Fighting for Infinity by Karen Amanda Hooper

spending any quality time with him?”
    “Quality time with Eightball? I’ve been sort of occupied with the Maryah crisis.”
    “You two should be comforting each other right now.”
    I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation about our dog while Maryah’s body had so recently been invaded by a stranger. “Look, I love Eightball, truly, but I can’t communicate with him like you do, and I don’t have the same bond with him that Maryah does.”
    “You could work on strengthening your bond with him. Take him for a walk. Play catch with him.”
    “Catch?” I laughed. “Somehow I suspect Eightball wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do if I threw a ball for him to fetch.”
    “He would. Just try it. Some playtime will be good for you both.”
    I agreed to it simply to end the absurd conversation. “Fine.”
    I hung up and handed Carson his phone. Krista held out a stuffed alligator toy. It was so faded that the color could no longer be declared green, and it was missing an eye.
    “It’s his favorite toy,” Krista explained.
    Relenting, I took it from her. “It’s damp.”
    “He loves when you throw it in the pond.”
    “The pond? We have koi in the pond.”
    “He never bothers the fish.” Carson winked then nodded at the slobber-covered toy I was holding. “He prefers gator.”
    It seemed everyone else had made time for living their lives except for me. “Maybe a break would do me some good.”
    Krista set Eightball down at my feet. He sat up, ears at attention, eyes locked on his wet, cyclops gator. “My, how quickly you forgot about your mother’s soul being in peril.”
    He pawed at my leg then laid down. I tossed the gator toward the door, and his short stubby legs scrambled to chase after it.
    “He just needs to know she’s going to be okay,” Krista told me.
    Eightball turned and stared at me, the gator sandwiched between his teeth.
    “We both need that reassurance.”
     
    ∞
     
    After a thirty-minute play session, Eightball passed out in the living room, snoring before his eyes even closed.
    I made my way to the library and tapped on the door before pushing it open. Louise was so engrossed with whatever she was reading from a book that she didn’t notice me until I spoke.
    “Care to fill me in?”
    She stood then walked around the desk and sat on the edge of it. She motioned to the two chairs in front of her. “Sit. Let’s chat.”
    I couldn’t take another conversation of her staring down her glasses at me with worry, so I sat beside her on the corner of the desk. I inhaled a preparatory breath. Insisting that I sit meant she was about to tell me bad news.
    “Rina’s aura,” she began. She stared at the spinning ceiling fan, trying to find her words. “Her light is galactic.”
    “Galactic,” I repeated. “As in from the stars? Every human is made from the stars.”
    “That’s not what I mean. The colors, energy field, and light that humans give off are complex but defined. I thought I had seen it all in my many centuries of living, but Rina’s light is nothing I’ve seen while in human form or while in between lifetimes. She’s recondite. I can’t mentally process what her aura means. Whatever her energy is, it’s beyond my understanding.”
    I stared at her at a loss for words. Auras were never beyond Louise’s understanding. “Could she be dangerous?”
    “I honestly don’t know. I see nothing negative in her aura. Clearly she’s powerful, but judging from the unique spectrum of her light, her vitality may be more powerful than we can comprehend. I assume she is unaware of it, or she wouldn’t be controlled by Dedrick.”
    “Or she does know how powerful she is, and so does Dedrick, and she’s his secret weapon.”
    “Could you paint her aura?” Carson’s voice surprised me. He stood in the doorway, his hands hidden in the front pocket of his sweatshirt.
    Louise drummed her fingers on the desk. “I could try. I’m not sure any of the paints I