Jak Koke - Stranger souls

She responded by tearing his shirttail from his pants, up and over his head. Then she was running her hands over the broad flanks of his back, pushing down below his waist, ducking under the edge of his pants to touch his bare skin.

He rolled her over, and they fell to the floor, her on top of him, her skirt up around her waist so that she could straddle his hips. Ryan focused on the swell of her breasts beneath her silk blouse, and he reached up to them, delicately brushing their outline. Nadja began to unbutton her blouse, but Ryan couldn't wait for her. He put his hands between the buttons and ripped the blouse from her body.

He experienced the first vision as he tore her skirt away and pushed his own pants off. A memory from his Ryan past. He and Nadja in Maui, walking hand in hand along a private beach under a moonless sky. Stripping their clothes off and swimming in the dark, clear water. Playing in the surf. Making slow sweet love under the outdoor shower.

Now, in the hotel suite, they were naked on the plush blue carpeting, rolling like desperate teenagers. She was below him now, desire on her face as she arched her back. Her naked legs open to him, her thighs slick and hot.

He moved against her, involuntarily. All control gone.

"Now," she whispered.

He entered her.

She moaned and bit down on his shoulder, her finger nails cutting into the skin of his buttocks. She wanted it rough, hard.

He moved faster. Giving her exactly what she wanted.

Something was happening in his brain. More visions, memories. They began to come as he climaxed. Flooding over him in waves.

He saw the huge sinuous form of Dunkelzahn, a magnificent glowing worm in astral space. Then the image was gone, and he smelled cayenne pepper and baking bread-a goulash meal he'd shared with Sergeant Matthews during a Desert War training exercise.

And the memories continued after, as Nadja bucked violently with her orgasm. Fragments of his life crashing through his brain.

He heard a rumbling roar in his memory. He was very young. An image of Dunkelzahn descending like a fiery bird of prey flashing through his mind. Descending to rescue him. Then he heard a cry of pain, a different scene, much more recent-a few years ago at most. Axler crouched down to help the crying kid who'd caught a stray bullet. Scenes from his life coming back at random.

Now, Ryan lifted Nadja in his arms and carried her to the bed. She drew him down to lie next to her, then rolled on top, straddling him. He put his hands on the rising swell of her breasts and pinched her large brown nipples as she guided him into her. They made love again.

The memories came on. He experienced his love for Dunkelzahn. His training and his many missions; Ryan remembered everything in those hours. He remembered his mission to Aztlan, his discovery of the Locus, his report to Dunkelzahn right before the helicopter came, right before the cyberzombie took him out and drugged him. A shudder passed through Ryan as he lay next to Nadja tracing a delicate circle around the brown oval of her areola as she fell into asleep.

Ryan remembered himself completely.

Lethe longed for Thayla's voice, pined for the touch of her song. He missed her-she who had named him. But his mission was far from complete, and he would not return to her without the Dragon Heart.

Tracking the item had been harder than Lethe had expected. He had felt its power when it was in Dunkelzahn's lair, so its astral resonance was imprinted on him. Therefore, he should be able to find it anywhere in the manasphere.

But its aura had been masked, disguised by the meta-humans who had taken it from the chamber in Dunkelzahn's lair. They had dulled its astral resonance. Weakened Lethe's ability to follow its trail through astral space. But his sense of the Dragon Heart was extremely keen. The tracking had been more time-consuming and difficult, but Lethe still smelled the tendrils of mana that the Dragon Heart left behind. The delicate eddies and currents it created in astral space.

The elves who took it could mask the Heart itself, but not its effect on the astral landscape. Lethe had followed the trail with a growing awareness that this Dragon Heart was an extremely powerful object. Its very presence reshaped the astral background. The effect was slight, very subtle, but Lethe could see it, and he could follow it.

They had taken the Dragon Heart to a place called Eugene, in an elven nation known as Tir Tairngire. In the physical world, the building that held the item looked old, but sturdy. Constructed of concrete and riebar, brick and steel beam. The inside was crawling with spirits and mages playing with enchanted items. There were more items, of various power and potency, at this one location than Lethe had known to exist.

After watching carefully for a time, and trying to avoid detection, Lethe came to the conclusion that the mages and spirits where conducting research on these items. Testing their power and ability. Trying to elucidate the various histories by magically tracing the object's past. Who used it? What for? When?

The basement housed training facilities for what looked like an army, though Lethe was less than well-schooled in the combat practices of metahumans. Lethe recognized the elves who had taken the Dragon Heart talking with more elves. In fact, everyone present was an elf. In the physical world, everyone wore similar black combat armor-close-fitting, but flexible. And they all had something else in common, markings Lethe hadn't noticed before. Each elf was tattooed with a crescent moon under a long sword and a banner.

Lethe honed in on astral resonance of the Dragon Heart, and finally found it in a warded chamber two levels up from the training facility. The ward looked strong in astral space, an electric blue and green glass sphere around the item.

Suddenly, alarms were sounding. He had been detected. Lethe turned to see a line of air and fire elementals coming toward him. "Do not approach me," he said. "I will leave soon, and I do not wish to hurt you."

The elementals ignored him. They had been bound by mages and were forced to obey them. They rushed toward him, trying to surround him. Engulf him.

Lethe extended his will toward them. And as he focused his thought, they disappeared, banished to their home planes. But they had caused him delay. Others would be coming. Mages and shamans, perhaps powerful enough to threaten Lethe. He didn't know the extent of their ability.

He fled for the moment, leaving behind the Dragon Heart. And leaving too his hope to see Thayla soon, and bask in the beauty of her song.

The Washington night was like a sauna, hot and humid around Ryan. He took a deep breath and leaned forward against the concrete banister of the suite's balcony. Far below, to his distant left, the manastorm crackled and sprayed its rainbow light on a crowd of people. "Can't sleep?"

Ryan turned to see Nadja coming through the sliding glass doors to join him. She wore a pearl-colored silk robe, almost transparent. The protruding tips of her nipples pressed against the sheer fabric. But it was her crooked half-smile and the deep, hollow line of her clavicle, showing in the open collar of her robe, that brought a smile of delight to his face. She was truly savory.

"No," he said. "I've remembered everything."

Her eyes widened. "Really? Are you you again?"

"Mostly."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, her arm around his waist. He enjoyed her presence, but his mind was elsewhere. He was watching the manastorm as though Dunkelzahn might spring back into existence if he wished hard enough.

Ryan remembered now first meeting the dragon. He was a boy, just seven at the time, living in the El Infierno housing projects of California Free State. The memory was absolutely clear in his mind. The midnight sky was bright with reflected city light, the noise of traffic subsiding when he heard the chatter of automatic gunfire. A scream came a second later, sounded like his mother, but the pitch was too high. Like the screech of a bird.