Petrichor

by R J Johnson

  He beckoned Christina and Emily in close to him and touched Scott’s statue as they disappeared in a flash seconds before Kline reached them.

  He screamed fruitlessly into the night air as only a man denied could.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The LA Boardwalk was normally quiet at this time of night. Most of the homeless who made the area their home were usually passed out by now from their drug of choice. No one was around to witness Alex, Emily, Christina and a horrifying statue appear out of nowhere at the edge of the pier.

  Alex stumbled as they appeared on the steep hillside and only barely managed to catch Emily before she fell. They scrambled up to where Scott’s statue had lodged itself into the side of the mountain.

  Alex held Emily close as she caught her breath. It was cold, and she was shivering. Alex concentrated briefly and a warm overcoat surrounded her.

  “Thanks…” she whispered.

  “You okay?” he asked gently, knowing full well the answer was no.

  “I’m exactly what you think,” she responded. “Never ever let me go again.”

  He hugged her tight, feeling the curves of her body line up with his own.

  “I’ll do you one better. You were right. I can’t stop him.” His face hardened as he remembered what Scott’s face had looked like when confronting Kline. “I won’t… can’t… let Kline kill anyone else I care about. I think the best idea is I just throw these damn stones out into the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.”

  “The hell you will!”

  Turning, they both looked at Christina who was scowling at them in anger.

  “He sacrificed himself for you…” Christina said, her voice a throaty mess. She turned, looking back at the statue, her eyes sad. “Are you really going to let that go to waste?”

  “We can’t beat him!” Alex said, crying out in frustration. In that moment, he felt the dam that had so far been holding back all his emotions break. “I don’t know how you managed to get my stones back from Ash, but you can’t expect me to ask you all to keep dying for something I don’t understand!”

  Alex nodded to Emily. “She’s right – this whole situation is far too terrible for me to handle on my own. I was a fool to think I could. The best thing we could do is to prevent anyone from finding these stones ever again.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” Christina started, her eyes flashing dangerously, “But this man doesn’t particularly care where those stones are located. He’ll just keep coming until he has them all and we’re dead. The only way this ends is to stop Kline and get the twelve for ourselves. We do that, we save the world.”

  “How?” Now it was Alex’s turn to explode. “Every time we fight him, he grows more powerful. It’s only by the grace of God you guys were able to get my stones back from Ash.”

  “We didn’t take the stones back from Ash…” Christina said softly.

  Alex looked confused. “Then how?”

  “We were…” Christina hesitated, as if trying to figure out how to word what she was going to say next. “We took them from Kline.”

  Now Alex was really confused. “How the hell did Kline get the stones from Ash so quickly?”

  “We uh, went back in time to 1987 to confront him there.”

  Alex glanced at Emily who appeared to have just as much of a hard time believing her friend as he did.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said, swallowing. “You did what?”

  “We were taken back in time,” Christina said. “But I can’t tell you much more than that.” She looked at him full of regret, “I made a promise.”

  “To WHO?” Alex lost his temper. That didn’t happen often, but this was one of those times when he needed answers. He deserved answers. His father was dead. His friend was dead. Emily’s fiancée was dead and dozens of others from the construction crew at Joshua Tree to the men and women of the SDPD. They’d all given their lives for nothing so far as he could tell.

  “To you Alex.”

  This voice came from the shadows. The Old Man stepped forward, the moonlight illuminating his face.

  “YOU!” Alex whirled around, pointing a finger accusingly at the Old Man. “You were at Alcatraz.”

  “I was,” the Old Man replied simply.

  “You were at the Duck pond.”

  “I was,” the Old Man replied again, a smile spreading across his face. Alex wanted nothing more than to just wipe the smirk off his face.

  But, he likely wouldn’t get any answers. He narrowed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to get a handle on his emotions. Time to be a hero.

  “Who are you?”

  The Old Man smiled and pulled his robes forward in order to sit down on a boulder next to him.

  “I’m the man who’s going to help you save the world.”

  Alex and Emily were stunned.

  The rain began to pick up and the Old Man covered his head with a hood, glancing up at the skies above.

  “There’s a storm coming…” he intoned softly, almost to himself. “Probably best if we found some shelter.”

  Alex glanced at Emily who met his gaze. Emily looked over at Christina who had moved to hug the Old Man.

  “Do you trust him, Chris?” this came from Emily, her voice quiet. She looked small, but there was a quiet reserve of strength that she was gathering around her and using as an umbrella against this new hurricane of emotions.

  “He’s here to help,” Christina replied instantly. “And I’d lay down my life for him without a second’s thought.”

  Emily studied her friend’s face. Hers was also a lot more world weary than what she’d been only a few hours before. Christina was different. She’d been through the ringer too.

  Christina stared back at Emily, waiting for her to make her decision. After a moment, Emily nodded to Alex, silently passing on the message to him. If Christina trusts him, I do too.

  Alex looked away from Emily and over to his friend Scott, frozen in granite. He looked over the Old Man who was patiently waiting for his decision. Alex made it.

  “Then I think it’s about time we all had ourselves a nice, long, conversation,” Alex replied firmly. The strength in his voice was back.

  The Old Man nodded and stood, holding out his arm.

  “I can transport us if you like, but I think you need the practice more than I do.”

  Alex stared at this man opposite him. Who was he? Would he finally offer the answers they’d been so desperately looking for?

  “Where to?” Alex asked, meeting the Old Man’s gaze for the first time.

  “You know exactly where to go…” he replied softly.

  Alex thought for a moment and nodded. He gathered his friends close and they disappeared in a flash of light.

  A flash of lightning illuminated Scott’s statue as he silently watched them leave.

  To be continued in - The Twelve Stones: Orenda

  Thank you!

  Hi there! Okay… it’s okay… take a deep breath... I know you’re mad at me right now, but that’s not gonna help anyone…

  I hope you are enjoying our journey with Alex, Emily, Scott and Christina as much as I am enjoying writing it! I promise all your questions will be answered in The Twelve Stones: Ideasthesia which should be released in August 2014.

  Most of all I want to thank you for making it through my fifth eBook! I first began writing The Twelve Stones as a series of screenplays back in 2004. Ten years later, I never imagined that anyone would want to read the first one, let alone all the sequels. With all humility, writing this book series has changed my life for the better. It’s helped motivate me by creating the life I want and not just settle for and I hope some of that is imparted to you through these pages. It’s incredibly motivating to hear from people that loved the books and I want you to know I’ll never stop because of that support.

  Speaking of motivation, one of the best ways is when I hear from you dear reader. The best you can help motivate me to write The Twelve Stones: Ideasthes
ia is by leaving me a review on Amazon.com or on Goodreads.com!! Indie authors like myself live and die by the amount of five star reviews we get, so if you had a moment, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped by and let me know what you thought!

  Speaking of motivation, please check out my Author Page on Amazon.com and subscribe to my updates. You can also check me out on twitter @rickerkioz and “like” my page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/TheTwelveStones) for all the details on when the sequels will be released!

  I have two other books for you to check out if you like. Following this is the first chapter of my other series about a Martian private detective. It’s called Change in Management and I’d love if you’d check those books out too. If you liked The Twelve Stones, I think you’ll really enjoy reading the adventure of Jim Meade and his friends.

  I highly encourage you to click the links and check it out, or just keep reading for a sample. I’d really appreciate it if you did.

  Thank you again for reading and purchasing my novel. Readers like you are why I write, so thank you for helping me create these worlds. I couldn’t do it without you.

  All the best to you and yours,

  RJ Johnson

  March 13, 2014

  Change in Management

  A Jim Meade Martian PI Novel

  By

  RJ Johnson

  Chapter One

  The curly-haired brunette pushed her way through the massive crowd of people standing at the doorway of the crowded arena. The sounds of a thousand different men and women blended together into a dull roar that had been able to hear from two blocks away. Inside, the place stank of stale beer, body odor and a combination of other, even less pleasant smells, but that didn’t stop the miners — commonly known around New Plymouth as “moles” — from packing into the arena each night to watch the zero-G fights.

  The most popular sport on Mars, zero-G fighting had sprung up after the local Warlords learned that there were better ways to use the Higgs generators other than keeping Humanity’s feet on the ground as they reached out to the stars. The Warlords set up the popular no-holds-barred matches after figuring out that people loved watching their favorites battling it out in the modified gravity environments.

  Higgs generators worked through affecting the local Higgs field. That field was responsible for giving every particle in the universe its mass, and therefore, the property of gravity. Within the ring five concentric circles were laid out within the fight ring, with each circle containing a patch of either high or low gravity, depending on the round.

  Gravity within the fighting circle varied from zero-g all the way up to five times what someone would feel back on Earth. Fighters used the zero-gravity areas during the fights to make spectacular leaps and moves they wouldn’t normally be able to do while fighting in everyday gravity.

  Fighters during rounds with high gravity used those same rings as traps to pin down their opponents. Once a fighter found himself within a 5G area, it was nigh on impossible for them to escape.

  The zero-G leagues were not for the faint of heart. The fights were brutal, hard and messy, with few rules and no set style of fighting. Everyone was welcome, and the pools of blood, teeth, sweat and tears on the canvas floor of the ring were testament to the fact that there was no shortage of men or women on Mars seeking to prove how tough they were. Those who weren’t in peak physical condition, possessing excellent fighting skills, often did not survive to see their next match.

  Emeline Hunan pushed her way through the crowd and looked down into the packed arena below. There, two fighters were warily circling each other during the final round of their fight. The five concentric circles within the ring were alternating between projections of zero-G and 5G gravity. The pair below had been at it for the last fifteen minutes, and their faces demonstrated the results of the brutal punishment they’d been dishing out to each other.

  She watched as the fighter in blue trunks retreated from his opponent, weaving his way across the gravity circles, adopting a defensive posture. She watched from her vantage point, knowing it was already over for the man in red shorts, even if he didn’t. The man in blue was forcing his opponent across the pattern of flashing 5G circles.

  Suddenly, the man in blue stepped back into an adjacent circle just as it flashed from 5G to zero. He jumped impossibly high — nearly all the way to the top of the arena. Placing his feet on the top of the cage, twenty feet above his opponent, he pushed, dive bombing the man in red.

  Caught unaware, Red was shoved onto a 5G ring. His body instantly bent in half, breaking the man’s back, the moment he crossed the threshold of the Higgs circle. The sound of snapping bones filled the arena as the crowd roared its approval for the blue fighter’s daring maneuvers.

  And with that, the fight was over. Emeline knew that the man in red couldn’t possibly recover from the grievous bodily injury he had just suffered, and the refs agreed. A horn sounded and the crowd roared once again; some in protest, others in jubilation. The bookies hanging around the rail began paying off the various wagers made on the match.

  “Who’d you have, sweetheart?” The voice had a rough, thick accent, direct from the Homeworld. Emeline turned to look for the source and saw a squat, hairy man who had suddenly appeared next to her with his posse. They were slurping at their cups of beer and admiring her lithe dancer’s body.

  Emeline ignored them and checked her ArmBar. A message had appeared from him.

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  Emeline closed her ArmBar and began moving toward the back of the arena. But before she was able to make her way down the aisle, she was stopped. The mole who was still trying to chat her up, despite her obvious lack of interest. He caught her arm before she could get away.

  “That’s rude, don’cha think?” the mole said, sniffing. His friend scratched the acne on his face and giggled, “Just tryin’ to get to know a lady.”

  Emeline turned and shook her head. “In what world do you imagine I’d ever want to talk to you?”

  “I got credits!” the badly pockmarked man bragged. He opened his ArmBar display and showed her the credit balance he held. The balance did show a fairly impressive amount for a mole, but he wasn’t heading for retirement on New Luna anytime soon. “I took my man in blue for the win at five-and-a-half to one, and the bloke paid off nicely.” He elbowed Emeline and let his hand lightly pass over her ass. “I’m willing to pay even nicer for you.”

  Emeline flashed her prettiest smile at the disgusting man propositioning her. “How much you thinkin’?”

  The mole’s greedy eyes opened wide and looked her up and down, taking in every inch of her body. From her long, curly brown hair to her hazel, almond-shaped eyes and toned light brown skin. Emeline knew she was a beautiful woman, and she was more than a little curious to see how much she’d go for on the open market.

  “Two hundred,” the mole said, licking his lips.

  Emeline was insulted. If she was going to prostitute herself, she figured she’d be worth as much as a high class prostitute.

  His face fell at her reaction. “Three hundred?”

  She ran her fingernail down his scarred cheek, “I think I may be a bit too expensive for you.”

  “Four?” the mole asked hesitantly.

  Emeline smiled. Suddenly she grabbed the mole’s crotch and squeezed the man’s grapes for all they were worth (which in her mind wasn’t a whole lot). She pushed and yanked, flipping the man end over end using his crotch as leverage, spilling him onto the sticky arena floor. His friends exploded in laughter as the miner howled in pain.

  “You bitch!” he cried out. “You…”

  “Careful there,” she said, turning to walk away. “I don’t think your baby bells can afford another insult.”

  The mole’s friends were still laughing as they reached down to help their fallen comrade to his feet. He pushed them away.

  Emeline made her way through the crowd and approached a private door at the back of the arena. A
Coalition MP looked down at her through his visor and she showed him her ArmBar. He scanned it, saw she was on the access list, and stepped aside to let her through.

  The locker room was much quieter than the cacophony of noise in the arena. She moved through a darkened hallway where most of the lights were flickering or burned out. She paused at the doorway to one of the dressing rooms and found the man she was looking for.

  Jim Meade sat on the side of the med-bay bed, wrapping his right hand with sports tape. He flexed his fingers and made sure the hand was wrapped tightly enough to keep his joints from moving around too much.

  His boxing shorts were yellow with a black stripe down either side; to Emeline it was strange to see him without his black cowboy hat and dark red-brown duster, but she didn’t mind the view of his six-pack abs and tight, lean muscles.

  Satisfied with the wrap job on his right hand, he grabbed the roll of tape sitting on the table and began to wrap his left hand when he looked up and saw Emeline in the doorway.

  “Did you get it?” he asked Emeline without preamble.

  “I got it,” she said, entering the room. “I still think it’s the most damn foolish thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Like I’m short on any of those?” Meade said, his eyes crinkling in a smile.

  She snorted. “Still number one, so far as I’m concerned. While breaking into a Warlord’s private stash is stupid…”

  “Hey, you enjoyed drinking O’Donnell’s whiskey just as much as I did,” he reminded her with a wry grin.

  She ignored him and jumped up to sit on the counter across from him.

  “You don’t think all this is a bad idea?”

  “Em, a win here on borrowed credit, I’ll finally have the kind of money I need to retire on New Luna, with enough left over to buy out your debt to the Coalition,” he said, smiling. “But none of that will happen if you didn’t get the money.”

  “I got the money,” Emeline repeated crossly as she opened her ArmBar. She wirelessly connected to Meade’s own ArmBar and transferred the credits over to him. “What if you don’t win?”