Guardian's Rise
The Capehill Chronicles: Book One
Matthew Renard
Copyright © 2020 Matthew Renard
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Liz Michaud
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
For everyone who’s come before:
Harold and Nancy, Zaida and Lesley.
For those still here.
For those who dare to dream big.
And always for Sian.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Chapter One
Starlight, Star Bright
You’d think with all the alien technology we captured, they could make British weather a little less cold in July. I repressed a slight smile as I slowly trudged my way home from my shopping venture through the high street. As I walked down Bradley Road, I saw that my house was a riot of noise and light, and I had a momentary flash of fear that the Danti had returned. Looking up at the sky, I saw no ships above my head; those insectile craft we called Chitins, complete with landing legs that made the ships look so much like on beetles. Barely anything that night was visible, since the lights from the house practically killed my night vision; even so, I saw no alien spaceships, and was momentarily relieved. After five years of outright slaughter leading to intense battles, the alien threat had vanished. That had been two years ago, but even now, armed with technology developed from them, we never knew if they would return and swat us like flies.
One faint white light flickered overhead, drifting from right to left, the light too random and sporadic to be purposeful. It was probably a long-dead satellite, knocked slightly out of orbit by a Danti craft years ago, finally beginning its re-entry. My brief panic over, I turned my attention back to my home. Lights of every colour and brightness flashed in most of the windows, and the noise (so easily mistaken for a war zone) was a thumping bass track which shook the windows. Glancing to my left, I spotted my next-door neighbour, Mr Windsor, staring at me in disapproval. I shrugged at him, trying to convey my own annoyance at the spectacle before me. I looked back up at the satellite, but it had vanished.
I suppose if it lands on me, I thought, it’ll save me from this hell. Of course, a PI would probably fly down and ‘rescue’ me.
Gritting my teeth and forcing on the biggest smile I could, I slid my key into the lock, grasped the door handle, and slowly pushed it open.
I hadn’t made it three paces before a strong grip latched onto my shoulder and pulled me close to a muscular body. My housemate, Sammy, grinned at me. ‘About time! Where the hell have you been?’
I thought about the razors in my pocket, my sole purchase from the local pharmacy, and shrugged. ‘Out and about. Looking for work,’ I added as an afterthought. He nodded, probably only really half-listening.
‘Now look. I know you’ve been down recently- ’ He waved off my attempt to protest. ‘Jay, I’m not stupid, yeah? I can read a calendar.’ He gestured with his free arm around our living room. ‘This is officially a party to celebrate my promotion. Unofficially...’ He shrugged. ‘Go see if you can meet a nice girl.’
‘I need to...’ I could barely get the start of my sentence out before Sammy had gone again, his arms in the air, white shirt crisp and gleaming and standing in stark contrast to his dark hands. I looked around the heaving mass of bodies around me and started the mental mapping of how to get up to my bedroom in the fastest, most efficient way.
Weaving my way through and around the bodies was simultaneously difficult and easy. Easy, because there were so many people wrapped up in their own world who didn’t notice my existence that nobody tried to stop me (I’d glanced around for Sammy a few more times, but he was busy doing shots), and difficult because... well, when so few people realise you exist, they have no issues about getting in your way, and ignoring you when you ask them to move. The relatively short and normally quick walk from the front door to my bedroom took a claustrophobic five minutes, during which time I’d bumped into and squeezed past so many people that didn’t acknowledge my existence it was less like a party and more like one of my worst nightmares come to life. I didn’t know where to look but it was all so loud and fast and I could barely think or talk. I tried to get out a ‘Sorry’ or two to a group of guys who were in my way by the stairs but none of them would move and so I had to squeeze past, edging slowly like a tortoise in a too tight tunnel, and then shooting out like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. They laughed as I tripped up one of the stairs in my rush to escape, and my cheeks burned with the knowledge they were laughing about me.
The stairs were mercifully clear of people, and the upstairs area, small as it was, didn’t invite guests. I got into my room without any further incident and closed the door behind me with a contented sigh. I crossed the room to my chair and collapsed into it, sitting at my desk with the blinds open so I could see out. As the light was off, I could see a little bit of the sky again, although the lights from the party downstairs still pulsated out blues, greens and reds made it hard to see much, and the constant drone of the bass slowly tried to shake the brain cells out of my head. I couldn’t concentrate enough to read, my phone was dead and both my charger and my laptop were downstairs so music or a movie was out, and it was too loud to try to sleep.
So I sat. I sat and stared out the window, trying to not think about my past, or my lack of a future. I shut out the world as best I could, and just existed. I sat, existing, through the rest of the party. I ignored the sounds of laughter and joy, the music and cheers, until it all went away. I barely recognised the figures of the departing guests, vanishing into their own shadows as the lights from the party went out and the street plunged into darkness. My eyes flickered to my bedside clock. Just after midnight. I heard the door close for the final time, and then the soft footsteps of someone walking up the stairs. After all our years together, I knew Sammy’s tread anywhere.
There was a soft knock at the door. ‘You okay, Jay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You vanished. Didn’t feel it tonight?’
‘Didn’t feel it tonight.’ I parroted back.
‘Okay.’ He replied after a brief pause, his tone of voice carrying a lot more than two syllables were usually able. ‘I’m going to bed. I’ll clean up in the morning.’
‘Good night.’ I said, before casting my mind back to something he had said earlier. ‘Sammy?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Congratulations on the promotion.’
I wasn’t aware of Sam
my having left my doorway, but he must have done. By the time I was truly conscious and aware of my surroundings again, it was well after two in the morning, and the breeze blowing in through my open window was starting to lose the heat, although it started to feel more humid. It felt like it was going to rain, but I couldn’t be bothered to close the window. Maybe a cool evening will calm me down, I reasoned. I stood up when a glint caught my eye. I tilted the blinds slightly and saw the burning up satellite again. It looked faster this time, and bigger, a faint tail behind it. Crash and burn, my friend. I nodded in camaraderie at the streak and was about to turn to my bed when a childlike compulsion took over. I turned back and watched the shooting star plummet, faster and brighter.
‘Starlight, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.’ Just before I lost the golden streak it behind the houses, I screwed up my eyes.
‘I wish...’
I stopped myself. There was only one thing I would wish for, and it would never happen. Even if she wanted to come back (which was a compulsion she had never shown in the past) I was fairly confident she was dead.
As I slept, it rained, both inside and out.
The rain outside began gently enough, or so my awareness of it went. The occasional light pat on the window; too quiet, to begin with, to affect my dreaming. As it increased in force and frequency, however, my subconscious mind recognised it for what it was and incorporated it into my nightly episode of “Emily Dumped Me”. After five years, this dream rarely changed or went away. Whilst part of my brain latched onto the difference and a tiny voice in my head stirred, pointing out that it hadn’t rained on that night, it was largely ignored by my sadistic subconscious; insisting that not only did I have to suffer through the memory again, but the bad weather was perfect for setting the mood. The pat of the rain slowly intensified, and my perspective would shift each time, as if it were a drumbeat pushing through to get my attention elsewhere. Every time my mind would try to drift to a happier time, the rain would steer me back to my nocturnal hell.
The dream was a rehash of the various small fights we’d been having up to that moment - things that were small and easy to ignore at the time, but had built up; if she cooked, I washed up. If I cooked, I washed up.
Pat
Small, insignificant things for the most part, but one way in which we totally disagreed was the War. Em had always maintained that we should do whatever we should and help in any way possible to combat the Danti. I, on the other hand, had a similar opinion but I also enjoyed the fact that The War was taking place in an almost magical, far away land called Somewhere Else. Somewhere Else was safe. Somewhere Else was comfortable. Somewhere Else was a place I certainly had every intention of being... but only when the fight against the Danti reached my front door. I didn’t call it cowardice, I called it prudence. Emily and I were of a different mind about that, however, and our occasional loud fights almost always involved her calling me a coward, or some-such variation of that.
Pat
Somehow it was a point of honour that I should enlist and fight; for her and the country in equal measure, as she had hinted at that night in the pub. I never tried to justify my point, because I think it would have sounded like a hollow excuse in her ears. So I ignored it, and consistently put up with her calling me a coward
Pat
and a traitor
Pat
and a wimp. ‘Even those poor people,’ Dream Emily reminded me, ‘Who’ve been poisoned by the Danti are fighting back.’ Those poor people, I had reasoned with her, had been mutated and given special abilities. It was all very well and good for a bulletproof man to charge down a horde of monstrous aliens, but if I did it, I’d get killed. I also pointed out that the vast majority of the people who’d been mutated had turned into disgusting creatures that the media was calling Gnarlers, and the chances were far higher that I’d turn into one of those, rather than be able to outrun a speeding train or catch a bullet in my teeth. She didn’t see it my way, however, and so I put up with it until those Army boys rolled into town one night on their way
Pat
to be deployed, and a blond squaddie called Neil
Pat
swept her off her feet
Pat
on the night I had intended to be the most important of our lives.
She remained unaffected by the rain in my dream, whilst I was all-too aware of the damp chill making my clothes stick to my body. I watched, soaked, as her long auburn hair waved goodbye to me from the car park of the pub, the small ring-box in my pocket weighing me down.
I awoke to the sound of thunder rolling and glanced at my bedroom window. Still open from the too-hot evening, water had pooled on my windowsill. It would be a cool day; refreshing from the heatwave we’d experienced of late. I was thankful for it as I had always hated heat. I stretched out in bed, watching a particularly fat raindrop force its way down the pane. I watched as it incorporated its smaller siblings into itself, swallowing them and occasionally changing course as it did so. I cheered it on until it reached the bottom, trying to get Emily off my mind.
I had kept the ring. Sammy called me an idiot for doing so, as it cost an arm and a leg. However, it was a reminder to me, daily, that I should fight for what I believe in. As I put the silver chain I kept the ring on around my neck, I heard Sammy in the room next door waking up and decided to get in the shower - I wanted to limit my contact with him today. It might make my decision harder.
Throwing on some clothes, my luck held out as normal as I bumped into Sammy, who smiled at me easily, and with more than a little concern in his face.
‘Morning.’
I nodded back, not trusting myself to say anything.
‘Why did you leave the party so early?’
‘Leave?’ I stared at him. ‘I didn’t leave, I had to walk through it to get to my room. All I wanted was a quiet night in, Sam.’
Huh. I guess I trusted myself to talk after all. He shrugged at me. ‘Other people were having fun.’
‘Other people aren’t me.’
‘Other people,’ he continued, looking at the glinting steel chain around my neck, ‘who had their hearts broken within the last five years, were having fun.’
‘Yeah. Well...’
‘No.’ He glared. ‘Not “Yeah, well.” You always do this to yourself. You beat yourself up and blame yourself for her leaving. It wasn’t your fault she turned into a huge bitch who left.’
‘I should have-’
‘Quit with the hindsight crap, Jay. If you have to say you “should” have anything, she wasn’t going to stick with you for being you. Unless you travel back in time and stop the Danti from invading, she was always going to leave you. She was like... Action Barbie, for Christ’s sake!’
I mulled over his words as he went back into his bedroom to preen. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, the door open. ‘I’ll have you know that at least one of us had a little fun last night.’
‘Oh?’ I asked, not really caring. I could tell he wanted me to query his latest conquest, but I really wasn’t in the mood. Eventually, he gave in, and sighed, posing and flexing in the mirror. ‘You should come to the gym today. I’ll get you on a free pass: get the endorphins going, feel better about yourself. Maybe meet another Action Barbie who isn’t a total bitch.’
I sighed inwardly as Sammy and I went downstairs together and cleared part of the kitchen so we could eat our breakfasts. Sammy never had any issues with meeting men. Or women, for that matter, who believed they could “turn” him - well, with a couple of notable exceptions. I remember one time in college, a cute but homophobic girl walked up as Sammy and I were sitting having a drink in the canteen, looked me right in the eye, and asked me ‘Yeah, he’s popular, but how can you be friends with someone with such disgusting ideas about sex?’ - without missing a beat, Sammy replied ‘What makes you think he’s popular?’ We’d looked at each other and I’d shrugged in confusion at him. The
girl walked away, a look of total disgust on her face.
Good riddance.
Sammy had been by my side for the entirety of my relationship with Emily. He had told me the day I first met her (about 20 minutes after Homophobic Girl, in fact) about how I would “definitely fall in love with that girl, if you haven’t already”, after the first ten minutes of knowing her. It was he who found out her ring size for the engagement ring, although he had advised me against proposing, as “that girl will break your heart, Jay”, and it was him who came to find me in the pub as I was working up the courage to propose, to tell me not to go outside. As I was used to not listening to him, I ignored him, only to find her kissing that handsome blond Neil passionately.
Add another thing to the list of opposites. Sammy is always right.
‘So, are you going to enter?’
‘Enter what?’ I asked, already knowing what he meant; his attempts to cheer me up: the party, being overly crude in his comments about sex, and now this, were getting increasingly forced.
‘The lottery, man!’ Sammy beamed, showing teeth whiter than I would have thought possible outside of a TV show, and tapped his spoon against his cereal bowl, fresh with a mass of Fruity Aleph-Os (named after the famed PI Aleph, of course). ‘We could walk away with a share of, what? 12 billion OWDs, minimum?’
‘Yeah, but we won’t.’ I shook my head. ‘It’ll all go to some American bastard who already has more money than sense, and he’ll flaunt it for all time.’
‘Man, lighten up. What would you do if you won?’
‘If I won, what? Two OWDs, assuming it’s an even split of the money?’
‘The whole lot, Jay! The entire Global Lottery pot! All to yourself.’ His smile got wider. ‘Well. All to ourselves. If you won every last One World Dollar that was being put up. If you got what you were... OWD.’ He smirked at me, far too amused by his own pun.
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