Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

grass glowed like a gem. Luisa's edges were dissolving. The barrier that had guarded her heart for seeming ages had been destroyed. Energy burst from the earth in a golden flood. The sweetness as it rushed inside her was indescribable, a heady mix of light and love and—
     
    And then the link between Luisa and Martin snapped.
     
    Thrust from her vision, Martin gasped. Here, in the material world, Luisa's body began convulsing. Martin could scarcely hold her shoulders down. She had succeeded in tapping the auric resources of the earth. Now energy poured into her unchecked, energy she obviously was not meant to have. To Martin's finely honed senses the flow seemed an angry, caustic river. With every second, the violence of her struggles heightened. Tendons stood out on her neck. Her hands curled into claws.
     
    "Luisa!" he cried, pulling her to his breast.
     
    He could not connect their minds. The energy was a torrent that swept his attempts aside.
     
    The door crashed open. Geshe Rinpoche had been alerted by his distress. "Speak to her," he panted, robe askew. "You must reach into her vision with your voice."
     
    "But how can she hear?"
     
    "Those in trances still hear those they love," said his teacher. "You must have faith."
     
    Martin could not refuse to try. "Luisa," he said, rocking her gently in his arms, "what you are doing is not safe. I know it feels lovely in your dream. I know it feels as if your angels had at last welcomed you home. But if you do not come back, your physical self will die. You said you did not want that. You said you loved your life."
     
    His throat choked up but he forced himself to speak. "I do not wish to lose you, Luisa. I wish… I wish to get to know you on this plane, in this life. Please do not make me wait. Please come back to me now."
     
    With an abruptness that shocked him, her convulsions stopped. Her body relaxed, then went completely still.
     
    He could not help but fear she died.
     
    "Lay her down," instructed his teacher.
     
    Reluctantly Martin did so. She was gaunt, her beauty burned thin, her skin as white and chill as snow. She looked even less human than when she slept.
     
    The abbot knelt by her other side. "Luisa," he said commandingly, and laid both hands atop her heart. Martin knew he was trying to use his healing powers.
     
    For one long, dark moment, nothing happened. She is gone, he thought, even as his mind groaned in denial. Then, like a person saved from drowning, she drew a ragged breath. Martin nearly collapsed in relief. Her eyelids fluttered. She licked her lips. "What—What happened?"
     
    Though she looked at Martin, the abbot answered. "I misjudged, I'm afraid. That energy was poison to you. You must not try to take it again."
     
    "Poison…" A slow, shining tear rolled down her cheek.
     
    Martin knew what she was thinking: that all that love was not for her. She did not understand her vision had been a creation of her mind. No holy messenger had rejected her. No gates of heaven had been closed.
     
    Throat tight, he brushed her tear away. "Luisa, the things you saw were just a dream. Your god, if he exists and if he is the source of what we call the energy of the earth, gives this bounty equally to saint and sinner. I do not know why you could not drink, but it is no judgment against your soul, merely an experiment that went awry—as if I were to eat a horse's hay."
     
    She smiled but the attempt was weak. "Tired," she murmured, her eyes drifting shut. "Need to sleep."
     
    Martin and his teacher watched her draw a score of breaths. Then, their thoughts in accord, they stepped quietly away.
     
    The abbot rubbed his chin. "This troubles me," he said. "We have left her weaker than before. Even if I found another method to attempt, I am not sure she could withstand it. I am not even sure she would survive a journey home. She must feed, Martin, in the manner of her kind."
     
    "We cannot ask any of the monks to let her drink."
     
    "No," the abbot agreed, "we cannot."
     
    Martin's heart thumped in his chest. He knew what the abbot was asking and he knew he could refuse. If he did not offer up his blood, Martin had no doubt his guide would volunteer. Even if it killed him, Geshe Rinpoche would do it. That was the kind of man his teacher was.
     
    "She will put me in her thrall," Martin said, the rasp of words not quite a protest.
     
    His teacher's gaze was steady. "I believe you are strong enough to resist her."
     
    If I want to