CHAPTER ONE Astral NewsWas she still alive?Angie was only five. Astral travel had just become a new experience for her. The “lightning strike” had been swift and cruel.At first, she had tried to lift her chin, but that had become impossible. She could no longer feel her feet.The dusky colors of her home in the desert felt far away. Angie’s new world was permeated with an unfamiliar darkness. A cloud of heat had ignited at the base of her spine and had snaked-up to the crown of her head. But Angie was not afraid of snakes. She had fought many a staring contestwith them, as well as lizards and other desert creatures. She pondered the possibility of her death.“What would it really be like to be reborn as a lizard?”That was a strange thought.She wondered if her mother was dead. She could no longer smell herscent. They had been standing next to each other when the lightning had struck.The day had started strangely. She had been awakened by a series of howls that had pierced the walls of her bedroom. She had been frightened.Near their house stood a group of rocks. On the rocks were ancient carvings that had been chiseled out over the centuries by their neighbors, a tribe of dark-skinned people. The carvings showed a gallery of amazing creatures connected by a series of spirals. One of the spirals was embedded in a hand raised in the form of a friendly greeting. Angie had gazed at it for hours while sitting in the shade of a tree with her bare feet pnted deep in the sand.Her thoughts drifted back to her mother’s warning. She had told her to stay close to the house. The wind had tugged hard at her skirt, blouse, and hair. While the beams of her house rattled violently just above her head. Then the HOT FLASH struck, smashing her to a pulp.
Angie’s thoughts drifted from those memories and returned to her lifeless body. Her confused thoughts floated to the sound of a conversation whispered nearby in a cave. The voices sounded familiar to her.“Ghost Squirrel, the dreadful day has come at st. The crow spirits have been warning us for years that our white-skinned visitors were in grave danger. Remember how the mother arrived at our doorstep in a half- crazed state, asking for shelter near the reservation?”“Yes, Flying Bear, I will never forget how the tears ran down her face and how she murmured her secret pain from her lips. She had wandered for days in complete confusion. It broke my heart.”“Do you remember the day her daughter was born, Ghost Squirrel?”“Yes, Flying Bear. The crow spirits had warned us that she was gifted, and they demanded that we make offerings to her on the night of her birth, a full moon night.”“Ghost Squirrel, do you remember how the lizard spirits warned us that one day a man would come in a hail of fire and bullets?”“Yes, those warnings made our people shudder. Tell us the truth. Is this terrible danger before us?”Angie listened to the voices as she floated silently in the darkness. If she was truly dead, she had nothing to fear.“Ghost Squirrel, these shameless ‘whites' have caused our nation endless trouble and grief. They have disrupted our lives for many centuries with their firearms and greedy hysteria, but there is one evil I have seen that surpasses even them. It is a million times greater, a million times more destructive than anything they can conceive. It comes from a faraway pce, but today it is polluting our own horizon. A green-skinned protector recently warned me of a series of grim disasters destined for this fateful year.”“A green-skinned protector, Flying Bear?” asked Ghost Squirrel as the fear in her voice rose to a fever pitch.“Yes. I call him Little Carrot Top, the wonderful flute pyer.”To Angie, this name sounded both familiar and foreign at the same time.Her panicked thoughts tried to force her wrists and ankles to move in a new direction, but her body felt as immobile as a stone. An emptier version of herself struggled through a new, invisible terrain that seemed far removed from her former world.Slowly, the ndscape rematerialized. She could see the speakers she had been listening to just below her. They were surrounded by their tribe in a dimly lit cave. Could this be the forbidden khiva Angie’s mother had told her about so long ago? As a child, she had seen it from the outside, but had never dared to enter. She remembered her mother whispering.“One day, my young queen, you will be initiated into the dark secrets of the khiva.”Angie directed her thoughts back to the conversation below.“Flying Bear, I remember seeing you praying at the top of the sacred Lion Mountain. Did you have a conversation with Little Carrot Top there?”“Yes, Ghost Squirrel, I flew with him to the distant stars, and he invited me into his celestial cave. He chuckled as he pointed to a hole in the wall of his house. We flew through it and beyond until we nded near a mansion filled with millions of these strange holes.”“How strange and wonderful, Flying Bear. Where did the holes take you?” asked Ghost Squirrel with growing amazement.“Ghost Squirrel, I can't say for sure, but one of those holes seemed to be the main gateway to a series of gaxies far away.”Angie could sense the tribal chief choosing his next words carefully. His long hair was illuminated by the glow of a single candle in the cave. After a short pause, he made his next remark.“Ghost Squirrel, what happened next puzzled me greatly. Little Carrot Top introduced me to a lizard chief who lived on a pnet orbiting a distant star whose name I can't remember at the moment. I prefer to call this mighty chief ‘Fire Eyes.’ His intense gaze has seared my spirit.”Angie had been keeping a close eye on Flying Bear. But when she averted her gaze from him, she suddenly flinched. Beneath her y the most horrible spectacle of all. Her body had been pced next to her mother's corpse. Angie panicked as she approached the lifeless bodies that y beneath her; she wept, but no tears could escape her eyes as the conversation continued beside the two corpses.“Flying Bear, please report to the tribe. What did Fire Eyes say to you about our future? I feel a terrible dread,” said Ghost Squirrel.Flying Bear paused and then spoke.“He warned me that his enemy, Double Fangs, was struggling to free himself from a filthy prison. Fire Eyes had created a special dungeon for him, and he told me that Double Fangs would end up destroying countless worlds, including our own.”
“Flying Bear, who is this Double Fangs?” asked Ghost Squirrel, though she dreaded the impending answer.“He is a vile psychic creature capable of destroying entire pnets with his fiendish hordes. Fire Eyes grimaced as he spoke his evil name. I understood his warning with little trouble, even if we communicated only through our thoughts.”Angie moved closer to her mother, who looked beautiful despite the soot that covered her entire body.“Flying Bear, please speak to the tribe from the deepest part of your heart,” begged Ghost Squirrel, who seemed to recognize her impending death as inevitable.Angie watched as the sister tangled with the tribal chief while the excited crowd in the cave began to sing songs she could barely understand. The only words that came to her mind were the names she had just heard during the conversation between the chief and his sister.“Carrot Top, Fire Eyes, Double Fangs..."Angie slid closer to her body. The unfamiliar names being chanted still sounded hopelessly distant.“Carrot Top, Fire Eyes, Double Fangs.”The tribal chief beat his drum in unison with the lightning that had begun to crackle outside the cave. Thundercps joined the lightning, dancing to each other’s complimentary rhythms.
RUMMBLE
KERACKK
Angie became obsessed with a new desire. She wanted to dance immediately. Before her recent misfortune, this familiar desire had been a source of instant enchantment.Angie’s dance partners had always been the desert animals. Slithering snakes, magnificent lizards, chattering coyotes, and a few imperious hawks made up her imaginary dance team.The chief, who had fallen into a trance, beat his drum even louder as he and his fellow tribesmen began to pray for the “white strangers" whose bodies had been pced in a circle sketched on the cave floor. Then the chief whispered a warning to his sister.
“Ghost Squirrel, the girl’s jailer has arrived, and Double Fangs has joined forces with him. They both thirst for the girl’s psychic powers.”The chief paused as the sinister vision pyed around his troubled mind.“Fire Eyes told me of the girl’s special gifts. She is a mind flier like me, and she will have much to say to the grounders that will surround her. She will soon be taken away to a forest full of ruthless wolves. We cannot resist this prophecy. Ghost Squirrel, you will be honored for your sacred sacrifice. You must follow the girl and become her champion. Do not be in despair. Little Carrot Top will always be there to guide you.”Angie tried to speak to the chief, but it was too te.“Mr. Flying Bear, I’m right here beside you. I’m still alive. I can hear you,” pleaded Angie even as bullets ripped through the cave, killing Ghost Squirrel on the spot.
BANG! BANG!
The raiders charged into the khiva looking for their prey.
BANG! BANG!
Angie felt herself being lifted up and carried out of the khiva. This sensation led to her realization that she that she was back in her body. It had been strapped to the side of a helicopter while the sounds of screaming crows, whirring rotor bdes, and loud thundercps rippled through her fragile psyche.Angie felt the pitter-patter of rain spshing on her forehead. Many strange things began to happen all at once. The helicopter nded with a soft CLUNK. Her body was id on the ground.
WHOOSH
Angie felt herself being sucked up by a force even more powerful than the helicopter she had been strapped onto before.
TWANG CLANK
Angie’s ears cracked as she was blinded by a series of neon lights. She felt a razor-sharp sting on her left shoulder just as her blouse was ripped off. It was followed by a softer sting in her right ear. She emitted a muffled gasp and blurted out only a single word as her heart stopped."Mom?"
