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A cold cat nose woke Anne on Thursday morning. She opened her eyes to Vivienne who greeted her with a small peep. “You know you aren’t supposed to wake me up, Ms. Viv.” She looked at the alarm. The clock read nine-thirty. “Were you wondering if I was going to sleep forever?” She ruffled Vivienne’s ears. “Who’s hungry?” she called out. Merlin let out a loud meow and jumped on top of Anne, pushing under her hand. “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing, “let me up.”
After putting down some dry food for the cats’ breakfast and finishing her morning ablutions, Anne settled on the couch and began her daily routine. First she spent a few minutes calling on the directions to create a mobile ball of light around herself. Grandmother Elizabeth had taught her what she called psychic self-defense. Anne noticed a stag in the east, a black wolf in the west. Once her visualization of this circle was strong, she asked for protection against any energy not in her highest good and a signal if significant negative energy was directed her way. Then she started to record her dreams from the night before, but they’d fled with the morning light. She closed her eyes and relaxed, allowing images to surface. Nothing came. Dr. Abernathy had told her dream recall could be aided by lying in the same position she’d slept in, so she lay down on the couch and let herself drift. After a minute, a memory surfaced.
Elizabeth had come into her room and asked Anne to follow her. Anne got up and walked down the hallway, but noticed little things had changed about the house. The walls looked lighter than usual, and when they reached the spiral staircase, the old chandelier from Anne’s childhood hung from the ceiling.
Elizabeth led Anne into the ritual room where people were gathered over the large crystal. Anne nodded to her cousin Rebecca, Dr. Abernathy, and several other members of her grandmother’s group. She looked into the crystal and saw an unlikely scene, the Sphinx with the face of a lioness surrounded by water and green palms.
Surprised, she looked up and saw a tall, willowy woman smiling at her from the other side of the circle. She was vaguely familiar. Anne turned to ask her grandmother who the woman was, but found herself staring into a tall silhouette of light. She looked down at her own arm and saw that it was glowing as well. She wondered what had happened to her body. With that thought, she woke up in her bedroom. Anne had sat up and looked around, then turned over and gone back to sleep.
Now on the couch, Anne sat straight up again, scattering two cats and the journal. “Oh, my God.” During her lesson in self-defense, Elizabeth had promised to come wake up her astral body and take her on a journey. This must have been it, although Anne had imagined something more exotic than a trip to the ritual room. Anne threw on a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt and went running in search of her grandmother. She found Elizabeth in the office dictating to her private secretary and came to an abrupt halt just inside the door.
Elizabeth held up a finger while she finished the letter she was dictating and gave instructions for its distribution. Anne thought she caught a tiny smile behind the serious face. Elizabeth turned to her. “What is it that can’t wait until our appointment, my dear?”
After the secretary shut the door behind her, Anne plopped in a chair in front of the expansive desk and explained what she’d just remembered. As she talked, Elizabeth’s smile widened. Anne finished with a barrage of questions. “Did it really happen? Do you remember it? Why did the house look different? Who—what was that tall being of light I saw?”
“One at a time, please.” Elizabeth counted off each answer on her raised fingers. “Yes, it really happened. I’m pleased you remembered the experience. Two, the house looked different because the astral plane is not an exact duplicate of the physical, as you saw. Physical objects leave a signature that can last for a while, although that chandelier isn’t new. You probably saw it because you liked it so much as a child. The mind has a stronger impact on that level of existence. Three, I didn’t see any tall light being.”
“I still can’t believe I did it.”
“You did. Congratulations. And the rest of your assignment?”
“The rest?”
“You were supposed to search for your spiritual guides.”
“Oh, Thomas took all afternoon and part of the evening telling me family history. I fell asleep meditating when I got back to my room.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “He can have that effect at times. He’s a walking encyclopedia, although when he speaks to the public, he has some of your Uncle James’s charisma. How far back did he get?”
“To the man himself. I’d pretty much figured out the flow of things, but Thomas felt compelled to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. This afternoon, he’s promised to explain the current balance of power—as if I don’t understand that.”
“There are certain things you’ll see differently now.” Elizabeth sat looking at Anne for a moment, then roused herself from her reverie. “Well, tomorrow Dr. Abernathy will be back and you two can meet for instruction. I’m pleased you remembered our little jaunt. Perhaps we’ll do it again.”
“Let’s go somewhere exotic.”
“We go where we need to. Now back to work.”
Anne returned to her room to finish her morning routine of meditation and work with the crystal. She closed the blinds and cradled the small crystal in the palm of her hand. Closing her eyes, she allowed her mantra to settle her mind and breath. The silence deepened. After about ten minutes, Anne sent a mental request into this quiet: I want to meet my spiritual guides. Then she returned to the silence.
Vivienne rubbed against her, but settled down on her left. Merlin took up a post at her right hand. She returned to her mantra to regain the depth of silence, then sat waiting. After a moment, she saw a glow beginning in her forehead. Trying to follow Dr. Abernathy’s instructions, she didn’t reach for this glow, but continued to observe it neutrally.
The glow spread and brightened, then began to take a human shape. Again she saw the woman from last night’s excursion—tall and willowy with reddish blond hair. The woman moved closer and sent the thought to Anne, “Hello, Anne.”
“Hello,” Anne sent back. “Do I know you?”
The figure shifted slightly, the face growing more solid and slightly older. Suddenly, she was wearing riding clothes and Anne saw the two of them riding across the estate, Anne on her favorite childhood pony.
“Cynthia?”
“Yes, darling, I am near you always now. You must go to Egypt to finish what I began. You will receive guidance.”
A noise from outside distracted Anne momentarily. The figure of her aunt faded and she could not make out all of her last words. Something about trusting someone. Anne tried to return to the silence, but no images formed after repeated requests.
Anne remembered her aunt’s words on the letter that had accompanied the crystal: “Call for me in your dreams, and I will come.” When she’d read that letter, she’d never imagined that Cynthia literally meant for Anne to call her, that Cynthia would respond—with advice, with emotional support. Anne returned the crystal necklace to its accustomed place around her neck. She’d come a long way in a few short weeks. Maybe she didn’t have to do this alone after all.
She glanced at the clock on her bed stand. Eleven already. Time to meet Arnold for another training session. The martial arts he’d taught her in her early teens were returning more easily than she’d imagined. She had to see Thomas at two o’clock. She sincerely hoped he wouldn’t drone on as he had yesterday.
After she’d succeeded in throwing Arnold across the gym, Anne’s spirits were high. It wasn’t every day you put the family’s head of security flat on his back. But it was quarter past two and she hadn’t eaten. She stopped by the kitchen to request that lunch be sent to the library for her. “And tea for two, if you don’t mind.”
Estelle nodded. “I’ll send someone as soon as I can.”
Thomas was ending a phone conversation when she arrived. “Thank you, Ralph. We’ll need to leave in a few days.” He motioned for Anne to come in. “My secretary will make the hotel arrangements. Let her know when you have a flight plan.” He hung up.
Anne raised her eyebrows in a question.
“Just a quick trip to verify some information. I know you’ll miss our discussions.”
“Your lectures, you mean.”
Thomas laughed. “Ready for more?”
“Estelle is sending up lunch.”
“Let’s sit.”
Brother and sister settled down on the two couches in front of the fireplace, facing one another. “First, do you have any questions from yesterday?”
“Just one. How do you remember it all?”
“Actually, we learned this from the branch of our family that descended from the priestesses of Avalon. The Druids, especially the bards, had to memorize long ballads and stories. We’ve retained certain mnemonic devices from that time. Any other questions?”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m about to be tested?”
“Oh, how perceptive you are. Now tell me the flow of our ancestry.”
“Okay, but do I have to remember all the names?”
“No, that’s my job.” Thomas wove his fingers together and sat back, ready to listen.
Anne closed her eyes and recited the story of their family from Jerusalem to France, then to Scotland and on to America.
“A passing summary.” Thomas’s eyes twinkled. “I’m glad to see you can learn while you’re asleep. That is usually an ability only long-term adepts develop.”
Anne opened her eyes and saw Thomas’s lips twitching. “Then there’s Lila Mae, your current wife, the ex-prostitute,” she said.
“The same profession as Mary,” Thomas pointed out. They both burst out laughing. Someone knocked on the library door. “Yes,” Thomas asked, between guffaws.
“Lunch for Miss Anne.”
“Oh, excellent.” Thomas jumped up and opened the door. Anne took a bite of her salad. Thomas poured himself a cup of peppermint tea, stretched his legs in front of him, and began to narrate another series of historical events.
“You’ll notice the Romans have been responsible several times for hunting down our ancestors and attempting to eliminate them. The Romans in the form of the empire and in the form of the Holy Roman Empire, and then the Roman Catholic Church. These empires had certain characteristics in common. A strong military. A militaristic culture. Oppression of women. A patriarchal family structure.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “A belief in the ultimate superiority of their own group of people and enslavement or oppression of others. The broader Christian Church shared some of these as well, plus an enforced allegiance to a set of beliefs that if questioned could result in torture and murder. They added to the mix a conviction that other spiritual beliefs are evil or demonic.” Thomas looked pointedly at Anne who paused with her fork midway to her mouth. “In fact, they invented the devil as we know him today. Does all this sound familiar?”
“Invented the devil?” she asked.
“Used the image of the pagan god of fertility. The Horned God—Pan in southern Europe, Cernunnos in the British Isles.”
Anne scowled. “Why did they hate sex so much?”
“I think it was part of their attempt to suppress the priestess tradition, but we don’t have time to talk about that today. . . . During the eighteenth century, the French and American revolutions loosened the grip of the corrupted aristocracy and church, which spread across Europe in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, however, the philosophy of control went through another revival, especially in central Europe.”
“Thomas, they do still teach history in some four-year colleges. Even the occasional high school.” Anne finished off her salad.
Thomas ignored her. “The roots of this movement we’re discussing go all the way back to 1776, when a man who was from a distant branch of our family, Adam Weishaupt, was seduced into the abuse of power. In turn, he accused the British branch of the order of being corrupt. In truth, there was some corruption in both groups. Weishaupt was the head of the Bavarian Illuminati, a group most likely descended from the Teutonic Knights.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar.”
This was the group Hitler attempted to resurrect in the Third Reich when he tried to create the third Roman Empire.”
“Ah.” Anne wiped her hands and pushed away her empty tray. “Same philosophy, different century.”
“Exactly. Our concern today lies with the Nazis.”
“But they were defeated.” At Thomas’s look, she quickly said, “Okay, some of them may still live in the mountains in South America, but so what? They have no real political power.”
Thomas pursed his lips. “So most of the public believes, but the real situation is much more complicated. During the war, certain industrialists and politicians supported the Nazi agenda. Some were just doing business, supplying the gas, the ammunition, building their own financial empires. But some had ties to an old mystical order, the Knights of Malta. This group also fell from the light and still recruits the brilliant and powerful in a certain well-known American university, using an old Templar symbol, the skull and cross bones, but that’s an entirely different subject. Anyway, when Berlin fell at the end of World War II, certain elements within the industrial and governmental alliance brought German scientists over to continue the research they’d been pursuing. You may have heard of Project Paperclip? They also protected the Nazi governmental officials they’d made deals with. Thus the Teutonic Knights and the Knights of Malta joined forces.”
Anne got up and poked the fire. “Thomas, are you reciting a plot from The X-Files?”
“No, my dear sister, they leaked information to the American public.”
She turned around to stare at him. “So now everything is a conspiracy.”
“You tell me how they killed Uncle James and got away with it, not to mention the Kennedys, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X—” He gave up counting. “All the others.”
She was silent for a moment, remembering her shock when she’d realized the official government report about her uncle’s assassination was only a cover-up. “I guess you have a point, but wasn’t that a simple coup? A combination of forces that refused to allow him to change the course of the government?”
“Yes, a combination of forces. That’s exactly what I’m explaining to you.”
Anne sighed as she settled back on the couch. “Okay, Thomas. Actually, this kind of conspiracy is much easier to believe than certain other wild notions you’ve managed to convince me are facts.”
Thomas nodded. “This group includes international industrialists, bankers, scientists, politicians, and high-ranking military and intelligence officers. Since the Second World War, this group has conducted advanced scientific study in many areas, including continuing work in physics that was begun by the Manhattan Project and work in genetics that was started in the concentration camps.”
Anne shuddered.
“It is grisly. All this clandestine research necessitated recruiting people within legitimate government agencies; thus black ops began with the OSS, which developed into the CIA, and with the FBI, NSA, and branches of the military. These people operate outside the law. Add to this the private armies, if you will, of corporations and the world’s wealthiest families . . .”
Thomas sat forward, warming to his subject. “In fact, that is what makes this group so invisible to the average person. They think in terms of nations, of diplomacy, of international law being administered by the United Nations, a group made up of nation states. But the twentieth century was really run by this loose association of people whose agenda was dominated by economics. That’s who is really running the world.”
He jabbed the air with his index finger. “Politics is a camouflage, a decoy to keep public attention from seeing the real power. Affairs of state are largely controlled by these forces. It’s obvious the American presidential election was controlled, but people dropped that fact from consciousness as soon as the war began. If they’d remembered it, perhaps they could have seen the other agendas at work.”
“Well, to be absolutely accurate, Thomas, Uncle James didn’t exactly win fair and square either.”
Thomas closed his eyes for a minute, then looked at her. The depth of sorrow she saw there surprised Anne. “Thomas.” She reached to touch his hand, but he waved her away.
“It’s okay, Annie. It’s just that the amount of corruption on the other side would have swept us away, and we felt we had to do something. And by other side, I don’t mean political parties.”
“Why maintain the pretense of a democracy then? Why don’t the forces just come out of the shadows?”
Thomas gave a cynical laugh. “Because it’s easier for them this way. People believe they’re living in one world, and the powers that be don’t want to jar them from this happy dream. And we want the idea of democracy to still be taught to people, because the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, is the embodiment of the Davidic ideal of government. We can’t throw that away just because it’s not being followed now. If we play our cards right, we can regain control and make it real again.”
Now his eyes shone. “Besides, it’s not that simple really. There are positive forces within the shadow government. There are highly developed souls who’ve incarnated into these families to try to turn the course of history. And the projects some of the groups are doing involve psychic activity, work that necessitates the development of spiritual abilities. This is a dangerous game for the shadow organizations, although I don’t believe they realize it, because this type of effort is the way souls evolve. People developing their psychic abilities to spy on other factions sometimes have a spiritual awakening and begin to work for the light.”
Anne put her tea, long cold, on the tray. “Why not recruit them?”
“We do. But most often we ask them to stay where they are. Their very presence affects the shadow side. This is a game of consciousness as well as physical actions. Our aim is to raise the consciousness of the world so that there is so much coherence, so much light, that the negative power plays melt away like snow in the sun.” He pointed out the window behind him, then frowned when he realized the sun was on its way down.
Anne nodded toward the growing darkness. “That sounds very much like wishful thinking. Believing that some magic wand might return our influence could be just a way to ease your wounds.” She softened her voice. “You know you can never run for office. You might as well go stand in front of a target at the shooting range.”
Thomas looked up at her with a smile. “Yes, but don’t you see? All that does is free me to work behind the scenes where the real action is anyway.”
Anne studied her brother for a minute. Tall, handsome, articulate, brilliant—he was made for leadership. “I’m sorry, sweet prince.”
Thomas waved her words away. “Thank you, Annie, but I believe this, you see, so I’m not as sad as you imagine.”
Anne stirred on the couch. “Where do we stand now?”
With the crystal. As I told you the other night, the prophecy is for this time. Many religious and spiritual groups—the Maya, the Aztec, the Hopi, the Western metaphysical groups, the Vedic masters—point to now as the time for the return of the light. It’s the turn of a major cycle in astrology, the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. We must do our part to bring in this age. We must uncover the secret of the crystal and get you ready to use it. And we must find the other five.”
“I’m working hard.”
Thomas nodded. “Has Grandmother told you about the Star Alignment?”
“No, but Dr. Abernathy did.”
“So you know the date when you’re supposed to use the crystal?”
Yes, the alignment will take place February first—but that’s only a month away. Oh, my God, Thomas, I’ll never be ready. There must be a mistake.”
Thomas shook his head. “There’s no mistake. And you will be ready.”
☥☥☥
On Friday around ten o’clock in the morning, Anne, flanked by two Secret Service men, got into the back of a limousine. Arnold rode up front and a man she was not familiar with had replaced Lawrence, the regular chauffeur. She thought this was overkill. After all, whoever was after the crystal had only broken into her apartment. It was unlikely they’d attack her in public, but her grandmother had insisted.
Anne thought two guards would have done, but the family didn’t entirely trust the Secret Service. At least they were trained to be discreet, not just in public, but to allow the privacy of their subject as much as possible. Neither of them met her eyes or addressed her unless she spoke to them. Anne settled back in the leather seat with a sigh and closed her eyes, trying to relax.
She’d spent the week meditating long hours, scrying until her eyes crossed, studying with Dr. Abernathy, and training with Arnold. Now she was able to drop into an altered state almost at will and during scrying had discovered historical information about the crystal that Thomas had verified in large part. Her dreams had returned in force as well, showing her scenes from Celtic Britain, Jerusalem, Tibet, Mexico, and Egypt. These she puzzled over.
Dr. Abernathy was pleased with her progress, but she still felt frightened and woefully ill prepared. Today was the thirtieth of December, almost the end of the year. She had one month to hone her skills, discover the other five crystals, and find out where they should be used and how. It seemed impossible.
Anne looked out the window as the freeway exits zoomed by. This trip was a welcome distraction, a return to familiar territory. The speech, scheduled for months, was a fundraiser for a United Nations committee on International Women’s Rights. The speech was pretty much routine, a plea to improve the harsh conditions many women lived under, to ensure women had the money to raise their children, to encourage the availability of birth control, education, the vote—all the rights Western women had gained less than one hundred years earlier. People forgot that. It always helped to remind them. As she leafed through the eight pages of her speech, she reflected how, when she’d written it, she could never have imagined how her life or beliefs were going to change. She smiled as she imagined adding a paragraph about the erasure of women from the history of Jesus, explained by one of his granddaughters, many centuries removed.
They arrived and Anne began the slow process of taking her seat—greeting people she knew, posing for the press, listening to news from colleagues or pleas for her support, and giving polite, noncommittal responses. Finally, she made it to her place on the podium and the formalities began with a brief welcoming address from the chair of WomenWatch, one of the committees sponsoring the gathering. As she listened, Anne suddenly felt an odd prickling at the small of her back. Surreptitiously, she stretched her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck, but the sensation only increased. Puzzled, she tried to move to a more comfortable position in her chair, but the sensation didn’t change.
After a minute, she realized with a shock that this was the warning she had requested if negative energy was sent to her. The morning protection ritual had become almost a habit, something she gave little thought to. Furtively, she glanced around the room. She didn’t notice any unusual behavior, but found her eyes kept returning to one table where a muscular man with dark hair and sharp eyes sat, not noticeably looking at her. But by now, Anne trusted her intuition. Just as she was about to dismiss him as a candidate, he looked directly at her and the prickling at the small of her back intensified. She felt a chill as their eyes met, but she schooled her face not to show any reaction and kept her eyes moving. Instead of feeling afraid, she was pleasantly surprised that her new tools had worked.
Turning her attention back to the front table, Anne noticed lunch was quietly being served as the chairperson finished her introductions. Anne’s mouth watered when she saw the plates were piled with mounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, and mixed vegetables surrounding a good cut of steak. She took her fork in hand when her plate arrived, but she found only mixed vegetables, a fruit salad, and a small mound of cottage cheese. Anne tried to smile as she thanked the waiter. Her neighbor to her left pretended not to notice, but she mouthed “Doctor’s orders” to him, and he nodded politely, obviously not understanding.
I thought we were trying not to draw attention to our activities, she mentally addressed herself to her grandmother.
She ate quickly, preparing to be called to the podium. After everyone else had been served a tiramisu and coffee, the chair introduced Anne. Once behind the podium, she warmed to her subject, surprised how much she was enjoying this brief return to what had been her normal life.
“The suffering endured by women under the Taliban rule captured our attention and opened our hearts to the plight of women everywhere, but now that the war against terrorism has become old news, let us not waver in our resolve.” She outlined her own plan of action, which just happened to correspond with the committee’s own platform, which she as a member had helped to formulate. When she finished her speech, she acknowledged the enthusiastic applause, then took her seat and listened attentively to reports from various countries on their progress. She almost forgot about her new responsibilities.
After another hour of socializing with the committee’s financial supporters, Anne worked her way through the crowd, assuring colleagues she would be back, she hoped in the spring, and answering personal questions from the press with the simple phrase, “Family business, I’m afraid.”
Once outside the room, Anne told Arnold about the man she’d noticed, including exactly what seat he’d been in, and carefully described him.
Arnold went back inside, leaving her with the Secret Service men for a minute. They ushered her outside. Waiting for her limousine to pull up, flanked by two men in black suits, each with a small earphone and wire stretching under his collar, Anne suddenly noticed a familiar face in the crowd. Michael Levy stood behind the first row of onlookers, a slight frown on his face as he scanned the crowd.
She called out, “Michael.”
His head turned around sharply and a smile broke out on his face.