83 - The Beginning of the End

Time passed swiftly, and Maia’s twin toddlers were ready to age into children.

Happy birthday Celeste!

Happy birthday Avalon!

Baby Gavin aged up too, and Maia taught her son his toddler skills.

While Gavin played with his IF Tumble, the rest of the family celebrated the teens’ birthdays.

Happy birthday Piper!

Happy birthday Seashell!

Happy birthday Beck!

Happy birthday Storm!

And then it was time for their graduation.  All the kids received highest honors and Piper was chosen to be class valedictorian.

The adult kids all planned to open up their own specialty shops.  Piper would sell rodents and other small exotic pets, while Seashell intended to offer the shells that she found while scuba diving or that washed up on the beaches as vacation souvenirs.  Beck would sell his spare rocks and the gems which Storm cut and polished to gleaming perfection. Maia hugged them all goodbye, and then her young entrepreneurs were off to begin their new lives.

Later that night, after the older kids had moved out, Diana brought Maia another snake she had found.

After being praised as usual, Diana ran back and returned shortly with another snake.

And another.

Had the cat located a snake den near her home?  Maia began to be concerned.  She certainly didn’t want an infestation on her hands and she was worried what might happen if one of the children stumbled across them all, so the next time Diana took off, Maia grabbed a fireplace poker to use as a snake hook—or a bludgeoning weapon, if necessary—and followed her in order to investigate.

She trailed Diana to the Sunwest Graveyard, where the cat immediately went back to stalking more snakes.

Suddenly, there was a flash of power, and standing in the epicenter was a demonic-looking woman who appeared to be a mix of alien and genie.

“Enjoying my little friends, witch?” she asked, as she gestured at the snakes that surrounded Diana.

Maia didn’t remember ever meeting the woman herself, but she realized who it must be—the Serpent Mistress, Kadru!

Immediately, Maia flung a freezing spell at the Iblisan, but Kadru only laughed.

“Your feeble witch magic can’t harm me!  Still, I must admire your boldness, and your skills have improved since we last met. Defeating my djinn and using them as fathers for your baby challenge was also rather ingenious.  You've proven yourself quite the brood mare as well, and somehow were able to survive giving birth to the children of soulless undead—unlike any other woman of this world.  You could have been incredibly useful to me... But I’ve had enough of you meddling with my plans. The final line of the prophecy must be fulfilled!”

Maia’s mind flashed back to the words of the prophecy from the old book she had read while visiting her parents in Shang Simla.

“I will complete the 100 Baby Challenge, and the zombies of the underworld will never be released here!”  Maia shouted.

“Ah, defiant to the end; you were like that in your past life too... But you can’t accomplish your task if you’re dead!”

Faster than Maia could react, Kadru had cast a more powerful ice blast spell than Maia had. 

 Maia was frozen in place!

Trapped in her now immobile body, Maia was still aware of her surroundings, but was unable to do much more than listen to Kadru’s triumphant laughter.  Her mind raced in panic as she realized she was completely helpless.

“How does it feel to know you’ve failed this world?”  Kadru asked mockingly. “How does it feel to know you’re going to die very soon and have your soul placed in a star where you’ll burn in torment once again?”

Maia thought in alarm, how does she know about the star??

“Oh, how I wish you could speak!” Kadru taunted. “Unfortunate side-effect of being encased in ice, I’m afraid. But I can’t have you attempting escape again; I have searched for you for long enough!  And I suppose you’re wondering how I know as much as I do.  It’s obvious really.  I was the one who cast your soul into the deep emptiness of space for safekeeping so long ago... out where Samael could see you but never reach!

“He promised to do anything to get you back, you know,” Kadru continued, “so I simply had to make a bargain with him.  That’s where that little ‘prophecy’ I devised came in. Of course, as long as I keep you from completely fulfilling your task and breaking my curse, I’ll get everything I want.

“Pity you defy me now as you did then; taking over this world would’ve been so much easier had you cooperated with my plans.  But those who don’t learn from their history are doomed to repeat it, and falling stars do entertain me so!”

With that, Kadru’s fingertips glowed with flame as she focused her mental energies as one would do in a great summoning. She then staggered back from Maia as if she had expended a great deal of power.

Maia was left standing there, frozen, as she heard the terrifying whistle of something shooting towards her from the sky. 

She thought of the task she would never complete and the soulmate she would never meet. Maia’s life began to flash before her eyes—the trials she had faced, her moments of triumph, memories of all her children.  And then her mind went even further back, and she began to see images of her past life from long ago; back to when it had all started...

82 - The Snake Pit

Maia’s time-traveling journey had been very eventful for a number of reasons.  She had seen the past with her own eyes, and now knew her dream wasn’t just a fantasy—it had truly happened!   And despite her unanswered questions, she was secure in the knowledge of Sam’s love for her, even in his absence.  Maia still wished she could be with her soulmate now, but she no longer felt the desperate urgency to find him immediately that she once had.  Although she vowed to never forget about him and she was hopeful that their paths would cross again someday soon, Maia was willing to wait for that epic kind of love to come in its own time.  The change in perspective alone calmed her.

Meanwhile, she had her own challenge to continue.  And that was another reason Nathaniel and his time machine had been significant; Maia had confirmed her latest pregnancy.

Not long afterwards, both sets of her twins were ready to age up. 

Happy birthday Piper!

Happy birthday Beck!

Piper and Beck brought their IFs Seashell and Storm to life.

And then twin babies Celeste and Avalon became toddlers.

It was also time for Maia’s twelve teens to attend their prom. Eden was crowned Prom Queen and Beck was voted Prom King.

While the teens were enjoying themselves at prom, Maia had planned on beginning the twins’ toddler training, but she went into labor instead.

She got her toddler daughters busy bonding with their IFs Sugar and Spice.

And then Maia gave birth to a son.

Welcome Gavin!

In the weeks that followed, Maia taught Piper, Beck, Seashell and Storm to drive, and while the teens were in school she taught Celeste and Avalon their toddler skills. 

Time passed, and the quads and their IFs were ready for their birthdays and graduations.

Happy birthday Dax!

Happy birthday Drifter!

Happy birthday Jude!

Happy birthday Rail!

Happy birthday Indie!

Happy birthday Summer!

Happy birthday Eden!

Happy birthday Breeze!

All of them graduated with highest honors and Drifter was named class valedictorian.

Dax and Drifter planned to buy houseboats and live as sailors and fishermen.  Jude wanted to continue collecting insects for scientific study (and eating!), while Rail planned to moonlight as a mixologist until he’d saved up enough to open his own bar.  Indie’s future lay in her talents as a guitarist.  Summer was looking forward to a career as a soccer player.  Eden was going to be a gardener and Breeze wanted to perform as a singer.

Maia wished them all the best and hugged them goodbye. She didn’t have the sense of foreboding when they parted that she’d experienced when Shane and Lucien moved out; or again when Quinn, Rhys and Sierra had left to begin their adult lives.  Perhaps she was simply better at letting go now, or maybe her skill as a fortuneteller had improved to the point that she didn’t foresee dangers lurking where they likely did not exist.

But being able to predict the future didn’t mean life was free of surprises, because shortly after the quads moved out, there was an unexpected birthday. 

Diana had aged into an elder cat.

While she did tire more easily now, Diana’s age certainly didn’t stop her from hunting, and she continued to bring home trophy catches for Maia, for which she was always praised.

But what Maia couldn’t figure out was—why did Diana only bring her snakes?

“Apologies for disturbing you, Mother, but you need to see who is here looking for an audition as a singer!”

Kadru Demoriel was annoyed at being interrupted during her trance, and glared at her groveling son in disapproval.  She left the daily running of her warehouse dive bar and live show venue, The Snake Pit, to her hired staff.  She had been forced to flee the ruins in the Al Simharan desert many years ago, but this particular bar was located in a similarly comfortable climate for Kadru to base her operations in—the desert town of Lucky Palms. But the bar was only a convenient front, and Baal knew better than to bother her with such trivialities. 

Still, it could be important, and her son had proven inept in the past, ruining many of her dark and lovely plots.  The boy was weak, like his father, and even less useful to her.  Kadru left her private office and followed Baal to the barroom, thinking how true it was that if you wanted something done right you must see to it yourself!

But the group she saw assembled at her bar stopped her dead in her tracks. “Do you see the resemblance?” Baal asked eagerly.

As if it wasn’t obvious!  Kadru would have to be blind not to recognize the similarities between the cluster of individuals at the bar and the missing Valafar and Adramelech.  But she also saw in their features something that she was certain that Baal did not—their resemblance to her former prisoner, Maia Lee!

Although she did not show it, Kadru was enraged at the audacity of the witch woman. Not only had she obviously neutralized Adramelech and Valafar, which would explain why Kadru had lost contact with them years ago, but she had further mocked Kadru by using them to father children for her baby challenge! It was an insult not to be borne!

Baal interrupted her thoughts. “I will take them prisoner! They’ll surely reveal the whereabouts of your missing djinn after a bit of torture!” His eyes gleamed with greedy excitement.

 

Although she found the idea of such revenge tempting, Kadru instead said coldly, “After the mess at Area-52 you left me to sort out? I hardly think so!”

“But that wasn’t my fault!”  Baal whined.  “I was the one who told you about the merman the scientists discovered in the lake, and you agreed with my plans for him!”

“I only agreed after the lore you had researched indicated merfolk turn to sea foam after death because they are soulless.  Intelligent soulless creatures would’ve been useful to me as leaders of my hordes of undead when it comes time to take over this world. But you were wrong about the mermaids, Baal!”

“But I thought it was a good thing when we learned that they had souls for you to take, and I had full control of a cloning lab! The new direction of the experimentation was progressing well until the merman escaped and someone talked to the press!”

“Idiot child! The number of souls I can store for later use is still finite! And draining the souls of the merman clones would have only left me with more zombies—just like what happens with all of the other humanoid beings of this planet—and I have an underworld pit teeming with those already!  What I wanted were soulless beings capable of commanding my undead legions! And you lost control of that lab anyway, didn’t you?  As expensive as it was to minimize the consequences of your failure then, mismanagement of this opportunity would be far more costly!”

“So what are you going to do with them?  Just let them go?” Baal asked sulkily.

“Indeed. But you will instruct my staff to allow whichever of them wishes a job to audition and then hire them immediately—I may need them later for a secondary plan.  Now go!” She commanded.

Kadru left Baal to obey her simple orders and returned to her private rooms where she previously had been in deep meditation, communing with her snakes in the desert.  She could see through their eyes and gather information through their senses, which had earned her the title of the Serpent Mistress among the Iblisans. Snakes that possessed higher intelligence were utilized as supplementary guards to her mummies. They warned her of trespassers near her lair now as they did in Al Simhara, which was how Kadru had evaded capture there.

She surmised that if Maia’s offspring with the djinn were in Lucky Palms, the witch herself might also still be near.  Why then had none of her serpent spies ever caught sight of her and reported back?  But Kadru knew witches often kept familiars—especially felines. And she now recalled several instances during her trances when the snakes whose minds she had occupied had been stalked and killed by one particular cat, although at the time she hadn’t considered the possibility that it was the protective animal spirit of her quarry! 

For the Serpent Mistress, the solution was simple; she would release additional snakes into the desert after she had charmed more of them to do her bidding and had marked them with her dark kiss.

Eventually at least one of them should get a glimpse of Maia if she remained in Lucky Palms, and then Kadru would learn all she needed to know through their eyes. “You can’t eliminate them all, kitty!” Kadru chuckled to herself.

After releasing the snakes, Kadru went into her storage room where she kept the souls she had torn unwillingly from her victims, along with those that had been bartered to her in exchange for immortality. It was a great frustration to her that Baal’s father had never completed the creation of a vessel that could store them all while still allowing her instant accessibility; they took up far too much space separately for her to keep as many on hand as she would like, and she was required to leave most of them packed in their crates.

But store them she did, for when consumed, the souls enhanced her already extraordinary powers.

If you want something done right you must see to it yourself, Kadru thought again, and she fully intended to deal with the meddling witch herself, once the serpents had located the woman. And it would be wise to add to her already considerable power as she waited—now, while she still had the time to enjoy the experience fully. 

Kadru devoured her first soul of the night with fiendish pleasure.

It was... delicious.