The Illumination: Awakening Supernatural Thriller, #4

By Lisa M. Lilly

It began with international occult best seller The Awakening and continued in The Unbelievers and The Conflagration. Now the fourth—and final—book in the Awakening supernatural thriller series is here.

 

After awakening from a thirteen-month coma, Tara finds a radically changed world. Her daughter, the product of a virgin pregnancy, has grown from a happy, engaging infant to a withdrawn toddler who doesn't speak.

 

Riots started by those who believe Tara represents the ultimate evil make it impossible for her to return home or appear in public. And old enemies have built a church in her honor.

 

Tara struggles to uncover the key to creating a safe, normal life for herself and her daughter. But the weather disasters that began with the baby's birth escalate, and the Brotherhood religious order declares war on her.

 

Faced at last with the truth about her own origin and her daughter's conception, will Tara sacrifice everything to save the world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiny Woman LLC
• Release date: Dec 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393094777

Book preview

1

Peering over her shoulder, Tara Spencer looked out the City Museum’s front plate-glass window a second time. The rust-colored panel van still cruised the parking lot. She saw no sign of the protestors who’d surged into the hospital lobby the day before, though, shouting and demanding to see her.

An elbow to her right rib sent her stumbling sideways. Pulse racing, she regained her balance and scanned the entrance area. Her attacker had been a balding middle-aged man shoving past to the ticket window, trailed by three little kids. Tara breathed deep and let the air out to a count of five. The doctors had warned her against discharging herself. Once they’d gotten past their astonishment at how she’d been able to speak and walk and talk after being in a coma for so long, they’d cautioned her that not only physical deficits but mental and emotional ones would make her life challenging for some time. She was determined not to let that stop her from meeting the person she’d come here to meet, a person who claimed to have the key to protecting Tara and her daughter from the mobs and the worst factions of the Brotherhood of Andrew.

Tara plunged into the crowd, showing her ticket to a young girl in camouflage shorts and a tank top.

Really? Young girl?

The young woman’s tank top bore the logo of SLU, the university where Tara had been a junior when she’d learned she was pregnant. Like Tara, the ticket taker was about average height, but her exposed arms and legs looked muscular, not too-thin like Tara’s had become. The girl’s tanned complexion held up well in the unflattering fluorescent lighting that turned Tara’s olive-toned skin green. And she was dressed to look cute and draw attention as she did her job, while Tara wore clothes designed to blend. Tara’s blond hair was tucked under a baseball cap—Cardinals, like half the people here—and she wore a large gray T-shirt, jeans on the baggy side that made her look bigger, and gym shoes.

The lighting and clothes weren’t the only reasons Tara felt a decade older than the other girl and probably looked it. She limped on her left side, and the fingers of that hand wouldn’t close all the way. Dark circles under her eyes made her look more tired than she felt. And being away from her baby—no, from her daughter, who was a toddler now—made it feel hard to put one foot in front of the other. But she couldn’t risk taking Fimi with her. The world had changed in the last thirteen months, and not for the better.

The picketers that had surrounded the hospital meant Tara couldn’t ask anyone who needed to stay anonymous to visit her there. For her own safety, though, Tara hadn’t wanted to meet in a private, secluded place. But she did want to stay hidden.

The City Museum presented the perfect solution. It was less museum and more jungle gym/playground/hazardous junk yard. On the ground floor, kids climbed rope ladders and swung between trees that grew out of openings in the concrete. Adults with kneepads crawled through clear plastic tunnels. Tara had held her high school graduation party here, playing tag with her friends and siblings in the sprawling artificial caves. She planned to repeat that event for her college graduation, however delayed that might be. Despite the doctor’s cautions, she’d already registered to finish the on-line courses she’d begun before the coma.

As she headed for the caves, her eyes flitted from person to person, alert for possible threats, but her arms dangled at her sides, feeling awkward and useless. For the last four days, she’d held Fimi whenever the child would let her, which wasn’t often. Unlike the happy baby Tara remembered, the one who’d opened her arms to everyone and loved to be cradled, Tara had awakened to a toddler who preferred to walk on her own and play by herself. And who didn’t talk, despite having chattered nonsense syllables that sounded almost like words when she’d been seven months old. The doctors said Fimi’s brain was normal, that some children simply learned to speak late. Tara had begun to talk at nine months. She couldn’t help worrying that the same type of trauma that had put her in a coma had affected her daughter’s brain development.

Tara pinched a cloth-coated blue rubber band she wore around her wrist. It sprang back with a quick, light sting that interrupted her spiraling thoughts. She’d learned the trick in her first occupational therapy session to help her brain refocus when she drifted off task. It was a side effect from the coma that her doctors said would improve in time. They couldn’t say how much time.

Twisting sideways, Tara slipped through a narrow oval opening about a foot off the floor in the faux rock face. She’d come out of the coma thinner than ever, so she had no doubt she’d fit. Inside the caverns, she maneuvered to a secluded area, stepping carefully on the uneven ground. Pre-coma, she could have run.

A tall guy ducked in with her for a moment, then out again. He probably thought nothing of Tara standing so still. Lots of people used these caves for hide and seek. It made it a good place to go unnoticed, but also to ambush people. She watched the path through a crack between two rocks, alert for anyone who might have followed her.

A slim, muscular woman with a smooth, dark complexion and black hair pulled into a ponytail strode past. She moved at a measured pace but held her shoulders back, head lifted as if a string were pulling it up from above. Her backpack’s logo, a giant wheel, stood out purplish-white in the dim caverns, as if it were under black light. She glanced neither right nor left.

Tara slipped onto the path behind her, her feet steadier this time. When they entered a cul-de-sac, the woman turned around.

Excuse me, Tara said, are you a star?

Saying the prearranged line made her feel as if she were in a bad spy movie, but that pretty much described her life since she’d learned she was pregnant two and a half years ago. Two people she trusted, her dad and Cyril Woods, had worked together to find this woman, but she’d refused to speak in person with anyone but Tara.

The woman gave the right answer. Who do you think I am? Her voice sounded like the one Tara had heard on the phone. It was pitched not quite as high as Tara’s and the accent sounded like a mix of British, Spanish, and another dialect Tara couldn’t identify.

A cousin, Tara said.

She believed this person to be the cousin of a woman Tara and Cyril had met in Paris. That woman had risked her life to give Tara a silver bookmark that bore an intricate design, but she had disappeared into a maze of antique stalls and vendors before Tara could ask what it meant.

I am Oni Perez. Oni held out her hand to shake. Her grip was firm but not overbearing.

You have proof? Tara said.

Because the woman you met in Paris looked white and I look black? Oni said.

Partly, Tara said. Also, I’m a tiny bit wary of people who say they want to help me.

Oni eased her hand into her back pocket. Just getting that proof. She handed over her phone, which cast a bluish light in the dim cavern, after swiping through a few images. Tara recognized Oni at different ages in photos of a multi-racial family. She often had her arms around a girl who in later shots looked like the young woman Tara had met at the Paris Flea Market. The two were shown together getting into a gondola, walking under the Eiffel Tower, and on outdoor camping trips.

Our fathers were brothers, both from Argentina. My cousin’s mother was a pale Swede. Mine was a Nigerian black woman. Now you, Oni said. Because you don’t look anything like your photos, and I know your sister posed as you more than once.

Which almost got her killed. I’ll never let her do it again. Tara maneuvered the ripped hole in her jeans above her right knee so Oni could see the scar. Shaped like an oblong S, it appeared to slither up her leg when she flexed the muscle. She’d used it to prove her identity more than once, and she guessed Oni knew of it.

And? Oni said.

Tara slid the silver bookmark from her front jeans pocket. She kept a tight grip on it, but held it out so Oni could see the female figure etched into it, pouring water out of two vases, one in each hand.

And the back?

Tara flipped it. Oni used the flashlight on her phone to examine the 92.5 marking indicating it was pure silver.

Satisfied? Tara said.

Oni nodded, her ponytail swinging. Yes. This is the bookmark my cousin gave you.

Though no one had entered the cul-de-sac, groups of people had crossed the path to it while Oni and Tara had been talking.

Okay, Tara said. Let’s get somewhere more secluded.

Tara led the way to the lower levels along winding paths that looked like dead ends unless you knew them well. She made sure to stay to the left of Oni, keeping an eye out for the unmarked path that eventually exited the caves. She had no intention of being blocked in. She kept her phone in her hand in case she needed to text for help.

They stopped in a small cavern they had to crouch to enter. It smelled damp. An artificial waterfall ran one level above, and a trickle of water leaked through an overhead crack. Lichen shimmered in puddles of water-filled depressions in the rock floor.

Tara straightened, the top of her head grazing the rocky roof, and turned to face Oni. We won’t be disturbed here. No one likes this cave.

No kidding. Nice slime, Oni said.

So? Tara said.

I have something that can help protect you and your child. But you need to promise to work with me, to keep me involved, because my life is on the line here, too.

You didn’t tell my dad that part.

Oni shrugged. I’m telling you.

You think the Brotherhood will come after you?

If they find out who and where I am. My sister—the one who first told me of my mission in life—is dead. My aunt, the tarot reader who tried to guide Nanor Kerkorian’s daughter—dead. My cousin, whom you met in Paris—dead.

Tara’s body sagged against the damp wall. She’d known about the first two women. Cyril had discovered their deaths when trying to learn more about the bookmark and its origins. But she hadn’t known the woman who’d given her the bookmark also had died.

What happened? Tara had lost her youngest sister, whom she still thought of every day. She couldn’t imagine an aunt, a sister, and a cousin all gone. And when?

"After she crossed paths with you, I heard from her less and less. She was sure she was being followed. The last time she emailed me was ten weeks after your coma began. I reported her missing to police in France and Spain, but it took another two months before anyone had anything to tell me. And then it was that she’d died eight weeks before. Supposedly she slipped on a wet rock on the Promenade Plantee, hit her head at a freak angle against a stone fountain, and died instantly."

I’m so sorry. Tara stood straighter. Her upper arm felt cold and slimy. She’d been leaning to one side without realizing it and had pressed against the cave wall. Why didn’t they tell you right away?

A bureaucratic snafu, supposedly. And her passport was missing. It took all that time to put together my report with her unidentified body.

That’s awful.

So you see why I’m afraid. When she told me her fears, I felt sure you were part of it all, a shill sent to the Paris Flea Market to draw her out. But once I saw you heal the earth, and heal the old woman, I knew you were real.

Thirteen months ago, a fire had started in Willow Springs, a community founded by Nanor Kerkorian, a woman who’d been like a mother or grandmother to Tara. Tara had placed her hands on Nanor, shut her eyes, and cleared her mind. Nanor not only had come back, but so had the earth, the grass, and the trees. In the instant before she’d collapsed, Tara had felt awed and powerful. When she’d awakened, her mind and body were damaged, her infant daughter was thirteen months older, and fear had replaced the peace she’d so briefly felt.

I healed people before Nanor, Tara said.

Not on live television with reporters right there. Not that couldn’t have been staged.

Muffled voices and shouts came from elsewhere in the museum, and Tara heard the rumbling of the children’s train from the second floor. For an instant, she thought she heard Fimi’s distinctive laugh, but it faded. She hadn’t heard her daughter laugh since before the coma.

Tara snapped the rubber band to force her mind back to Oni.

So what can you tell me? What’s the key to protecting my daughter?

Tara held back on Fimi’s name, which was actually a nickname. Her hope, probably pointless now, was that keeping the nickname known only to those she considered family would help keep her from being lured away by a stranger.

Oni crossed her arms over her chest and widened her stance, nearly filling the cramped cavern. Her arms had small but well-defined muscles. You need to promise first. Promise you’ll work with me, keep me informed and involved.

Tara’s stomach tightened. She needed whatever information Oni had, but she didn’t know how much to trust her. The doctors had warned that she might not make the best decisions until her brain fully healed.

I could lie and say I promise and not mean it, but I don’t want to do that, Tara said. I get that you’re scared. I’m scared too. I can’t decide now whether I’ll trust you and keep you involved forevermore.

No one’s saying forever. For now. I want to be part of whatever you decide to do with what I have to give you, Oni said.

How can I say that when I don’t know what it is? I’ll work with you as much as I can so long as that seems safe. I’ll do my absolute best not to do anything that puts you in more danger. That’ll need to be good enough.

Oni pursed her lips and nodded. That’s fair. But keep in mind, your enemies are my enemies. We’re better fighting them together than separately.

Tara rubbed her upper arms with her hands, shivering as much from Oni’s words as the damp air. She still wasn’t used to the idea of having enemies, and despite being an agnostic now, her years of Catholic grade school training made her feel she must have done something terribly wrong for so many of them to be religious people. Because of the Brotherhood of Andrew and other fanatics, it had been years since she’d been out in public without fear, and she’d had to abandon college a year short of her degree. Her dad had told her that at least once a week during her coma demonstrators had converged to yell and throw rocks at the Spencers’ home, forcing them to vacate it. Now the house did nothing but drain her parents’ finances.

What do you have for me? Tara said.

The bookmark is the key, and it goes with this. From her backpack, Oni retrieved a thick folded document. She unfolded it to expose a color photocopy of a creased, frayed world map with red dots across it. My cousin left this with me for safekeeping when she went to Paris. This is the only copy. The original’s in a safe deposit box in London.

Tara shone the flashlight from her phone on it. What are the red dots?

My best guess is each—

Tara pushed away from the wall, squared her shoulders, and faced Oni head on. Guess? The doctors had warned that her temper might flare easily, especially if she got frustrated. She knew she could be reacting out of proportion, but she couldn’t stop herself. Your best guess? I go through all this to arrange a safe meeting place, somewhere you won’t be recognized, away from my daughter, and what you have for me is a guess?

Shh. Oni poked her head outside the cave. Someone might hear you. Pull yourself together.

I’m six days out of a coma, and I got here, so I’m pretty damn together.

Oni blew air out of her mouth. It’s an educated guess.

Tara breathed deep and exhaled to a count of ten, another exercise the occupational therapist had taught her. All right. Tell me.

I suspect each dot is where a woman like you, one who discovered she was pregnant though she’d never had sex, supposedly lived. See, here’s one in California around where Nanor Kerkorian’s daughter lived.

But there’s hundreds of dots. There’ve supposedly been at most six pregnant virgins. If I’m the sixth.

The Brotherhood told you that, right? Why believe them?

There’s no dot in St. Louis for me, Tara said.

It’s an old map.

It can’t be that old. It includes the United States.

Oni frowned. Just listen, all right? My cousin told me a woman like you, who survived to give birth, poses a unique threat to the Brotherhood of Andrew. Maybe can take it down for good. Which makes you dangerous, and puts you in danger. I belong to a line of people called guardians, meant to protect and aid those women. You know of the guardians, right?

Yes.

The bookmark and map were passed down through generations of guardians.

But how do they work? How do they help?

Oni refolded the map, her movements jerky. Do I look like an oracle? That’s what you and I need to figure out.

Tara took off her cap, ran her hand through her hair, and replaced the cap. Look, I appreciate your coming here. I really do. But you said you could help protect my child, and I’m not hearing anything about that.

The Brotherhood’s your biggest foe. Taking it down will protect her.

But I thought you had something that would help right now. That would help us live a normal life.

That’s never going to happen for you, Oni said.

Tara’s head began to ache, the pain starting in back and surging forward behind her eyes. It is. Somehow. I’ll protect my daughter, and I’ll finish college, go to medical school, make a good life for both of us.

Fine, but first you have to survive. People all over the world saw live footage of you healing the earth and bringing Mrs. Kerkorian back from what looked like death, right? The Brotherhood’s been trying like hell to deny that happened, but a lot of people believe it. Believe in you. So now they need to destroy you.

The noises from the crowds beyond the cave area were growing louder. Tara rubbed her forehead. You’re full of good news.

Oni inched closer to Tara and pushed the map into her hands. That’s why we need to figure out how to use the bookmark and map to defeat them.

But if I don’t threaten the Brotherhood, if I don’t go after them—

They’ll come after you. And it’s not only the Order. It’s the world. All the earthquakes, the blizzards, the tornadoes, since your child was born. It’s all connected. You can’t walk away.

That sounds like something the Brotherhood—

Tara’s phone buzzed. She pulled it from her side pocket and stared at the message from Cyril Woods.

get out now

2

protestors know you’re in there

Tara shoved the map into her pocket, grabbed Oni’s hand, and half-ran, half-stumbled up ramps of faux rock to the metal staircase along one side of the caverns. On the first step, her weight came down too hard on the outside of her left foot. Ignoring the pain that shot through her ankle when it twisted, she gripped the railing and kept climbing.

It’s her. The acoustics made it impossible to tell from which direction the voice came, but the next words made it clear it was Tara who’d been spotted. She’s awake.

Her family had refused to confirm or deny for the press the reports that Tara that had come out of the coma. Now everyone would know.

One more flight.

Feeling lightheaded, Tara pushed herself. Another level up, she pulled Oni into a dark side corridor that led to the mid-level entrance of a giant tornado slide that ran through the museum’s center. She didn’t turn on her flashlight because that would make it harder to see anything outside its beam, plus pinpoint their location for anyone around them.

Switch, Tara said. She held out her baseball cap, letting her blond hair fall around her shoulders. When she’d last been in the public eye, she’d been a redhead, so she wasn’t worried about her natural color giving her away. She pulled off her gray T-shirt. She had a tank top underneath.

Oni shrugged off her backpack and maneuvered its flap to cover the logo, donned Tara’s T-shirt, and put on the baseball cap. She twisted her own hair under it.

I’ll call you tonight, Tara said.

Oni nodded and ran farther up the metal stairs, clicking on the light on her phone to draw attention. Tara half-walked, half-ran across the metal walkway and shoved herself into the slide. Her dizziness increased as she hurtled down.

She landed flat on her back on the mat at the bottom. Her left shoulder felt bruised, and her tailbone was sore, but she felt no sharp pain. A freckled man with an eagle tattoo on the side of his neck leaned over her.

Are you all right, miss? Did you hit your head?

No. From outdoors, Tara heard multiple voices chanting and shouting, but no one in the museum appeared particularly interested in her. The people pursuing her must have followed Oni. Or were in the slide. Taking the man’s hand, she stood.

Easy, he said.

There she is. The voice came from above her. A bearded face peered through a net in the trees across from her.

Tara didn’t wait to see if the person was talking about her. She hurried to the wide staircase near the entrance. She hoped her awkward gait would lead people to believe she’d simply had too much to drink. The museum had a bar attached to it. Since she’d been old enough to think about it, she’d wondered why the museum’s founder had thought that a good idea given all the exhibits to climb and jump off. But right now, she was grateful that it helped her look like just another inebriated college kid.

Near the entrance, a series of rolling pins arranged into another slide whirled and clanked as people slid down rather than descending the main stairs. Tara climbed up, the rolling pins’ clatter drowning out shouts of twenty or thirty people waving signs in the parking lot outside. On the second floor, the child-size train whistled. Tara limped past it into a neon-lit coffeehouse and bar area. She paused in an alcove, half hidden by musty-smelling bookshelves filled with magazines and paperbacks.

Exit, exit, exit. Near here but where?

She knew the City Museum inside and out, but the circuits in her brain felt sluggish. Knees shaking, she leaned against the wall and took five slow breaths. The therapist had said the key to retrieving memories when stuck was to go at them a different way. Tara thought of her favorite visit to the museum. She’d taken her youngest brother, Bailey. He’d spent hours running around the skateboard park, ducking around the older kids, but what he’d loved best were the funhouse mirrors.

The mirrors.

Tara poked her head out of the alcove. No one was looking in her direction. Beyond the coffee bar, she wound her way through the mirror maze, past dead butterflies pinned into display cases, and into the architectural section. There, stone gargoyles gazed down at her as she navigated half-walls with scrollwork rescued from to-be-demolished buildings. In the rear corridor were the stairs to the fire exit.

She burst out the double doors to the back parking lot. An alarm blared. Beyond the chain link fence that enclosed the rear parking area, clumps of people shouted at one another, their voices a low rumble. Some waved signs Tara couldn’t read. She heard the word Satan and thought she heard the word Peace, but that might have been wishful thinking. No one seemed to have noticed the alarm, so focused were the protestors on screaming at one another. Heart banging in her chest, Tara scanned the area. The alley looked like the best escape route.

Two grungy-looking men in jeans spotted her. They broke from the crowd and raced toward the fence. A dozen onlookers followed.

The fence rattled as one of the guys jumped onto it. He yelled something she couldn’t decipher, his voice deep and gravely. The other leapt onto the fence as well, shouting, Tara, save us!

The memory of a young tattooed man slashing his wrist while shouting at her in a park flashed through Tara’s mind.

The rust-colored panel van roared around the corner of the building, tires squealing. It braked in front of Tara, and the side door slid open.

Thomas Stranyero slid out of bed, careful not to disturb the woman sleeping next to him. He descended the stairs quickly and silently. Though he’d stayed overnight less than a dozen times, he knew which of the townhome’s floorboards squeaked, which doors needed oil, and how to disengage the back deadbolt without a sound. In the narrow kitchen, he pulled on jeans, socks, a turtleneck, and gloves, all black. He added a black cap in case his silver hair glinted in any of the streetlights.

He’d noticed the green Infiniti following him three days ago. It hadn’t completely surprised him. He’d kept a low profile since Tara Spencer’s apparent raising of the dead and healing of the earth. Life had been simpler with her in a coma. The Brotherhood of Andrew had been in a watchful waiting mode.

But now his new love Sophia Gaddini was slipping away for quiet conversations, no doubt on a phone other than her own. She hadn’t told him yet that her friend had awakened. He admired her restraint. He wished he could tell her it was unnecessary. But the man who’d been lurking in the Dearborn Park neighborhood for days like a jealous lover on a stake out indicated otherwise.

Outside, the air felt like a sluice of hot water against his face. After midnight, and it was still over ninety degrees. Stranyero retrieved a tire iron from Sophia’s Toyota, which was parked in the townhome association’s private lot, then glided through the shadowed walkway between the homes on one side of the block and the other. He jimmied the half-hearted deadbolt of the eighth rear fence gate south of Sophia’s. The residence itself had a strong security system, but that didn’t worry him. He didn’t need to break in, merely to pause between this townhome and the next. Neither one had a dog or outdoor floodlights, so it was the perfect place to view the Infiniti while making his call.

With the white noise of all the air conditioning units running around him, he couldn’t hear whether a phone rang inside the vehicle. The man he suspected lingered in it wasn’t foolish enough to turn on a light. But he’d recognize Stranyero’s number.

The call went to voicemail. Stranyero didn’t identify himself. He never did by phone, but they all knew one another’s voices. "I’m standing on the sidewalk near a townhome on Dearborn holding a tire iron. I’m either about to vandalize a late model green Infiniti and disappear into the night or to have a civilized conversation with you.