Ex Spiritus Mundi

"Does it matter? You can read the message we're sending out." Kristen was now suddenly bored. Tired out. Killing was not really her thing. She didn't enjoy it, like Evie, and she didn't remain unaffected by it, like her sister. She wasn't much good at it technically either, like Mike. It didn't give her something to hang her hat on, like it had for Kylie for a while. And shamefully, she felt little remorse in it, even after all the other possibilities had been barred to her. Unlike Mary. No, she was most like Michelle. Maybe that's why her successor had actually fallen in love with the second Michi. Well, she had left them together with their fashion photographer who used to also be hers and hers alone. Kristen suddenly felt quite lonely. 'Kriss', double-s, that's who I am now. No, it wouldn't do. It was ludicrous. She was still Kristen, just the one that now no one needed. Except for her sister. That was really the key to all of this horror after all. Loyalty to her beloved sister, making up for all of her cowardice she'd shown back in their family home worlds ago." (from the book)

Faced with both staggering reincarnations and canny returns of those the heroes never expected to see again, their post-sacred community comes apart through conflicting loyalties and the questioning of their faithless faith. What is love? What is freedom? What is friendship? And what, most importantly, is trust?

Author Bio: Social philosopher G.V. Loewen is the author of over forty-five books in ethics, education, aesthetics and religion, and more recently fiction. He was professor of the interdisciplinary human sciences in both the USA and Canada for over two decades.