Too puzzled over her apparent blackout to be frightened, she pulled off to the side of the empty road and looked down at the card again, trying to decipher the fine script through the coating of damp blood obscuring it.

Ianna Velasquez de la Cruz

Seer

The address was a bit harder to read, but by placing it within the map she carried inside her head, Kael figured she was pretty close to the ‘seer’s’ home, even though she honestly couldn’t remember having made the conscious decision to drive out that way.

“Alright, witch,” she whispered. “Time to find out what’s going on here.”

She eased the car back onto the street, the sound of her tires crunching over gravel the only thing that could be heard this far out into the country. A short while later, a white, adobe-style house loomed over the cresting hill, sitting on land that was almost entirely barren; a definite rarity for an area where jungle was a fact of life. A smaller building, also white, sat off to one side, its doors and windows tightly shuttered against the strong sunlight. Unlike the house, which seemed, from the road at least, more open and airy, the lone outbuilding had a vaguely menacing air around it, as if, by its closed-tight look, it promised dark secrets hidden within.

As Kael drove closer, she noted that there wasn’t a number on, or near, the house, but since there weren’t any other habitable buildings anywhere else along the road for as far as the eye could see, the dwelling must have been the right one.

Pulling up into the semi-circular driveway, she turned off the ignition and sat in the car for a moment, listening to the tick of the slowly cooling engine and thinking. On her wild drive to nowhere, her anger leaked out of her slowly, leaving her empty once more. She was well aware how deep of a pit of depression she was in.

She was empty.

Completely and without purpose.

Emptier even than when she had first set foot in Colombia, the only reason for her existence being to live until the next fix could end the screaming pain of her shattered legs.

She didn’t even have that pain to spark her anymore.

Instead, she felt …numb.

Anger and hatred seemed the only things capable of filling her enough to erase the swaddled-cotton feelings she experienced each and every day since Lao Ma’s death. Utter rage was the only thing that got her out of the bed in the mornings.

She knew she was falling. Knew it in the marrow of her bones. So she tried. Oh yes, she tried. Tried again to be that vessel for purity that Lao Ma had so wished for her. Tried to picture in her mind that one perfect moment when anything seemed possible.

And failed. Miserably.

Well, if darkness was what it took to get her living again, she could handle that. Relish it, even. It seemed all she was destined for anyway.

Why not have fun with it?

And she had the feeling that this ‘seer’ could be very fun, indeed.

Feeling a little better about life in general, Kael pushed open the door and slipped her long frame out of the cramped car, raising to her full height gracefully, stretching out her muscles as she did so, and frowning, once again, at the caked blood liberally coating her flesh. “Motherfucker bleeds like the stuck pig he is,” she muttered, scratching flakes of blood off her arm.

The closing of her car door seemed deliberately timed to coincide with the opening of another. Dressed in dark jeans and a bright green shirt, her hair hanging loose and blowing in the slight breeze, a smile firmly affixed to her beautiful face, Ianna seemed the very picture of peace and clean living.

That and a good, healthy dose of primal, blatant sensuality thrown in for good measure.

“Welcome,” Ianna purred, leaning against the doorjamb in an exact imitation of Kael’s casually seductive pose when they had first met. “I knew we’d see one another again.”

“Yeah. You’re a real fortune teller, alright.”

Ianna’s smile broadened. “It pays the bills. Won’t you come inside?”

Instead of answering, Kael brushed past the standing figure and walked down the dimly lit hallway toward what she sensed was a large open room, lured on by the sight of candlelight as it flickered off one wall in the near distance.

The hallway opened out and Kael stepped into the room, then stopped, stunned at the sight before her.

The room was filled with candles. Seemingly hundreds of them littered every flat surface within, their flames dancing merrily and casting eerie shadows on walls and objects stuffed into the largish space. Taking up most of the remaining space were garishly dressed and painted life-sized plaster representations of what Kael, a Catholic girl back when religion actually meant something to her—as in when she was five and her parents, both long dead, forced her into a Church kicking and screaming—recognized to be saints. She looked, over her shoulder, at Ianna, who had followed her into the room. A perfectly arched eyebrow raised over one impossibly blue eye in question.

“As I said, it pays the bills,” Ianna said unapologetically. “The locals like a bang for their buck and I, of course, am happy to provide it for them. I am, after all, a Santeria priestess.” Her smile was mocking.

The connection clicked home. “Santeria. Saints.”

Ianna grinned. “Beauty and brains. An intoxicating package.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Kael looked around. “You really believe in all this mumbo-jumbo? I took you more for a woman of …substance.”

The other woman laughed, somehow a harsh and grating sound, like two sandstone blocks rubbing against one another. “The spirit world has more substance than you could ever imagine. This is just my parlor. My pretty trappings, if you will. There are other, much more glorious things to be seen here. For those with the courage to look.” Her glance was a challenging one.

Kael snorted. “Like your ‘friends’ in the Villa family?”

“Ahh, you heard about them, did you?”

“Enough.”

“One of my proudest achievements.”

“If you consider that an achievement, I don’t think I’d like to see any of your failures.”

Ianna tilted her head coyly. “That’s just because you don’t know the whole story. It was a wonderful success.”

“Ya don’t say.”

“Oh, but I do. I most definitely do. You see, if they had only listened to me, did what I told them to do, they’d have been alive right now.”

“I was under the impression that listening to you was what got them murdered in their beds.”

Ianna laughed again. “Who do you think set that up in the first place?”

Kael bit back a smirk, cocking her eyebrow at the other woman.

“I’d be happy to share the whole tale with you, but first, why don’t why don’t we slip you into something a little more …comfortable.”

The raven eyebrow rose higher.

“Fetching as the blood-stained look is on you, my dear, I don’t want to have to spend the rest of the day washing it out of the furniture. We’re about the same size. I’m sure I have something to compliment that marvelous body of yours.”

*******

A half hour later, Kael was stepping out of the shower and feeling, physically at least, totally clean for the first time in what seemed to be months. Her long, lean body dripping, she reached out for a towel, only to open her eyes to find it dangling from one of Ianna’s fingers, a devious, totally wanton smile playing on the other woman’s full lips. “Looking for something?” she purred.

Shooting Ianna a withering glance, Kael snatched the towel and began drying herself off, putting a subtle play of eroticism in the act just for fun. As she put one leg up on the commode to begin drying the long, tanned expanse of skin, she saw the other woman, eyes glued to the sight, unconsciously lick her lips. Kael smirked and took her time, giving her audience a view she wouldn’t soon forget.

“If I ever had an ounce of doubt in my mind as to why that little bastard who calls himself a drug lord rolls belly up for you like a horse-whipped puppy, you’ve erased it quite nicely,” Ianna said, her normally husky voice even more burred as she struggled against the urges Kael engendered in her body.

After having dried off every square centimeter of flesh on her body, Kael straightened to her full height and simply stared at Ianna, a half grin teasing at the corners of her mouth. “Are you just gonna stand there staring at me all day, or are clothes an option?”

“Decisions, decisions,” Ianna returned, grinning wickedly. “Though I suppose clothing would make our little chat a bit less …distracting.”

“Then just give me the damn things and let’s get on with this already.”

Ianna laughed, but handed over the clothing and left the room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Ten minutes later, as Kael walked into the living area clad in Ianna’s tight maroon tanktop—sans bra—and faded denim jeans, her hair still wet from the shower and clinging lovingly to her broad, tanned shoulders, Ianna realized she was wrong.

Clothed or not, the woman was distracting as hell.

Part 12

by: SwordnQuill

Disclaimers: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Lao Ma, Alti, Borias, and everyone else who sounds familiar belong to Pac Ren and Universal Studios. I am not making money off of this story.

Genre Disclaimer: Ok. Bear with me, please, because this is kinda tough to explain. Sometime last year, I read a story on the internet that moved me so much, I was inspired to write a sort of companion piece to it. That story was “Lost Soul Walking” by DJWP. In her words, “This is NOT UberXena fiction. It just starts out like it is.” The same can be said for this piece. While not directly related to “Lost Soul Walking”, “Desert Storm” can be considered a sort of prequel to it. It is a story, if you will, about the lifetime before the one depicted in that fabulous, outstanding story. (Can you tell I loved it?) In addition, this is somewhat of an ambitious piece of fiction, in that I am attempting (don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve attempted) to take the entire X:WP universe and modernize it. We start, in updated terms, with my version of Xena’s betrayal by Caesar (seen in “Destiny”), and continue up through the X:WP episode known as “Remember Nothing”. The plot will be very recognizable to you. It’s meant to be that way.

Special note: Because of this, Gabrielle does not appear, except in offhand mention, in a great deal of the first half of this story. Do not look for her, because you won’t find her. After all, she was not a part of ‘evil Xena’s’ life. If she were, things might have turned out differently, but because this is based on the premise of “Lost Soul Walking” it cannot happen differently. Gabrielle will, however, make her presence known, and that quite strongly, in the second half of the story. If you can hang on till then, I believe that you will not be disappointed.

Sexuality and Violence Disclaimers: We’re dealing with an updated dark Xena through much of the first half, and an updated redeemed Xena through the second. There’s gonna be violence. There are gonna be naughty words. There are also descriptions of sexual activity in this work. There are allusions to heterosexual sex, but nothing graphic. There are some graphic (though I hope tasteful) scenes of sexual expression between women as well. That is how I see the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and that is how I will continue to write it.

And, finally, thanks: To, as always, the incomparable Mike. A better beta and a better friend one could never hope for. Thank you also, as always, to Mary D, who rescued this story from the refuse heap and begged me to keep going on it. If you hate it, blame her. <w> Grateful and heartfelt appreciation goes out to DJWP, for continuing to write stories that grab me somewhere above the liver and giving her kind permission to mention her story in these disclaimers. If you haven’t read her stories, please, do yourself a favor and do so. Finally, this story is dedicated to a group of people without whom I would most probably be living on the streets. Elizabeth, Rachel, Sulli, and the rest of the “Get Sue to Atlanta” crew, this one’s for you!

Last disclaimer: Hi all! Well, after a year or so, I’m baaaaack. <weg> I can’t promise any swift or timely updates on this piece because it’s still the bitch of a lifetime to write, but I am dedicated to getting it done, so just hang in there with me, ok? To all of you who have written asking when it would be continued, thank you, and here’s your answer!

Feedback: As always is gratefully appreciated. Swordnquil@aol.com

DESERT STORM