Lenny lay back down smiling.
"I could kiss you right now!" Rick exclaimed.
Lenny tried to laugh, but the pain from his broken ribs was too much. "How about you convince Henry to let that coffee shop girl of his, Carly, kiss me when we get back home?"
Rick turned to Henry curiously.
"Who's Carly?"
Henry looked at Lenny with a dark scowl that eventually broken into a smile.
"I guess you’ll have to wait and find out until we get back home."
The spinning blades of the helicopter whipped and whirled in the air, throwing up dust and debris as it descended towards the large field at the corner of Ballybogie Road and the Village Green. Lenny had arranged this field as the designated landing zone for General Carmine.
Henry held Cod’s compass in his hand as he and Rick hesitantly exited the old beat-up house where they had set up their base. It had been a day since they defeated the Beast, and the cooler temperatures for this time of year had come back almost immediately. They needed the remains of the home to provide them shelter from the cold.
During their day-long wait, they’d viewed the video Lenny had found of Mr. Perkin’s discussion about the Beast prior to its release. Everyone was furious to learn that they knew the creature had been there. Lenny had continued to go through most of the transferred data he had taken from the data core. He found numerous emails between the Union Forest execs and several politicians that contained backroom deals to allow the corporation to bypass international, federal, and state laws.
He found documents regarding government coercion where government officials, on behalf of Union Forest, had forced fines and levies on potential rivals until they finally went bankrupt. There was documentation of black market dealings with warlords of various other countries. There was so much damning evidence against Union Forest that even Lenny wasn't able to sift through it all.
Henry was dubious at first of all the information that Lenny had found until Lenny informed him he’d cracked Union Forest's unusual data management system. Lenny explained that Union Forest stored most of their highly sensitive data in The Cloud that rotated from one location to another through their innumerable data cores across the globe.
All the data would remain on the data core for a few brief minutes or hours before it would dash off to another random location. Be it the fates or whatever higher power, all of Union Forest’s most hush-hush secrets arrived at the data core at the exact moment the Beast emerged from the drilling site, throwing the world and everything into chaos, forever disconnecting the data core from the rest of the world.
"Are you ready for this?" Rick asked Henry.
"I don't know," he replied as he pocketed the compass. "It's like choosing between the lion standing at the gates ready to eat you or the starving hyenas that run at you from your flank. Either way, we have to choose which one is the lesser of two evils."
"Can we trust him?" Rick asked as he nodded towards Lenny.
"You mean Lenny?"
"Yes. Can we trust him? I mean, he did lie to you about not being able to transfer the data."
Henry rubbed a hand over his chin, which was now showing four days’ worth of stubble. "Lenny erased all doubts in my mind when he slammed that van into the side of the Beast, saving my life. Plus, I think he's paid his penance in full when that thing hit him with its tail and sent him flying halfway across the drilling site."
Rick nodded and let the matter go. The helicopter landed, and the pilot shut down the engines.
"You ready to go meet this general of his?" Henry asked.
"Ready as you are."
Both Rick and Henry stepped off the porch, approached the helicopter cautiously as the pilot jumped out, and ran towards the door. The door to the helicopter slid open before he could reach it. Two individuals climbed out of the helicopter: the first being an older gentleman dressed in field fatigues with salt and pepper hair and dark blue eyes, and the other was a smaller lithe woman in her late thirties dressed in a similar uniform with long blond hair pulled back tightly into a neat braid.
The two individuals approached Henry and Rick. Henry stepped forward and extended his hand towards the older gentleman.
"General Carmine, I presume."
The gentleman in the field fatigues shook his head and stepped to the side.
The younger blond woman stepped up extending her hand. "That would be me. I'm glad to have finally made your acquaintance."
Henry noted her firm grip as she shook his hand.
"Please take me to Mr. Kowalski and the Union Forest data core."
Henry led the general and her escort into the small Irish home. Inside, they found Lenny lying on the old tattered couch with his laptop on his lap searching through data like a madman with a new toy.
Without taking a moment to make eye contact with the new visitors, Lenny spoke up. "Hello, Pamela. I hope your trip was comfortable."
Rick and Henry looked at one another with raised eyebrows.
General Carmine slowly and methodically approached the tattered couch. "You know, Leonard, there are easier ways to get my attention than rushing off to Ireland to face a mythological creature."
"Last time we talked, you were threatening to string me up on the gallows and lock me up in a federal penitentiary."
"What was I supposed to do? I caught you hacking into our missile defense system. The worst part was you did it just to see if you could. Boyfriend or not, hacking into something like that is a federal offense and punishable by life imprisonment or worse. You're lucky I was able to convince my superiors that we could use your expertise to infiltrate Union Forest."
Rick leaned in next to Henry.
"Did you know about this?"
"I didn't have the foggiest. However, it does explain a lot of things . . ."
Lenny unceremoniously tossed a tablet towards General Carmine. She caught it and sat it down on the couch next to Lenny, who ignored both the tablet and her. She leaned in close to him letting her fingers slowly walk their way up his arms.
"Are you still mad at me over this? Didn't I make sure to get you everything you could ever want in that office of yours?"
"It's the Batcave, Pamela. Please call it by the correct name."
Rick tried his best to stifle a laugh.
Lenny quickly spun a look at Rick that let him know that this wasn’t funny. Once he was satisfied that Rick wasn't going to do anything to embarrass him, he turned back to General Carmine. He picked up the tablet, activated it, and gave it to her aide before finally turning to the general.
"You will find everything you need to take down Union Forest on that tablet. It appears they knew about the Beast before they started drilling and it was the reason that brought them here. The tablet also has all of their secrets and backroom dealings that were on the data core. Now that you have what you want, I want a ride for me and my three friends back home, and they better get a heroes’ welcome because these three men just took down the ‘mythical creature’ that you and several other military leaders could not."
General Carmine was shocked at how forceful Lenny spoke to her. "You've never . . . I mean . . . you've changed, Leonard."
Lenny looked her straight in the eye. "You don't know the half of it. I've seen the specter of death itself and survived!"
Henry groaned in response.
Lenny winked at the two brothers. Lenny turned back to regard General Carmine with a serious look upon his face.
"And one more thing, I'm done with this whole spy thing. It's far too boring."
Henry and Rick busted up laughing.
Jacobson walked in alongside the helicopter pilot. He glanced from Henry to Rick, baffled.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
Rick walked over to him and put his hand on his shoulder ushering him away.
"We'll have to talk about that on the way home. How about the two of us go check on the equipment and talk about that girlfriend of yours and how you're g
oing to ask her to marry you?"
Smoke billowed up from the small fissures in the floor as small pools of magma pushed up through the broken earth. The super-heated magma burned and melted the rocks around the opening, allowing more to flow out of the fissure. As the magma made its way out of the fissure, it crept across the open floor to where the broken and contorted corpse of the Beast lay.
The magma melted through the twisted metal of the viewing platform that lay scattered across the cavern floor. The metal hissed and popped as it was consumed by the ever-hungry magma. Soon it reached the bloated corpse of the Beast.
The scales of the decomposing beast hissed and popped as the magma ate away at it. The body resisted the attack of liquid magma at first, but eventually, the magma won out and ate away at the dead body. As the magma consumed the remains of the Beast, a faint orange and purple flame began to dance over the Beast’s body where its massive heart once beat.
The dark tendrils of black, orange, and purple lights writhed up from the dead beast’s body. The tendrils twisted as they floated along the air currents until they eventually coalesced over the Beast’s chest cavity, which was now fully exposed.
A fusion of light spun and spiraled in the air as it collected the tendrils of light. This went on for several minutes until every last tendril had woven its way through the air, merging with the ball of light that danced in the air.
The magma hissed as more flowed from the fissure, crawling up and over the now cooling magma that surrounded the corpse. It flowed over it until nothing remained of the once mighty beast but a hardened shell. The orb of light floated on the wind, drifting lazily towards a large oval obsidian stone.
An item the Beast had lovingly crafted centuries ago without knowledge as to why it had done so. When the Beast was finished, it had place the stone in this place only to be forgotten. The orb flared brightly, lighting the entirety of the chamber when it reached the stone. Multiple colors flashed upon the walls in a brilliant display of power. Then the light slipped into the stone.
Darkness returned to the chamber with only the dim glow of the magma giving off any light. The stone rumbled as small cracks formed upon its unmarred surface. The shell surrounding the corpse of the Beast darkened and then turned to dust. The flowing magma consumed the dust and retreated into channels cut into the floor.
These channels allowed the magma to flow unimpeded until it eventually pooled around the oval-shaped obsidian stone, where it and the stone began to pulsed with a faint purple light like the beating of a heart.
Wow, where do I start? First, let me start by saying that writing this book has been an amazing journey that started back in 2015, which I could not have completed without the love and support of my family. However, with that said there have been so many people who have helped make this dream a reality. I hope I don’t forget anyone. If I do, please forgive me and know that I appreciated everything that you’ve done for me up to this point.
First and foremost I want to thank my wife Christa for all of her love and support while I vanished for hours on end to write this book. It’s because of her continued push to follow my heart that I was able to chase this dream of mine. Next is to my children who are my biggest fans and I theirs!
To my parents for all of their encouragement and support.
To James Wymore, who allowed me to tag along with the Space Balrogs every now and then and gave me the little extra nudge over the edge I needed to start writing.
To Jason King, the Jedi Master who saw the diamond that was hidden within the giant pile of coal that was my first draft. You wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands if it wasn’t for him. So thank him by buying one of his amazing books too!
To Sarah Hamblin, my editor. Sarah was absolutely amazing to work with. Especially, consider the many stories I have heard about editors and how evil they can be. I was super worried when Jason said he was handing my novel over to someone else. However, Sarah quickly dispelled all my worries with her fantastic edits, insanely kind and super supportive emails.
A giant thank you to my friends Michaelbrent Collings, Dave Butler, Jo Schaffer, Jennifer Jenkins and again to Jason King. Thank you taking the time to read through my first draft and giving me great feedback and advice.
To Brian Hailes the magician that created the visually stunning cover for this book. I was speechless and in awe when I first saw the cover for this book and I believe that he was able to captured the essence of this story in that single image.
To Riley Booms, who took an insane chance with in starting Dungeon Crawlers Radio nine years ago that quite frankly was the springboard that helped me get where I am today. May the force be with you my friend as you enjoy your next endeavor.
To my other fellow Dungeon Crawlers; Joe Coleman, Layne Lowder, Scott Silver, MckAy Martin, Jared and Jessica Seaich for all their help over the years on the show.
To Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, Larry Corriea, R.A. Salvatore, Tracy Hickman, Margret Weis, Kevin Neilsen, J Scott Savage, David Farland, Craig Nybo, DJ Butler, Bob Defendi, Paul Genesse, and the many countless other authors that have come on Dungeon Crawlers to talk about their novels and left wonderful tidbits about writing and publishing over the years.
To Michaelbrent Collings, D.J. Butler and Dan Wells for being kind enough to give a cover quote for my debut novel.
To everyone at Immortal Works for giving me this opportunity to share my story with anyone and everyone who will read it and for being such a wonderful group of people to work with.
And lastly to you the reader…the person kind enough to buy, borrow or check out this novel. I truly hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
~ Daniel Swenson
Daniel Swenson lives with his wife and children in Utah, nestled between the foothills of the mountains and the shore of Utah Lake. He and his family enjoy hiking, riding bikes, playing outdoors and game nights where they play different board and card games.
Daniel has been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since he first sat down and watched Star Wars, Voltron, Masters of the Universe and the Transformers. Since witnessing the spectacle of Star Wars, Daniel has been an avid movie goer. He found his love of reading at a young age when he journeyed in the lands of Krynn and Toril alongside the creations of R.A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
He is the creator and host of the Hugo-nominated podcast Dungeon Crawlers Radio, a successful podcast that covers all things geek including interviews with upcoming and best selling authors. Because of the show, Daniel has been able to build relationships among the writing and publishing community that has helped to cultivate his talents.
For the past twenty years he has been refining his craft of story telling by creating profound and unique adventures for various gaming groups. Now he spreads his love of gaming with his kids and their friends.
This has been an Immortal Production
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Shadow Above The Flames Page 31