The Scrolls of Velia

by John McWilliams

  THE SCROLLS OF

  VELIA

  By John McWilliams

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2015 by John McWilliams

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Adella turned the seven skulls so they faced each other—a kind of powwow of the dead.

  “Probably isn’t how they expected their next meeting to go,” she said, sitting beside the skulls on the Motel 6’s patchwork-of-Americana bedspread. She handed Mary a photo: a group of men and women seated around a conference table. On the back was scrawled: “The New Eureka Group – Zurich.”

  “All dead?” I asked, looking over Mary’s shoulder.

  “Every one of them. These guys”—Adella patted one of the skulls—”were the only ones I could get my hands on.”

  “Who killed them?” Mary asked.

  “The same people who’ll now be trying to kill us.”

  Mary looked at me, her mouth agape. In those big brown eyes, however, I could see something else: excitement. Like me, Mary was an adrenaline junkie, a trait I was beginning to realize our new friend here, Dr. Adella Fortier—the woman we had just helped escape from a psychiatric hospital—was counting on.

  But hang on, let’s start from the beginning.

  Actually, this all started yesterday, yesterday morning over Bedford, Texas, with me clinging to the ass-end of an airplane at ten thousand feet. How’d I end up in that predicament? Well, just minutes before, my fellow skydiver, Big Mike Wilson, had somehow managed to deploy his main chute and catch it on the plane’s horizontal stabilizer—which meant we were now dragging him behind us like an advertising banner. And since Mike hadn’t “cut away”—a simple task of releasing his main chute—I took it that he must be unconscious.

  It was up to me, as the senior instructor, to figure out a way to cut Big Mike free. I ordered everyone to jump, save Mary Carver, an experienced skydiver from Skywalker Skydiving Center, and of course our pilot, Ben Mathews. My plan, if you want to call it that, was to crawl out onto the plane’s tail section and try to kick his lines free. The problem was that, with Big Mike flopping around back there, we were getting bounced all over the sky. Climbing onto the back of this Cessna Caravan was going to be a little like trying to climb onto the back of a bucking bronco at full buck.

  I thought if I could reduce my weight relative to the plane—in the way one loses weight initially in a descending elevator—I might be able to climb up on top of the fuselage. I ran this idea by Mary and Ben. Both seemed game.

  And moments later, there I was, grasping the handholds on the side of the plane. I gave Mary, who was leaning out the door, a nod. She ducked inside and gave Ben a thumbs-up. Ben pushed the nose over and banked hard left, and I, hanging on to a single handhold, leapt skyward.

  For a moment, I floated above the plane. Then, in keeping with step two of my plan, Ben pulled back on the stick and slammed me into the fuselage’s cold, hard surface, a torrent of wind blasting my face, a symphony of vibrations rattling my teeth. The Eagle has landed.

  Our continued ascent kept me pinned to the fuselage as I proceeded to step three: kick Mike’s lines free. I hooked my leg around the vertical stabilizer and inched my way back, hugging the plane, trying to avoid being torn away by the wind. But when I’d gotten as far back as I could get, I realized I had taken on an impossible task. The tangle of lines simply wasn’t going to slide down the leading edge of the stabilizer, and my legs weren’t long enough to push the lines all the way to the end.

  I planted my cheek against the bouncing surface of the fuselage. We had to be climbing through twelve thousand feet by now. Much higher than this, and I’d need oxygen. This is hopeless.

  Clutching the handholds, Mary popped her head up over the side of the plane’s tail section. She had to be wondering what was taking so long.

  “It’s not working,” I mouthed, and laid my head against the rattling metal surface. But Mary’s inquisitive eyes, and golden curls whipping about at the edge of her helmet, made me smile.

  You know what, maybe there is still hope.

  Tilting my head, I tried to indicate to her that I was going to attempt to leap over the stabilizer and grab the lines. She nodded as if she understood.

  If my original plan had worked, and I had kicked Mike’s lines free, Mary’s job would have been to dive down after him to make certain his reserve chute opened. But I had told her to be ready for anything.

  Well, this was “anything.”

  Mary made a diving motion with her hand. I nodded. She disappeared into the plane, and a moment later, Ben pushed the nose over, giving me a few seconds of weightlessness.

  Worst case, Ben and Mary both had parachutes.

  Well, it’s now or never.

  I let go, and tumbled, quite fortunately, over the horizontal stabilizer, right into Mike’s lines. Catching them with my outstretched arms, I ended up about halfway between Mike and the plane. I could see no safe way to make my way back to Mike’s three-hundred-pound flailing body, so I got out my knife and started cutting. When I got down to the last two lines, what was left of his tangled chute inflated, and the entire mess slid off the Caravan’s tail.

  Mike and I were now plummeting toward Earth. I stabilized myself and put away my knife, then looked up. Mary was heading toward us in a high-speed dive. I managed to grab Mike’s foot and halt his spin. Mary moved in and pulled his three-ring cut-away. This released Mike’s main chute—the shreds of nylon that it was—and he dropped away from us.

  Mary and I minimized our profiles and dove.

  If we weren’t able to catch him, his AAD (Automatic Activation Device) was designed to deploy his reserve chute at 750 feet. But that assumed that no damage had occurred during that battering he had taken behind the plane.

  We caught up with him again at around three thousand feet—the point at which we’d normally be deploying our own chutes. Mary pointed at her altimeter.

  I nodded. I know, I know. But if this clown’s reserve fails…

  I’m sure Mary was thinking the same thing.

  We wrestled with Mike’s spinning body. We were at about twelve hundred feet when we finally got him under control. Mary looked at me, I nodded, and she pulled his reserve. We both fell away, deploying our parachutes just seconds before our AADs would have activated.

  I hit the ground hard, rolled, and got back to my feet. In a cloud of dust, I watched as Mary, fifty yards north of me, set down as easily as if she were stepping off an escalator. To the south, in the same dirt field, I could see Mike’s white reserve billowing in the wind.

  Minutes late
r, Mary and I were hovering over Mike’s unconscious body. We removed his harness, leaving his helmet on.

  “Don’t even bother,” Mary said, nodding at the cell phone in my hand. “There’s no signal out here. Over on the road,” she pointed, “you can get like one bar.” She brushed an errant curl out of her eyes. “This is my uncle’s field. Well, one of them.”

  As I slipped my phone back into my pocket, I spotted a red pickup truck bounding over the loose berms, heading our way. The driver brought the truck to a dusty halt and tipped his hat.

  “Howdy, Mary,” he said. “That young man all right?”

  He and his passenger got out. Both of their doors squealed.

  “Hey there, Jake,” Mary said, still kneeling next to Big Mike. “I think so. He’s breathing.”

  “Always a good sign.” Jake stopped a few feet away and spit. “That’s one big boy.”

  “Si, is very big,” the other man agreed.

  “We don’t seem to have a rescue crew coming,” I said to Jake. “Would it be possible for you two to take him to the hospital?”

  “I suppose we could.” Jake looked at Mary. “Assuming we can get your friend into the back of the pickup.”

  “Maybe we need a crane,” the other man joked.

  “A crane’s not a bad idea.” Jake approached Mike.

  “I was thinking we could use some kind of backboard—” I began, but Jake was already lifting Mike by the shoulders.

  The other man joined in. For a couple of farmworkers, these two sure didn’t think things through. Jake could barely get Mike’s shoulders off the ground, and though the other man was having less trouble with his feet, they hadn’t moved Mike an inch.

  “How about you back up the pickup and we make this a shorter trip?” I suggested.

  “Just wanted to see if we could move him at all.” Jake raised his hat and brushed the sweat from his brow.

  “If you back the truck up,” I said, “I’ll give you a hand. This is clearly a three-man job.”

  Jake pulled the truck around and opened the tailgate about a foot from Mike’s head.

  “You two take his feet,” I said. “Mary, if you could support his head while I lift?” I was certain whatever damage could be done to Mike’s spine had already been done, but what the hell.

  “You plan to lift the heavy end of this behemoth all by yourself?” Jake laughed. “Well, this is going to be a short trip.”

  I grabbed Big Mike under his arms and lifted. I stepped up onto the tailgate, collapsing the truck’s rear springs, and walked him back into place, lowering him as Mary supported his head.

  “Holy moly, boy!” Jake bellowed. “Where on God’s green earth did you come by that kind of strength?”

  “Working my father’s ranch—bucking hay, hauling wood, that sort of stuff.” Mary and I hopped down from the truck, and I closed the tailgate after the other man climbed in.

  “Well, if you’re ever in need of a job…” Jake got behind the wheel. “Aren’t you two coming?”

  “We still have to gather our gear,” Mary said. “Besides, he’s not really a friend of ours. He’s just a skydiver from—”

  “He’s a jackass,” I interjected. “Believe me, this”—I indicated Mike’s sprawled out body—”is him at his best.”

  “Well then, thanks for sticking us with him.” Jake chuckled and started the truck.

  “Thanks, Jake,” Mary said.

  “Anything for you, Mary.” He tipped his hat.

  We watched the truck bounce away across the field.

  “Jake’s a good guy,” Mary said. “He’ll take good care of him.”

  I furrowed my brow and looked at her. Mary was heart-achingly beautiful, brave, insightful, and in some way I couldn’t possibly describe, a little scary. She also sometimes said odd things. Of course, this was all based only on my limited interaction with her. In fact, the only reason I even knew her at all was because three of the area skydiving clubs, including mine, were planning a jump for the Tarrant County Memorial Day Rodeo. As an instructor from Baker Hills Skydive, I was assigned to Big Mike and Mary’s team, and this morning was our first practice jump.

  “I wasn’t actually worried,” I said.

  “Well, neither was I.” Mary shielded her eyes from the bright Texas sun.

  “You’d think they’d have a search party out for us by now,” I said. “The airport can’t be more than a mile away.”

  “Oh, they’re probably lost,” Mary replied. “Probably looking in one of the other fields.”

  We gathered our gear and started for the road.

  Another interesting thing about Mary was that she never dated anyone—at least, according to Sue Henderson, another instructor at Skywalker Skydive. Sue claimed Mary was obsessed with a former astronaut who had crashed a plane in one of these fields about three years ago. Apparently there was a major FBI investigation into the incident, but once that went away, so did the astronaut. He dropped right off the grid. And Mary, according to Sue, has been trying to find him ever since.

  “It’s quite a hike back to the airport,” Mary said, a minute into our dusty trek.

  “Lucky for you I’m good company. You did great up there, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” She shifted the balled-up parachute in her arms. “But why’d you choose me?”

  “Choose you?”

  “To help you with Mike. There were other, more experienced, skydivers up there.”

  “Because you were the prettiest.”

  “The others were all dudes.” She laughed.

  “And they’re all lifers,” I added.

  “Lifers?”

  “Skydivers for life. That’s what they are. They’ve found their thing.” I stomped through the plowed soil.

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “No. But that’s not you and me.”

  “Oh?”

  “This is just something we happen to be doing at the moment. But we’re on our way to something else.”

  “We are?” She looked at me curiously. “We met like two days ago. How could you know anything about me?”

  “I read your file, Mary Nicole Carver.”

  “Oh, great, a stalker.”

  “Don’t worry, I had to read everyone’s file.”

  “Somehow I don’t think my skydiving file was that detailed.”

  “Well, Sue Henderson added a few tidbits.”

  “I bet.”

  “She said you don’t date. Actually, she seemed delighted that the prettiest girl in town had removed herself from the competition.”

  “Oh, you are a flirt.”

  “Just stating the facts, ma’am.”

  “Well, Henry James Warland, son of Senator Howard T. Warland. Let’s see… you’re an astronomy student at Texas A&M and you’re working on your master’s degree—isn’t that right?”

  “It’s astrophysics,” I said, “and look who’s the stalker now.”

  “Not me.” Mary laughed. “Brenda. For some reason she seems to have a thing for you.”

  “Brenda Sanchez? Interesting.”

  “She Googled you. I just happened to be there when she got your vitals and some information about that incident in College Station.”

  “I see. Well then, I guess I’m a little surprised we’re still talking.” I stared at the ground ahead of us. The incident Mary was referring to happened more than three years ago, although on the internet it might as well have been yesterday.

  “It was self-defense—right?” Mary asked. “That’s what everyone says.”

  We walked a few yards in silence.

  “And, not to speak ill of the dead,” she said, “but that guy had to be an idiot.”

  I looked at her. She didn’t seem too concerned about being out in the middle of nowhere with a killer. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve got a bit of a reputation.”

  “Oh?”

  “Like you don’t know.” She shook a curl out of her eyes. “B
renda told me all the stories—like about the time you lifted Grand Titan off a rodeo clown at the Ellenville Rodeo.”

  I chuckled. “I think Brenda might have exaggerated a bit. Grand Titan’s a twenty-two-hundred-pound bull. He moves when he wants to move. And what about you? Rumors have it you’re obsessed with an astronaut who crashed his plane somewhere around here.”

  “He didn’t crash, he landed… roughly. Anyway, that happened in the south field. The road we’re walking to, that’s West Fork River Road. The south field is about two miles that way.” Mary tilted her head vaguely southwest.

  “You seem a little defensive about it.”

  “Me? Not at all.”

  “You have a crush on this guy?”

  “What am I, ten years old?”

  “You’re in love?”

  She frowned. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Oh?”

  “It has to do with the stars,” she said. “You know, astrology? Oh, don’t give me that look—you’re an astronomer. I know they’re not the same thing, but they both have to do with the stars.” She glanced at me out the corner of her eye. “So look at that, we have something in common.”

  “Sort of.” I adjusted the parachute in my arms as I navigated my way through the shrubs bordering the road. “So what do the stars tell you about us?” I asked.

  “I’d have to do a reading, but if I were to guess, I’d say we’re going to be friends. And as my new friend, you’re going to offer me some help this afternoon.”

  “That sounds pretty specific. What do you need help with?”

  “I need to pick something up in Watertown.”

  “Is it heavy?”

  “It’s probably not light.”

  I frowned. “So it’s a mystery something?”

  “Yup.”

  I set my gear down on the side of the road. Mary did the same. “So much for our rescue,” I muttered, taking out my cell phone. Seeing I was getting one bar, I called Skywalker Skydive.

  “Are you guys okay?” Sue blurted. “Everyone’s out looking for you. What about Mary? Is she okay? Is Mike okay?”

  “Yes, yes, and yes,” I said, looking across the road at the West Fork River. “We’re about a half mile south of the airport. Mary’s with me—she’s fine—and Mike’s probably okay, but he’s on his way to the hospital.”