Children of the Earth Read Online Free Page B

the boots she hadn’t worn since her last trip out to gather kindling.
    “It’s cousin Daphne.” Her voice was hollow. “She had an accident or something, and she’s in the hospital. I gotta go.”
    She found her imitation Uggs under the couch and mashed her feet into them, sweatpants and all. She fished the keys to Doug’s truck from his pocket and looked down at him one last time, at the blanket of sleep that had already fallen over his face and the gently snoring mouth that had once declared his undying love. She didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss that mouth or kick it, and so she did neither.
    Instead, she let herself out of the house and started his truck, shivering as she drove off into the night.

4
    M USIC THROBBED THROUG H LUNA’S BODY, pulsing the blood in her veins and making her skin feel warm and alive. The tips of her multicolored dreadlocks brushed her bare back, tickling the sensitive skin where a tree tattoo sprouted from her root chakra and spread over her back and down her arms. She threw back her head and closed her eyes, letting the music roll over her shoulders and trace trails in the air from her fingertips.
    Even in the darkness behind her lids, she could feel them watching her, hungering for her. Their eyes left hot retina prints on her hips, which swirled lazily, keeping the twinkling circle of her LED hoop aloft. From time to time she sensed a grubby hand reach for her, desperate to stroke even the tiniest patch of skin on her calf, but it was easy enough to send the hand’s owner stumbling backward with a well-timed kick of her vegan leather boot.
    The Vein was packed, the music deafening, the air thick with crushed dreams and frustrated desires. Her Earth Sisters Freya and Abilene moved like panthers behind the bar, green eyes flashing as they poured shots down the prospectors’ throats and tucked their ample tips into holsters slung low on their hips. Orion winked at her from the DJ booth while Aura sent fog creeping across the floor and lasers dancing over the walls, and Gray and Kimo moved silently through the crowd, clearing glasses and mopping up spills, their lithe bodies no more than shadows that left the Vein’s patrons feeling inexplicably cold and empty as they passed, making them shiver and curse and hurry to the bar for another drink.
    Oh, how the prospectors could drink! It took gallons of booze to fill their vacant souls each night. Their greed was massive and oppressive, their desire for easy money and cheap thrills so strong that sometimes Luna found herself forcing back bubbles of nausea while she twirled her hoop atop her go-go platform, above it all.
    Radio signals of want radiated from them, so loud at times that Luna wanted to scream at the prospectors that these desires would leave them even emptier in the end, just as the alcohol drained not only their wallets but also their souls. She wanted to force them to see the beauty in the earth, the blinding happiness in a simple life spent worshipping the land, the incomparable joy of respecting every living thing. She wanted to make them understand the damage they did each day when they went tearing up the foothills looking for oil.
    But she knew that route didn’t work. Her people had been trying to turn the tides for centuries, from the druids of Ireland to the monks of Tibet to the gentle hippies who had raised her on a commune called the Children of the Earth. Their warnings never worked. People were just too greedy, just too blind.
    With the earth on the verge of destruction, the planet’s veins bled of oil, its airways choked with smog, and the water in its cells polluted with toxic chemicals, it was Luna’s responsibility to tap into the ancient power of the earth and take action. She had to stop the destruction before it was too late.
    But she couldn’t do it alone. She needed the Children of the Earth—
all
of the Children of the Earth—at her side.
    Somewhere below the go-go platform, a fight broke