by Otto Schafer
Sarah turned, aiming her own headlamp at the jawbone. “Gabi! How could I have missed this before? Oh dear god, no. No, no, no. Wait. This can’t be real. It isn’t possible!”
3
Fracturing
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
In the back of the dojo, Breanne quickly shoved open the back door and pushed Janis and a swaying David out into the alley. They wobbled down the stairs on unsure legs and gathered near the neighboring restaurant’s waste container. David hunched over at the waist and vomited whatever school gruel he had eaten for lunch before collapsing to the ground, his back resting against the cool metal of the dumpster.
Janis threw herself down next to him, sick but keeping it in. “What the hell is happening?”
“What about the others?” David asked, looking peaked as he gasped for breath.
“It’s the God Stones. Paul, you have to go get them,” Breanne said. “They may have passed out like we did the first time!”
“I’m on it,” he said, running back up the steps. But as he reached the top step, the door burst open again, and Pete staggered drunkenly onto the stairs, nearly colliding with Paul.
Paul grabbed him by his shoulders, attempting to keep him upright. “Where’s your friends?”
“Ah! Let go! I… got… to get away… before I pass out,” Pete said, pushing past Paul and down the steps. He squinted painfully toward Janis and threw himself to the ground next to her.
“Pete? Where are they!” Breanne begged.
“Apep and Mr. B are fighting! The God Stone things are… ugh, my head is killing me.”
Breanne shot Paul a pleading look.
Paul nodded and disappeared through the back door of the dojo.
Mr. B moved faster than even Garrett thought possible, backing Apep across the dojo and into one of the wall mirrors, smashing it.
Apep recovered, kicking Mr. B in the chest. The sword Apep had cast aside earlier now flew back to his hand as he charged forward, releasing a furious cry. “Riaaaaahhh!” The sword sliced through the air faster than the eye could follow. “I’ll enjoy watching your flesh burn!” Apep shouted in the guttural cry of a man gone insane. Then in a low, throaty voice, Apep began speaking a language unspoken for thousands of years. The blade of Apep’s sword began to glow as if charged with lightning and suddenly ignited into a brilliant blue fire.
Garrett saw it then. The unnatural light illuminated the lower half of Apep’s face. His twisted grin was distorted by rage, yet somehow it seemed familiar.
Mr. B planted his front foot in a determined defensive stance.
Apep launched forward in a rush, unleashing a series of explosive strikes. With expertly timed feints, accompanied by precision flicks and lunges, the evil wizard drove relentlessly forward, quickly closing the distance. Every clash of metal produced a brilliant burst of blue sparks.
Apep’s flaming sword hummed strangely as the superheated blade cut through the cool air like some kind of sick lightsaber. Then the flame began to change. Stretching out, it snaked from the end of the sword. Now even when Mr. B successfully blocked a strike, the flames lashed out like a flaming bullwhip from the end of Apep’s sword, burning through his dobok and into his flesh with each strike. The long, whip-like flames didn’t stop with Mr. B; they ignited whatever was in their way, including the walls, ceiling, and floor. Within seconds, the mirrors lining the walls began to melt and pool onto the mats as they too turned to liquid and caught fire.
Garrett watched in horror as the dojo burned and their master fought for his life. Still ill in his gut, he swallowed back the bile and uncovered his ears. “My god, Lenny! We have to help him!”
Face drawn into a grimace, Lenny shook his head no. “I’m sorry, Garrett, but we can’t. We’ve stayed too long already. We have to go!”
“What are you talking about? We can’t leave him like this!”
“You don’t get it!” Lenny said, his eyes glistening. “If we don’t go now his sacrifice will be a waste. He is doing this for us. To give us time to get to the temple. If we don’t go and get there first, everyone is screwed. We have to go, now!”
Looking back at Mr. B, Garrett’s heart found its way to his throat and his vision blurred. But he knew Lenny was right – they had to go.
Footsteps bounded toward them from behind. Both boys looked back to see Paul approaching in a dead run from the hallway.
“You two okay? We thought you might have passed out. We need to—”
A loud, incomprehensible shout cut him off, drawing all their attention back toward the burning dojo. Their eyes widened as the blood-covered Mr. B raised his head and howled before launching himself fearlessly into the smoke and flames to strike out at Apep in a determined final assault.
Smoke began to choke the hallway and with it their view of Mr. B. The only evidence the fight went on were the flashes of blue light through the smoke and the sound of clashing swords ringing out from the burning chaos.
Wasting no more time, they turned and ran down the hall, leaping out the door and into the alley.
Once outside, they drew in deep breaths of night air and coughed to clear their smoke-filled lungs.
“I have to go home and warn my parents about Apep,” Garrett said.
“Wait, maybe we should just go to the temple and destroy whatever this thing is so Apep can’t get it,” David suggested.
Pete nodded his agreement with David. “But I still need to tell you about the journal, Garrett. You’re not going to believe this!”
Garrett held out his hands. “Really?”
“Okay well maybe you will but—”
From inside the dojo, a window exploded, followed by the sound of air drawing in like breath from a giant. Everyone froze in confusion. An instant later a loud whoomph preceded a fireball of flame that stretched across the alley. Garrett, Lenny, and Paul dove out of the way as everyone else instinctively dropped to the ground, covering their heads.
“Holy mother!” David shouted, standing and brushing himself off. “That was way too close!”
“You okay, Bre?” Garrett asked pulling her to her feet.
“I’m okay.”
“Maybe we better get away from here,” Paul said as the group moved down the alley.
“Okay, listen,” Garrett said. “Everyone, go to the library. Lenny and I will head to my house and warn my parents. Then we’ll meet you guys at the library and head to the drainage tunnel.”
Bre’s eyes pleaded with him not to go.
Garrett forced a smile. “Don’t worry, it’s only a short walk from the library to the tunnel.” He scanned his friends’ faces. It was plain none of them wanted him to go.
“Maybe we should stick together? I mean shouldn’t we get to this temple?” David asked.
“We’ll go with you,” Janis said.
“Guys, I have to go home. Mr. B said my stepdad has something I will need. We’ll be quick.” His plan was given as directions, not intended to be questioned or debated. He swallowed the knot forming in his throat. He had to go get this thing Mr. B said he would need to destroy the instructions for assembling the God Stones. But it was even more than that. He needed answers. Whether this was the time or not, he had to hear it from his mom. He had to look her in the eyes and ask if she knew about Apep, the keepers, Turek… all of it. He couldn’t believe she had been keeping something like this from him. Without another word he turned away from them.
He glanced over to Lenny, who nodded. He nodded back and they ran.
Paul put his hand on his sister’s shoulder and gave her a comforting squeeze. “He’ll be okay.” Then glancing to the others, he arched his eyebrows and drew in a breath. “Well, guys, I guess we’re going to this library of yours.”
“Follow me, I’ll show you guys the way,” Pete said, giving Breanne a consoling smile. “Don’t worry, Breanne, they’ll be fine – besides, we could never have kept pace with Garrett and Lenny
anyway. We would have either slowed them down or been dropped in the first block.” Pete started to jog. “Come on – I think you will find my pace much more to your liking.”
Moments later, the gang burst through the door to the Petersburg public library. From behind the counter, a prim woman with greying hair looked up from her paperback and peered quizzically over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Well, hello, Peter. I see you have brought company. Who are your friends?”
“Um,” Pete said, pausing only long enough to look from Paul to Breanne then back to the curious librarian, “just friends helping with a project, Ms. Cleary.” He gave a discreet wave of his hand, signaling them all to the left toward a doorway with a sign above it that read, Thousands of treasures below.
Breanne followed single file, feeling the librarian’s eyes on her and knowing the questions that would come – the ones she couldn’t answer. Still, when she stepped in front of the counter, she couldn’t help herself. “Excuse me, ma’am, may I use your phone? I need to call my dad and… check in.”
“Sorry, dear, the phone lines are down. I suppose it’s this crazy storm.”
Breanne’s shoulders slumped. She wanted to call the hospital to check on her dad or at least talk to Ed. She needed to know they were okay. Paul had done his best to set Ed’s busted leg, but he had passed out from the pain and her dad was… God, she hated to even think it. He had never woken after he was exposed to the God Stones. He was in a coma.
“Oh dear, worrying won’t do you well,” the librarian said with a frown. “Now, I’m sure you children have much to focus on with your project. I will come get you if the phone comes back up.” The librarian turned her attention back to the paperback.
Breanne turned away, following the others down the stairs into the lower level of the library.
“Welcome to my office,” Pete announced proudly, as he led everyone over to the big, round table at the far end of the long basement room.
Once huddled around the table, Breanne and Paul exchanged detailed accounts of the days leading up to today. Everything from finding the God Stones during the dig on Oak Island to the strange dreams of fire that led her to Petersburg and to Garrett. She told them about the bones in the swamp, the Templar cross, the altar, and the worst part – when Apep showed up and killed their friend Jerry. Pete and the others had heard some of it at the dojo, but the full story was frighteningly unbelievable.
Pete focused on bringing Breanne and Paul up to speed on the rest of it, carefully recounting the finding of the journal in the basement of Eugene’s old Victorian, President Lincoln’s involvement, discovering the initialed bricks inside the culvert, and the run-in with Jack.
“The journal had just been there behind the wall of the basement for all those years? What are the odds? It almost doesn’t seem possible, right?” Breanne said in astonishment.
Pete stared at her in amazement. “Breanne, you’ve got to be kidding. Your story about what happened on Oak Island is way crazier than what we’ve had going on.” Pete waggled a finger in the air. “But now that you mention it, I guess none of this really seems possible, right?”
“No, I guess not, and you can call me Bre. That’s what my friends call me.”
“You know,” David said, twisting the corner of his mustache. “Mr. B did seem to believe in this prophecy angle. Now that you mention it, it’s kind of weird. Like, what are the odds all this would happen the way it happened and when it happened? You think there could really be something to it?”
Paul rolled his knuckles across the table and shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know I had a dream about that Templar guy and Bre had a couple. She even dreamt about Garrett. Seems like that should say something.”
As the conversation wound down, worry consumed Bre’s mind. Every minute that passed seemed to take longer than the one before it. Soon all conversation ceased, and nervous silence fell upon them.
In the quiet moments that followed, the lights in the basement flickered, flickered again, and went out. Absolute darkness folded in around the new friends as they sat waiting in the basement of the public library, just as it did for the entire town of Petersburg.
4
Settling Old Scores
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
The inferno spread strangely across the walls of the dojo. Mr. B caught the erratic movement of the flames in his peripheral vision as they multiplied all around him, little miniature fire beings taking humanoid form as they danced and skipped across the walls, pausing as if sizing up the distance, then jumping from wall to ceiling. On the ceiling they summersaulted, crawled, and rolled back and forth, as if trying to put themselves out, defying gravity as everything they touched turned to flame and the ceiling became an inferno. The God Stones were at work, affecting everything just as Turek said they would. Keep them sealed in lead and never open the chest.
Mr. B slashed again and again, slashing and stabbing with the sword but finding nothing but air. The raw power of the God Stones permeated the room, enhancing his focus, and with the energy surging through him, he stepped right foot over left and spun, using his momentum to lash out at Apep with a spinning sword strike of such speed it seemed to defy the laws of physics.
Apep, with all his power, could not dodge the blade strike. So, instead of dodging, he somehow willed the blade to slow, forcing it to stop an inch from his face.
Mr. B’s eyes widened as the sword stuck fast, motionless, hanging in the air as if wedged in an invisible tree. He didn’t allow his shock to last long though. Reflexively, he let go of the sword completely and stepped in close to Apep, launching a vicious jab square into what must have been, judging from the sound of breaking teeth on knuckles, the mouth of the shadowed man.
The sword dropped free of its invisible hold as a stunned Apep staggered backward off balance.
Extending his foot beneath the sword’s hilt, Mr. B caught the blade just before it hit the ground, kicked it back up, and snatched it by the hilt.
From beneath Apep’s hood came a cry of agony.
A confident smile formed on Mr. B’s face. “I’ve spent my days preparing for the time when you would show yourself again. Honestly, I’m disappointed. I find you lacking.”
Apep spat a mouthful of blood dotted with broken bits of teeth onto the mat, his body shifted, and it was apparent he no longer found this amusing.
Mr. B set his feet.
Apep swept his flaming sword in a wide upward arc.
Mr. B leapt backward. The blade missed, but the whip of electric-blue fire extending several feet beyond the sword tip bit deep into his shoulder. He turned his face just in time to avoid losing his left eye but not his ear. He screamed and cursed under his breath as his ear fell to the mat.
Apep grinned through his broken teeth.
Mr. B wasted no time stepping inside Apep’s guard before he could draw back his sword for another strike. Feinting with his sword hand as if preparing to swing, Mr. B thrust out with his right leg and front-kicked Apep in the ribcage, feeling bones break against the ball of his foot.
Apep grunted, instinctively placing his hand over his ribs.
Mr. B sidestepped a piece of falling ceiling tile, set his jaw, and lunged forward, thrusting his sword toward Apep’s throat.
Tiny sprites screamed with excitement as they rode the falling tile to the mat.
Apep slapped the blade away with the palm of his hand and stomped down with his booted foot.
The bones in Mr. B’s bare foot crunched audibly as white-hot pain blotted out his vision. He wanted to scream out in agony but refused to give Apep the satisfaction. Instead he shut his mouth and clenched his teeth so tightly they threated to crack under the pressure.
As the ceiling burned overhead, the little flaming figures yanked and pulled at the ceiling tiles, breaking them loose in chunks that rained down all around Mr. B. Giggles and laughter came from everywhere. His vision quickly cleared when he wiped
a sleeve across his face, but the pain remained.
He dared to take his eyes off Apep just long enough to glance into the flames. A fire sprite grinned wickedly, its long red hair shooting up off its head in spikes of flames that waved back and forth like a tree in the wind. But there was no wind, only a stifling hell. The tiny fire sprite punched its little fist into the ceiling, grunting, yanking, and laughing. The sprites jumped from the fallen tile to the mat and began to spread, three becoming six and six becoming twelve – each tenacious in their desire to consume anything combustible. Some of the sprites chewed at the mat, others pulled and ripped, while some gleefully danced about, spreading tiny little footprints of fire that quickly grew into new sprites.
Apep leapt over the flames toward Mr. B, smashing the pommel of his sword against the bridge of Mr. B’s nose before spinning and striking with a downward arc.
Mr. B felt the sword coming and tried to spin away, but both the blade and the fiery whip slashed and burned across his shoulder and back, opening a long gash that bit deep into bone. Mr. B felt warmth spill down his back as a stream of bright red gushed from his crushed nose. The blood pooled on the vinyl mat beneath him, slippery under his feet. He took two painful steps to the right to find new purchase beneath him.
A brief pause, a moment nine hundred years pregnant, as the two men stared down a hate for one another that stretched nearly a millennium.
Mr. B switched his sword to his left hand. All around him flames closed in, nearly impossible to dodge and even harder to breathe through. Suddenly a fire sprite leapt from the burning mat to the lower leg of his dobok. He slapped at the sprite. The sprite put its hand over its mouth in mock disbelief then split into two, then four, then six, quickly consuming his whole pant leg. Mr. B swatted back the sprites with an open palm. Each time he struck a sprite it exploded in a rain of sparking embers. The sprites fought back, grasping with their tiny hands around his fingers and biting at his knuckles. The flames blistered his hands, but despite the pain he was finally able to slap the fire out. Desperate to put distance between himself and the sprites, he shuffled sideways away from the nearest floor fire.