by Otto Schafer
Her mother’s eyes, clouded in death, blinked slowly, clearing to find her in their focus. “Oh, Bre,” the dead woman said. “You never needed my forgiveness. You just need to forgive yourself. I love you. I always loved you. You need to live. You have too much ahead, too much depends on you. Now go, leave this place in the past where it belongs, and don’t come back!”
“I love you too, Mom!” Breanne said, the words echoing as the moment became somehow less real and more dream.
The woman hanging next to her smiled. “Oh, my little Yanni, my baby, of course you do. Now go!”
The present moment rushed back. Breanne blinked, gasping in short bursts, tears running down her face. Her knees felt weak and for a second, she thought she might go down.
“Are you okay, Bre?” Gabi said from beside her. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She breathed, finding her legs. She looked over at the girl’s face. She was fine. Gabi was fine. “Gabi, I just had a flash.” She shook her head in confusion. “A flash of the future, but this time it was so strange… this time I think you…” She trailed off, noticing a fallen tree lying across their path.
“The future? This time? What do you—”
Breanne held up a hand, silencing her as she frowned at the long shape. This was no sensation of déjà vu – this was more. This was the vision from before. “Gabi,” she said quietly, “that isn’t a tree.”
As the words left her mouth they were drowned out by a loud hiss from off trail on the other side of Gabi. Breanne gasped sharply. Her heart leapt as fear grabbed her, but she didn’t hesitate, not for one second. No car crashed and no horrible Christmas song played. There was no shattering glass and no red diamonds.
Breanne grabbed Gabi, jerking the girl back with one hand as she stepped in front of her and ripped the pistol from its leather holster.
The giant snake struck out, it’s mouth opening to reveal curved, spiked fangs dripping with venom.
The 9mm rose upward in one smooth motion as Breanne covered it with her left hand and racked the slide. Leveling the gun, she fired as fast as she could pull the trigger.
Bullets ripped through the snake’s mouth and out the back of its head as its forward momentum carried it into Breanne, knocking her off her feet.
Breanne kicked at the viper’s scaly face, pushing herself back as she scrambled to her feet. She released the spent magazine into the dirt and fumbled with the other magazine, finally shoving it into place with a click. She leveled the gun at the snake again, but it was over. The snake was dead.
Overcome with emotion she dropped her shaking gun hand to her side and began to cry. It wasn’t the brush with death pulling her tears. She didn’t freeze up! She kept Gabi safe and she didn’t freeze!
Gabi took her hand. “Thank you, Bre. You saved me,” she whispered.
Breanne looked at her with knitted brows. “Gabi… were you… were you in my… my memory?”
Gabi returned her confused look.
In the distance a door slammed, and dogs barked.
“Did you hear that?” Gabi asked, looking down the dirt road. “I think that’s the farm up ahead.”
Breanne thumbed the safety on the pistol before sliding it back into the leather holster. “Jesus, we made it,” she said, smiling. But in the back of her mind the question still nagged. Was Gabi there, in her memory somehow, or was it a creation of her own mind?
“Bre?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you tell me about your mom sometime?”
Breanne gasped, searching the girl’s eyes as if they would reveal the answers to a thousand blossoming questions. Finally, she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and smiled. Then she said something she would never have thought she would ever hear herself say. “I’d like that, Gabi. I’d like that a lot, but only if you tell me about yours.”
Gabi smiled shyly and nodded.
Not for the first time nor the last, Breanne grabbed Gabi and embraced her in a tight hug. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The two girls ran toward the sound of the barking dogs and hope.
55
Family Reunion
Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4
Rural Chiapas State, Mexico
The girls cautiously made their way up a rutted drive toward a small farmhouse. Somewhere, far beyond them, the evening sun disappeared behind the mountains and into the Pacific. The small home was framed in red brick arches and stucco walls painted yellow. The whole thing was topped with corrugated tin sheeting that carried through onto the porch, which was held up by rough-cut oak timbers.
On the porch stood a slight-statured, mustached man, silhouetted in candlelight cast from the open door behind him. His expression was that of suspicious curiosity. He looked to be in his seventies, slender but sturdy. As the candlelight spilled out onto the porch so did wonderful aromas of cooked meat, spices, and warm tortillas. Breanne had not realized until that very moment just how hungry she was.
The man yelled something back over his shoulder. Breanne didn’t catch it all, but she caught the name Juan and then Gabi.
Gabi ran forward and onto the porch just as another man appeared. This man looked like a younger version of the older man. Gabi and the man embraced in a hug, followed by a flurry of Spanish Breanne couldn’t keep up with. The man looked at her, then at the gun on her hip, and began speaking fast again. Gabi went into some explanation, the man nodded, then she caught another name – Sarah – and that’s when Gabi burst into tears.
“What is it, Gabi?! What about Sarah?! What did he say about Sarah?” Breanne begged, stepping up onto the porch. There was another flurry of words.
“It’s Sarah! Breanne, she is alive! She is alive!”
Breanne smiled and turned to the younger man.
“I’m sorry, Breanne, right?” Juan asked. “I have heard Sarah speak of you, and Fredy…” He trailed off for a moment, looking away. He drew in a breath. “Fredy used to talk about your father often. This is my father, Carlos,” he said, pointing at the elderly man.
His English was very good. Way better than her Spanish, she thought. “It’s nice to meet you, Juan. Do you have a phone?” she asked.
Juan shook his head sadly. “Yes, we have one, but it is of no use. There is no power for anything electrical. Nothing works, not the vehicles, the home electricity, phone… nothing.”
Breanne and Gabi exchanged worried looks.
“It’s the God Stones,” Gabi said. “They are interfering with the magnetic fields of this planet. It will be this way everywhere.”
“God Stones?” Juan asked.
“Ogliosh told me about them. He said the longer our planet is exposed to them the worse things could get, and since Apep connected them to… what did he call it? A Sound… Sound Eye! That’s it! It’s going to happen even faster. Connecting them increases their power and he should only have done that when the pyramid was ready for them to open the portal.”
“Ogliosh,” Juan said slowly, testing the word. “Who is this?”
“The giant in the pyramid,” Gabi said matter-of-factly.
To Breanne’s surprise, Juan nodded. “Every time Sarah wakes, she only wants to know about you, if we’ve found you. When she talks, she tells of the dragon and giant and you, always you. She said the last she knew you were up on the mountain with the giant,” he said, pointing. “As hard as it is to believe I knew she was telling the truth. I didn’t see the giant or dragon for myself, but when things below the mountain went bad, the whole place sounded as though it was coming apart. Manuel appeared, screaming for rope. He ran back in and we tried to follow, but before I could get down the stairs we heard the dragon roar. Heat plumed up from below, and I thought everyone down there must be dead. We got out just before the whole place came down.” Juan looked down at his feet. “Manuel didn’t make it out.”
“I know, I saw him fall…” Gabi said quietly.
An uncomfortable qui
et grew between them.
“How is Sarah?” Breanne asked.
“She’s hurt pretty bad. Broke both legs, one of her arms, and some ribs. Mamá said she thinks she bruised some organs too, and she isn’t sure about internal bleeding. She says it’s too soon to rule it out. That would be the biggest worry – well, that and fever. We set the broken bones best we could as soon as we got her back here, and she has been in and out since.”
Juan’s mother, Rosa, a weathered woman, hardened and lean from years of farm work, appeared on the porch, wearing a long skirt and colorful blouse. She smiled politely at the two girls, then looked at Carlos and Juan disapprovingly, pointing at both of them as she rattled off words Breanne knew were scolding.
“Mamá says we are being rude. Please come in, you must be starving. Besides it isn’t safe out here. We have been seeing… well, strange insects flying around all afternoon.”
“Strange how?” Breanne asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
“Much bigger than they should be. Now please, come inside.”
As Breanne stepped inside, she and Gabi shared knowing looks.
“Juan, can we see Sarah?” Gabi asked.
“She is in a room in the back resting. I will take you to her, but let’s get you two washed up and fed first.”
As the girls went to wash, Rosa disappeared and soon the smells of more food being prepared fill the air. Almost everything Rosa served was grown, harvested, and processed from the farm. She had soaked the farm-grown maize in a water and lime mix before grinding it into masa and forming the tortillas by hand. Breanne watched her as she squatted in front of the stone hearth, dipping each tortilla in water before dropping it into the cast-iron skillet. With practiced precision, she carefully charred each side to perfection before flipping it and repeating the toasting process on the opposite side. Next, she loaded it with beans that she had reduced into a smooth creamy deliciousness earlier in the day. On the side, she served a spicy salsa topped with fresh avocado and cilantro, and rice flavored with tomato, garlic, and onion. The main course was goat meat that had been cooked down in a pot of unknown ingredients until it was tender, practically melting in Breanne’s mouth. Despite the spicy heat of the chiles, she couldn’t stop eating.
Once the two had eaten themselves practically sick Rosa ushered them off, not even allowing them to help clean up.
“Come, I will take you to Sarah,” Juan said.
“Sarah?” Breanne said, stepping softly through the doorway. The room was small, with a wood-planked floor. A small wooden table with a single candle sat casting a flickering glow over a still form.
As Breanne and Gabi approached, the woman’s head turned slightly. Breanne tried not to show a reaction to seeing Sarah’s face. She was almost unrecognizable. Half her face was badly bruised, her nose was slightly twisted, and one eye was swollen shut.
“Oh! Breanne?! Gabi?! Is that really you? No, no of course this can’t be real, you can’t both be here. Not unless… unless I’m dead? Yes, and you are my angels. Oh, god, please let this be heaven!”
The woman’s voice came in a slur, whether from some medication or the swollen face Breanne couldn’t tell, but the sight of Sarah brought both girls to tears. “Sarah, we are really here, and we are going to get you help!”
“Gabi, I thought for sure… I thought…” Abandoning the thought, her eye darted back to Breanne. “If you’re here, then your father? Where is your father, Bre? Oh please, I want to see him too!”
“He isn’t here, Sarah. He’s… Well, he’s… It’s hard to explain, but he isn’t here.”
Half of Sarah’s face frowned in confusion, and she turned to Gabi. “I’m sorry. Gabi, I’m sorry I couldn’t save them! Sorry I was in such a damn hurry to know! God, I’m sorry!” Sarah said, her open eye blinking back tears.
“No, Sarah. This is no more your fault then it is mine. We were all right where we wanted to be. No one could have known. The ones to blame are the dragon… and the giant,” Gabi said, a hardness in her voice.
Breanne looked at the girl anew. There was something in Gabi’s tone, something she hadn’t seen until now – a hatred, deep and angry.
Sarah tried to smile at them. “You are really here?”
Gabi fished into her pocket and pulled out the long gold chain with her mother’s ring on it. She slid the ring off, stuffed it back into her pocket, and held out the chain.
Sarah lifted her unbandaged hand shakily, gently clasping the chain. Then she looked at Breanne. “Do you know who this belonged to?”
Breanne nodded, reaching out to touch the chain. “My father – he gave it to you when we were in Egypt. I was with him when he bought it.” She smiled at the memory. “I remember he was so nervous, Sarah. We must have spent the whole day looking for the perfect necklace for you.”
“Yes. God, I miss him. I remember that day he gave it to me…” She shifted in the bed. “Did you feel that?”
Breanne’s eyes knitted together. “Yes! What was that? Gabi, did you feel… There! I felt it again!”
Gabi let go of the chain.
“It’s so weird. It’s gone now but for a second it felt like…” Breanne shook her head. Then for some reason she thought of the snake and the memory of her mother and Gabi talking to her. An idea occurred to her. “Gabi, take the chain again, please!”
Gabi reached out and put her hand around the chain, right between Sarah and Breanne’s. “There it is again! I feel… I feel my dad! Like he is sitting right next to me!”
“I feel him too!” Sarah said.
Gabi sat still for a long moment with her eyes pressed tight. She opened her eyes and looked from Sarah to Breanne. “He said he is glad we are all safe, and wants to know how you got here and where your brother Paul is?”
56
Band of Holes
Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4
Pisco Valley, Peru
Bright light faded from Apep’s vision to reveal a barren landscape of loose, rocky soil. He found himself in the Pisco Valley, staring up at one of the most mysterious places on earth, the Band of Holes.
Just another of the many forgotten details of human history, the Band of Holes consisted of over six thousand holes, a meter deep and a meter wide, placed in neat rows of eight that marched up the side of the remote mountain the Spanish had named Serpent Mountain. A fitting name for something humans had no memory of creating.
The holes stretched back before recorded time, leaving the short-lived humans to come up with all kinds of preposterous theories, like that it was a mass grave. Their stupidity was almost comical, Apep thought. How does one conclude six thousand open holes are graves when not a single one has a bone in it? The explanation was so obvious. For a species that had been so close to complete annihilation to forget what it was that had almost destroyed them and where they came from was, well, idiotic.
The humans spent hundreds of years investigating empty holes, but did they ever once think to look around at the other mountains in the valley? Of course not. If only they had picked a mountainside, in any direction, and dug. They wouldn’t have even had to excavate very deep. But what did they do? They dug in empty holes. Fools.
Apep could have teleported the mile to the top of the mountain but instead he decided to walk. He wanted to think. Something was nagging him. Besides, the tips of his fingers were tingling and his joints felt like they were… stinging. He had been using so much power there were bound to be some – well, minor side effects. Nothing to worry about, but perhaps it was better he saved his energy for what was to come.
After waking from his long, forced nap in Egypt in 1050, he spent years fighting the mage Turek until finally killing him but not before he’d hidden the God Stones out of reach. He spent several hundred years whispering in the ears of humans like Tesla and Einstein, helping them advance. Later still he funded the creation of a massive mining and construction equipment company, pouring money into their research and development dep
artment, so he would have the technology he needed to retrieve the God Stones once he learned where Turek had hidden them. But even with the best equipment money could buy, he knew he needed more than technology. Turek had been clever for a human. He had hidden the stones deep inside the bedrock itself. Still, Apep had been smarter. He hired his own clever human, Dr. Moore, and then finally the God Stones were his. Then came the boy – the descendant of the mage and his ridiculous prophecy of a chosen one. But he had killed him too, hadn’t he?
This was Ogliosh’s fault. All his talk about the human being one of the gods. Could he be right? Could Turek really have been one of the seven gods? The god of humans? “Then why would the human god let you kill him? That’s what you should be asking yourself, Apep,” Ogliosh had said. Syldan had mentioned this too. Suppose there was truth to it. Then what is Turek playing at? If he were one of the seven gods, he could have just killed me years ago. He could have killed the dragons and the nephilbock. Why the dramatics? No, this can’t be… mustn’t be. Yet still the thought nagged.
As soon as Apep reached the top of the mountain he found what he was looking for. It seems all the dragons managed to escape their prisons with the giant. Well, except for Sylanth, the one Garrett killed.
The great scaly beasts were spread out across a stretch of steeply sloped mountainside. Each dragon exhaled bursts of flame onto the barren ground – ground already devoid of all moisture and life. It reminded Apep of the nightshade desert on Karelia, minus the shadow creatures that lived in the loose soil. Gods, he hated this place.
Azazel and the others had wasted no time getting to work heating the soil and raising it to impossible temperatures. What lay dormant beneath the soil, undisturbed and undiscovered for centuries, would only stir under the perfect conditions.