One of the two police cars pursued Dred’s smoky trail of blue that puffed out of the fleeing motorcycle, and the other car remained at the pub. The brisk wind helped to revive the inebriated Dred. His eyes still glowed red, and the wind cut through his greasy black hair. He looked back at the car that followed him. The siren sound increased. The chase was on.
They were soon away from the town and on a narrow road lined with trees. It was a scarcely populated area, and there were no other cars around. Dred knew that only one car had followed him and decided to make his move. He suddenly braked the bike and turned to face the pursuer in anticipation. He spun the bike around. He wore a snakelike grin and invited the car forward with his smirk.
As the police car came closer, the glow in Dred’s red eyes intensified, and he straddled the bike in a standing position. He stretched both hands toward the car as it approached rapidly. And then he lifted his hands up toward the heavens and kept them raised above his head. As it advanced toward him, the police car suddenly lifted off the ground. It sped forward and floated directly over Dred’s head. After several seconds in the air, it landed on top of a tree, on the right side of the road, and it stayed there while its engine kept turning and its wheels kept spinning. The police inside were knocked unconscious.
Dred’s eyes turned black again as he lowered his arms and gazed with satisfaction at the car in the tree. With a smile and a quick spin around of the bike, Dred coasted down a hill and away from the scene—as if nothing had ever happened.
Inside the pub, Peter woke from his malted and drugged slumber. He had slept through it all, but Doris told him everything that had happened. He explained to the police that questioned him that nothing had been stolen from his person. So a stunned Peter was allowed to leave and return to his hotel via taxi.
Once Peter returned to his hotel, he was surprised to find Robbie in the lobby.
“Robbie, thank God you are here!”—a relieved Peter embraced his friend warmly. “I have a lot to talk to you about. I’m so glad you came.”
“Yes. Well, I came as I thought it might be necessary—having heard on the news about Willie!”—Robbie seemed like he held a little more information back.
Peter escorted Robbie to his room and began to share the events of the last few days with him. Robbie sat expressionless on the hotel bed as Peter told him about Uncle Willie—and even about Dred. Peter told him of Uncle Willie’s book that he had found, but not of the note from Doctor Habib. He rambled for several minutes then Robbie admitted to having knowledge of Dred.
“You knew about Dred! I also remember that you never told me about my adoption. Do you remember that omission?” Peter confronted. He paced the floor in front of a deadpan Robbie, who took a few moments before he spoke.
“Peter, I never thought I would have to involve you in any of this,” Robbie apologized. “I thought that by the time of your father’s death all of this would be over. I did not even know that Dred was still alive.”—Robbie now showed a concern and a willingness to open up to him.
“Still?” Peter asked.
“Do you have Uncle Willie’s book—the one that you said you found?” Robbie asked while he looked around for it.
“Yes, and I must speak of an omission myself,” Peter admitted. “I also found a note by a Doctor Habib, from Egypt. It said that he was going to come take care of someone...no, rather he was going to ‘take care of something.’ I can’t remember exactly, but I believe that somehow this Habib is connected to the death of Uncle Willie!”
“I don’t believe that Habib killed Uncle Willie,” Robbie insisted. “I believe that Dred did! And Dred is not your brother! He was using you to get to the stones!”—Robbie stood up and insisted that Peter get Uncle Willie’s book. A confused Peter remembered Uncle Willie’s final words.
Uncle Willie was trying to name his killer at his death, but is anyone or anything believable or trustworthy at this point? What is Robbie talking about! What stones? My mum’s stones? Was Habib working for or with Dred? I am not satisfied. I have to know the truth about everything.
Peter went to the room safe, entered a code, and opened it. He withdrew the book and brought it to Robbie, who told him to sit down and examine it carefully.
“Look at the binding of the book—and—if it’s not there, look for any pages stuck together.”—Robbie told Peter that there was a small memory card, hidden somewhere in the book.
Peter found that the outer corner of the back of the book had a raised spot near the bookbinding. He retrieved a small penknife from his front jacket pocket and used it to cut around the raised area. Then Peter removed a small but hidden sim card with a great deal of pride. Robbie returned the sly smile and handed him a small tablet from his briefcase.
“Just remember, you only have one chance to read the sim’s contents. Willie more than likely set it to autodelete once viewed.”—Robbie sat down and lit a cigar as if it was appropriate for just such an occasion as this.
Then Peter inserted the memory card and booted up the tablet. It immediately asked for a password just after the words on the screen said, “Welcome Peter!”
“It’s asking for a password, and I have no idea what it is!” Peter worried.
“Peter, don’t type anything yet! Let me think!”—Robbie warned him not to enter the wrong password, or the data might erase immediately. After several moments of thought, Robbie said, “Try E-D-E-N!”
Typing “E D E N” did the trick as the next screen on the tablet read:
“Congratulations Peter! Press next to continue.”
“I’m in!” Peter announced proudly.
Robbie stood up, walked to the kitchenette, and grabbed a drink from the refrigerator.
“You have drinks in here?”—Robbie was on a scavenger hunt for a satisfying libation to calm his nerves, which danced with anticipation. Peter was about to enter a new world of knowledge.
“Just water, sorry!” Peter frowned.
“No worries, I am going to pop down and grab something at the hotel bar while you read. I will be back soon.”—Robbie reached for his overcoat on one of the two single beds and started for the door.
“One more thing Peter…” Robbie warned.
“Yes?”
“You do realize that your mother was a witch, right?”—Robbie glared at him with a most serious look of truthfulness.
Peter’s shocked and astonished opened mouth remained open as Robbie left, and the door shut behind him. Then he took the note out of his front jacket pocket, the one that Habib had written. He read the words that Dred had scribbled on it, “Haj killed your uncle!”
Chapter 10
Malkuth Stones of Gan Eden
Part One
In The Words of Uncle Willie
Dear Peter,
Hear now the voices of the past, the legends of truth, and the story of the Guardians.
In a time past, many eons before our lives, the first of the Guardians held power over the Malkuth Stones of Gan Eden. You shall hear our tale once, so pay heed to it well. As to its truthfulness, consider it a legend, a shadow of a long forgotten past.
This legend started before the dawn of civilization, during a time when a spirit and a people once lived together in harmony, after the great and powerful Living Spirit created the world and everything in it. Here is the story passed on to me from my ancestors about that early world.
There was a time in the ancient days when all the people lived as vagabonds and wandered the earth to and fro, but this was not always so. The ancient people had once lived peacefully in a garden called the Gan Eden. The people served the Living Spirit in this garden, and, in return, it protected the people and cared for them with its power and great magic. The people were innocent creatures without any knowledge or sense of evil. They only knew that which was good and true.
After some time, the spirit people became curious and envious. They desired to have the same powers that the Living Spirit of the garden had. When the Living S
pirit found out that the people sought this knowledge, the ancient people of the earth were banished from the garden. The entrance to the garden was blocked, and they were never able to return.
Massive and brilliant lights called the Guardians guarded the garden. The lights had faces, arms, and legs—like a man—they were bright, and they wore swords embedded with jewels of the type the earth had never seen. The ancient people were afraid of the Guardians and dared not go into the garden because of their perceived threat.
Thus, it was said by the ancients that man’s very first home was lost and forbidden to him. However, that was not the end of the story. The people, when they left the sacred garden, committed a very disobedient act. They stole twelve stones from the garden. They were stones of great value and power. They were each as large as two human hands, but they held the strength and mysteries of the universe within them.
During the same time as the banishment, there was another group of ancients that had not lived in the garden of the Living Spirit. They had watched the people of the garden, but seldom had interaction with them, at least at first. They were called the Anakites. Some say these people came from the stars above, and they had powers that were unbelievable. They had an innate power within themselves to move substance merely with their mind and their thoughts.
The Anakites and the people of the garden were sometimes called the sons of men and the sons of God. The details of the story faded in clarity over time, but legend told of a great war that occurred between the Anakites and the spirit people. The beginning of the war started when some of the Anakites intermarried with the ancient spirit children. The offspring of the union produced great giants with mighty powers. The result was that the powerful Anakites made many of the children of the Living Spirit slaves, and some of the intermarried Anakites left their tribes to live and to hold power alongside the Anakites.
It was then that the spirit children sought out the assistance of the Living Spirit. They grew tired of the oppression of the Anakites. They went to the Guardians that stood at the garden entrance and begged the Living Spirit for undeserved mercy. They begged the creator to destroy their taskmasters, the Anakites.
In answer to their plea, the Living Spirit honored their requests and sent great floods of water and other liquids to destroy the Anakites. During this great destruction, the Living Spirit kept the ancient spirit people safe as he placed them on a great ship that floated above the raging floods.
As to the twelve stones taken by the ancient spirit people out of the garden, it was said that they were stolen by the Anakites, just before the great floods came upon them. The stones were divided and broken into smaller pieces and distributed among various tribal leaders of the Anakites. The powers of the stones added to their strength, and they used them to force the ancient spirit people to submit to and obey the will of the Anakites. However, during the flood, the stones were lost.
As to the first Guardians and the garden, no one knows what happened to them, but this we do know. The dry lands eventually reappeared, and so did many of the bones of the first Anakites and the intermarried ones, the ones that had sided with the Anakites. Even the swords with the great gemstones embedded surfaced, but the garden and its entrance were no longer there, and thus, lost forever.
After the floods, there arose another war. Some of the surviving ancient people used the swords of the Guardians as powerful weapons, and this reintroduced slavery and oppression to the less powerful. Gradually, several of the lost stones were found, and they added to the power of the swords. It seemed that the ancient people’s experience of absolute power, and its inevitable corruption, passed on from generation to generation.
Soon after these second wars broke out, there arose a group of mighty warriors. They called themselves the Guardians, in honor of the first Guardians that had protected the garden of the Living Spirit. It was their determined and primary purpose to gather, find, and destroy the stones from the Gan Eden. They wanted to find and destroy them all. They even planned to find the swords of the first Guardians, the ones with the gemstones. Also, they wanted to end all wars and all types of slavery, the immoral and absolute power of one man over another. The goals were honorable but somewhat overly optimistic.
Consequently, the Guardians became a hunted group by those in power. The Guardians were considered a threat because they collected the great and powerful stones of Gan Eden. So they banded together in an oath of secrecy, soon after they found their first stone. They formed a secret society to protect the collected stones, their secret locations, and the identities of the members.
The first of the Guardians collected pink stones, and they soon discovered that these stones gave them the power to live for a very long time. The stones gave them perfectly good health, by simply being around them. Some of them slept near them while others poured water over them and then drank the water.
In time, they discovered another power. It was the power of transference, and it was used to survive. Initially, transference was a repositioning of one’s self to another place by a magical process. Later transference was used to move to a different time as well as space, seen as a magical variance of natural law. They justified this disobedience to natural law because they considered their mission a truly sacred one. It was so sacred and so important that it justified the prolonging of the lives of the Guardians as they moved through time and space. Moreover, it was by this process that they were able to survive such events as famine or war.
As to this first discovered power, there was still the problem of eventual death. The power of the pink stones worked up to a point, but eventually the body wore out. So when a Guardian died, there was the expected problem. Suitable candidates of good health, soul, and mind were needed to replace the dying Guardians. The cause had to continue.
At first, the Guardians were composed of twelve people. At one time, there were as many as one hundred. However, after many eons of practicing the art of transference, and constant exposure to the stones that prolonged life, a fatal disease was discovered. It was a disease that had been unknowingly passed on from generation to generation, and it started to limit the lives of the Guardians. The Guardians were once able to live to an age of 500 years, but after the disease had infected them, the Guardians lived for only one to two hundred years at the most. There were few exceptions.
The Guardians faced the problem of having to find replacements faster than they did before because the lifespan was much shorter. There was also the problem of remaining true to their cause. The shorter life span influenced many to abandon the group and the cause. There was an increased temptation for each one of them to pursue their selfish pleasures. After all, they knew that they had a shorter life. They lost the feeling of superiority that they had once felt.
Prior to the discovery of the disease, they were very influential as they helped to determine the course and direction of both well-known and obscure events in the history of the world. So when the Guardians suddenly developed an affliction that shortened their lives—after having been accustomed to longevity—they felt severely threatened by it. They were no longer able to make long-range plans to protect and safely guard the stones. They felt vulnerable, and the threat of having to live a shorter life caused many of the Guardians to seek new methods of survival.
It was about the late 5th or 6th century that a few Guardians decided to perform a most unholy and unnatural act to survive. They decided that they would preserve their unit and their people, who at that time were about fifty in number, by the act of soul transference. To save their dying bodies, they would transfer their souls into another person’s body. They attempted a spiritual transference.
Long before this happened, the responsibility of guarding the stones was divided among three groups in the secret society known as the Guardians. Although originally located throughout what you would call the Middle East, it was thought to be a safer course of action to divide the stones and spread them throughout the entire world.
&n
bsp; One group, called the Magi, led primarily by Persian astrologers, stored their stone pieces in Asia. The second division of the Guardians was the Knights, led by a man who was later called Joseph Habib who migrated from Egypt to Rome and then later to Britain. The third group kept their stones in Egypt, and they were the most mysterious of them all. They were the Priests. This group was highly secretive and allegedly kept records of all of the locations of the discovered stones. This group was believed to know most all of the ancient secrets of the stones. The Priests seldom shared these secrets with anyone, including many of the other Guardians.
The group in Asia, called the Magi, dispersed into three divisions. They were the Kings, the Princes, and the Prophets.
The Kings stayed in an area near Baghdad, and they buried their stones to guard their secret. Legend says that the Kings, although they were not true reigning kings, and all of their descendants, died without disclosing their secret. Their deaths and the unknown burial sites kept those stones safe from the world.
The Princes, again not reigning princes, stayed in the area now called China and India. Some believe that some of their descendants still have their magical stones to this very day. However, they are without the knowledge of what their powers can perform, and therefore, those stones are safe from the world just like the others.
The Prophets were a group that traveled along with other Asian tribes but did not assimilate fully into any particular society. Primarily they traveled with several tribes simply known as “the People.” The Prophets traveled far to the east, even to the Americas, according to some legends, and it is unknown what happened to them or the stones that were in their possession.
As to the Priests, they hid their stones by way of burial, during the reigns of the Pharaohs. The Priests, as I have said, kept the most extensive records of the stones and their abilities. They even knew how to use the power of the stones. Some believe that there are mansions in Egypt, or common buildings or burial grounds, which sit on top of ancient caves and tombs where there are even more stones. Nevertheless, the fate of the stones of the Priests is highly secretive, and one can only speculate as to their security.
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 10
