Gift of Fire

bedroom was chilly, like every other room in the drafty old villa, but at least it had an adjacent bathroom. Verity fiddled with the small heater, dried her damp hair, and changed her clothes. She was thinking about going downstairs to give Maggie Frampton a hand with dinner when someone knocked on the door.
    She opened the door and found Elyssa Warwick smiling serenely. Verity forced herself to smile back. “Hello, Elyssa. What can I do for you?”
    “Jonas and Doug and the others have gone off to explore the west wing. I thought it might be a good time for the two of us to have a little talk. Something very important has happened.”
    Verity stifled a pang of uneasiness. “What do you want to talk about, Elyssa?”
    “May I come in?” Elyssa walked into the bedroom without waiting for an invitation. She was wearing a pair of white wool slacks and a white sweater. Her silvery blond hair shone in the light, and the small bells on her ankles tinkled merrily. Verity felt like a slob in her jeans and plaid shirt.
    “Please sit down.” Verity couldn’t think of anything else to say under the circumstances. Elyssa was the client, after all. “Now then, what can I do for you?”
    Elyssa sat near the window. She put her palms together and held them just below her breasts, giving Verity a look of deep understanding. “This is going to be difficult for you, Verity, but I feel you will understand. I would like to talk to you about Jonas.”
    Verity’s sense of uneasiness grew. “What about him?”
    Elyssa looked out the window, apparently gathering her thoughts. When she looked back at Verity, her eyes were very large and full of either a deep, ageless wisdom or fake confidence. The two expressions looked a lot alike.
    “I have explained to you that I am becoming a channeler for an ancient temple priestess named Saranantha.”
    “Right.” Verity tried to keep an upbeat, positive tone.
    “My contact with Saranantha has grown stronger lately. Today she appeared to me in a vision and told me exactly what she wishes me to do. I am to fulfill a great destiny, Verity. I am to be the mother of a brilliant, psychically talented child.”
    In spite of her feelings toward the woman, Verity felt a burst of sisterly kinship. “You’re pregnant?”
    “Not yet.”
    “I see.” Her sense of sisterly kinship died a quick death. Verity tried another tactic. “Just exactly what sort of work did this Saranantha do? What are the duties of a temple priestess? I’ve heard some pretty risqué stories about ancient temple ladies.”
    “Saranantha was a priestess of love.”
    “Somehow I had a feeling that might have been her, uh, calling.”
    Elyssa explained gently, “She was an exalted priestess who served a very important goddess. It was Saranantha’s task to receive the love offerings of men who came to beg favors from the goddess...”
    “In other words, she slept with every Tom, Dick, or Harry who showed up at the temple with the right amount of cash?” Verity interpreted.
    “You mock me. But I am prepared for that. It is the fate of a channeler to deal with skepticism and mockery. But today Saranantha revealed the deep truth about my relationship with her. It will change my entire life, Verity.”
    “What is this deep truth?”
    “I am her, and she is me.” Elyssa’s eyes brimmed with emotion. “You see, I was Saranantha in a past life. And now she has come to tell me that I must fulfill the same destiny in this lifetime that I fulfilled in my previous life in Utilan.”
    “She wants you to become a prostitute? I’ve got news for you, Elyssa. That may have been a viable career option twenty thousand years ago, but today it’s considered a dead-end job. No pension plan, no sick leave, and extremely limited opportunities for advancement.”
    “Verity, try to understand. This is not a matter of prostitution or lust. It is a matter of boundless love; love that is not restricted by circumstance or petty twentieth-century morality. I am fated to fulfill my potential by mating with the man who is my true partner. I will be frank, Verity. I speak to you as one woman to another. Saranantha has revealed that it is Jonas Quarrel who is my true mate. It is his seed which must be planted in my womb; his seed which must be sowed and cultivated in me.”
    “Jonas? You want Jonas’s, uh, seed?” Verity’s voice sounded half-strangled. The woman’s effrontery was unbelievable. “I think I ought to warn you that Jonas