Trinity of Aether: Book One: Charge of the High Priestess

Chapter Twenty-Two

Felicia couldn't help but to examine her body as she was propelled upwards and out. Although she didn't mind being naked, she was happy to find herself now dressed in a super-comfortable velvet track suit, hot pink and sparkling with glitter.

Supersaturated colors that would blind any mortal eye with their vibrancy now bled from her like watercolors on paper. The pink of the suit, the scarlet of her hair, the porcelain white of her skin, the emerald in her eyes all radiated like sunbeams out from her.

Her attention was ripped to the tunnel she now hurtled through; a tunnel of the same consistency of her present form, rippling energy of magnificent color. She rocketed faster and faster before bursting back into the filthy office space. Changed like herself, the office burned with intense color, and in place of the grotesque CEO, a fat blue goat bleated and cowered in fear as she approached it.

Sensing an approaching energy from behind her, she turned and recognized Eddie drenched in brightness. Even his raven black hair seemed somehow to shine with light.

Eddie was not alone. On either of his sides were the Satyr and the Woman whom she had last seen on the Tollman Bridge so long ago it seemed. Felicia was confused to see that they all wore bright pink togas that sparkled like ugly prom dresses. Although the Woman looked ravishing with her chocolatey skin and thick ebony hair set against the bright pink, the men seemed very unhappy with the costume decision. In particular, the Satyr, whose hairy broad shoulders strained against the thin sparkling fabric, and whose bushy eye-brows were knitted together in such a displeased scowl, forced an unintended laugh from Felicia's mouth. His scowl darkened, and he crossed his short burly arms across his chest.

"We must travel to the Arena. It's the only place where good may destroy evil permanently," the Woman spoke, her voice was saturated with vibrating sound, just like her color.

"Secure the goat," the Satyr commanded. His voice resonated a lower pitch that vibrated through Felicia's teeth, pricking up gooseflesh on her glowing white skin. Felicia looked down with pity on the poor crying creature huddled under the desk. Noticing her expression, the Satyr added in his booming earthy voice, "Think about his crimes to the Earth and all her inhabitants. Don't pity a monster, no matter its cowardice."

She nodded her head in understanding and scrambled under the desk to capture the goat who kicked out fiercely, shrinking away into the corner. Reaching out to grab him, she flinched back. His yellow rotting goat teeth clicked together in the place her hand had just been. She huffed, frustrated, and after asking the wind for a little assistance, whisked him across the filthy carpet to her outstretched arms.

At this demonstration of her power, the goat bleated an earsplitting scream of terror. Seizing the moment, Felicia grabbed him and held him fast to her chest, restraining his head and legs as best she could. He kicked and screamed as she willed herself to soar up through the office ceiling behind the others. Unobstructed by the walls or roof of the building or even any wind resistance, they rushed straight into the sky.

The sun dripped, overfull of liquid golden color in the brightest blue field of sky. The cityscape beneath them was like a shoreline covered in bright bits of colored sea glass. Even the dirty brown expanse of water now glowed with a deep rich brown like a pool of melted chocolate.

The goat squirmed in her grip as they entered the dead vacuum of space, an endless sweeping darkness with tiny scattered pinpricks of color throughout: planets, stars, matter.

Their pace quickened. First she glimpsed a silver orb hovering on the far side of the earth, then the oxidized reddish brown of Mars, asteroids, the storms and stripes of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn. Faster still, they pressed on past gas and ice giants, burning suns of brown, yellow, and red, galaxies, and nebulae, and the sucking black infinity of black holes. All the while, her body shuddered in terror; her eyes shown in wonderment, reflecting the impossible universe back at itself like two warped convex mirrors; and her brow lifted with curiosity at the many great and terrible celestial bodies.