Of Gods and Demons [closed]

Much of the words in this building -spoken, written, or thought - were hurtful. A god can exist in the temple of another without even a blink, in fact that is where the best recruiting takes place, yet when the whole of one’s follower’s are based on the hatred and cover-up to the past one can not help but to grow anger. Mars was helped only by the objective of their purpose in the ‘Saints Methodist Church’, and distractions from deep inside his mind.

To manage himself in this temple, Marty knew it was in part presentation. Marty brought Chelsea. Of course, he lied to her, saying this was just a recruiting mission, but all gods are always allowed to lie to their followers --in fact lying to your followers was a liberty that bore out of necessity. They sat in a pew not quite in the back, but not the last row - equally as a way to be seen and not given full attention. The two made sure to not appear as a couple, down to orchestrating their body language for most the morning. He sat slightly overdressed for most in the room, choosing to wear a navy blue blazer over a blue dress shirt unbuttoned and without a tie, matching his khaki pants. Warmer than most sitting in here, but he needed the blazer for his own protection. The outfit also made him look older than the girl, who went for a much younger yet conservative look. He, of course, would be recognized as the new school football coach; but as they dressed she could be mistaken for a younger relative and not at all a lover. Yet, followers of a God of War are typically young men, and Chelsea appearing to be ‘just a friend’ would have the added benefit that she could use her schoolgirl charms and gain more followers afterall.

Most of it was easier for her than him though. As he sat at the modest ‘old world inspired’ chapel, images floated through his head of Ziva. The night before, her caramel colored skin spun under bath water as he floated above him. He did what he could to ignore it as the job of protecting her dreams was the utmost importance. Now that his guard was down, all those memories sloshed about as images of her naked body writhed in his head.

As the service began, something new came to his head. It wasn’t just her, it was the two of them. Laying on his side along a pond, their naked bodies touching each other lightly in the summer sun. He could taste her lips on his, sweet like candy. Feeling her body as smooth as silky chocolate. Hungry to pull her close and find the right way to make her melt.

The feeling was intoxicating, the punishment of the moment like sweet torture. Yet above all else, it was the final sign of what he wished could only be true. She was calling to him the way Ishtar did all those ages ago. She may do it now by simply letting her carnal needs grow more in control, but it was a true calling and a need that filtered in messages that he knew he would have answer.

What only held him back from finding her was this now his duty. She knew not what she was, and it would be different if he was the only one who knew. Yet the appearance of one of the seven archangels in this small town was likely no coincidence. Before Ziva could explore who she may be, she needs to be kept hidden.

Chelsea scratched something in her hymnal, bringing Marty back to the here-and-now. “Him.”

Looking up to the altar, there was an elderly man in robes and a black color. His liver spotted skin on his face and thinning white hair would make the suggestion of being no younger than late 60s. He was reading some of the minor verses, a side job for a visiting pastor surely. None of this congregation would mistake the man for someone who would be staying for a while; because they would be expecting him to not make it much longer in this career anyway before he sees his heavenly father. In a way, it made sense to Marty, someone guaranteed to have an out plan for his departure. Plus it made sense for Uriel, one who was prone to want to defeat the enemy with one arm tied behind his back. Yet there were so many followers to their God’s cause, sending an Archangel on temporary assignment screamed of trouble.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to listen to Ziva’s calling.

Once again, the message changed. Once again, it wasn’t what he expected. Not the visions of passionate lovers deep in embrace, not the madness of lust just beyond that of youth, but of something far simpler and far more subtle. They walked through green lawns, amongst trees, past simple structural gazebos. They were silent, happy, and their only touch fingers encircled in embrace. They weren’t moving like a new couple enjoying the cliche of long walk in the park; no, this was the simple gestures to remind a long time companion that they were still there, that they still were close, and that they were still loved.

Throughout the millennia, Mars had taken more lovers than one could even begin to count. He had felt the pleasure of hundreds of virgins, the softness of acres of flowers, and the passion of choruses of poets. He had spent centuries with some, days with others.

This simple vision Ziva sent now, this innocent hand in hand walk, this subtle touch between long time loves - this was something he never felt before. It made his heart rush like none had ever made it rush before.

When the congregation started to rise and pick up their belongings, he came back to the here and now, and readied himself as well. It was no small task as Ziva was leaving him overheated and aroused. They had wandered out to the warm sunny day standing on the chapel’s steps as they chatted and met some of the locals. Marty received the concern to many of the locals now that the team had dropped a couple of games, but had to deflect the rumors of him starting the back-up quarterback as well. The talk was something that energized him, like those readying for battle. It was energizing, but it was of course fleeting.

“Hello again my dear,” an elderly voice came behind them. “Is this the boyfriend you were telling me about?” The question wouldn’t be what everyone would be thinking, but this was Uriel and if it meant hurting through words, he would attempt it.

“Oh heavens,” Chelsea chirped, “Father Sunbury! Good to see you again,” she continued calming down. “No, Mr. Arthur isn’t my … that is, he is my neighbor and I wanted to check out your church after we met the other day, and he was interested as well after your note.” That’s when she rolled with the boyfriend comment in a way that was sure to get the heat off. “Besides, he’s too old for me.” She burped with laughter, “not that you are old, Mr. Arthur, I’m just saying.”

“Remind me to take you off my Christmas Card list, Chelsea,” Marty quipped back gaining laughter from the group. Chelsea and Marty were deep in a conversation with about seven other members of the congregation either who knew him or her when the old pastor arrived. The comment though wasn’t missed with it’s intent to embarrass the football coach. If Marty needed any more convincing this was Uriel, that was all he needed to hear. Formality enough he turned to the old man and offered it to shake. “I am Marty Arthur … Father Sunbury is it? Is that Angleican?”

“German,” he said taking Marty’s hand and palming with the other while he shook it. His face gave a bit of a sneer; the start of the Anglican church wasn’t all that welcome by his side - so he knew it was a shot, and confirmed I knew who I was talking to with his reaction. “You are the football coach, are you not my boy?”

“Yes, father, I am.”

“Good good,” he said still cupping Marty’s hands in both of his. “I have been meaning to speak with you, and I would like to know if you would support the church giving a benediction before each game.”

The comment came with much approval from voices around him, but Marty just had to hide gritting his teeth. “I appreciate the thought, but it would best for me to stay out of such a discussion,” he replied. “All due respect, Father, but I have only been on the job for a few weeks, and need to focus on things less controversial.” Marty shifted somewhat uncomfortably. The blazer hanging tightly on his shoulders as he tried to build his strength from those who still sided with him.

“Well, maybe, we can talk about it more,” he said as he started searching through his robes. “May I have your phone number so we can meet for coffee sometime.” He kept digging around where his pockets would be underneath and before Marty could respond he spoke up, “come with me. I seemed to left my phone in my office, come come.” The old man waddled off back inside the church.

It wasn’t the confrontation that he wanted, but he knew this would have to happen sooner or later. So he followed the old man. The way he muttered as he moved looked like something out of some troll fairytale, but in those the troll’s secret was it was luring a billy goat to the slaughter.

They arrived into the office, which was simple and filled with religious items. The old man slid off his robes and stood in an all black outfit complete with collar. The cloaks found a coat rack, and he turned with his eyes cast the ground. “Just let me close this door so we can have privacy,” he muttered still deep in the old man voice. Marty left his back half turned away from the man and half turned to the room interior. Just out of the corner of his eye, as the door closed, he saw the length of the weapon hung behind the door with it’s leather wrapped handle as old as time itself. As the door neared closed, the old man reached for the hilt.

The door clicked shut.

The room filled with the sharp sound of metal sliding out of leather.

A second quicker sound twinned the first.

Then the weapons crashing into each other.

Both men stood at the ready. The old shell of a man with his overhead attack stopped in mid strike, blocked by the double bladed cross from his opponent the blue blazer now torn in half by the quick unsheathing of the weapons. Uriel’s old body oddly juxtapositioned against the agility it took to manage the broad sword; but Mars immediately changed, his golden mane and yellow eyes flashed with the strength of his power.

Uriel’s weapon glistened in the dull light as its blueish metal that released a light blue flame. It was the true sword of God, meant for his hands to swing on the behalf of Jehovah.

Mars was prepared with the black jade swords of the ancient Chinese Shu Dynasty; gifted as a means to fight that which is thought only to be the strongest. The two identical short, curved blades screamed like steel when struck but resisted attack like rock. They looked and swung like black stone polished to a razor finish.

“How dare you bring those weapons into the house of the Lord,” Uriel spat not being at all facetious. He could have said that about any weapon Mars wielded, but acted like these ancient weapons were of Satan himself. He pulled back and swung quickly, aiming to destroy his weapons before the fight has even began. But they stood fast and resisted the attack.

There was little room to maneuver, part of what Uriel and thought of likely. Mars just stepped back a few steps, his eyes golden in anger as his hair flushed golden like a lions. He grinned wide, ready for the next attack.

Uriel swung like a baseball bat, and Mars slapped it off like a pawing away a fly. Uriel forced out a stab, that perryed off the black sword, before Mars smacked the side of his antagonist's head with the other blade.

“Hadn’t I taught you nothing?” Mars shouted. “Quit trying to hit me and hit me.”

Uriel did a loop of sorts, faking a hard attack but shifting it to head around towards his neck. Mars captured the blade in the paring of his own and slid them down until he could hook the black shirt of the old priest and tore at it’s sleeve.

“You’re fault has always been when you don’t know when you are in the way,” Uriel spat.

“And your’s was that you assumed your opponent was always weaker and stupider than you,” Mars returned.

When Uriel released the attack to swing again, Mars spun, deflecting the bigger broadsword and striking the back of the leg of the pastor, spinning him to the ground, and slicing it enough to leave the limb falling crooked and grotesque.

Uriel didn’t seemed in pain through, only unable to get up. He felt pain, all gods felt pain, but Uriel was too proud to show it. Gods also could reconstruct, as long as they were still alive and their followers remained loyal they would return to their form. “That was stupid,” he responded, “I am in a church, I’ll be up in no time to finish you off.”

“Not that fast,” Mars replied as he wiped the blood onto Uriel’s pant leg. “You were the damned idiot who chose to come to a Methodist church. At least the Mormons would have practiced what you preached.”

“I didn’t need to,” he replied still arrogantly. “No one in the world prays to football.”

“You’d be surprised.” He walked over top of the old man, and placed both blades of swords on either side of his neck. “Now, tell me why you are here.”

“Cut my head off, go ahead and bring all the wrath of God down on you, you fool.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Mars responded. “A little slit and there will be blood all over the carpet, and your weak body left behind. You’ll spend all your time trying to fake an injury and have no choice to get yourself locked up in a hospital.”

The old man, ridiculously left with no good choice, literally fired spittal up towards Mars.

“Alright,” Mars said sounding way too reasonable for a man who just finished a sword fight, “I’ll let you off easy. If your little master would have a message for me, what would it be.”

“Go coach somewhere else,” he responded too quickly. “Leave this town, leave this place, this is not where you are supposed to be.”

“I thought God didn’t care about football.”

He smiled in almost a sneer, “Haven’t you seen, my son? Who do you think all the great ones prey to after a touchdown? To you?”

Marty knitted his eyebrows. It bothered him, but only for what he had fought for as many of the last years as he could. “Why you, Uriel?” he asked. “I know you would kill me if you took your chance, but that’s not your boss’s style. Why this time? Why you?”

The lips of the old man’s mouth rose to a smile. “See,” he sneared, “you get now that you are so weak that He could send anyone to finish you off.”

Mars noticed the broken leg shifting back to a more normal direction, time was running out. So, he played to Uriel’s weakness once more. “You make this too easy for yourself,” Mars gritted as he leaned over, pressing the blades into the old flesh. “Force me to cut your dick off and get run out of town before I even know why you needed me out of your way. Can’t help to think that you just want to hang out with mortals again.”

The archangel slitted his eyes, meaning it likely worked. “These pigeons don’t know how bad they got it. The only reason I am here is to make sure things go smoothly down here, and we don’t get some has been demon like yourself putting false ideas into people’s minds. You’re weak, you’re pathetic, and you are nothing more than a human with no balls who doesn’t know when to die.”

“Ohh,” Mars said with a bit of a laugh, “such kind words from a pigeon of my own. Remember when I used to say we were kindred spirits, Uriel? The two of us, fighting everyone who challenged us - because I was too stubborn to quit, and you were too stupid to quit.” He lifted a leg and slammed hard down onto the old man’s knee hearing a satisfying snap - even if he didn’t even wince in pain. The shell Uriel chose was weak, but like he said he would recover and return to full; like all the demons of old, even like Marty. This gave him time to move away, and to think what this all meant.

When he left the building, he did so out the back and quickly found a little huddle of brush and trees as he fell to his knees. Everything about this place, this time, this troubles started to churn in his gut like something wrong. He went through his mind thinking what he knew, what he truly believed.

He knew that there was a girl who carried with her the spirit of one that is of the ancients.

He knew that he alone was able to protect the girl in her dreams.

He knew that now this place had the attention of Jehovah.

He knew Uriel, one of the seven Archangels, one of the hardest for Mars to defeat, was so close that nothing could be hidden from him.

Most of all, he knew that Ziva needed his protection, and he needed hers as well.

On his knees, he prayed to the girl he only met a blink of an eye ago. Goddess or not, he closed his hands and hoped for her love. If there was something in her capable of giving him the strength to find the greatness needed to make her as great as she was capable of, he needed it now.

“Let me love you,” he called out. “Give me this, Ziva. Let .. Me … Love … You.”

Ziva had no idea the power of her thoughts. To her they were just daydreams of a lonely woman. A lost girl in search of something she was just out of reach from. But the closer she got to cupid's secret the more urgent and frantic her thoughts became. It was almost to the point where even unconscious things like walking and breathing became a chore. At the lion statue... Ziva froze, her heart halted the same second her lungs warred with the very same air it needed. Why had she never noticed this lion before. On shaky baby giraffe legs, Ziva approached the lion expecting it to any moment lunge at her.

"Ah." Her hand lightly touched the white stone of the statue and her body reawakened to its everyday chores. Her heart raced to pick up speed and then faltered to maintain an even beat. Lung burned as Ziva inhaled as much air as her lungs could hold before releasing it in a shuddering exhale. The lion was just a statue, there was nothing real about it. Like her real, there was nothing real about her dream or lack there of from last night. But her sudden infatuation with the king of the jungle was unlike her. Slowly Ziva circled the lion stopping at it's head, her eyes level it the animal's. There was something alluring about it's eyes. There was a trapped sense of life in the stone, a torn emotion that tugged at her heartstrings.

There were many different sculptures in the park, animals, people or just abstract creations that invited the viewer a glimpse into another world. A world that only the artist was privy to but was allowing you hints at. In fact there was an elephant statue standing taller then any man with a baby at it's side at the crown jewel gazebo. It was Ziva's favorite, the way the soft eyes of the mother and the way her trunk was protectively and lovingly draped over the baby's back. The goofy uneven way the baby held it's large ears with eyes filled with wonder and joy. And yet she had only been to the crown jewel a couple of times.

Outnumbered was the many times she must have passed by this lion and its lifelike carving. Again she thought of Marty and at this point she wasn't even surprised. He hadn't been far form her mind since the moment she meet him and he had refused to leave her mind since the moment she woke up today. "Do you have a name?" Ziva hadn't noticed a plaque anywhere her first time around but just to make sure she made the circle again. Every statue she had come across had a plaque with a name of the statue and the artist's name but when the circle was complete there had been any sign of a plaque no or ever.

"You have no name." For some reason that made Ziva sad, something this beautiful, this powerful, this majestic had to have a name. Having never named a lion before Ziva's first thoughts turned to the Lion King movie and the names of their characters. "Simba." No that would be too obvious wouldn't it. Mufasa had a better ring to it but it still didn't feel right. Honestly Ziva didn't know why this mattered so much but for right now, at this moment it was and she wasn't going to leave without giving the lion a name. Despite her vast wealth of knowledge of the Lion King movies, okay that was a lie. The only characters that Ziva could remember was the two she had already deemed unfitting.

As much as Ziva hated it she had nothing for her lion friends. Nothing she thought of seemed right, heck she had even tried out Marty but that was the worst out of all of them. It was the only good thing about standing there for the last ten minutes trying to find him a name. If Marty didn't fit in every situation in her life maybe she wasn't as bad off as she had hoped.

"I'm sorry lion." Ziva apologized leaning her body against the warm stone. "I haven't found you a name yet." She didn't know why this responsibility fell to her but since she was the only one here it seemed natural that it become her task. Quest even. "Maybe," The temptation to say was almost powerful enough to keep Ziva here. If it was any place but cupid's secret she would have stayed. "Maybe when I get back I'll have a name for you." She promised. And if she didn't she would come back everyday that she was free until she found him a name. It sounded a little extreme but a person without a name was like a body without a soul.

She ran a hand over his mane, her fingers tingling and pushed off the stone, standing straight once again. Ziva didn't want to leave him with nothing and like a offering of olden days she fished the apple from her backpack and placed it on the corner. "I know," She sighed reaching out to touch the lion again. "But it's all I got, well all I'l willing to part with." How sad was it that she couldn't even lie to a statue. "Bye for now." Ziva patted the lion's foot and walked away.

Her mind was busy for a moment by the lion and her inability to give him a name but slowly, with every step her thoughts turned to Marty. Maybe it was because she was stuck on names but she picked on his and how much she didn't like it. How like the lion it didn't fit him and felt like an insult to him every time someone called out to him. Ziva played with the idea of having the power to rename him. "What would I call him?" She asked herself out loud, the only thing coming to mind was the word 'Mine'. It was awfully possessive of her. What if he was claimed by another? The idea made her sick this time instead of angry and she was quick to turn her mind to other things.

Mother would have liked him. Ziva wasn't sure if this path of thinking was any better but at least she had her clothes on, fantasy Marty (urg she really wanted to rename him) had his clothes on and she wasn't overcome with the need to either puke or punch anything one or thing. She maybe would have criticized him for his beard and his longish hair but Ziva kind of liked them. She never had thought of herself as someone who liked facial hair but on Marty it worked.

And just like that her mind had shifted and people were naked again. In her mind's eye she saw herself laying under the full moon, naked with Marty over her just as naked as she was. He growled at her and it send a shiver down her spine. His mouth nipped at her skin just before he nuzzled his beard across her stomach. It tickled and she wiggled under her feeling for the first time that he was ready and wanting. Again and again his lips, tongue, teeth and beard teased her until she cried out his name that wasn't his name as he watched above her with a triumphant smile on his lips.

When he kissed her there was a new taste to him and without needing to be told she knew what that was. He tasted like her and her legs wrapped around his hips wanting to know how his flavor would change coated in her juices. The hot fleshy bulb of his manhood nudged against her silken lips and he stared into her eyes his body settling on hers just as his-

"Oww, shit, damn it!" Ziva had been so wrapped up in her own mind that she had glossed over what was happening around her. The fallen tree limb had been a shock and a pain where her shin ran into it. Pain jolted up her leg dulling the aching throbbing between her legs. She had never been one to touch herself, knew that her friends had done it and teased her for not doing it but she had never seen the point. It didn't feel good and made her self-conscious. A hyper awareness ruining any moment that she had tried to create for herself. She had always blamed the dreams feeling as if nothing she could do herself would ever feel as good as whatever it was that the dream man did to her dream self. But this, this wasn't set on by a dream, at least not a sleeping one and Ziva knew that if this was the result of touching herself she would stay in bed all day.

"Dang it." The pain was going away but the silly feeling of not knowing where you were going lingered. She didn't want to admit, "Oh!" As she looked around she realized where she was. Somehow she was within sight of cupid's secret and the gazebo at the water's edge. "How?" Ziva questioned herself out loud. It hadn't seemed that long ago since she left the lion but what did she know. She hadn't been paying any attention, proof of the lump on her shin. It didn't matter anyways, she shrugged heading for the gazebo.

A few minutes later and Ziva was perched comfortably on one of the bench seats, her back leaning up against one of the pillars facing the water. She had her sketch book out and her untouched bottle of water. She didn't know what she wanted to draw but like a hand possessed lines showed on the paper. Clearing her mind Ziva just drew, there were no thoughts of Marty or her brother. She didn't worry over her father or miss her mother. All her problems seemed to disappear in a way she wasn't able to archive another way but drawing.

Line after line, here and there in no sort of patter and picture started to take place. It was a simple open pillared temple, small and private on to of a hill overlooking an ocean. It's roof was just large enough to protect the two people wrapped around each other. The figures had no faces yet, just outlined shapes of body pieces and tangled limbs. A length of fabric covered what television would have censored out but it was abundantly clear what the two were doing.

When Ziva started to shade the temple, leaving the figures as outlines she paused and set her pencil down. There was something about this scene that was familiar, it was similar to the burned down temple where she was killed but it wasn't the same. Just like with the man and woman, Ziva knew them but didn't. Rotating her neck Ziva sat up off the pillar and stretched reaching down to twist off the cap of her water. The sun was shining and on a whim Ziva stood up and abandoned her drawing to the waterline. Humming a song she didn't know the words to.

"She has no rival,
there is no one like her.
She is the fairest of all.
She is like a star goddess arising
at the beginning of a new year;
brilliantly white, shining skin;
such beautiful eyes when she stares,
and sweet lips when she speaks;
she has not one phrase too many.”

No sooner did she stand than he emerged from the trees near Cupid’s Secret. He wore an outfit as simple as old time, a laced tunic, beige cotton shorts, and sandals made from hemp. The words he spoke were like those of poetry, but broke, and slid between stanzas like different voices speaking them. As he spoke the words, just loud enough to hear, he moved towards the small gazebo.

“I hunt for a sign of you in all the others,
in the rapid undulant river of women,
braids, shyly sinking eyes,
light step that slices, sailing through the foam.”

“She has stolen my heart with her embrace,
She has made the neck of every man
turn round at the sight of her.”

The look on his face is one of a contented happiness, like a man confident in the feelings he has found. When he reaches the entry of the gazebo, he looks up at the pillars to the metal roof. He seems to give commendatory consideration for it’s craftsmanship, sliding his hand over the stone and feeling it’s texture. His speaking continues, poetry that seems as modern as it does ancient.

“It was not the cavalry,
Or the infantry,
... Or even the navy,
But another strange kind of army
That destroyed me,
Striking me down with her eyes.”

“Whoever embraces her is happy,
he is like the head of lovers,
and she is seen going outside
like That Goddess, the One Goddess."

He sees the drawing, sitting on the where she left it, and moves to pick it up. He smiles, but not of appreciation for the detail or of the hint to the subject matter, but with a sigh he seems to take reminiscence something.

“This is a memory I find as well. Some nights, it is all I can think about. Some nights it is all that I can remember.”

Returning the drawing from where he took it, he looks back up as his dark eyes search out here’s.

“I searched, but no one else had your rhythms,
your light, the shady day you brought from the forest;
nobody had your tiny ears.
You are whole--exact--and everything you are is one,
and so I go along, with you I float along, loving
a wide Mississippi toward a feminine sea.”

He stood then just in front of her. Close enough that the smell of sandalwood and cedar rose up like from the old trees themselves. The air stilled and the sun slid behind a cloud leaving the couple in a private moment of silence in the small temple named after a child born once of love. Yet it was their place. Hidden in the trees, hidden along the pond, and hidden from all else. The two of them alone.

“The lion,” he asked, “what was his name.”

Ziva didn’t know anyone was there and the sound of another voice crashed upon her like the breaking of the first strike of thunder. She knew the moment she heard the voice who it belonged to and she could feel his every word like a caress. His words were so similar to the book of poetry she had found the other day and it sent a chill down her spine. Was it just a coincidence? Did he have the same book at home or did he read it sometime ago and it just imprinted on him so strongly that he could recall from memory every single word perfectly. The way he spoke them gave them power, the broken way the changed from one emotion to another but all telling the same story. A story Ziva a scared to identify.

She could hear him move closer, could hear the way his voice echoed off the stone and knew he stood in the gazebo. Where Ziva stood she had her back towards him but could see in her mind his every step. It was crazy what was going on. This was her place, the place she used to clear her mind or just to escape the word and here he was. The very thing, the very man who had plagued her every thought. She wanted to feel some kind of betrayal at being found or something like possessiveness for her secret having been found but she couldn’t. If she had to share this place with anyone she wanted it to be him.

When his voice changed, like he was no longer reciting poetry Ziva turned and her breath was stolen from her. The tunic he wore was lightly knitted and hinted at the body beneath, the cotton short didn’t cling but was tailored to show off all the muscles of his lower body with every step. She was so caught up with the way that he seemed to stalk towards her like a leopard that she totally missed the oddity of his hemp sandals.

Once she had turned his voice changed and he recited one last bit of poetry. There wasn’t anything more that need to be said, the moment had been crafted and Ziva’s breath was heavy and quick. Her heart racing and warming her skin, coloring her cheeks. He was so close that she could see the individual flakes of colors in his eyes. Her hand itched to run thought his hair but Ziva curled then into fists and keep them at her side. She didn’t know why he was here, what he wanted but there was something in his eyes that heated the fire inside of her. Warmed and wetted places that had begun to throb with need.

“The lion?” The question confused Ziva and after an embarrassing long moment her hazy mind recalled the lion statue. “I, I don’t know.” The sudden shift should have been a relief but it wasn’t. There was a pressure to that question, a hint at something that she seemed to be missing that she just didn’t understand. “I couldn’t name him.” She said after a while shifting uncomfortably under Marty’s gaze. “What is the lion’s name?” The question was simple but it burned her lips as she said it and her hand reached up to lightly brush against her mouth, brows crinkled at the confusion of her sudden inflamed lips. It felt like she had been kissed for an hour, that they were puffy and raw with unleashed passion.

“You know the lion’s name!” It was like a light suddenly being turned on but emitting only enough light to illuminate what was within reach. She moved to push Marty, her hands resting on his chest but all the force draining out of the action the moment she touched him. Ziva’s sharp intake of breath sounded loud to her ears but she couldn’t believe how hot Marty felt even with the thin barrier of fabric between his skin and hers. “Don’t you.” She whispered looking up into his eyes.

Of course he did. A voice inside her mind teased.

A flash of anger filling Ziva as the voice taunted that he knew more then he should. That there was something that he knew about her, about her past that he wasn’t letting her know. Whatever it was that he knew about herself he should have told her.

She had always been sensitive about her past, who her real parents had been, why they had given her up and if she had ever been wanted by them. It wasn’t that she wanted to trade her life for some green meadow fiction but just questions that haunted every adopted child. Looking up at Marty she felt the anger grow within her breast and she took a step back. “Why are you here?”

“I know the lion’s name,” he returned with a voice that was slow, deliberate, and confident, “but so do you, Ziva. You will remember the name.”

His hand lifted, and embraced hers as it lay on his chest. The blood coursing through his heart rippled between both their hands, setting a rhythm like war drums across the plain. He held her hand there, but the grip wasn’t one that suggested that she still could take it away if she had the will to do so.

“We are unique, my sweet one,” he spoke softer. “Not in the way every raindrop falls somewhere new or every snowflake grows different. No, no. We were born from something that fosters a special energies in those around us. You foster that what we all find deep in our hearts and you bring them to our senses. Laughter, smiles, loving; mere mortals can’t help to feel greater when they are near you. I found you here not because I looked for you; but because I believed in you, and I prayed for you to open yourself to me and you showed me the way here.”

Slowly he began to step closer towards her, the space between them growing tight so that the heat from them both burned the air.

“The dreams you have,” he spoke calmly, “not just those of pain, but all your dreams. They are more than what haunts you, they tell a story that rides across millennium. It is hymns that ring for centuries in the minds of people from words that come years from our mouths. You are there, Ziva, the true you. You only have to trust yourself. You only have to believe in yourself. You only have to love yourself.”

His face was just a breath away from hers.

“Ask yourself, trust yourself. What is his name?”

Fear was his name and he came with friends.

Panic, horror and death.

A part of Ziva didn't understand what he was talking about but a part of herself, a part that she kept hidden and closed behind every wall she could form accepted what he said as truths. He was a key to something, a part of herself that she wished didn't exist. Mars was her faceless man, the one in the dreams that loved her, the one that claimed her body and soul in ways that couldn't be possible.

"No." Ziva shook her head against his words, dismissing all that he had said as part of a poem. Or a cruel trick with some unknown purpose. "There is nothing to remember." Numerous voices belonging to countless therapists and clergymen all spoke out at once in her mind, downing her in reasons that what Mars said was false. "There are no stories." She retreated as far as her outstretched arm would let her and shook her head again.

The sun felt cold and the hand touching him burned with a heat that lingered only where he touched. This wondrous place, this secret place laughed at her and the promise of unlocked puzzles. For as many times as she had asked the questions she had met no one who could answer them, cursed her and cured her of such questions until she no longer voiced them. Though they never went away, they just grew silent and obedient. Resigned to say in the corner knowing that one day, this day there would be no escape for her.

The way he talked of love, the love in her. It was worthy of swooning over but stabbed at her heart like an ice pick. Her parents, the ones who had created her hadn't even loved her enough to keep her. The parents who cared for her and claimed to loved her left her for death while the other abandoned her and left her with the shell of what he used to be.

"I am unlovable." Ziva's eyes stung with unshed tears as she looked up to this man who captured her in more ways then one. In her mind's eye she replayed every relationship she ever had, all they ways they had hurt her, all the ways they had broken her and her trust in love. "I don't want to love myself, what would be the point?"

Pastor Smith's lessons of love, of God echoed in her head. What Mars wanted her to do went against the teachings of the man who would later be the reason she turned from the church. It went against what her mother had once believed in, what she felt her father still believed in and what she knew her brother still believed in. All the people she loved believed, didn't that mean she had to? But even this logic seemed weak in face of what she felt.

However the fear of what Mars had said still carried over all other rational thoughts. Before the tears fell they dried and Ziva forced herself to separate her fears from Mars and what he was saying. Even when she did that she couldn't believe in him, in his words like he said he believed in her.

"I'm sorry Mars," The name caught her off guard and she realized that within her mind she had referred to him by that name a number of time. "Marty." She quickly corrected, her heart had spiked at the slip of names and she struggled to calm to sudden whirl of emotions inside of herself. "I'm not the person you want me to be." Because what he needed her to do she had never done in her life. To trust herself. "I'm just plain old Ziva, orphaned as an infant with nightmares. Nothing more and nothing less." Thought as she said it she knew it to be a lie.

True every relationship had ended horribly for her but for the other person it ended in a kind of love she had always dreamed of. She was like that movie Good Luck Chuck but where it required him to have sex with the person for them to find their one true love all it had taken from Ziva had been her love. A love that had never been returned in the same depth or intensity.

"Now please," She tugged on her hand that he held and smiled sadly at him. "Let me go." In her heart Ziva knew she could love his man but wasn't even willing to try with him. She was too caught up with him from a distance she feared what getting closer to him would do to her. He would be the love that broke her, the man that would shatter her heart when he left her for his one true love, a woman or even a man that wasn't her. It was never her. It was why she felt she was cursed to be unloved.

And from the far reached of her mind a tiny laughing voice offered up a name.

Maahes.

With that one name Ziva's body jolted awake, her every nerve endings sizzling with untapped passion and more dread then she ever thought possible. Behind her walls a storm built and Ziva mentally prepared herself, protected herself with more walls and more cages. She didn't know what that was, what glimpse that had been but Ziva never wanted to feel that again. There was too many unknowns and the man in front of her was to blame for it all. She no longer felt protected by him, but exposed yet in her hearts of heart Ziva knew enough about herself to know that for him and only him she might risk what she feared the most just for a moment of him in her life.

It was an eerie sense of déjà vu that mirrored the feelings she had in her dreams.

"You're no good for me." It was whispered from Ziva's parted lips as her body stepped closer reclaiming the space she had earlier given up. "Dangerous." Like a magnet being pulled to another Ziva stood closer to Marty then she had ever been before. "If you were compassionate and I was smart you'd let me go and we'd stay away from each other." She looked up at him, tilting her head up to stare into his eyes. "But you aren't are you?" Her lips curled up into a half smile. "And neither am I." She sighed with a regrettable shake of her head.

She said his name. She knew not what she said but she said his name.

Mars listened to her words, could feel the struggles she internalized, and sensed the ripples of her energy break across the fabric of their existence. No longer was he questioning if Ziva was the goddess, or if she was capable of finding the goddess deep inside her. Now it was just how to help her cross that bridge, wherever it lay. Whatever it was she was to become she had little control over, maybe not even knowing it was still within her control. He had never seen anything like this, never seen such a god troubled to manifest or come to be; but of course none was aware of any of their kind to cross back from death.

Yet the intensity of her emotions created tears in his own strength & his own control. The internal struggle she was moving through was reaching critical levels, and now endangered his control. He could feel his chest quiver where his chest tried to expand as his ribs tried to realign. His feet clenched as they tried to break out the pads and claws. The lion licked at the edge of a fight, but he could lose her, lose it all, if he did not find the control he needed.

Her words, Ishtar’s words, from long ago rang through his head when he fought a struggle of his own. She said, ‘If you do not want the lion to manifest out of you, then manifest the lion in you.’

His hands moved to her sides and surrounded her hips. They were big on her, enough that the fingers embraced the gentle curve of her behind. The closeness she allowed herself to be he pulled closer, and instead of fighting the ripples of her being through his own, he drew into his his own being. From her struggle he found strength.

He looked into her eyes, and told the story he held as his greatest hope.

“There were two tribes in Northern Egypt back when grazing land was at it’s most hard to come by,” he started calmly. “These two tribes tried to find common ground, but when the son and daughter of the sheiks refused to marry, war was to follow. As I strode through the war lord’s tents feeding on the drumbeat of coming battles; there was rumors that the son & daughter disappeared from the camps. I found them at a quiet oasis, with a woman who spoke softly and gently. She found the daughter to fear that she would be treated harshly, and the son wished only that a wife would be more than a bearer of children. As I stalked around the Oasis, my eyes as angry as the yellow sun, I watched as she brought these mortals the gift of love. Both finding themselves tied to each other’s souls, promising all that is good, and drawing together closer than any two mates I had seen in my entire existence to that point.

“This woman, her task complete, left the two young lovers to be alone, and came to the edge of the oasis where I stood. I was angry, filled with hate, and felt the need to leap at her. Yet she closed the space between us, and laid her hand across my mane. She slid her fingers across my snout. I closed my eyes, and without being able to stop it started to purr. She said … You said … ‘Don’t worry, great one, there will be other wars.’

“With those words, a great calm came over me. I rose back out of the lion as she watched. She took me into her arms, and came together as lovers. We lay together in the desert sands until the sun set and it was time to return the young couple back to their tribes.”

He leaned his head in closer until his breath from his words laid across her neck. “You say you are unloveable, that is not true. That wasn’t true from the first moment you touched me. I live, I breathe, I continue on through hard times across the ages - only because I love you.”

Ziva reacted to Marty’s touch as if his hands were bolts of lightning, they sent hot body numbing jolts of fire through every nerve ending she possessed. It stole the breath from her lungs and cleared her mind of the panicked frantic buzz that had clouded her a moment before. The fear was gone but the lingering uncertainty of what he said and the awakening inside of her hovered like a storm ready to break and Ziva snuggled deeper into his hold readying herself against the moment of what she guessed would be her destruction.

Northern Egypt? The story felt like it came out of nowhere and the questions that bubbled to the surface threatened to be asked. Ziva listened to the low tumble in Marty’s voice and closed her eyes seeing his words as if they were a movie played before her eyes. A thick barrier of papyrus gave protection to the couple as water lilies dotted the oasis' edge. A woman stood before the two and whispered to them words of love, of promises and wishes the two would find in each other.

Ziva’s heart ached as she watched the two lovers embrace each other, falling into the protection that they provided the other, the love that they would share. The look on their faces before they kissed was everything she had ever wanted. The guarantee of being loved and that love being returned. For all those Disney movies and the ways they made love took so easy and attainable, it was all a lie. To be able to give true love like this mythical woman for fable… A part of her envied the woman, the rest of her wished she were her.

Marty kept on with his tale and Ziva’s mind continued its movie of impossible details, so real it was almost like a memory. The golden lion with his thick mane, a face and voice too near to her own. He claimed it was her but she had never been to Egypt and the story felt like something she had read not lived. But the purr Ziva felt in her soul.

The fear was starting to return.

Ziva’s eyes slowly reopened and she started up at Marty, he had provided no details to the coming of the lovers but her mind filled in the gaps taking liberties from the snippets of her dreams. Where was the line between dreams and reality, fantasy and nightmare? In a time of war this woman that Marty wanted her to be had brought not only peace but love.

“I am not this lady you’ve been seeking.” Zive spoke softly fearing if she did anything but whisper the moment would break and the storm would be upon her. Goosebumps rose from where his breath caressed the skin of her neck. “You were alive before you meet me.” She smiled turning her head to look into his eyes. “You will continue without this dream you need me to be.” Her words a little stronger as she gathered strength for what she feared was coming.

Because what it all boiled down to was this; if her dreams of love and Mars were true then so too were her dreams of death. Her death was enough to keep her from finding the truth, from wanting to know the truth. It was simpler to deny the good because the evil that killed her was better kept in the dark without a name.

“I’m-“ Ziva stepped back and out of Marty’s hold. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head falling back to the comfort of denial. “Please…” What she was asking for, begging for Ziva was unsure but for the moment at least she wanted to run, to put some distance between her and the man before her. “I, I have to go.” She stammered fleeing from the questions and more so the answers. When Zive felt she was at a safe distance she turned and gathered her things running from the once safety of her hidden spot.

And like Cinderella she left behind her sketchbook filled with drawings of memories of another life.

Deep within the fog, blackened from the night that grips a tighter hold from the forgotten summer, figures weighed heavy by plastic and fabric take a steady beat of feet at the their own tired rhythm. Only the orange lights of the parking lot illuminated the shadows within the mist, the glare of which only seemed to help hide the sources to the rhythms of feet on the paved running track.. Occasionally, the faceless hollow of a helmet lifted over a full padded runner broke into the near open air before it would finish rounding the corner and move into the dark.

Mars stood under the arch built off a patchwork of found granite, sandstone, and quartz cemented together as the gates to the stadium. It was the portal to his new found temple, the stadium built for the varsity football squad. Yes, it was used by runners like the team does this morning, as well as the soccer teams, lacrosse, and lower level football squads of the school; yet only a fool would suggest that it was built for any other purpose than the celebration of this game, of this place, of these boys. The rickety wooden bleachers only ran for most of one side of the field, where the visitors barely had room for a few sections on the other; seating for no more than a couple thousand in total. A far cry from the coliseums of his days long gone. A far cry from the great blood baths of the open plains. But war was never about the audience, it was about the warriors.

At this gate, Mars watched over his warriors as they emerged from the black only to continue back into it’s inky blackness. His mind fighting to stay in the present. Fighting to remain focused on these boys and the fight they had ahead of them.

Fighting to forget the battle he lost just two days before.

In two days, he forced himself to take Ziva from his mind. Forced himself to not press the girl through thoughts, through dreams, through actions. He chose to find a way to let her remember by letting himself forget. Yet it goes against his core, his desire to run to her, force her to remember. Force her to know who she is.

Athena used to chide him about his mindless tactics as she called them. Always wanting to press the fight when patience was the answer. A war was won by strategy not winning the day, she said. She said that if you wanted to advance your cause you have to be willing to stop your advance. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, Goddess of Military Victory. Telling him how to fight a war.

Fuck Athena.

Behind him, soft steps of dress shoes approached. After a slight moment where the one that arrived hoped he would turn to greet him, the voice announced his arrive.

“Coach Arthur, a morning practice I assume?” It was the principle. Dr. Harrison.

Mars didn’t turn. “It is a big week, as you know.”

“Yes. I am glad you haven’t forgotten that we talked about Salt Hill.”

Mars squinted watching a group of six boys running together emerge from the dark, now more fatigued than when they seemed to want to just chat. “Of course I remember Salt Hill, they were the only team you mentioned by name in the interview.” Salt Hill, the rival school. THE rival school.

“Well, that’s good.” The principle paused for a moment, took a long breath. “It is good I saw you this morning, there is something I need to talk to you about. We have an issue with Paul Jordan.”

This got his attention. Paul Jordan, the starting quarterback, that is until Marty was ready to start Obi. Raising an eyebrow, he turned to the man. He stared the smaller man down in the dark wordlessly. The orange glow of the lights creating a haze around the football coach.

Dr. Harrison seemed to hint that he was only slightly intimidated. “I learned last night that he is failing Mr. Latch’s Biology class. He will have to be suspended from the team. It is unfortunate timing, but there can be no favoritism to be shown. I am sure you understand.”

There was a desire to lash out. A decision forced. A need to take down the messenger like days of past. Yet that was only instinct that could be stymied. “Suspended for how long.”

“I am afraid, Marty, this ends his season. He is not eligible to play until mid-year, well after its all over.”

Mars nodded his head slowly, and turned to look back into the blackness. One boy emerged into the light, slowed, and stopped. His hands placed on his knees as he fought to catch his breath.

Mars yelled to the boy, “Is that eight laps, Conner?”

“Yes?” the boy responded.

“Is it?” Marty asked again.

The boy’s shoulders dropped. He stood back up and started running once more.

The principle moved up to stand next to Mars looking into the blackness.

“The boys were lackluster last night,” Marty explained. “They showed up this morning with the attitude that this would be just a walk through.” After a slight pause he added, “they will be ready for Salt Hill.”

“We have a pep rally on Thursday. You will be expected to speak, are you okay with that?”

Mars smirked. Just another speech to the masses before going to battle. “Yes.”

“And … the quarterback.”

“We have a back-up, good enough that he could compete with Jordan right now.”

Dr. Harrison nodded. “I intend to call Paul into my office this morning to break the news.”

“No, I will tell him,” Marty interjected. “Paul is a senior. He will be devastated. A solider who will no longer be able to fight needs to hear the news from his General.”

After a moment the principle agreed and wandered back into the blackness to start the day.

A long day.

As long as it will be for Mars. By the end of it, his quarterback will be left in tears for the news of his own undoing. By the end of it, his new quarterback will learn he will be starting. By the end of it, he surely would have shared the news with his sister and the bond he shares with her will be filled with the job that extends from it. By the end of it all, Ziva will be more happy. And Mars will be further from finding the one he searched for over thousands of years. So far, but so close.

A long day started in darkness.

The night after meeting with Marty at the park Ziva didn’t dream. She half expected to see herself again or at least be toyed with by the shadow faced man in ways she literally could only dream of. But there was nothing. And it was unsettling. That morning she had woken up feeling refreshed and ready to meet the world, which was again, unsettling. The whole day she expected there to be monsters lurking around every corner but there was nothing. The lack of something was starting to freak her out and by the time she made it home after her work day she was a ball of tight knots and unhappy edges.

Not one to drink Ziva stopped by a wine store unsure of what she was looking for and if it hadn’t been for the overly friendly man who worked there, she might have still been aimlessly wondering the isles picking up random bottles and reading their labels. The plan for the night was to have some wine, draw a bath and try to unwind and relax to some smooth easy instrumental jazz. And it had been a good plan until she fell asleep…

The hot water lapped at her skin like a lover, caressing her with its hot touches. Wine sharp and bold but with too much smoke and spice coated her tongue and in the distant darkened trails of smoke lined the horizon. Sweet was the scent in the air but it quickly turned sour, metallically and rotted. The sensation of floating came to a halt when the bodies of fallen soldiers littered the ground. Something squished underfoot and when Ziva looked down she was greeted to the sight of dirt turned to mud by the blood of those dead and dying.

Pain tore through her chest like a hot blade and tears ran down her face as she walked the battlefield. Men who were sons, fathers, brothers, lovers. Pain for those lost and those fighting against the dark claws of death. One in particular wheezed and moaned as blood bubbled around an arrow in his chest. Ziva didn’t care about the mud or the blood, not even the fact that she was naked stopped her from going to this man. She didn’t say anything as she kneeled at his side. He looked up at her the fear clearly written in his weary face, his eyes terrified at what was to come. Ziva didn’t know this man but she felt for him and with an open heart she reached out and ran her hand through his caked and matted hair. It was the touch of a lover, the girl he had pined for all his life but never had the chance to tell her how he felt. The warmth of his mother as she cared for him the winter he was bedridden with a fever. Love became something tangible and it wrapped the dying man in its arms and soothed him into his next life.

Where there was war there would be death but that did not deny love’s presence.

As the man took his last shuddering breath he looked up at Ziva and smiled slipping into the afterlife in peace.

For a long while she just sat there and held the man’s hand, she didn’t want to leave him but the cry of another in fear and pain drew her to his side and over and over she sat with the dying bringing to them moments and memories of friends, loved ones and family. It was the only peace she could bring those in pain hopeless against their fate. She had once been hopeless against a forced fate and would save all those from the same ending if she could.

When there were none left on the battlefield that could use her comfort Ziva walked off towards the sound of running water. Any in her position would have felt anger at the day spent with those too young to die but as harsh as it was war was a part of life and death would come to all one day, one way or another. Instead she felt alive. She had shared the most loved moments of over a hundred men, felt the raw emotions as they relived their memories. Her whole body tingled with energy.

Trees parted before her as she left the battlefield behind and the stench of death to the far winds. Soft footsteps brought her closer to a running river and the quite song of spring birds. When the trees finally cleared before her an empty meadow meet a tranquil riverbed, waters calm and glassy broken only by a shy fish or standing rock. For a moment Ziva just stood there, enjoying the moment for all that it was and all that it lacked. But the moment was broken by a passing cloud and darkness used that moment to slip in and steal the light from the meadow. Shadows darted just beyond the tree line faster than that of a mortal. Without the warmth of the sun goosebumps cover every inch of Ziva’s body.

Fear by now in her life was like an ex-boyfriend you just couldn’t get rid of and as the meadow get darker, fear started to take root. Unlike the fear of the past where she knew what was coming, this was drawn from the unknown. Ziva knew what to fear before but now every darkened movement just out of sight shocked her heart into overtime.

“More...”

The voice was made up of nails on a chalkboard whispered from somewhere in the night. Ziva didn’t know what more meant but she took away from the voice. Sharp points raked gently across Ziva’s back and she spun to face it only to see a tree branch swaying in the wind.

“More…”

The voice demanded, the wind grew stronger and the night got colder until Ziva was shivering. She didn’t know what the right move was, where to turn or what was really out there in the dark but they didn’t feel like friends and she wasn’t going to risk an introduction. For the first time in her life, Ziva felt alone. Feeling overpowered by this emotion Ziva sprinted to her right and crashed through the tree line, limbs pulled at her hair and tore her skin but it was the hand that reached out around her throat that stopped her.

Air was cut off and Ziva thrashed in the hold of this unknown assailant. “Mine…” It chuckled just outside of Ziva’s range of vision. Roughly the grip got tighter and she started to see dots drifting in and out of sight. “Mine…” It growled deep in its throat yanking what little breath was left out of Ziva.

Thrashing Ziva awoke sputtering water and gasping for breath. Somehow she had fallen asleep in the tub and had slipped under the water’s surface. The dream was gone from Ziva’s mind as if it had never happened and she stood on shaky legs as she got out of her icy cold bath. Her body felt sore and stiff but she simply attributed it to the cold waters and it was the same dismissal of the ache around her throat that caused her to miss the dark bruise that quickly sunk into her skin laying here just below the surface nearly naked to the bare eye.

~~~~~~

Ziva moved like the living dead the next morning. No amount coffee, tea or five hour energy could wake her up from the sludge that her body felt trapped in. And to top it off it felt like she was getting sick. There was a harsh burning at the back of her throat and a dull pain at the back of her neck that would not go away even after four pain pills and a silent but violent oath of destruction if it stuck around.

Whatever it was that Obi said to her as she drove him to school was lost to her and after three attempts of a conversation Obi had given up.

Hours later at the bookshop when Obi came back to school she was even worse. Whatever rant he was on didn’t even pierce the fog in Ziva’s mind. “Sorry kiddo…” She croaked with a weak and weary smile.

“Whoa…” Obi paused in his parade of quarterback bashing and really looked at his sister. “You look like death.”

“I feel it.” Ziva kid back unenergetically.

Obi shook his head and pulled his phone out of his pocket, turning the camera on and pointing it at his sister so she could use it as a mirror and take a look at herself.

If Ziva had the energy to she would have been shocked. Her hair hung in limp strands, skin rosy in color was chalky and sickly pale with empty shadowed eyes. “I’m starting to look my age.” She chuckled only to fall into a coughing fit.

“I should take you to the doctors.” Obi fussed hovering over his sister worry etched on his face.

Shaking her head, Ziva pushed him away. “Just take me home.” She sighed heavily as she got to her feet. “You can drive. In fact take the car home and drive yourself to school tomorrow. I’ll take the bus if I need it.”

“What about work?”

“I’m taking a day off.”

~~~~~~

It was one in the afternoon when Ziva woke up the next day. She didn’t feel any better but at least she looked it. There was some color to her cheeks again but the rasp in her throat was still there and Ziva tried to ease it with a cough drop as she left the house. She didn’t know where she was going but her feet moved without a cause leading her to the older part of town to the church she used to go to as a child. It had the town’s oldest cemetery and drawn to it like a moth to a flame, Ziva wondered from stonehead to stonehead pausing to guess at the worn carvings that used to be letter.

Ziva had never like this cemetery, there was something about it that turned her stomach every time she even set eyes upon it but today it was different. The deeper into the grounds that she ventured the lighter her mind felt, the easier it was to breath and the more awake she became. It was a different kind of awake, more like being sloshed drunk and having a clear moment of rational logic before succumbing to the alcohol again. She still felt tired and drained but for now she was a shell of herself as she came to rest upon an old hollow oak tree.

Obi would be almost out of school by now. Ziva lazily mused sitting and lounging against the withered tree. “I think cats are stupid.” Ziva muttered starting a conversation with the nearest grave marker. “I’m more of a dog person, yeah…” She was convincing herself as her mind moved to Marty and his crazed speech two days before. “I can’t be what he says I am. It’s not possible…” Her voice drifted off trying to find some other fault in their last meeting other than impossibilities and that it spoke too true to be false. “I mean…” He had said he loved her, had always loved her. Prayed for her.

The last thought left a smile on her lips as she played with the idea of someone wanting her, no needing her like Marty had claimed to need her. “A millennium…” To be loved so deeply, so completely to have someone wait for you all that time. It was better than Disney and more tempting than anything the mind could conjure. “He spoke about me like I was some kind of goddess.” Her headache was starting to come back and it tugged at the edges of her mind as if in warning. “A goddess…” Oh a whim Ziva stretched her hand out as if reaching for something. Feeling silly Ziva put her hand down, but from somewhere deep inside her something cracked and with it the first spark of light in her eyes for days. A renewed strength rushed through Ziva’s body and she called out a name, one ancient and known of few of this day and age. “Maahes!” It was the name of the lion but it was the face of the man she was picturing but just as the name crossed her lips a sharp searing pain tore at her throat and Ziva hacked and coughed, her breath leaving her as she fought to breath in and not inhale spittle.

Maybe Obi was right and she should have gone to the doctors. She briefly thought as her eyes watered and tears streamed down her face. Just as she was fearing she would cough herself to death, a single breath filled her lungs. More coughing continued but over time she was able to get more breaths of air until the hacking cough passed. Ziva’s hand rested on her throat as she roughly cleared her airways, further aggravating the raw tissue. From the outside her fingers gently prodded her throat trying to feel for something, some kind of swelling like the doctors on tv but without the knowledge to know what she was looking for Ziva gave up. Happy enough to have stopped coughing for the moment.

The school wasn’t that far from here, maybe if she started in that direction she could catch Obi there or even on his way home, lessening her distance. Then she could take him up on his offer to take her to the doctors and get something to prevent another coughing spell like that.

The crowd in the gymnasium brimmed over with the masses of the students, eyes wide, eager, energetic. Teenagers, at that malleable point in their minds, as they have been for millennia. Some of them his students, from his classes or his team. Some of them only knowing him in passing. Some dressed in the school colors. Some dressed in the uniforms of the marching band. Members of the junior varsities sat in their away color jerseys intermixed in the crowd. His own boys poised on metal chairs by his side dawning the regal purple of their own home colors. Six hundred students sitting in this room, staring at him, ready for his words. Six hundred strong. All of them here for a single purpose, and the excitement that comes with it.

Yet they were dead silent.

Marty stood with his hand raised, as it had when silenced them, and even now when they anticipate his words, he keeps stoic over the crowd holding their gaze and holding their poise.

Finally, when he spoke, the words through the microphone with steady, slow, and direct. “A message was sent to me on the first day I took this job. That message came down to two things.”

He leaned over the small stand to reach the microphone, a flimsy thing adorned only with a single bottle of water.


“Two things!”

He raised a single finger up to the crowd, “To deliver this school on the long road to becoming winners once more.”

There were a few hoots from the crowd and a smattering of applause. Yet his finger didn’t move, his hand didn’t move, he waited once more for the crowd to go silent.

He raised a second finger, and announced, “To beat Salt Hill.”


The crowd erupted with cheers.


“I will be the first to admit that as a team we stand before you with some humility. We gave you hope when we beat Eagle River. Then after Corbine and Central, we gave you every reason to lose hope. Back then, I looked at these boys ...” Marty stopped and turned over his shoulder where they sat in their jerseys locked onto him “... pardon … looked at these men. And when I did, I asked for more. I asked them to rise up and be something more.”


Looking back at the crowd he smiled. With a softer voice he smirked. “St. Joseph got more ... didn’t they.” Some of the crowd laughed, and some cheered. “Waterfall got more. Didn’t they.” That got a greater cheer.


“Now, I’m not going to lie to you. Salt Hill is good. They have beaten us three years in a row. They beat some your best teams.. They are better this year. They are stronger. They are tougher.”

“But do you know what we got?

He let the question sit. Let it loom. Let it wait.

“We got fighters.”


There wasn’t an immediate reaction, something hanging with the word.


“Our team fights. We fight for that extra yard. We fight through everything stopping us from that runner. When the other guys want to push us back, we fight forward. Fighters never quit. Fighters Win!”


The crowd was frothing, cheering, ecstatic.

“Are you ready to fight with us?”

A cheer came up again.


“See you tomorrow night, and bring your fighter spirit!”


The crowd started cheering again. The band kicked into the fight song. Marty stepped down from the podium. He had to fight from letting the lion burst forth from him, fight from letting the energy consume him like old times.

“Coach Arthur,” screamed the principle acting like an MC and getting the crowd to keep going.


Marty walked to his team, many of the clapping and screaming like war chants. He came over and one by one shook each hand of the team and patted each of them on the shoulder. This was the way. This was giving the blessings of the praise. They were fighters. Tomorrow they will be winners. A war was coming and they were in great spirits.

He took extra time, patting the back and shaking the hand of Obi. He was sending a message of the big question going in the game. He had named Obi the starting quarterback just two days ago with the announcement that Paul Jordan was ineligible, and from that moment Marty showed nothing but support for the transfer student. As a player, Marty still had his questions … too egotistical, too much trying to show off … but he had skills that Paul never could keep up with. If they follow Obi into battle, he will give them the best result.

Telling Obi of his new role came during practice, and was a shock to most the team. Since then, Marty had focused on the game plan, talking to the other players, restoring confidence, growing confidence, finding his own confidence. He hadn’t talked to Obi. Not one-on-one. That was part of avoiding the subject that was the real threat. Letting her find his mind once more. Letting whatever pull she had on him to lead him into some trap that would be worse. Like so many of the old dangers, like so many of the old mistakes. He still felt her everywhere he went. There had been others, always had been others, but this was different.

The principle continued on reaching to pull the microphone down to his height. “Just a reminder that tonight is the city wide Homecoming parade at six, finishing up here at the school. We will have a bonfire going up at seven-thirty. And the game tomorrow starts at seven. Tickets are half off to all students, let’s cheer our team on TO VICTORY!”


The mass of the crowd got up to return to their classes. The players, the band, the students, all of them creating a wave of humanity leading to the doorways.

Marty remained behind sitting in the last chair of the row of metal seats left for the team. None that was departing seemed to notice him, none seem to stop to speak to him, they all just headed to the door.

As the masses exited, the room started growing quieter. Lights began going out with the gymnasium no longer needed, until only a few safety lights remained. He could hear lockers slam, bells ring, calls and screams wane. Finally the last door to the gymnasium slammed shut. All that was left in the expansive room was the old podium, the old metal chairs, the open bleachers, and Marty.

Yet Marty wasn’t alone.

Someone else was there. Another man. Another god.

He had been sitting in the bleachers, as if he had been there the whole rally, or for that matter since the beginning of time. His pale face and grey eyes were encircled by a mass of brown hair greyed by ages upon ages. As withered and aged he appeared, his clothing struck against that. Finely tailored dark suit and tie suggested great wealth that matched how manicured the rest of him was. He was stern, unyielding, but also seemed distant like a man too old to understand the world anymore. Sitting next to him was a bronze helmet, Mars knew its design from the times of the Greeks, but knew the stories of this specific helmet too. The helm was said to help the man hide in plain sight, surely how he was able to be in this place now. To have watched over all of this for as long as he did. Mars knew of this helmet because he knew him. He was one of the ancients, said to be the brother of Zues and Neptune, spit out from the living world to a place where he is said to be most powerful of all. Some have suggested he was the god of fertility, but only because he can feed the crops from below. He was known as the rich one, because he lived where all the precious metals and gems were. All the gods knew him. All the gods hated him, or more so were disturbed when he was around. Yet what he does is such an enigma. He collected. He never judged. He only once took for own needs, a woman who now lays with him as his wife; but he never reached forth to take any other. Instead he waited until your time was over, and while most had to go to him, sometimes he would come to you. He collected the mortal dead. He collected the dead gods. He collected them in the world deep below that shared his names.

Hades.

Marty stood and walked slowly over to the bleachers. In single steps, he ascended the rows approaching the god whom stared at his approach. Hades had a dual effect on Mars. He shared the disgust all gods have for this one, dreaded the darkness that seemed to carry the air around him. Mars hated that feeling this god gave him. Because ultimately, Hades was the only creature - mortal or god - that he feared.

Mars sat on a lower row, turned to the side to straddle the bleacher seats, the appearance of which suggested he took a knee to the god that in the great olympic hierarchy was his superior. “Your lordship,” he greeted, “you have joined us in mortal world.”

Hades’s eyes never left Marty. The way he looked at you did nothing to give you comfort. His lips slightly open, his expression sadden, his shoulders resting, it always appeared he was lost, confused, distant - yet it only made one feel just as lost, just as confused, and a far distance from hope. When he spoke, his voice was dry, and sounded as though it has strained through years of smoke and ash. “I have not come for you Maahes, if that is what you assume.”

Mars felt his teeth grind before speaking. “I thank you for that, Lordship. I do not feel it is time for me yet.”

Hades remained steady, not continuing his words.

Mars knew enough to wait for the god to speak. There was a reason he was here. A reason he showed himself to Mars. Only with patience would it come.

Finally the old god asked Mars. “What brought you to this place?”

“This town, sir?” he asked. “It was to work in a job of the mortals.”

“You are not alone here. There are other gods here.”

Mars tilted his head questioning. Did he know about Ziva? “I have met some. My former protege who follows Jehova is here. He calls himself Uriel now.”

“That is not all, and you know that. There is something troubled in this village of man.”

Mars knitted his eyebrows. “Troubled sir?”

Hades took a long breath, and then another. He readied himself then spoke. “A gate was opened from below. Something has left the underworld. Not one of mine. I suspect the demons of the Jehova gods are to blame. They have grown unstable in recent decades. They fail to watch the way they should.”

“Demons? Here?”

“Not yet,” he shook his head. “They are finding a place to pull themselves out. Their place is not like ours. It has no path to follow. There are no doors to open. They don’t have my faithful Cerberus. There’s is more like a clay oven. One must wait for a crack to open before the heat can escape.”

“And a crack has formed?”

Hades nodded slowly. “A crack has formed.”

“But why this town, sir? Why do they escape to this place?” Marty asked.

“This is where the crack is.”

Marty turned his head downward. His mind started to turn. There were stories of what the fallen ones that ruled the Jehova underworld were capable of. They were no different than the ancient gods whom fed off of the belief of mortals, but in this day and the world of the ‘One True God’, fear of those demons were as good as a love of god. There were rumors of an army of those beasts. The mortals couldn’t match them. Mars could not match them. If they broke lose through this ‘crack’, then they will continue to reach until something came down to stop them en masse.

That was not Mars’s war.

“When,” Mars asked. “How much time do I have?” Mars thought of Ziva, knew she needed to be protected from this. “There are others I need to bring with me out of this place.”

“That will be the other’s to protect themselves if that is the case. The demons of Jehova would hunger for the blood of an ancient god. They will come for you.”

“These are mortals I need to protect,” he replied fighting the urge to admit his own beliefs of Ziva’s past.

“My boy, you don’t understand. I know of the one you think of. If she comes with, the danger does not change.” Hades crossed his arms, and scoffed, “Mortals … You know better than that. Names change, gods do not.”

Mars’s eyes opened wide. It had been only his own belief, wasn’t it? His own conclusion made about who she was? Hades now confirmed that she was the one from so many years ago, the one he knew to be true. “She is no less in danger then.” Mars eyes yellowed with anger, frustrated by the need to protect this woman.

Seeing that reaction Hades continued, “there is much you don’t understand of the underworld.”

“I must get her away from this crack,” Marty demanded.

“Maahes,” he replied, “she is the crack.”

Mars’s narrowed his eyes, still feeling the bristle of the lion along his back.

“She was somewhere, I don’t know where. Now she is here. However she was freed was through a way that never closed. If she allows you to protect her, it is herself you must protect her from.”

Mars shook his head. “I still must be the protector.”

The old god stood up and picked up the helm preparing to put it on. “She must allow you to.”

Mars looked sternly at the god, “I Will Protect Her.”

“Not if she doesn’t let you. Or have you forgotten.” Hades donned the helmet and vanished.

Mars sat in the cold, empty gym. Dark. Alone. Had he forgotten. Had he forgotten. He had, hadn’t he.

A voice floated through the room, Hades once more, and the language like the years of years gone by. “Solo Venere domina Marte , e non ha mai la domina.”

Only Venus Dominates Mars.
And He Never Dominates Her.

Names change. Gods Do Not. If she chooses to not be protected, then it shall be so.

-Gasp!-

Ziva staggered back as if hit but the sensation was more like walking through a frozen spider web, a chill with trailing fingers that lingered upon her body. A whirlwind of emotions overcame her in the next second. A giddy excitement of a child on Christmas Day or that of a dog who's master had just come home... A dog... A memory too far away and not truly hers haunted the back of her mind, the only thing given to her were six orb like reflections in the dark of some place she had been but never been but could almost recall. And underneath all that a fear that wasn't her own. One that started small and tucked in the background but quickly grew until it threatened to drown Ziva. As the chill neared the fear flared once more before silencing itself once more in the background of her being.

The whole ordeal moved slowly in Ziva's mind but in reality only seconds if but a minute had passed and just as swiftly it was all over. For a moment she just stood there trying to understand what just happened but unable to come up with an answer that made any sense. Ghost seemed the most logical but since she didn't believe in ghosts it really had no weight to her walk through of the past minute. All the better that she was just a street away from the school she figured as she once again started walking.

When Ziva rounded the corner expecting to see the school and a parking lot full of cars she was setup for disappointment when she spotted only a few cars in the parking lot, more importantly was the fact that her's was not one of them. Right about to throw a fit she remembered that it was a half day today. "Where could that boy have gone off to?" Surely they both couldn't have missed each other, assuming he drove the same route she did. If he went another way... Ziva sighed continuing her trek to the school, if nothing else she could use their phone and call Obi to pick her up.

Despite her planned destination she found her feet leading her to the football field, the place she had met Coach Marty for the first time. Ziva had never been here when it was empty, in fact a part of her wondered if she should be here at all but nevertheless she invited herself in and walked out on the field as if she belonged. Standing in the middle of the field Ziva was taken away by how daunting it felt to have rows and rows of seating turned to those who played. She had watched Obi play back in the day and it had never occurred to her the nerves it took to just play with this many eyes on you, she had always told him to just brush it off and play for himself and the love of the game but in his place she didn't know if she could do the same.

"Hello!" Ziva hollered grinning at the way her voice echoed around the empty stadium. "HELLO!!" She screamed again, this time louder when the last vibrations of her last greetings faded away. "This place really does have great acoustics." Ziva thought out loud mind drifting off to no place in particular.

“It was one of those games that weren’t supposed to mean anything. The home team was middle of the table, and so was their opponent, but neither were close enough that would mistake them for fighting for a spot. They weren’t neighbors either, never had much of a history. Both were good at defense, both weren’t known for their offense. In short, it was as meaningless of a game as one could be.”

Marty stood at the chiseled limestone arch that the team used for their entry onto the field. Behind him was the emptiness that the campus took on with this half day. Most of the students that cared about tomorrow’s game were off preparing for the afternoon homecoming parade, or others were building the bonfire complete with the bad reproduction of opposing school’s mascot stuffed with fireworks to be burned in effigy. Those students who didn’t care about the game were far away from where they would be mistaken for caring. From the edge of the stadium, Marty called out to Ziva, telling his story, knowing that the way the stands were built his voice would carry. Yet before he continued he began to walk out onto the field.

“I went on a suggestion. Some local told me I would enjoy the game anyway, no matter how boring it sounded. I don’t even know why I listened to the guy, its not like me to believe bullshit like that.”

He slid his hands into the cargo shorts under the hem of his loose fitting untucked polo emblazoned with the school colors and logo.

“I walked into that stadium an hour before kickoff, and it seemed subdued; I was getting bored actually. Then about twenty minutes before the game, the crowd started singing. The band came onto the field. They ran flags and horses from one side to the other. Cheerleaders danced and jumped. Then they let the team come on the field, and the whole of the place erupted.”

Marty stood just a few feet away from Ziva now, keeping his distance. He left her with the space to accept him, or accept what he had to say.

“That’s when I knew that it was going to be football. I was … I don’t know … lost. But I could say I’ve been lost for a long time. A lot of us have been lost for a long time. So many of the ancients were forgotten. We can only hope that they don’t need to know us to worship us - but still … Wars aren’t the same anymore. Warriors aren’t the same. Now it seems that the horror of it all is too much to stomach, and it makes those who embrace the fight seem wrong or feel like they are wrong.

“Not like football. If you are a real warrior out here, you are cheered for, you are celebrated. Those boys that play out here, they may not become anything beyond these walls but out here … everyone in those stands either loves them or hates them. Either way they feel the power of the game.”

He stopped, looked up to the empty stands, and smiled lost in the memory that inspired the story. “Granted, it was a college game, and down south where they are … well … they aren’t like the rest of the country about their football, are they. But I thought … if all those people could come to the most meaningless of games and worship this sport … then why can’t they worship me.”

Anger distant from what she felt flooded her mind and turned her smile into a scowl. She didn’t know what had come over her but there was this rage inside her that hadn’t been there seconds ago. The sound of a voice both known and surprisingly unwelcomed shocked more than startled Ziva. Never in her living days would she have expected to react negatively to the voice of the man she felt so connected to. Sure it was a connection that she ignored more then she acknowledged but that didn’t make it any less there.

Her eyes targeted sharply on the movement of his hands, the slow drag of the polo over his skin. She licked her lips like a predator and grinned. “Marty…” His name tore from her throat with a raw darkness that physically stung Ziva. What was going on, she questioned herself as she tried to get a hold of herself. This wasn’t like her, she may have feared the things he seemed to know about her, the things that he awoken in her but there had never been hate. She tried clearing her throat but there was only pain and it caused her eyes to water. Ziva desperately wanted to listen to the story Marty was sharing with her but there was a shadowy voice that echoed in the darkest confines of her mind that blurred out his words and his tale.

He stopped feet from her as if waiting for something from her, a pause in recounting of history that pressured her for an answer. But whatever it was, was lost to her. Her hands curled into fists at her side and her nails bit into her palms, a recognizable pain that briefly cleared her mind of anger. She opened her mouth to say something but the chance for her to speak had passed and Marty continued talking as Ziva clamped her mouth shut. What would she have said anyways other than sorry? What was there to be sorry for other than this confusing anger that rose and fell like a choppy sea.

“War?” Ziva purred approaching Marty with dance like movements, like a serpent hypnotizing its meal. Dark images swirled in her head and Ziva felt the first secondary thread of awareness, fain and distant but powerful. There was a presence here with her, clinging to her and Ziva was unsure of how to rid herself of it. As if realizing that it had been spotted, even at a distance, the energy lashed out and Ziva cried out clutching at her throat falling to her knees. The bruise the handprint from before, from her dream of the demons grabbing at her, pulsed and darkened for a millisecond before settling under the skin again.

Ziva dropped her chin to her chest and shivered, a shuddered breath filling her lungs and escaping from dry parted lips as an eerie giggle. “Football?” It was so cute, a kitten declawed and abandoned in an alley. She solely lifted her head and stood up in one graceful movement. She could see his words paint a memory in her mind and it combatted with those of death as if comparing the two. She slinked towards Marty again rolling off the balls of her feet, grazing against his arm when she was close enough.

In her own mind Ziva cowered in a corner, the darkness having spread managing to gain control. She was powerless to stop it because she didn’t even know what it was and how do you fight the unknown? All she could do was retreat from the thick inky feeling that the shadow exuded. The anger and chilled but now it was cold ruthlessness and Zive watched as her body betrayed the very person that she was and her mouth all much mocked Marty.

“War sounds like more fun.” The possessed Ziva sang as she rounded around Marty with a smile, hand reaching out to tug at his hair. “War is true power.” She laughed hand trailing from his hairline down his spine. Ziva was face to face with him again, standing closer then she had ever willingly gotten. “Power is sexy…” The mocking purr was back in Ziva’s voice as her hands moved over Marty’s body. A hand circling his upper arm while the other ran circles across his chest.

What was she doing, this wasn’t her. How could she stop this? Mustering up her courage she advanced upon the power not her own and plunged into the chillingly cold darkness that was taking over her mind. Fuck. Ziva had never felt colder in her life yet whips of fiery lashes scored every inch of her skin. The pain was dizzying but she didn’t want this thing to hurt Marty, not in her body. If he came to hate her like this presences hated him a part of her would die and she wasn’t sure just how large that piece of her would be.

The inner battle was almost invisible save the violent recoil back from Marty. It wasn’t that Ziva was winning but now that she was putting up a fight it was taking more energy to focus on two things at once. A swirl of darkness dampened the light in Ziva’s eyes and her possessed self quickly recovered in spite of the effort Ziva was putting into getting free.

“Don’t you miss the rush of death, the orgasmic thrill of battles won and lost?” The entity tempted, voice a bit strained. “Being a part of all that?” Because if war reigned as it did once before the death of the many both innocent and guilty would feed those in between. Those waiting to be freed.

There was something deeper inside of her gnawing at her psyche. That was not something a god alone can feel, it was what comes from knowing people and seeing people in danger. The gripping of her hands, the movement of her lips, the delicate balance of listening to words and processing the same. She was here, she was in his presence, but that alone isn’t enough to break one from what cause their minds to be pulled to what is really to be feared.

Then something surfaced.

One that broke free from the girl he met in the bookstore just weeks ago. One that wasn’t close enough to the sultry goddess thousands of years and thousands of miles ago. This one toyed with him, flirted with him, wanted him. Mars felt the blood in his chest pump with liquid fire, feeling the grip of the nails in his fingers begin to turn. She teased the lion more than she teased the man. Yet the the teasing had it’s purpose, a purpose finding fulfillment.

In an instant, it was gone ago, lost in the recoil of woman’s hand. Only with it gone, did he realize how much he missed that touch that seemed so present for so many years It still reminded him that the flesh and blood show shared this field with him was still very much disconnected with the one he knew. Moreso, she was closer to whatever demons that Hades warned him about. She was closer to the darkness of the underworld.

Through this all, he let her speak, let her ask her questions; and when it seemed her breath was catching he responded. The space she formed in recoil he closed, careful not to touch her, careful to allow her the option again.

“The world has changed, war has changed. Gunpowder started it. No longer did you need to stand so close to someone, and you stopped feeling the life of another man leave it’s body at your hands. Now, war is about protection, about preventing. You win with a few men going door to door spreading good deeds, or drop something from a robot halfway around the globe.”

He stopped and turned his head to try to catch her eyes, to look deeply into them.

“But that wasn’t what it was about, was it?” He asked as though she knew what he meant, that she was as much a part of the wars as he was. Which a long time ago, they both agreed they were.

“The rush is here. These boys come out here and they fight their own wars. No … it isn’t life or death, but it is still the pit of what war was. To stand there, on the field of battle, in the struggle to win or lose at any cost, to throw all you are at something greater than yourself.

They were close enough now that their breathed the same air, and their own warmth stood close enough to cut. “The glory of war was never about one man, one life. It was about standing next to your fellow fighter, believing in something greater, and doing everything you can to be the one that person next to you needs. Glory … that is the reward of war. But Glory is shared. Glory is orgasmic.

“Glory … is love.”

Just above a breath he made the plea that hoped give her what she needed.

“Let me stand by your side and fight with you.”

A tremor ran through Ziva’s body and breath heavy rushed out as if a gasp of pain. But it wasn’t narrowed to an emotion, to a feeling. It was a pull, another tiny indication of the tug of war playing out inside her mind.

Ziva was gaining courage, be it from fear or pain she was tired of being toyed with. ’Release me!’ Her voice echoed, muffled by the density of the blackness.

In answer a gruff laughter thundered within the shadows, pulsing and rolling with power but lacking some of the edge it had before.

’Release me.’ Ziva demanded again voice quite against the repeated laughter. The sound was getting on her nerves and Ziva dove into the darkness blind to the pain as a sense of warmth caressed her skin. It was a feeling akin to those dreams she had about a lover she never knew and the more she focused on the feeling the faster it spread over her body like a shield protecting her from the biting sting of the shadowy fog. Like word heard from under water, Ziva caught the sound of Marty’s voice and she strained it hear it over the buzz of the entity’s power. His words were spoken to her, pass the evil that claimed her mind and body and directly to her.

The darkness roared and the chill became a tangible force that wrapped its icy hand around Ziva’s throat fighting for control as the girl found herself. ’No. Fortifying the hold the darkness had over Ziva, it dug deep and burrowed further into areas that Ziva avoided. Using her fear of what she didn’t know and refused to accept against her.

Marty was so close and while Ziva couldn’t see him she could feel him and she ached for him in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. The warmth that had protected her had fizzled when the darkness had rounded against her but it blazed at Mar’s words. She had never needed glory in her life like Mar’s described but the connection he forged with love, love she wanted but also feared. That fear further dampened the protective warmth that surrounded her and once again the winter tendrils of frost and death surrounded her.

Imagine the power you could wield if you didn’t fear, didn’t’ hold back or run away.

It was another voice, one Ziva knew she alone could hear. It was her voice but not her voice, the other her, the dream her that spoke.

Embrace that power.

It sounded so simple. To just let go and let that which may come. Ziva closed her eyes and she let her walls down, walls she had spent a life time building to keep herself safe. Pain of her own doing left her nerves in tatters as wall after wall fell and her defenses were left raw.

The darkness sensed the shifting of the tide and rushed Ziva, drowning her in freezing water, filling her lungs and numbing her body to everything. There would be nothing but the darkness and with that confused emptiness, that feeling of behind forever lost He could rule and release those who waited in the shadows. Those who hungered.

That had been the plan anyways.

The moment the being had turned its full attention on Ziva, surrounded her with premature triumph, things changed. Like a switch being flipped light flashed and fought the darkness. Blinding warmth destroyed the fog like a rainy day and the sun of what Ziva feared the most shined through.

Love.

It was a power that was uncontrollable and magnificent and it chanced the creature from her mind, the darkness from her mind with stunning ease. Fragments captured from here and there ran like a movie in fastforeward, too quick to catch anything but bits here and there but over and over Ziva caught Mar’s face.

“Mars~” Ziva cried body gasping for breath as she fell limp against his body, falling on Marty as she regained herself. With the darkness gone the shining light quickly withdrew, taking its memories with it and leaving Ziva exhausted.

With a whimper Ziva clung to Marty. “Take me,” She started before a yawn gave pause to her word. “Home.” And at that moment Ziva didn’t care if it was her home or his that he took her to. Only that it was far from here and the experience of being controlled by another.

Even with the darkness gone the marked handprint around her through still blazed like a sickly bruise. Despite the won battle Ziva had been marked and now the demons had a link to the outside world, even as fail and thin as it was, it was still a link to what they all longed for. Freedom and chaos.