
Chapter 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simon was sitting in a tavern. He was drunk. It was hot and biting flies were everywhere. He stank and his robe was filthy. His feet were blistered and cracked from the heat and his long journey northward.

He had no money, having been robbed, beaten and left for dead by a band of robbers outside of Bologna. He was able to barter for a meal and some stale beer by offering to clean the stables behind the inn. He had done a mediocre job on the stables, throwing fresh straw over old. His poor performance made the warm beer even more stale in his mouth.

Although he appeared young, it had been many, many years since he’d had a purpose, a sense of pride – of self-worth, rather.

‘Pride is one of the sins He taught us about…’

‘Sloth’ was another – a sin of which Simon was guilty more often than not, these days. It wasn’t that he was afraid of work, or was unable in some manner – it was that, now, there was no longer a purpose; a purpose for his life, a purpose for… anything.

He had begun his long journey to Lombardy to discover for himself how the holy words were being interpreted by Ambrose. The stories that had filtered down to his small group near the Red Sea were troubling. What he had seen in his journey northward was troubling. The Word was already being usurped and was being used by this Ambrose fellow to gain power and control over his fellows.

Suddenly, the earth leaped beneath Simon’s feet! He was violently knocked to the floor and thunder roared in his ears! He staggered to his feet and looked around the tavern, confused. Other patrons were also climbing to their feet.

‘Lightning on a clear, sunny day?’ he thought to himself. ‘It struck very close!’

Simon staggered outside. He could see smoke coming from behind a low, squat building. People were milling around, looking confused and chattering to each other. He began trotting toward where the lightning had struck, his rum-shot eyes squinting in the bright sunlight.

He ran around behind the building and stopped, stunned by what he saw. A young Aryan girl, completely naked, was lying in the middle of the yard. Her skin was obviously pale, although she appeared to be badly burnt. The burn marks from the lightning strike spread out from her, making a sign – a religious symbol from the days before He had come.

‘The Star of David! She is an angel fallen from heaven, taking her human form as a member of the purest race.’

Simon had no doubt that the angel was sent specifically for him. He ran to the center of the blackened area and knelt down. The angel was unconscious and Simon’s first observation had been correct – she was badly burned.

‘Perhaps she was acting on her own,’ he thought, ‘defying the Lord’s wishes and was struck down for attempting to get a message to me.’

Simon was certain that he was in God’s disfavor because of his, and others, failure to save Him from persecution and death. Nevertheless, he pulled off the top half of his robe, tearing it and laying it over the angel’s body, covering what should not be viewed in public. He was tense and frightened, fearing that his Lord might strike him down with a second lightning bolt for helping the fallen angel.

He didn’t care. Right now, he wasn’t too fond of how his Lord had been handling things. There were too many evils in the world, and Simon’s work, along with others of his group, seemed to be ineffectual in stemming the tide of evil that flowed outward from Rome.

Shoving his arms under the angel’s shoulders and legs, he lifted her up, surprised at how light she seemed. Although she was taller than he, she seemed to weigh very little, perhaps the same as a half-grown child.

As he stood there in the center of the burnt-out yard holding the angel, he noticed, for the first time, a ring of townspeople had gathered around them.

In his native tongue, he called out to them. “She is anathema! She is cast out of heaven to live in the filth of humanity for her sins! I will take her to the river to bathe her in the forgiveness of God.”

The citizens of Pavia murmured to each other – those who understood what Simon had cried out to them explaining what he had said to the others. As Simon began walking toward the river, proudly carrying his smoky, red and golden-haired burden, the crowd made way and allowed him to pass.

‘Anathema’ had many meanings; originally it referred to something so sacrosanct and pure that to merely touch it was to defile it. Now, Ambrose had given the word a new meaning: Cast out and unworthy; detested.

Excommunicated!

The good people of Pavia wanted nothing to do with someone who had been excommunicated by The Church! This filthy man was obviously a priest of some holy sect that practiced self-flagellation, probably sent here in a vision to collect this offal – this unworthy being who was cast out from heaven.

As Simon walked toward the Naviglio Grande, some of the more curious followed. He reminded them of the old stories of John, the Baptist. Perhaps he was going to immerse the fallen angel in the river and offer her the Lord’s forgiveness.

Simon didn’t care what they thought. The words that He had spoken all those years ago were not the words that were attributed to Him now. But Simon could sense what was expected, and knew that he must immerse the angel in the Naviglio Grande, whether she needed God’s forgiveness or not, or they would both be stoned to death.

It seemed like a long walk, but it was actually less than an hour. Not that it mattered – Simon measured his time in years; sometimes hundreds of years. That was how long it had been since he had supped on His blood, back when he was a foolish lad who believed he understood the world he lived in.

When he reached the river, he waded in to the water until he was hip-deep, his feet glad for the cool, wet mud that suddenly surrounded them. He turned and faced those who had followed him. Simon knew the words, even after all these centuries, that John had spoken when He had been baptized. Immersing the angel, he spoke them now, curious, himself, about what would happen.

The angel, limp and unconscious until now, suddenly choked and floundered in the water, kicking and fighting until her head was above the surface and she could breath again.

“What the hell… do you think… you’re doing?” she yelled, coughing up water.

Simon stared at her with his eyes wide. He had absolutely no idea what she had said. He could tell she was angry, but that was about all.

‘Is this the language of the gods?’ he wondered as they stared at each other. ‘She does not speak directly to me as He did. Is it possible that I have just empowered an agent of evil?’

Then she seemed to realize she was standing hip-deep in water, displaying her glistening wet, naked body to thirty or forty people on the bank, watching them. They seemed to be enjoying the display immensely.

The angel tried to cover herself with her arms, suddenly shamed, and knelt down into the water until only her glistening wet shoulders were displayed. She looked around, lost and confused. Floating in the water next to her was Simon’s torn robe. The angel grabbed it, pulled it against her body, and stood up, again.

At least now her front was covered as she stood there, shivering. Her back was still bare, though, still visible to Simon. The angel was uncertain which way to turn. It seemed to Simon that she was rejecting his offer of the Lord’s forgiveness.

‘It’s obvious why she was thrown down from heaven. She was probably the most desirable of all the heavenly angels.

‘And desire and lust are Satan’s weapons; used to defile love and friendship amongst those you care for.’

Those words had been usurped, too. He never said what the Church was saying He said.

The angel was staring at him, her lustrous blue eyes penetrating into his dark brown, almost black ones. He could see himself in her mind; his hair wild and unkempt, his unwashed flesh, his torn and filthy robe. She reached out and touched his arm.

‘Who are you?’ she asked in his mind.

Startled, Simon cried out and backed away, almost falling as his feet refused to come out of the soothing mud and catch his fall.

‘Then it’s true! You really are an angel from God! You speak in His manner…’

Simon stopped, feeling the confusion and uncertainty in her mind. Then he realized that God had wiped her mind clean, causing her to forget whatever evil she had been guilty of. He understood, now. He had come north to Milano to find…

Her!

‘Come with me, Angelic One,’ Simon thought back at her. ‘God has sent me to bring you back and teach you the true words. Your soul shall not be lost to God’s grace forever. You are being given a second opportunity!’

“Why should I go with you?” she asked out loud, arrogant even though she was terrified; not remembering who she was. Simon understood her thought, although her words were unknown to him. As she held onto his arm, he searched in her mind for words that she would understand. There was not much there – God had, in his mercy, wiped her mind clean, erasing her sins from her soul.

There were, however, a few words of the angelic tongue floating around; oddly phrased and out of context. He had no idea what they referred to, but he found one phrase that God had evidently placed there, specifically for him, so that his errant angel with the wet, rusty gold hair would obey.

“Because,” he said in halting, badly pronounced English, “Simon says.”

Chapter 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tanya was watching the Tri-d recording. Tears were running down her face. Frank sighed quietly, hoping after he did that she didn’t misinterpret his sigh as criticism of her depressed attitude toward life now that Katie was gone.

She didn’t. Instead she turned her head toward him and smiled.

“She's very pretty,” Tanya said, referring to the dark-haired beauty in the sky-blue wedding gown standing next to her grandson. This time, she was crying because she was happy that her grandson Jake had finally found ‘the right one’. “I hope she likes me.”

“Well, you have the advantage of not being her mother-in-law,” Frank said, chuckling. “Our darling Alicia will have that privilege. We will be the doting great-grandparents of their children, of which, I hope, there are many.”

He smiled at his wife, glad that something could make her happy, if only for a little while.

“I hope he’s not as ruthless with his spouses as Alicia has been,” Tanya said, surprising Frank with her… well… frankness. “I’m sure Alicia cared for the men she married – maybe even loved them a little – but she kept her secrets to herself and, in the end, left each one in the ground and went on to the next.

“I wonder,” Tanya continued, almost to herself, “if she ever looked back, and regretted…”

“Darling,” Frank said, moving from the chair to sit next to her on the couch, “she never had the opportunity to make any of her husbands a part of our family. Béla was gone, and only she…”

“I know,” Tanya interrupted him and changed the subject. “I wonder where they’ll go on their honeymoon.”

She smiled to herself, her mind wandering to happier times. “Do you remember when we closed down the business and took five years off to travel through Europe?”

“Yes,” Frank said, also remembering. “We took the kids and just traveled across Europe, moving from city to city, sometimes staying in one place for months at a time.” He chuckled, remembering, “Then there was that long, unexpected stay in Milan…”

“Where Katie was born…” Tanya said, the smile vanishing off her face.

Then she was crying, again, sobbing into Frank’s shoulder, missing her youngest daughter all over, again.

‘Well, you did it again, you big dumb idiot…’ Frank thought to himself.

After a few moments, he picked Tanya up and carried her into the bedroom. He lay next to her, holding her while she cried herself to sleep.

After awhile, he fell asleep holding her in his arms, his own eyes leaking from the misery their lives had become.

‘Go to Béla. She will help your life-mate to get past her grief,’ he heard as he dreamed.

‘What about my own?’ he asked into the darkness. ‘Of all my children, I loved her the most…’

‘The Princess Béla can help you both,’ the words formed in his mind. ‘It is her wish that you know this.’

‘Please, then, let Béla know that her help would be accepted. I do not wish for my wife to die of a broken heart…’ Frank pleaded as the alien but somehow benevolent presence faded from his mind.

Frank slept, strangely peaceful. When he woke up, Tanya was sitting on top of him, slowly moving up and down on his morning hard-on.

“Good afternoon, lover,” she said, her voice deep with her lust. “I thought I’d better wake you up. You’ve slept all through the morning.”

Frank was suddenly wide-awake.

“All morning?” he exclaimed. “I never sleep late!”

‘Well, you did, today,’ a familiar, voice chimed into his mind, softly caressing his soul. ‘You needed as much help as Tanya did.’

It was Béla’s thoughts in his mind. Then he remembered the strange dreams that he’d had:

Terrible images of losing his parents, of his high-school girlfriend being killed in a stupid car accident, of Béla being burned alive, losing his favorite daughter, Katie. Béla had guided him through them all; back to where his grandmother had died when he was but a child.

‘Strange,’ he thought, ‘I didn’t even remember Grams. And that was the worst pain of all…’

But now, he felt light and, if not joyful, at least content. Tanya, sitting astride him, her eyes closed as she approached orgasm, was evidently doing even better.

Someone picked up his hand and kissed it gently. Frank turned his head and discovered that Béla was here physically as he gazed into her dark eyes. Still mind-linked with her, he realized that she wasn’t the same Béla that he had lost a century ago. She was the same person, but…

‘She isn’t really different – it’s like… well… there’s more of her.’

There really wasn’t any other way for him to understand it.

Béla smiled, feeling his thoughts, and pulled herself closer to him. Tanya started moaning and arched her back, tightening herself around him as she came. Then Béla hugged them both, sharing her love for them and experiencing their love for each other.

The emotions and sensations the three of them shared in the following moments were so intense that Frank didn’t even remember having an orgasm. But when Tanya lifted herself up, he realized that he had. She leaked it all over him.

Tanya, mind-linked with her husband for only the third time in an entire century, wasted no time flooding into his mind, becoming one with him – her insecurities swept away by his deep love for her. She lay on top of him, tears leaking out of her eyes, one arm around him and one around Béla, who was mentally linking them together.

Frank wasn’t upset about Tanya’s tears this time. He could feel her contentment and her love. She was, once again, satisfied with her life. The thing Tanya feared now was the power she had over Frank because of his love for her. Hopefully, the time when she would ever hurt him that way was still hundreds of years away.

‘I should get back,’ Béla thought into both their minds.

Image of Jake babysitting ‘the baby’… my unnamed child.

“If she is really Beth,” Tanya replied, “she may open up to me. We were mind-linked once before…”

Now the tears were in Béla’s eyes.

I’ve told her I forgive her for whatever it is she did. At least, now, she looks at me. But her mind is still shielded. I could easily smash through her shields, but I will not! She must open up to me of her own free will, no matter who she is… Your help would be appreciated.

“Okay,” Tanya purred aloud. “We’ll come down this weekend, or next, if you prefer.”

Béla nodded. “Next weekend is fine. Would you like to baby-sit that weekend? Jake wants to take me into the mountains…”

She grinned, contemplating her first sexual maiming in almost a year. Then her eyes widened in embarrassment as she realized…

‘Whoops! You heard that, didn’t you…’

They all laughed and hugged each other one last time, then Frank and Tanya were alone again. Tanya broke down and sobbed into Frank’s shoulder, surprising him beyond belief.

“What in the world is wrong, now?” Frank asked, consternation strong in his voice.

‘I hope she doesn’t think I’m mad at her or something…’

“We were mind-linked,” Tanya sobbed. “I’m happy that you love me so much…”

She sniffed, trying to control her leaky face.

“Well, you know,” Frank admitted, “I was kind’ve curious, myself. And I discovered that you’re somewhat fond of me, too.”

He smiled at her. Then they kissed. Then, no, they didn’t make love again. Frank went downstairs and fixed her breakfast in bed – her favorite – poached eggs and fried potatoes with shredded peppers and sausage.

Tanya sat patiently through it all while he served her like a queen; feeding her, cleaning up after her and satisfying her every whim, including making a fresh grapefruit juice slushie for dessert.

Then they made love again.

Chapter 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The gold and red-haired angel with no name sat up. Something had awakened her. Their small fire was almost out, but there was no light on the eastern horizon, yet. There was no moon, either.

Simon had stolen clothes for them both earlier that day. The sheepskin the angel wore was itchy and uncomfortable. She hadn’t complained, though, because it was at least something to wear. She casually scratched her ribs, listening to the night. There were crickets and frogs. That was all she could hear.

Then she heard what had awakened her – a movement muffled in dry leaves. The angel nearly jumped out of her skin. She reached over and shook Simon awake. He made too much noise waking up. The pair was suddenly surrounded by dark figures.

The intruders didn’t speak; they simply attacked. Simon was in the habit of waking up quickly and was able to fend off his attacker, sending him sailing several yards behind him. The gold and red-haired angel was not so lucky. She took a knife in the ribs, then tore out her attacker’s throat with her teeth.

‘Wow! Where did I learn that?’

Then Simon had his dagger out. The two surviving thieves fled into the night. Simon could hear his angel gasping in the dark.

‘She's been hurt! I’ve got to help her! God let it not be too serious!’

It had been a long time since he had prayed. His thoughts even surprised him!

In the dim firelight, he could just barely make out her silhouette as she knelt on the ground, holding her hands against her wound. He reached out to touch her. As his hand made contact, his mind was flooded with sensation – not painful, but sexual!

The angel was kneeling on the ground, having an orgasm because she’d been stabbed.

‘What an interesting way to die…’ Simon couldn’t help but think.

He jerked his hand away, fearful that he might lose control and take unfair advantage of this mortally wounded angel, but she’d felt his contact and now she wanted him. She reached out, radiating lust at him.

“Wait!” Simon cried out. “You’re hurt! Let me check your wound, first! I don’t want you to die…”

She touched him, then embraced him, tightly. Simon felt his body respond to her heat… her need. Still trying to help, he put his hand against the bloodstained tear in her clothing. He didn’t believe that he couldn’t find the open wound in her ribs – the orifice that had spit out all that blood, but there was nothing there but warm, sensuous female flesh!

After a few seconds, he gave up and surrendered to the lust raging through them both. He allowed her to shove him roughly back onto the ground. She grabbed his robe and pulled it up, gathering it around his waist so that his lower half was exposed. Simon felt her hand on his hard member, then she was poised over him, ready to skewer herself on his shaft.

The angel cried out as she dropped down on him, radiating her orgasm right through him. Simon was amazed as the angel shared her orgasmic sensations with him. In seconds, he was pumping his semen into her, unable to withstand the incredible sensations overwhelming him.

‘This must be what sex is like in heaven…’ he thought as the angel began to relax and lay down on top of him.

‘No, this is what sex is like – with me…’ her lustrous voice echoed into his mind.

Simon could feel her arrogant superiority and suddenly realized why she had been cast from heaven.

‘You have been sent to me to learn humility, angelic one,’ he explained, their minds linked so they could understand one another.

‘Are you certain that I have not been sent to teach you how to enjoy what you already have?’ she countered, and flooded his mind with her sensations, again.

Simon realized that this angelic being may have had her mind erased, but she was still willful, extremely intelligent and somewhat manipulative – the last being an undesirable but common female trait. Females used their minds and their wiles to counter the physical strength of men.

‘He told us in His infinite wisdom to not cherish what belongs to another. This knowledge I already have,’ Simon insisted. ‘You cannot teach that to me!’

‘Your knowledge goes back centuries, while mine only goes back a few hours… Explain to me why, then, when we are like this, I have the power and you are subjugated to me!’

She was proud, too, Simon realized, recognizing the humor his God had demonstrated when assigning this task to him. They each had the same flaw.

The gold and red-haired angel squeezed her insides against his failing cock, causing it to respond and jerk upright, once again. Then she was moving her pelvis, caressing him with her hot, slippery insides and making him realize that he was, indeed, her thrall – at least for the next few moments...

‘I recognize you now, even if you do not know yourself,’ Simon said in his mind. ‘You are the essence of Bathsheba – David’s alluring queen. Though she was dark and you are light, it can only be you, Bathsheba, incarnate!’

‘I can see in your mind who it is you think I am,’ the angelic being silently replied. ‘It is possible, I suppose. I have no way of knowing, although I recognize the names and the images you display for me, like stories I once heard. However, I am presently interested in a different sort of essence… Come with me… Come… Now!’

She radiated her orgasm down into his body. His body spasmed in response as he came into her heated body – again and again. Finally, she collapsed down on top of him, a contented growl in her throat. He could taste blood on her mouth, and was suddenly concerned that she might be wounded and bleeding inside, after all.

‘I am fine!’ she insisted in his mind. ‘Sleep now!’

He fell asleep with her still lying on top of him. Some time later, he awoke suddenly as she slid off him to lie at his side. Urgent pressure in his bladder made him slide carefully out from under her arms, then he stood up to go relieve himself. A dead robber was still lying on the ground, visible now in the early morning light.

A quick look exposed the horror of the previous night and the true reason why the angel had behaved in so erotic a fashion. It also exposed the true source of the angel’s power. The robber lay with his head twisted around and his neck torn open. The sleeping angel’s bloodied face betrayed her crime to him.

‘She has used the lifeblood of another to heal herself!’ he realized with growing horror.

He stared at the sleeping golden-haired angel as the eastern sky slowly grew brighter.

‘Abomination! Cast out of heaven by God, himself!’

He had been more right than he realized when, in an effort to protect them both from an ignorant population, he had labeled her ‘Anathema!’

Simon spent the next several hours watching the rising sun, watching the sleeping angel as the sun struck her hair and reflected its reddish, golden color into his eyes, praying to God for the strength and courage to end the life of this beautiful abomination.

In all the years as His student and follower, He had continually taught that it was wrong to take a life. Now that He existed only in the memories and writings of His followers, His teachings faded against the reality of the world and its ever-more-powerful evils.

‘Lord, are you testing me? Or are you testing your cast-off angel? Which of us is the teacher here and which should be the student? Are we expected to learn from each other, perhaps? How can you reward her taking a life with health and sensual ecstasy while my life that I have lived for you is empty and barren, lacking purpose and fulfillment?’

Simon realized that he was being selfish, of course, and that was another sin. He had taught that one should not compare one’s fortune or misfortune to another’s.

‘You can only compare how you are today to how you were yesterday,’ Simon remembered from a conversation with Him, all those years ago. ‘Are you better, or worse? Are you achieving your goals? Who have you helped, and who have you done harm to? These are the things that are important. It’s not ‘what was done to you’ that eats at your soul, my blood-brother, but ‘what have you done to others’, regardless of the reason…’

Those words had been twisted, too…

But the gold and red-haired angel was still an abomination. To use that as a reason to kill her, however, would injure his soul. He realized that, now, and understood the purpose – the reason why they had been cast together.

‘How well did I learn His lessons? Well enough to guide me now? Well enough to pass them on to this fallen angel? If that is my task, then I accept it, and am humble that that You think me worthy enough to accomplish it, my Lord.’

He would take her back with him to join the others; the ones still living who had supped of His blood – back to the humble Academe where each was recording their memoirs.

As he watched the fallen angel sleep, Simon thought back to what he privately considered ‘The Great Mistake’ – when He had shared the secret of His blood with His closest and most devout followers. Each who had partaken of the cup was rejuvenated and youthened; their lives extended now for many hundreds of years instead of the single hundred one could expect.

The one who was closest to Him, whom He called brother, argued that this was a gift that should be shared with the world. Much to the consternation of them all, His brother had gotten up and left the table in an uproar. But He knew what His brother was about, and forgave Judas even as he stormed out of the room.

Later, when the Romans came and took Him, full of guilt and remorse, Judas hanged himself. After he had been cut down he found himself rejuvenated and still alive, as he had supped from the cup as well. Judas was with the others now, a member of their little Academe, high in the hills overlooking Murrabba’at.

There were others who had discovered the Academe, and joined, as well. The two soldiers who had bled Him and collected His blood in another cup and others who had drunk from that cup found themselves living on, while their wives and sons died and turned to dust. Some had married again, only to lose everything to human mortality once again. Such was the unhappy price of their long lives. Some who joined the Academe were the long-lived children of those who had drunk His blood.

After a time, the angel awoke. She looked over at Simon and smiled, remembering the events of the early morning hours. Then she realized that her face was sticky and matted with the blood of the thief she had butchered. She tried desperately to wipe off the accusing stain, finally managing some semblance of cleanliness by licking her hand and wiping her face like a cat washing itself.

Simon tossed a piece of bread to her and she chewed on it for awhile.

“Do you have any water?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

Simon looked at her, a blank expression on his face. Then she remembered the word. She had seen it in his mind when he had dunked her in the river.

“Mayim?” the angel asked, and pointed at her mouth.

Simon smiled, then laughed at her misuse of the word.

“Tachath shiphlah,” he said, pointing.

He smiled as the angel looked with uncertainty in the direction that he had pointed. Then she got up and walked over the rise. After several minutes, when she didn’t come back, Simon got up to see where she’d went.

He walked to the edge of the brook and looked around, not seeing her. Then he heard her voice and looked toward the sound. She was naked, kneeling in the middle of the icy stream, scrubbing her face and neck and trying to get her hair wet. The hourglass shape of her back and hips was more than a little alluring.

She yipped in surprise when she saw him out of the corner of her eyes. He walked along the edge of the stream until he was even with her, standing on the bank.

The angel preened herself; throwing her wet hair back and jutting her glistening wet breasts forward. Simon had never seen such a perfect body.

‘Do all Aryans look like that?’ he wondered as he gazed. ‘It’s no wonder there are so many of them…’

He smiled and watched as the angel finished washing herself. She teased him by splashing handfuls of water on her breasts and belly, rubbing her wet hands under her hairless armpits and then washing between her legs. She turned toward him while she did that, shameless in the knowledge of her physical perfection.

Simon thought once again of David’s ode to Bathsheba.

‘She is surely the incarnation of the love the First King sang about!’

She stood up and looked around for her clothing. Then she looked at Simon, accusation in her eyes.

“Yesh,” he said, nodding his head.

She looked where he nodded. Her robe was hanging up to dry. She had washed it in the stream, unintentionally ruining it. Simon had hung it up, hoping that it would dry and not shrink too much.

When she pulled it on, it was much tighter than before, and shorter. Simon was surprised at how attractive she looked in the skimpy, skin-tight garment. The angel wriggled around uncomfortably, the damp wool itching her terribly. Simon realized that he was going to have to steal another garment for her. He hoped she’d learned her lesson and wouldn’t get the next one wet.

Two weeks later they were both working at an inn in a small hamlet on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea. They had traveled directly South to reach the sea. Simon did not want to take his angel through Rome. He had come up to Lombardy that way, traveling the entire length of the land from Sicily to Pavia on foot. In Rome, he had been stopped and questioned several times, and had been arrested for vagrancy once.

He realized the dangers of escorting an Aryan woman who didn’t speak the language through Rome, especially during these unsettling times. There were Celts, or rather, Gauls, encroaching on this side of the mountains, settling the lands north and east of Milano. There were rumors of raids against the Venicians and retaliation by the Romans. The Aryans were mixed up in the middle, both sides claiming Aryan support. Aryans were not very popular anywhere right now, despite, or perhaps because of, their striking appearance.

The inn where they were working belonged to members of his own people – an old Hebrew man and his wife. The angel was permitted to serve the members of the chosen people who stopped to eat there, and perhaps stay overnight. She was not, however, allowed to eat or sleep with them, and had, instead, a pallet of wood and straw set up on the roof of the structure. A simple sheet held up with sticks kept the dew off her. Nothing kept the flies off.

Her little dwelling was comfortable enough, but she got lonely at night, and would often wander off, coming back at dawn smelling like a sharlila, which is what the innkeeper’s wife called her when they were alone. The waspish woman would angrily make the errant angel wash herself until she no longer stank and then put her to work scrubbing the tables and floors until she stank again.

“When we do leave?” Rybba asked.

Simon had offered the fallen angel a selection of Hebrew words that described her. She had picked Rybba. (Note: There was a time when there was no 'e' in written language. Thus, the 'y' is pronouced as an 'e'. Rybba is pronounced Reba. Gyorgy would be pronouced George.)

“It’s the only word that sounds like a girl’s name,” she’d told him, touching her fingers to his arm so he could understand her. “What’s it mean, anyway?”

An image of a host of angels appeared in her mind.

The angel smiled. She liked what it meant.

“I shall name you Rybba Malak,” Simon declared. ‘Angel of Angels.’

“I like it,” she said, radiating gratitude. “It’s much better than Sharlila.”

Simon laughed. Rybba could see what it meant in his mind. Her face turned bright red, making Simon laugh harder.

‘She's making progress!’ he realized as he saw her reaction. ‘She can actually be shamed!’

Rybba turned smartly away from him, her arms folded under her breasts and an angry frown on her face. Simon stepped forward and hugged her. He was beginning to like this strange angel that had fallen from the grace of God. She was learning, but she was teaching him, also. It occurred to him that he had not felt this good for more than a hundred years.

“We should have enough for two fares in another week,” he told her.

After two weeks with him, she was getting a good grasp of the language. She no longer needed to touch him to understand most of what he said.

“A whole week?” Rybba exclaimed. “I’ll die!”

“You won’t die,” Simon assured her. “You fell from the sky and you didn’t die. You were cruelly knifed in the chest and you didn’t die. God did not send you here to die. You were sent here to learn.”

“And just what am I learning?” she exclaimed, pouting. “How to clean floors and tables? How to serve your food? How to sleep on a straw bed under an open sky by myself?”

“Raphac lwm Hwhy!” Simon said firmly. ‘To humble yourself before God!’

They looked at each other for a moment before she spoke.

“Come to me tonight, and I will raphac before you,” Rybba said softly.

She touched his cheek, filling his mind with her loneliness. Simon took her hand in both of his, and pressed his lips to her fingers. It was not something he’d done before, but she seemed to expect it.

“I promise,” he told her.

Chapter 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Béla had decided not to wait until her infant unshielded. She introduced herself, mind to mind, and named her Elizabeth, her name from before. Her nickname, Jake decided, should be Liz or Lisa, so as not to be confused with Beth, whom Tanya believed the lifeforce that animated her child had once been.

Béla decided on Lisa, so that’s what they started calling her. The test was, of course, whether or not Lisa responded to her new name. She did, and it didn’t appear to upset her.

Lisa wasn’t a crybaby. If she did cry, it was because she was angry about something. But, at least, she didn’t burn anyone after that first time.

“I think she was ashamed of her behavior,” Jake suggested. “That’s why she teleported to our bed.”

“Yes, probably,” agreed Béla, “but who taught her proper behavior so she could be ashamed when she was wrong?”

Jake shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea.

Lisa was five months old and growing rapidly. In fact, she was already as large as a two-year-old. For the last four weeks she’d been crawling everywhere. Now she was starting to walk.

Frank Junior stopped by to see how his second family was doing, and jokingly suggested that Lisa’s development was a little slow.

“What do you mean, ‘slow’?” Béla asked, defensively. “She's five months old and she’s walking!”

She stood, patiently waiting for Frank’s reply.

“Yes, but, you’ll have to admit, she looks like a two-year-old,” he told her. “I’m just saying that she’s developing more slowly than she’s growing.”

Béla was silent. She was thinking, ‘If Lisa would just unshield her mind, her progress would be much faster, I’m sure!’

But Lisa’s mind was her own. She could understand what was said to her, but she didn’t talk, and she didn’t mind-link, although she demonstrated that she could hear what was ‘thought’ at her. So far, her maximum teleport range was forty miles. Jake discovered this by inventing a game where she would ‘throw’ a portable transmitter as far as she could, then they would go look at the ‘big screen on the wall’ to see how far away it was.

The second part of the game was retrieving the object. That was harder, and Lisa was often frustrated, not able to locate the object once she’d released it back into the physical universe. But, she’d succeeded twice, now. The first time she’d just retrieved the keypad, having forgotten to make an image in her head of the whole object.

The second time was picture-perfect. Lisa dropped the thing right in front of Jake. Later, when Jake picked it up to use it, it seemed awfully light, and it didn’t work. But that was because its internal circuitry was still lying out on the rocks, somewhere.

“Tanya’s coming,” Béla said, holding Lisa in her arms. “It would be nice if you would say something to her.”

“Alright,” Lisa said.

Béla nearly dropped her and screamed. “Jake! She talked!”

Lisa, terrified by her mother’s sudden outburst, teleported to safety in her room, upstairs.

“Lisa, I’m sorry, baby,” Béla said, trying to woo her back. “I didn’t mean to yell…”

She sighed and sat down on the couch.

‘I’m not going to chase her. Not again!’

After a moment, Béla heard a sound at the top of the stairs. She looked up. Lisa was standing there, quite grown up looking (for a two-year-old), watching her.

‘Please, baby, come down,’ Béla thought at her.

She very carefully did not emit a single wave of emotion as she watched her child obey her first mind-to-mind command.

Jake came into the room just about the time Lisa reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Want some pancakes?” he asked Béla.

“Okay,” Lisa said.

She was talking, now. By the end of the day, both Béla and Jake wished Lisa would shut up so they could go to sleep.

Tanya arrived with Frank the next afternoon. They had missed their son’s visit to the cabin by only a few days. Béla had worked on him, helping him to get over the loss of his kid sister and the incredible guilt he felt about leaving her behind when his father had asked him to come across the country and play doctor to Béla and her unborn child.

The afternoon went pleasantly enough. Lisa, although talking, kept watching Tanya closely. After dinner, Tanya stepped out onto the porch for a moment to enjoy the sunset and the northern lights. After about twenty minutes, she realized she wasn’t alone on the porch. She turned and saw Lisa, sitting a few feet away, just watching her.

“Well, hello, darling,” Tanya said, smiling at her. “Have you been out here long?”

‘I wonder what she wants,’ Tanya wondered. ‘I think she’s wanted to talk to me all day.’

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said quietly.

“Why are you sorry, darling?” Tanya asked.

Lisa looked sad – a very grown-up look for a two-year-old.

“I hurt you,” Lisa said, frowning as she tried to express herself with words.

“What do you mean, you hurt me?” Tanya asked, squatting down on her heels.

Lisa was an adorable child, Tanya realized. ‘If Béla had ever been little, she would’ve looked like Lisa.’

“I sent your lady away,” Lisa admitted.

Then she blinked several times, trying to concentrate. It seemed important to her to say things to Tanya.

Tanya was very quiet for a moment, trying to put together what Lisa was telling her. Lisa didn’t know that many words, so it was important to keep the conversation on a simple level.

“Can you get her back?” Tanya asked, daring to hope that her daughter could somehow be resurrected after all this time.

Her hopes were dashed when Lisa shook her head. “She's too far. She can’t get back.”

“Lisa,” Tanya said quietly, thinking to herself, ‘This is so important! I have to know, so please don’t get frightened and run away now!’ “Is Katie alive?”

Lisa nodded her head. Tanya took a deep breath, trying to control her emotions.

‘Let’s not break down now! I need to know so much more…’

“Will Katie ever come back?” Tanya asked.

There were tears in her eyes. If she understood Lisa correctly, Katie was alive, but lost in time.

Lisa looked at Tanya, then seemed to lose interest.

‘Either she doesn’t know, or she didn’t understand the question. I suppose it’s possible that she doesn’t even know the words so she can answer.’

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Lisa asked, suddenly more cheerful.

“Why would you want to?” Tanya asked, surprised by the question.

“Cause,” Lisa said, “you smell nice.”

Tanya laughed, and smiled at her.

“Yes, of course you can,” she promised. “We’ll just kick ol’ Uncle Frank out of my bed and make him sleep on the couch.”

Lisa thought for a moment. “It’s my bed.” She stated it simply, not being a bit aggressive.

“Oh, well then,” Tanya said, smiling. “May I sleep with you, tonight?”

Lisa grinned and stood up. “Okay!” she said, and ran inside.

Tanya could hear Lisa telling her parents that Tanya was sleeping with her tonight.

‘And for every night as long as she’s here. Okay?’

She watched the northern lights dancing above the horizon for awhile. The desert skyline outlined by the eerie light was incredibly beautiful, but it left her feeling cold, inside. After a while, she went back in.

Lisa was asleep on the couch in Frank’s lap. The rest of the family was working on some conversation and a bottle of wine.

“Lisa seems to like you,” Béla said.

Tanya could feel Béla’s mind tickling hers. Béla was polite enough to hold back from simply raiding Tanya’s mind, but she really wanted to know what her daughter had said to her.

Tanya sat down. Jake handed her a glass of wine.

“Yes. We had a bit of a chat,” Tanya admitted.

‘If I think of what she said so that Béla can hear,’ Tanya wondered, ‘will Lisa hear it, too? If I tell her mother what she said, will Lisa think I’m betraying her?’

‘I suppose you’d better not say, then,’ Béla replyed into Tanya’s mind. ‘I will let her have her confidences with you…’

Béla was disappointed. Tanya didn’t have to have any telepathic ability to sense that. Conversation seemed dead after that, so, claiming exhaustion, they all begged off and went to bed. Frank carried Lisa upstairs and, as promised, put her to bed with his wife. Lisa didn’t even wake up. Frank slept on the next bed in the guestroom, which was now Lisa’s room.

Tanya was dreaming. She was in a nightmare, surrounded by white fire.

Katie and Beth were there with her.

“There it is!” Katie cried. “There’s your great crime! Now stop it!”

“What? I can’t!” Beth exclaimed, sounding terrified. “It’s too big!”

“You know what started it!” Katie insisted. “You can stop it!”

Tanya could feel Beth concentrating – trying to surround the hugeness of a nuclear blast with her mind. She felt the energy shift out of this time and into another as Beth teleported the dead body and the section of wall that was becoming atomized out of the physical universe.

The sudden change caused Katie’s grip on reality to slip. Time started to speed up. Katie screamed, her body suddenly blazing up in the white-hot blast.

She vanished. Tanya, watching the nightmare unfold, realized that Katie had teleported, trying to escape the terrible nuclear burning. But the white fire followed her. Then Beth reached for Katie and gave her a shove, helping her get ahead of the wave of nuclear energy that pursued her.

They both vanished. Tanya remained alone, watching the nuclear blast reverse itself as it was sucked into time.

‘Katie, where are you?’ Tanya cried in her mind.

A faint image was left behind. Tanya recognized the skyline of the city in the image. She even recognized one of the magnificent buildings – the Basilica de Sant’ Ambrogio.

Tanya jerked awake. She didn’t recognize where she was, at first, then remembered she was at Jake and Béla’s. A tiny form was sleeping quietly next to her.

‘I must have mind-linked with her in my sleep,’ Tanya realized.

She also realized something else.

‘Katie went home. She went back to Milan. But… When? How far back into time did you send her with that push, Lisa? How long will it take her to get back?’

Tanya stayed awake a long time. If she remembered correctly, Saint Ambrose’ Basilica was built sometime in the fourth century. If she understood teleportation correctly, Katie couldn’t have gone earlier than that, because she had been concentrating on that specific structure when she’d tried to teleport to safety.

‘How can I get her back? She's could be seventeen hundred years away! If she has to live through that many centuries to get back here, will she even remember me?’

Finally, sometime before dawn, she fell asleep. She didn’t dream, or, if she did, she didn’t remember.

Chapter 5 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rybba lay on the hard cot that Andrew, Simon’s brother, had made for her. It was made of flexible branches tied together with rawhide and wrapped with a thick wool pad. A large sheet sewn from several pieces of lambskin was stretched over that. A blanket made of soft animal hair was available to cover her and keep her warm.

“In heaven, they had beds that move when you touch them,” she told the two brothers. “They adjust to any position for your comfort, and they are softer than lamb’s wool.”

She realized she sounded like a commercial, except she couldn’t remember what a commercial was.

Simon and Andrew had asked her other questions, many of a theological nature. Rybba was incredibly uninformed for a fallen angel. But, they realized, God had taken away much of her memory. She was sent here to learn, after all.

She did remember where she lived in heaven. She had lived in a beautiful room with light shining right through the walls. From her room, she could see images of anywhere in the world, and the music…

‘Oh, the music was so alive and vibrant!’

And when she left her place and went out into heaven, she was surrounded by tall, slender structures that reflected the bright sunlight right into her eyes. They were so tall that they grazed the sky. She would get dizzy looking up, trying to see how far they went.

Rybba never once doubted Simon’s explanation for why she was here on Earth. As the weeks and months passed, she learned to read the strange symbols they used to describe the images in their minds. She even learned to read and write in Greek and Aramaic, although she never really mastered them or the old language of the chosen people well enough to help the scribes in the community with their work of copying the True Words and sending them out into the world.

During the years that she stayed there, Rybba became very religious; an odd statement to make about an angel that was cast out of heaven. But she learned about Jesus and the message of hope and self-worth that He had tried to spread to a barbaric world. He was so pure that others – even those who professed to be His friends – coveted His blood because it could heal in a godly fashion.

She also learned about the advantages of having drunk the blood of the Christ, as they called Him. Those who had drunk from the cup of Christ, either during that last meal when He had revealed His secret to His followers or from the cup that was used to collect His blood as it flowed down from the wound in His side, were almost impossible to kill. Over the many years that followed, each discovered that they were immune to aging, as well.

Rybba came to realize that, somehow, she also had the blood of the Christ flowing in her veins. She had the same ability to heal herself as Simon or any of the others in the community. The appointed leader of the community, Thaddeus Lebbaeus, allowed her to be tested to determine if she were divine, as He had been, or merely a recipient of His divine gift.

Rybba was disappointed to learn that her blood could not cure anyone except herself. But she did have special status in the community because she could speak directly to others, in the same manner as He had, simply by touching them. The ‘unfortunate’ thing about that, as she learned when she accidentally overheard Thaddeus and Matthew discussing her was, basically…

She has nothing to say…

After some weeks, Rybba found her niche in the community. She began accompanying Simon and others when they traveled and needed to barter for goods. Rybba would flirt with the merchants, like a zonah, touching them and sometimes flashing her koos, as Simon called it.

Later, when her companion was bartering with the merchant, Rybba would be in physical contact, innocently holding her companion’s arm. Because of her earlier contact with the merchant, she would still be somewhat linked to him, and she would mentally let her bargaining companion know when cheating was attempted.

Twice, over the years, their little caravan was attacked as they returned laden with supplies for the months ahead. Both times they fought off the thieves. Both times, Rybba was badly wounded. Both times, fortunately for Simon, it was he who was with her, and was the recipient of the incredible sex that Rybba seemed capable of only when she was mortally wounded.

After several years, when it became evident that God was not going to come down any time soon to retrieve his fallen angel, Simon took Rybba as his fourth wife. As a wife, she was disappointed to discover that she was no longer exempt from the mores of the community and was expected to keep her little koos to herself and, of course, be available for Simon.

Stoning was the accepted method of correcting errant morals, and, although Rybba was mostly unkillable, she didn’t much like the idea of a bunch of angry townspeople throwing rocks at her. Besides, if she were caught in an adulteress situation, Thaddeus might make an example of her and cut off her head, sending her soul back to heaven minus her heavenly body. She was quite proud of that body and wasn’t anxious to lose it.

‘Oh, that’s another sin, isn’t it?’

Rybba never had any children with Simon. She really didn’t want children because Simon had told her that any children sired by one who had supped from the cup of Christ would live an unnaturally long life and be cursed by the mortality of those he loved and cherished.

He also believed that, as an angel, Rybba would probably never age. She would live to see Simon and any children she had, no matter how long they might live, die of old age long before she was recalled to heaven. Rybba could see in Simon’s mind that this was the mantel that God had placed on her. She accepted it as she did everything she saw in Simon’s wonderful mind.

She also knew that her independence and fierce pride kept her from being able to receive God’s mercy, but she was, for now, unwilling to give them up as she felt those qualities were what made her who she truly was. She liked who she was, even if she didn’t know her true name.

After another century, what Simon had foreseen for the angel came to pass. Rybba didn’t age at all while Simon and the others in their long-lived community began to grow old and feeble. On his deathbed, Simon once again touched her and joined his mind with hers, trying to make her understand the harsh, lonely road ahead of her. She would suffer endlessly for her pride and arrogance until she learned to truly humble herself before Hwhy. Only then would she be permitted to age and die so she could return to heaven.

Rybba knelt by the side of his bed as they came and carried Simon away to be wrapped and placed in the caves with those who had gone before. Her head was covered, hiding the tears running down her face. She slowly and methodically tore her garment according to their custom. She didn’t cry out her pain and anguish as was customary, for she had known, for the century that she and Simon had shared, that her destiny, her mowt, was to lose all she loved. She accepted that, and did not bemoan her fate.

But none of that meant that she hadn’t learned to love him over the years they were together. Her mentor was gone. That which gave her life meaning was taken from her.

‘Please, God, if you can hear me, please take me home…’ She closed her eyes and wished hard. ‘Take me home…’

The air was suddenly warmer. Inhaling, she smelled candle wax. The incredibly loud sound of church bells blasted the grief from her mind for a moment. Her eyes flew open!

‘I’m in a church!’

Stunned by the sounds surrounding her, she looked wildly around, beginning to panic. She held her hands up to her ears, trying to block out the sounds of the bells. After a moment, they stopped. She could only hear a voice, wailing loudly in protest. After a few seconds, she realized…

‘That’s me making all that noise!’

With an effort, she closed her mouth. Silence fell over her. A priest was approaching, half-walking, half-running. He didn’t look very happy. As he drew near, he began talking to her. Rybba didn’t understand the words he used, but he seemed to be scolding her. He was frowning and looking at her shepherds clothing. His hand and arm motions were unmistakable. He wanted her to leave.

Right now!

Rybba turned to flee and tripped over a padded railing. Her hood slipped, displaying her fiery golden hair. She turned away and half-rose to flee again.

“Attende!” the priest called out, suddenly more friendly. “Ne pas bouger!”

“Kalos?” Rybba asked, still frightened. “Asunetos…”

‘What? I don’t understand…’

“Ah!” the priest said, much more pleasantly. “You speak Greek!”

“Alla,” Rybba replied, and nodded nervously.

She was still backing away slowly, not knowing what to expect from this strange dark-robed figure.

“Where am I?” she asked, not certain if she should give him that kind of an advantage over her.

“In Milan, of course,” the priest informed her. “Specifically, you are standing in the Basilica of Saint Ambrose.”

She blinked several times. The name seemed familiar.

‘Why is this place so important to me?’

“Where is your master?” the priest asked her.

“My master?” Rybba said, not understanding.

“Yes,” the priest insisted. “Your master, your… guardian?”

“Oh,” Rybba replied. She cast her eyes downward. “Nekros.”

“Ah!” he said, suddenly understanding her situation. “Then you are here to join the convent.”

Rybba’s eyes looked sharply upward at him.

“For your year of mourning, of course,” the priest continued, clarifying his question.

Rybba mutely nodded, then waited.

‘They can take care of me until I understand what’s happened to me… until I understand what I should do.’

The priest raised his arm and bade her to follow him.

In the convent, the section of the monastery set aside for women in seclusion, she found life very similar to the life she led in the hills above Murrabba’at. With mortar and pestle she ground herbs and small amounts of grain. She sewed; repairing frocks the priests wore and making garments for the children who lived in the church’s orphanage. She also worked in the kitchens of the orphanage, and, if not there, then in the convent, itself.

Her name, Rybba, was not well accepted among the other women, as it was a word used by the blasphemers who lived across the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Rybba confessed that she did not know her real name, and that her master had named her when he took her from Pavia. When asked if she was an orphan, Rybba admitted that she believed she was, but begged the headmistress’ forgiveness for her inability to remember where she came from or her lineage.

That she was Aryan was evident. They decided that she had been stolen by an unbeliever because of her beauty and taken across the sea as a child.

The headmistress renamed her Mira, because of the misfortune that had befallen her and the way she had been treated, so far, and had the priest baptize her as part of her naming ceremony.

Rybba, now Mira, had to do a month of penance when she claimed she could read and write both Greek and Aramaic. She was not allowed to prove she could, as women were not permitted such things. She fumed at the stupidity of her benefactors (captors), but could do nothing about it. Having learned much about humility from Simon, she quickly recanted and made no more claims of any special talents.

As soon as her month of solitary confinement was finished, she escaped, going ‘over the wall’, literally, after the evening meal. By the time it was determined that she was no longer at the convent, ‘Mira’ was miles away and was hiding among a group of ‘tent women’ who specialized in following caravans and military groups.

Using her ability to merge her mind with those she was in physical contact with, Mira quickly found a new protector and enamoured him to her by sharing her sexual sensations with him.

Her new master, a middle-aged man (around thirty, she estimated) named Fredrick Rutten, was kind enough, and completely taken with his new Aryan acquisition. Like her, he was also Aryan. Unlike her, he spoke in a coarse guttural language that she’d never heard before. Although he was adept with a sword, he had caravan guards available to do any fighting that needed done.

From Milan, Fredrick took her north across the Vosges to Strasbourg. The journey was fraught with peril from bandits, Huns and the weather. As they traveled, Mira spent much of her time huddled in the middle of a wagonload of wool to keep from freezing. At night, there were campfires where she helped prepare and cook the evening meal and food for the next days’ travel. Later in the night, there was Fredrick’s tent and his very comfortable bed of furs.

After the evening meal was cooked, the women melted snow in kettles for water before they were permitted to eat, themselves. The water would be used for washing, later. Mira didn’t mind any work she could do next to the roaring campfires.

‘Anything to keep warm!’

Since she was deemed to be the youngest of the women traveling with the caravan, she was usually one of those picked to gather firewood. She always gathered as much as she could – she wanted a big fire to warm her.

One of the men had shot a deer the day before and had cleaned it yesterday evening. Mira had offered to clean the hide for him in exchange for some of the meat. So today, instead of simply huddling in the warmth of ‘her’ wagon of furs, she sat on the back where she had a surface to work with, and spent most of the day industriously scraping the hide clean.

After the evening meal, she took it back to him. His name was Anthony, and she could see that he was pleased with her work, but he still tried to give her less meat than she thought she deserved. It only took a touch of her hand on his cheek to change his mind.

She carried her prize back to the lead wagon feeling very pleased with herself. She and Fredrick would have extra rations for at least a week because of her ingenui