“Which is why I can’t let Andrés go first.” She smiled then, placing her hand on Fredy’s. “Fredy, I will be fine.”
Fredy could only nod as he handed her a two-way radio. “Andrés,” Fredy called out, “Sarah needs you to check her gear. She is going to descend into the shaft.”
“Me estás tomando el pelo,” Andrés answered in disbelief.
“No. No, I’m not kidding.”
Andrés crossed the chamber, making his way around the foot of the giant statue. “Sarah, let me go. This could be very dangerous. There could be traps… or gas… or—”
Sarah held up a hand and rolled her eyes.
Gabi never tired of watching Sarah grab the lead and take control. Sarah was a strong woman – and a fierce leader, just as Gabi planned to be when she was running her own digs.
Andrés looked at Gabi. “What? What did I say?”
Gabi shrugged. “If you don’t know, Papá, I’m sure not going to tell you,” she said with a smirk.
Andrés’s eyebrows went up.
“You didn’t say anything, compadre. Sarah is just muy obstinada.” Fredy frowned.
“Ah… I can see that,” Andrés said, giving Sarah’s figure-eight knot a firm tug before nodding his approval.
“What’s that, Fredy? What did you say?” Sarah asked, pulling on her leather gloves.
Fredy smiled as he clipped the gas sensor to Sarah’s waist. “I was just saying you are very determined.”
“You know, Fredy,” she started to say as she backed to the edge of the shaft. “I speak Spanish… enough to be dangerous anyway. And I would not have gotten this far if I weren’t stubborn.”
Now Fredy rolled his eyes.
Andrés held up his hands. “¡Culpa mía! ¡Lo siento!”
“You should be sorry,” Sarah said, an ornery smile spreading across her face. She reached up and clicked on her helmet-mounted headlamp, then leaned back over the opening until the rope pulled taut. Sarah met Gabi’s eyes, grinned, and winked. “Keep them in line until I get back, Gabi!”
Gabi’s face lit up as she returned the smile.
With not an ounce of hesitation, Sarah jumped backward, dropping into the shaft.
This was the woman Gabi wanted to be. The woman she would be: strong, fearless, and unapologetic.
But as Gabi watched Sarah disappear over the side, a strange sensation panged in her stomach. If this was intuition, she didn’t like it.
10
The Samurai
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones, Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
The tip of Phillip’s sword nicked Apep’s neck on the first lunge. Without missing a beat in his rhythm, he spun and struck at Apep’s side.
Apep easily deflected the strike and retreated as Phillip advanced.
When Phillip made the plan, he knew the basement ceiling was low and the back room too small for a proper sword fight. He also knew that he needed to force Apep to stay within striking range. Give him too much space or time, and he would use the God Stones. Phillip had no intention of giving Apep either and responded with a flurry of lunges, backing Apep across the small room until the heel of his foot struck the wall. He had him against the ropes. Once cornered, Phillip began an assault of precision strikes, gracefully flicking his wrist back and forth.
Apep struggled to match Phillip’s speed and technique.
It was time to end this. Phillip stepped in close to Apep, grabbing him by the throat with his free hand. Flexing his jaw in determination, he squeezed with all he had in hopes of crushing the bastard’s throat. He looked Apep dead in his soulless eyes as he raised his sword horizontal to Apep’s face.
As soon as Phillip’s hand wrapped around Apep’s throat, Apep reached out with his empty hand. He flexed his fingers, drawing in the power of the God Stones.
Phillip felt the God Stones’ power electrify the air. It was familiar – even though he hadn’t felt it since the days of Turek, he knew that power. But not like this, not free of the arc; never free of the arc. His mind screamed in agony as he took aim at Apep’s right eye, thrusting the business end of the sword toward Apep’s face.
Raw power surged into Apep’s hand. With the tip of the blade only millimeters from his eye, Apep grabbed Phillip’s sword with his bare hand, wrapping his fingers around it as if gripping a stick and not a razor-sharp blade. With an easy twist of the wrist, he snapped the ancient blade with a metallic crack.
The sound from the fracturing blade was wrong. A sound that should not be possible from a blade impossible to break. Phillip’s eyes stretched wide, first in horror then in rage. He renewed his grip on Apep’s neck, feeling his fingers sink into the soft tissue. He would rip the throat from his neck with his bare hands if that’s what it took.
Apep began to laugh. Then he drove the broken piece of sword into Phillip’s chest.
Phillip twisted, trying desperately to slip the strike. The awkward maneuver locked up his bad hip and shot white-hot pain down his leg and into his toes. While he managed to protect his heart from the strike, the blade still hit home, biting sharply as it slipped between the rib bone just below his left shoulder. The cold steel had missed his heart but not his lung.
Apep gave Phillip a push and stepped forward, away from the wall. His hood fell back, revealing a familiar face, wreathed with an unfamiliar psychotic smile.
“You!” Phillip said, raising his broken sword.
“Surprised? I’ve been here in this tiny town for some time now, Phillip. Did you really think I was unaware of what you have been up to? Did you think I did not know the Keepers’ plans?” Apep said, stepping forward again.
Phillip retreated now, backing slowly toward the collapsed tunnel.
“You’re all fools to believe Garrett is your savior. You tried to hide him from me, changing his name, then changing it back. Ridiculous. I’ve known who he is for years. I’ve inserted myself into his life, gained his trust. Turek always thought if he put enough sand and dirt on top of what he didn’t like, somehow that would make everything go away. He could never do the hard bit, could he? Never just kill what he didn’t like – and that is why humans will always be inferior. You see, Keeper? Turek tried to hide me under the ground, but I didn’t go away!” Apep spat. “No amount of dirt could keep me buried.”
Phillip coughed bloody spittle into his fist. His lung was filling with blood. He wasn’t sure if it was the coppery taste of blood or Apep’s foul voice that was causing the bile that stung the back of his throat.
Apep spun the sword in a figure eight as he stepped forward again.
“You have made this too easy. I think even Turek would be disappointed in you. You have unwisely instructed the boy to lead me to the temple. To the very thing you don’t want me to find. How could you be so stupid? Before you speak, I know, I know – you’re human. But even that should be no excuse for a faux pas like this.”
Apep stepped forward again. Phillip had no more room. One more step and Apep would be in range to strike. He needed to think of something.
“Now look at what your stupidity has gotten you. Once I align the stones back into the Sound Eye, I’ll soon have my army and this wretched world will be nothing more than a distant, burning memory.”
“It wasn’t… stupidity… Apep. It was… careful planning.”
“Yes, of course – your little prophecy. To believe in such foolishness is worse than if you had just erred. How will your people ever forgive what their blind faith is about to cost them?”
Phillip grunted as he leaned forward, scooping up the lantern from the floor.
“You sure you want to do that, Phillip? The whole fire thing didn’t work out so well last time. Too bad about that hip – damn thing seems to be on its last leg.” Apep chuckled at his own pun. Suddenly he advanced on Phillip, his face twisted anew as he bit down on his lower lip and raised his sword.
Phillip’s hip screamed again as the pain tried to rival that caused by the steel blade
lodged in his chest. He shuffled sideways past the collapsed tunnel to the furthest point from the basement entrance.
Apep charged forward.
Phillip threw the lantern just as his feet tangled, and he fell back hard to the rough floor. The lantern sailed past Apep, smashing into the threshold of the basement doorway.
Reflexively Apep ducked as the inferno exploded to life, flames blocking the only exit.
With Apep distracted, Phillip reached for something else.
Apep turned back to him with his sword at the ready. Then towering over him, he pressed his blade to Phillip’s throat as his face contorted. “You missed.”
Phillip had known all along this was a one-way ticket. Raising his eyes to meets Apep’s, he stared obstinately into the man’s soul then choked out a mouthful of blood onto Apep’s feet. “I wasn’t… aiming at… you,” he said quietly.
Stepping forward with his left leg, Apep bent closer to hear the dying man’s words.
“I was distracting you!” Phillip shouted, swinging his right hand from behind his back with all the force he could muster. He saw the revelation in Apep’s eyes as the long prong sank into his left thigh with a sharp sting of metal.
Phillip let go, made a fist, and then hammered it down onto the handle of James’s sai, sinking the weapon through Apep’s leg and out the other side. The two shorter curved prongs didn’t stop until they reached bone.
Apep cried out, scrambling backward away from Phillip.
Phillip sagged back and let his butt rest on his heels. Now, son – do it now! he thought.
Apep screamed again but this time his voice wasn’t full of pain… it was full of rage! He rushed forward, dragging his left leg behind him, the sai fixed deep into flesh and bone, with the long center spike protruding from the back side of his blood-soaked thigh.
Phillip could see Apep drawing his sword back like a lumberjack preparing to fell a tree. He lifted himself off his heels and raised his head proudly. As the swing came, Phillip found Apep’s eyes again and steeled his own. He shouted as loud as he could, making sure the message was clear as a raging Apep struck out with the blade. “You will never defeat us! Turek forev—”
Phillip’s head toppled to the floor.
Flying up the basement stairs two at a time, James scrambled to break free of the neighbor’s house. He shouldered through the back door, not even bothering to unlock it, then nearly fell down a short set of steps leading to the backyard.
In the background, a young boy’s panicked voice shouted, “Mom! Dad! What’s going on?”
“James, wait for us!” Garrett yelled into the yard. Then James did wait. He stopped cold, freezing in place, looking at the side of their house from across the fence.
Garrett caught up, followed closely by Elaine and Lenny.
“What is it?” Garrett asked, noticing that even in the darkness of the neighbor’s backyard James had paled, his face white as the moon.
James’s shoulders slumped as his eyes glazed over, wet with emotion.
“James?” Elaine asked.
He looked at her.
“Phillip?” Her voice cracked.
James looked down at his feet and let out a shuddering breath.
“Oh no, Phillip. No. God no!” she said.
“What is it?” Garrett said, looking back and forth between them. “Tell me! What!”
“Finish it, James – finish it now!” Elaine said.
James nodded, swallowing hard. “Lenny take Elaine across the street into the cornfield. We’ll meet you there. Garrett, come with me,” he said, turning away from them. He ran toward the chain-link fence that separated Glen’s yard from their own.
Garrett followed, hopping the fence with ease. “James, are you going to shoot him?” he whispered.
“What? Oh… no,” he said, tossing the shotgun to the ground.
Garrett looked at his brother like he had just lost his mind and bent to pick up the gun.
“Leave it and come on,” James ordered.
They made their way to a small wooden shed where his father kept the rabbit feed and gardening tools.
“I don’t understand. Why don’t you just shoot this guy? What is he – bulletproof? Is that what the God Stones do – make you bulletproof?” Garrett asked.
“Maybe, but we’re not going to find out.”
“Goddammit, James – I need some answers! What the hell is going on? I’m running around with a sword and Lenny has a stick, and we just tossed a perfectly good shotgun to the ground!”
“I thought you knew what’s going on,” James said, pulling open the door to the shed and stepping inside. “That’s what Brother Brockridge was supposed to do, tell you what was going on.”
Garrett followed him into the shed. Brother Brockridge? “Yeah, well, psycho showed up and I’m pretty sure…” Garrett struggled with the words. “Killed him. So, I think I missed some key parts.”
James knelt, sliding his hands along the bottom of the wall until he found whatever it was he was feeling for. Garrett heard a click, and James stood and walked to the other side of the shed. He quickly moved the push mower and knelt again, this time pulling up floorboards. “Listen, we don’t have time for this now, but I will do the best I can to answer your questions.”
“I need to know what’s going on! I can’t be expected—”
James cut him off. “Look, we can’t risk going back in there to try and shoot him.”
“But our dad’s in there fighting him!”
James looked up, eyes sharp. “Our dad is… he’s dead, Garrett. It’s up to us to finish this!” He turned back, reaching beneath the floor.
For a moment, Garrett just stared at his back as he dug around. How could he say that? How could he even say their father was dead like that? Then finally he shouted, “You don’t know that!”
“Yes. Yes, I do, Garrett,” James said, retrieving something from the hidden compartment.
Garrett caught a whiff of something. Smoke. It was smoke. He leaned out the door and noticed it. His house was on fire. Smoke was coming from the back porch on the other side of the house. He couldn’t see flame, but the smoke was rolling across the yard. “Jesus Christ, James, our house is on fire!”
“It’s about to get a whole lot worse than fire,” he said, uncoiling something as he backed toward the doorway.
Garrett didn’t understand what he was looking at. It looked similar to a small coil of thin rope. “James. Who are you?”
Ignoring the question, he pushed past Garrett and out the shed door. “Come on! Let’s go!”
Garrett followed him out of the shed, the cool evening wind nipping at his cheeks. He was too busy puzzling over his brother’s strange behavior to even notice the cold.
When James was a few feet away from the shed, he knelt down and removed his Zippo from his jeans pocket. Flipping the lid open, he struck the flint. A small flame materialized from the lighter, illuminating his face and eyes in the soft glow.
Garrett could see it then, something beneath the scars on his cheeks. Something beyond the fiery reflection in his eyes. Something.
He lit the end of the rope and it burst to life like a sparkler. “You burned me once, you son of a bitch. Now feel your flesh burn!”
Garrett’s eyes stretched wide at the realization. His brother had just lit a fuse.
James flipped his Zippo shut and leapt to his feet. “We should run – fast!”
It took them less than thirty seconds to run around the side of the house, past the collapsed porch, and across the street.
They jumped the ditch and ran into a barren field, recently plowed and ready for this year’s planting. Elaine and Lenny waited about twenty yards in, watching the flames as they began to flicker up from the back of the house.
“Back! Back! Everybody back!” James shouted, running toward them.
Elaine and Lenny turned to run. Elaine’s foot caught on a dirt clod and she fell to the ground. Lenny reached down and quickly
pulled her to her feet.
“Please work, please work!” James said to no one as he ran. Then, turning to Garrett, he said, “I isolated everything to protect the fuse from the energy of the God Stones, but obviously I had no way to test it.”
Garrett looked at James as though he were speaking Portuguese. “What are you talking about?”
James stopped abruptly and turned to the group. “This should be far enough,” he said.
“You okay, Mrs. Turek?” Lenny asked, looking down toward Elaine’s ankle.
Elaine nodded to Lenny and forced a smile.
Garrett watched James as he stared intently back toward the house. James’s scarred face was barely visible in the barren field, but his eyes – they reflected lifetimes of pain. In that very moment something clicked, and Garrett knew who James was. A veil was pulled back, revealing the truth. The scars on James’s face, arms, and torso weren’t the result of a child playing with fire. Even more, he knew who his father was. His artificial hip wasn’t from a car accident. The last several hours had been so tangled up it was like watching two spiders wrestle, but those few words James had spoken when lighting the fuse provided Garrett with critical comprehension. He heard the words from Mr. B echoing in his mind:
There was a fire – it burned all around us. I could see Turek through the flames, but I couldn’t get to him without abandoning them. Two other Templars made it to him and stood with him, battling Apep, but neither were powerful enough to stop him.
After freeing his wife and child from the flames, I arrived only in time to pull the two Templars out before they were killed. One of the Templars had been nearly burned to death and the other was partially crushed by a collapsing beam while trying to save Turek.
He gazed at James through new eyes. No longer did he see his brother, but rather an ancient man – a Templar Knight!
The Keepers Of The Light (God Stone Book 2) Page 8
