Triptych Read online

  Maggie rushed past to get to her room. Not too much damage. A lamp had fallen over and smashed, and one of her bookshelves had spilled most of its contents on the floor. She’d clean up when she got back.

  Throwing stuff in a duffle, she hoisted it to her shoulder and headed for the upper levels. Birdy would wait a few more minutes for her in the hanger. She couldn’t leave until she was sure Paul was okay.

  Paul’s dark eyes widened as she entered the convalescence room in the Xi Force infirmary, and so did his grin. Still, his handsome features were drawn. Pain stood evident on his face.

  She needed to touch him—know he was alive. Stepping to his bedside, Maggie placed her hand on his shoulder. “Hi.”

  His musky male scent blended with the antiseptic hospital aromas in the infirmary room. Gazing up at her, he sighed. “Looks like I’m not getting that Ireland vacation after all. Are you going to be all right?”

  Just like him to be worrying about her. He was the one in a hospital bed with an IV dripping into his arm.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. And I promise to pick us up a proper Irish Whiskey, you know, for your emergency pack.”

  It was a little secret they shared.

  She’d work late in the hanger, he’d come up to check in with her before retiring, and they’d share a drink and some conversation before heading off to their respective beds. It was as close to dating as they could work out.

  Yeah, she saw the attraction, the spark between them they didn’t dare let ignite. Even though they were worlds apart—a Megopolis girl raised in a small fishing village in Ireland and a black kid from the heart of Capitol City. On the surface, they had nothing in common.

  But as they’d talked, they’d shared their dreams of a better world, high ambitions for themselves, and their love and respect for Xi Force. They had a lot in common.

  And she liked him.

  “Get better so the doc clears you for drinkin’ before I get back.” She leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead.

  “You only missed by a couple of inches.” He winked and pursed his lips.

  Dr. Logan warned her the drugs Paul was on would lower his inhibitions. He’d have never done that normally. Still, she wished she could kiss him on those lips. She was sorely tempted, but knew better.

  Regulations. She wasn’t about to risk her position, even for those oh-so-kissable lips.

  She patted his shoulder. “In your dreams, G.I. Joe.”

  In her dreams, too.

  ~ ~ ~

  Paul pulled himself up to watch Maggie’s sexy ass swinging toward the door. It taxed his strength, and the drugs had his head spinning, but it was so worth the effort. The loose hospital gown and the sheet over him tented. Maybe he hadn’t lost as much blood as they said. There still seemed to be enough for that.

  Who was he kidding? He’d lost more than blood. He’d lost his life.

  He’d felt the jagged piece of metal slice into his side and seen his life pass before his eyes—even the stupid stuff.

  Then that light. He’d heard Z-Bot and Shade talking about the times they’d been dead. The light had tempted them to pass over to the other side. It had only been a flicker for Paul, but he’d seen it.

  He ran his hand along the wound. Smooth, not even a scab. Dr. Logan was keeping her silence, but he saw the look in her eyes when she examined him. This healing wasn’t her doing.

  So how? What brought him back from the edge of death?

  Not that he wasn’t thankful.

  Dr. Logan entered, pulling his chart from the end of the bed and making notes from the readings on the monitors hooked up to him. Then she pulled down the sheet to look at his side once again, one eyebrow raised.

  “Level with me, Doc. You have no idea what happened to me, do you?” He had to know.

  She shook her head. “I’m stumped. Your blood was all over that ship, but I have no idea how it got out of you. I have only your word and Maggie’s that you had a puncture wound here. There’s not even any scarring.”

  “And that ship, and the sub-basement no one knew was there?” A whole section of the complex he had no knowledge of. And he was head of security. It didn’t make sense.

  She shrugged. “Not my department. You’re going to have to ask Joel or Aaron.”

  Z-Bot appeared over Dr. Logan’s shoulder, slid his arms around her from behind, and planted a kiss on her neck. “Or you could ask me, when I’m done here.”

  She swatted at him. “Stop that, I’m working. And if you know something about that ship, spill it.”

  Z-Bot pulled back the facemask on his bright yellow and red uniform. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Paul shook his head. “There’s stuff that happens around here every day I don’t believe.”

  Z-Bot chuckled.

  Paul tried hard not to even think of Chris Johnson’s name. Yes, he knew Z-Bot’s secret identity, but most of the world didn’t, and Paul didn’t want to be the one to spill the beans. Whenever he was in uniform, masked or not, he was Z-Bot—the world’s first legitimate superhero.

  Today, Z-Bot’s news took unbelievable to a whole new level. “That craft you landed on? Turns out it’s an alien spaceship.”

  Chapter 2

  Oh, Gran.

  A tear slid down Maggie’s cheek as her gaze struck the casket bearing her grandmother’s body. Her breath caught, and pressure tightened her chest. Still, she fought back the sob that threatened.

  The cloying scent of numerous floral arrangements assailed her senses. The town’s folk had given generously to the funeral, perhaps too generously, but Gran had been loved, that much was obvious.

  Gran lay, features composed, peaceful, at rest. Not the norm for Gran. The woman had been vibrant, animated, alive. She’d been fit, and always busy, bustling about, seeming able to do the work of three people.

  Maggie’s heart ached. Why hadn’t she found some way to come home earlier? To see Gran one more time before . . .

  Erin O’Malley, Maggie’s high school best friend, hugged her. “Oh, Maggie. I’m so sorry. We all loved your gran so dear.”

  The sob Maggie’d been holding back, broke free. Her heart clenched like a fist in her chest. She clung to her friend and let the tears flow.

  Yeah, this would have been easier with Paul at her side. How she wished he could have been here.

  The town folk gathered in the small chapel for the funeral. People she knew, kids she remembered from school, now grown—some with kids of their own. There were lots of tears.

  After the service, Maureen O’Callaghan, a nurse at the local hospital, pulled her aside. “I was there when she passed. It was peaceful, though it took us all by surprise. She seemed so fit.”

  “How did it happen?” Maggie wanted to know.

  “Kelly Murphy was in hard labor. We were afraid we’d lose both her and the baby. Your Gran was there, as she always seemed to be for the rough ones. She had that healing touch, you know. ‘Twas a magical thing. Dr. Walsh and I, well, our focus was on Kelly and her babe. In the end they both pulled through a pretty rough delivery, but we found your Gran slumped in a chair. At first, we thought she was just exhausted, asleep, but she was gone. So hard to believe.”

  Gran had probably worked herself to death. Well, it was the way she’d have wanted to go, helping someone else. She’d always hated the thought of withering away in a bed or a nursing home.

  ~ ~ ~

  Maggie ran her finger along the top of Gran’s triptych. The hinged, gilded three-picture frame sat on Gran’s dresser. The filigreed metal offered a rough texture except where the wear of ages had smoothed the soft gold. This, above everything else in Gran’s home, Maggie needed to keep as a remembrance. She’d make room on her own dresser in her Xi Force apartment.

&nb
sp; Gran said she’d received the triptych from her mother and that it had been passed down through many generations. It was ancient, probably worth a fortune, but Maggie wouldn’t part with it for anything.

  The triptych honored the Morrigan, a goddess from Irish mythology with three aspects. One picture in the triptych honored each aspect.

  The warrior, the healer, and the sorceress.

  On the left, a woman’s hand, haloed in a golden glow, represented the healer. A raven in flight decorated the center frame, representing the sorceress. And a sword depicted the warrior in the rightmost picture, which drew Maggie’s eye to the old sword Gran had hanging on the wall beside the dresser.

  The triptych and the sword represented the only decorative pieces in the small cottage. “You don’t need stuff,” she’d always say, but she’d needed these for some reason.

  “And now I need them.” They were all she had left of the woman who’d raised her after her parents died.

  You need to come home soon, Gran’s last email had said. There are important things we need to discuss I can’t put in this kind of message.

  But Maggie had been busy with Xi Force. They’d saved people, saved Megopolis, maybe saved the world. There hadn’t even been an opportunity to ask for time off.

  Still, it would be nice to know what had been so important to Gran that she’d wanted Maggie to come home? Maybe there’d be something on her computer.

  She sighed. “I should’a found a way to come home earlier, Gran. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn right you should’a come home earlier.”

  Maggie heard the voice from beyond the grave as if it was directly behind her. It couldn’t be.

  She spun. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears as gooseflesh crept up her arms.

  Gran stood in the doorway.

  “Gran. What? How?” She’d seen the woman’s body lowered into a grave less than an hour ago.

  Gran opened her arms. “Come here. Don’t be afraid. It’s me . . . well, mostly.”

  Maggie threw herself into Gran’s arms, hugging the woman to her. It felt like her, it smelled like her, but . . .

  “I was at your funeral this morning.”

  The woman huffed. “A whole lot of cryin’ and carrin’ on, I’ll bet. Glad I missed it.”

  Maggie held her at arm’s length. “I saw you in that casket.”

  Nodding, Gran pulled her out of the room toward the kitchen. “Yeah, that was me . . . kinda. Come, sit down, you’re gonna want a drink for this.”

  She pushed Maggie into a kitchen chair, and tottered to the window, threw open the shutters, and shouted, “Morgan. She’s here.”

  Gran went to the cabinet and extracted the Sexton Single Malt and three glasses. Pouring two fingers of whiskey into each glass, she placed one on the table in front of Maggie and placed a second in front of an empty chair before falling into a seat and taking a sip from her own glass. “Ah, now that’s proper. Sure an’ I hope there’s whiskey in the next life.”

  “Gran, what’s going on? And who’s Morgan?”

  Maggie couldn’t recall Gran ever having a friend named Morgan.

  A flutter of black wings pulled her gaze as a raven landed on the open windowsill.

  “All clear?” Gran said. She appeared to be talking to the bird.

  It launched from the sill, into the kitchen to land on the seat of the open chair on Maggie’s left.

  “Gran?” Maggie pushed herself up to standing as the bird began to grow and morph. Within seconds, it changed into an old woman, the spitting image of Gran.

  “Hello, dear,” Gran’s double said.

  Gran, the first one, huffed and rolled her eyes. “That one always has to make an entrance.”

  “Bah,” the other woman answered. “Do somethin’ right or not at all, I always say, and to answer your question, yes, it’s all clear. Not a neighbor in sight. We should be safe enough for the evening.”

  Maggie narrowed her gaze on the woman. “Who are you?”

  “Call me Morgan, dearie. ‘Twill make things all the easier and I won’t be here all that long in any case.”

  Gran put a gentle hand on Maggie’s arm, guiding her back into her chair. Then she pushed Maggie’s glass toward her. “Take a good one. There’s more in the bottle. Begorrah, you’re probably gonna need it.”

  The amber liquid burned a comforting path down Maggie’s throat as she swiveled her gaze between the two identical women sitting at the kitchen table on either side of her.

  “Now, we’d best start at the beginning,” Gran, the one she was calling Gran, said. “I’m your Gran. We’re both your Gran. But we’re also the Morrigan.”

  Gran had often mentioned the Morrigan, the ancient Irish goddess her triptych honored. The warrior, the healer, and the sorceress.

  Something cold fisted in Maggie’s stomach. “If you are two of the three aspects of the Morrigan, then the body in the casket was . . .?”

  Morgan sighed. “The third. We called her Morgause. She was the healer. Poor dear killed herself saving that mother and babe at the hospital.”

  Gran huffed. “Killed us, too. Did she even bother to think?” She stood and shuffled toward a cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and extracted a notebook. “We wrote everything down, as much as we could compile from old diaries and accounts. We weren’t sure if you’d be able to get home before we passed on.”

  She placed the notebook in front of Maggie on the table. Giving it a pat, she added, “This’ll answer most of your questions after we’re gone.”

  Maybe it was the whiskey. Or maybe it was because Maggie had been with Xi Force, dealing with the incredible on a daily basis, that she didn’t think twice about the impossibility of this whole story. She simply accepted and jumped in. “But you’re here now. You’re alive. You can answer my questions.”

  Morgan shook her head. “Not for much longer. The three aspects can exist only for a few days apart. Eventually they must all rejoin into one. We are only aspects of the person that was your grandmother. This evening Morgana and I will be drawn into that body in the grave. We can’t stay without the third aspect.”

  “Morgana?”

  Gran patted her hand. “The name of my aspect. I’m the warrior. Morgause was the healer. And she’s, well,”—Gran waved her hand dismissively at Morgan—“a right pain in the butt.”

  Morgan huffed. “Long ago, the ancient Celtic gods looked after Ireland. The Morrigan, the original Morrigan, saw the end coming. Religion is a fickle thing that changes generation to generation. She knew eventually the old gods would fade. With Manannan mac Lir, the original Morrigan conceived a daughter and passed her powers on, so Ireland would be protected long after she was gone. Since that time, the power has always passed, mother to daughter, right up to me.”

  Maggie swirled another sip of whiskey around her tongue as she took it all in. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Ah, Maggie.” Gran-slash-Morgana swirled the amber liquid in her glass. “Your mother knew. She was ready to take over when I died. But she died first. Begorrah, you were so little. And by the time you were old enough to tell, you had your heart set on the stars and a career at NASA. An’ I couldn’t take that from ya’, especially because we had no idea if the powers would actually pass to you.”

  Morgan nodded. “The passin’ of the power has never had to skip a generation before. We’re still not sure it even will. Maybe the Morrigan will die with us. But we wanted you to know, just in case, so we wrote it all in that notebook.”

  Remembering how she’d appeared to heal Paul, Maggie looked at her hands. “I think some of the power has already passed to me. My hands glowed and I healed a friend who was injured.

  Both Grans beamed.

  “Then it will pass to you,” Morgana-Gran said.
“You’ll soon have our aspects as well. Don’t worry, the shifting to three aspects is pretty intuitive, not much to learn there.”

  “And the three are still you, though they will each tend to display different parts of your personality,” Morgan added. You’ll get used to thinkin’ of yourself as four distinct people. Morgan, Morgana, Morgause, and of course, Maggie. But they will all be you.”

  “So, who am I now? Maggie or Morgause?” Wrapping her head around this would take some time.

  Morgan shrugged. “I don’t think it matters because right now they are both you and neither can exist separately.”

  Yeah, this wasn’t confusing in the least. A bit more whiskey might help.

  Maggie took a sip as she flipped open the notebook. There, in her Gran’s neat handwriting she read, First off, a warning. Watch for Guinevere . . .

  “Guinevere?”

  Gran downed the last of her whiskey, and banged the glass on the table. “That bitch. If the powers pass to you, she’ll be sure to make an appearance.” She snatched up the bottle, and poured herself another two fingers.

  Morgan refilled her own glass, and added a bit to Maggie’s. “If the powers pass, it will be up to you to stop her, whatever she’s up to this time.”

  “Who is she?” Maggie had never seen Gran so worked up. Both of them were red faced, and it wasn’t the whiskey. Gran had been the one who’d taught Maggie how to drink.

  “A fae, an’ a dangerous one at that,” Morgan said. “Something from the Fairy Realm, brought about by the Morrigan around the time that bastard, Arthur, tried to bully his way into Ireland. It’s all in the notebook.”