FIERY ILLUSIONS (Keeper of the Emerald Book 2)

by B. C. Harris

  The bird turns and attacks the two guards who are pinning my father.

  The tall woman and Jasmin are still trading blows although Jasmin is getting the worst of it.

  I dive for the emerald necklace that is fastened around the neck of Santtonnice.

  My father leaps towards Santtonnice and me.

  As my father digs his claws into the face of Santtonnice, I rip at the necklace with all my strength.

  The gold chain breaks. I tumble backwards with the emerald clutched tightly in my hand.

  My father and Santtonnice are locked in vicious combat.

  The fight is furious. My father’s claws are everywhere, tearing at Santtonnice.

  In the violent battle, Santtonnice grabs something from the floor. It’s the razor-sharp knife he dropped a few minutes ago.

  “Dad!” I shout. “He has a knife.”

  It’s too late.

  Before my father can react, the knife rips through the air slicing into one of my father’s legs. As my father reels backwards, Santtonnice attacks again, viciously cutting whatever parts of my father he can reach.

  My dad falls away from Santtonnice. He looks like he’s in great pain.

  Santtonnice stands and looks at me. For a moment he turns and looks at the stairs. The rays of the sun are almost at the top of the stairs. He raises the knife as he looks menacingly at me, not realizing that I have the emerald in my hand.

  As he steps towards me, out of the corner of my eyes I see my mother drive into the Stalker. One of the nano-drones must have freed her from the guards who were holding her, Eleven years of pain and anger fuel devastating punches as my mother unleashes her fury. Within seconds the Stalker is out cold.

  I want to kill Santtonnice, but first I need to use the emerald to transform my father back into his body. To do this, Santtonnice and my father need to be touching.

  My father, in spite of his pain, is attempting to crawl towards Santtonnice.

  “Korabellum,” I say as I point the emerald at Santtonnice.

  There is a look of shock on his face when he realizes that I now have the emerald.

  As I lift the emerald, Santtonnice rises helplessly into the air.

  My father is now on the floor directly below Santtonnice.

  As I drop my hands, Santtonnice falls onto my father. Immediately their battle resumes. They’re now touching.

  I raise the emerald and point it at Santtonnice and my father. If the command doesn’t work, could I kill my father?

  I want to tell my father that I love him, just in case something goes wrong, but I know he won’t hear me in the roar of destruction that is occurring throughout the Colosseum.

  I focus intently. I’m ready.

  “Vergendice!” I scream as I point the emerald at Santtonnice and my father.

  - 65 -

  GONE

  A blinding light erupts around my father and Santtonnice. The force of the light knocks everyone on the platform to the floor.

  Before my eyes adjust, something attacks me. A multitude of arms and claws viciously assault me. Several sharp claws are tearing at my fingers in an attempt to take my emerald.

  It’s Santtonnice. He has become a spider-creature once again. The energy transmutation was successful.

  If he regains control of the emerald, he will kill all of us.

  “Help!” I gasp.

  My father and mother lunge at Santtonnice knocking him off me.

  I raise the emerald.

  “Abruella!” I scream as I face Santtonnice.

  A bolt of lightning drives him backwards.

  Again and again, I repeat, “Abruella” as I point the emerald at Santtonnice. As each bolt of lightning hits him, I don’t give him a chance to recover.

  Although Santtonnice is weakened, he seems to have inhuman strength.

  I have to kill him.

  “Abruella!” I shout again, a bolt of lightning striking Santtonnice in the head.

  He tumbles to the floor, but he’s still not dead.

  I hold up my emerald once again, ready to continue my punishing onslaught until I have killed this evil creature.

  Just as I’m about to unleash another barrage of energy at him, Santtonnice mumbles, “Sandarium…”

  I can’t hear what he says after Sandarium.

  Suddenly, he’s gone.

  - 66 -

  A HAPPY REUNION

  Within minutes of the disappearance of Santtonnice, we escape the Colosseum. With the earth still trembling and the walls of the Colosseum crumbing, we use my emerald to flee the hysterical mob. Once we’re safely back in the abandoned office with Jamie and Michael I return for my uncle and cousins.

  When I arrive back with them, my mother and father are thrilled to see my uncle and cousins. Even my uncle is happy.

  Christmas day, and my family is reunited once again. Perhaps very soon, we’ll be together with my grandmother as well.

  For the first time in eleven years, I give my father a giant Christmas hug. Being with him again is the best Christmas present I could ever receive.

  As I finally step away from my father, I look at the Colosseum from one of the office windows. There are thousands and thousands of people running away from the ancient marvel where they had come for the hope of a better future.

  Jamie, Michael, Jasmin and Drew are standing beside me.

  We have done it again. We have successfully completed another mission although I realize that the eruption of the supervolcano near Pompeii will result in a huge number of deaths as well as long term damage to our environment. But it could have been much worse. Today our world could have been destroyed.

  I feel tiny paws clutching my shoulders. It’s Squirt.

  Radwin is hovering near another window watching the bedlam unfold in the streets.

  “What’s next?” Jamie asks.

  What’s next? I wonder. I know we have a lot of explaining to do to the police and other government officials. I know that we will never be able to live a normal life with my father’s appearance reminding everyone of Santtonnice. And I know that somewhere out there, Santtonnice is still alive, but without the emerald and with him now looking like a mutant spider, it’s unlikely he will remain free much longer.

  I feel an arm around me.

  It’s Jasmin.

  Soon all my friends and family are entwined in a group hug.

  I blink away my tears.

  We have survived Santtonnice.

  As we stand together, I can’t wait to return back to Lattisan to tell Capurni what happened. Perhaps then he’ll tell me about the mission that he has waiting for me.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek

  at the next book in the

  Keeper of the Emerald series!

  FINAL

  QUEST

  - 1 -

  EMERGENCY

  An eleven year-old girl in our community vanished yesterday. It’s believed that she was abducted by a stranger: the worst fear of every parent and child.

  Less than two weeks have passed since our adventure in Rome. The continuing eruption of a supervolcano near Pompeii and the disappearance of Santtonnice, who is believed to have died in the destruction of the Colosseum, have dominated the news.

  The interest in Rome was so great that my friends and I were largely forgotten by the authorities. After all, no one even knew we were involved in what happened there.

  Drew had sabotaged the broadcast transmission from inside the Colosseum before anyone saw any of us. The world outside the Colosseum never saw the fight for my emerald.

  Any fortunate people who survived the horror inside the Colosseum had been too busy trying to escape to pay much attention to what was happening atop the stage in the center of the Colosseum. They gave conflicting stories as to what had actually happened. For the most part, they recounted Santtonnice raising his hands to cause fire to streak through the sky, or they talked about the walls of the Colosseum falling apart. With no cameras of any sort having be
en allowed into the event, there were no recordings of what actually occurred.

  The criminal charges against my mother were dropped. Somehow, Michael’s parents convinced the authorities that I was also innocent, although Michael also told me that the CIA and Homeland Security intervened. He gave no further explanation. I didn’t ask.

  My father remains hidden in a cabin in a forest a few hours away from our home. He couldn’t possibly show his face in public, or people would think that he was Santtonnice.

  My friends and I decided that we would lay low for a few months before getting involved in any new mission. Unfortunately, a crisis in our community forced us to abandon our plans.

  Yesterday, by mid-afternoon, there were rumors in our high school that an eleven year-old girl had vanished on her way to her school in the morning. Such news has an ugly way of going viral.

  Living in a day and age when most parents constantly tell their kids to be careful and avoid strangers, whenever something happens to another student, it’s as though it happened to all of us. The thought of a child, or a teenager, being abducted sends shivers down the spines of all young people, and I’m sure that it prowls like a horrible nightmare in the minds of all parents.

  Having lived most of my life alone with my mother, a person who often left for work before I woke up in the morning, and who often worked late at night, I was generally on edge about the possibility of encountering a perverse stranger. Since becoming Keeper of the Emerald a little over a year ago, my fears have increased.

  When I first heard about the disappearance of the girl in our community, I was unable to concentrate at school. It was as though part of me had been abducted as well. My mind kept replaying horrible scenes of what might be happening to the girl. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  After school, I turned on the TV in my basement fortress that has been renovated since arriving back from Rome.

  In addition to an array of state-of-the-art computer equipment and a security system that probably rivals the Pentagon, my parents had a secret room encased in a wall in one corner of the basement. This room is behind fortified solid concrete. Michael has already nicknamed it the bunker. Jamie told me that Michael’s parents were involved in designing the new security system for my house.

  Our neighbors, already bewildered by the police visits over the pat few weeks, must have wondered what was happening. I told one curious neighbor that we were having an indoor pool installed in our house.

  After school yesterday, the local news was totally immersed in the story of the missing girl. Her name is Jennifer Jacqueline Johannseon. She’s as cute as any eleven year-old could possibly be with long auburn curly hair, a few freckles around her nose, and wide hazel eyes.

  A nation wide AMBER alert was issued yesterday, so it’s obvious that foul play is suspected in her disappearance.

  I sat transfixed to the TV as over and over again I watched her picture and listened to a description of what she was wearing when she left for school. Her bright blue winter coat, red mitts, and a yellow scarf would be an eclectic mixture of colors that would be hard to miss.

  The young girl left her house at 8:05 a.m.

  In an interview I saw on TV with her mother, there was no doubt in the mother’s mind about the time.

  At 9:15 a.m., an automated email from the school informed Jennifer’s mother that she was not at school.

  A telephone call back to the school from the mother confirmed her daughter’s absence.

  Now I’m watching as a news broadcast continues to show Jennifer’s picture and provides a map that illustrates the route she normally walked to school less than a mile away from her house.

  I shudder with fear at what might have happened.

  This past year has given me more than a lifetime of anxiety, fear, danger, and not knowing what was going to happen next. I know a little of what this girl must be suffering.

  It’s difficult for me to understand how any adult could steal a child from her family and inflict pain and suffering on the helpless victim. The more I think about what’s happening, the angrier I become.

  There’s a beep on my computer.

  It’s Jamie. His message is short, but urgent.

  WISDOM: We’ve got to help the girl.

  He doesn’t have to explain to me what he means.

  Within an hour, our team, our secret Society of Spies, has assembled in my basement.

  It’s the first time Drew or Jasmin have seen the renovations at my house.

  Drew says, “The President could hide here if our country was under attack.”

  I laugh at his remark although our discussion quickly turns to the missing girl.

  We agree that we have to help find her although we’re not sure how to do this.

  Jasmin pleads for us to take immediate action. It was only a few weeks ago that she suffered the horror of being kidnapped. As we discussed what we might do, it became obvious that I had a resource that was more powerful than anything the police or FBI might possess: my emerald.

  The dilemma I faced was once I used emerald to help someone in need, I would be opening a door that might never shut. Capurni had once warned me that it was important that I only used the emerald for major concerns. He told me that if I began to use it to save everyone who encountered a problem, I would soon be overwhelmed with the needs of others. He also warned me that constantly using the emerald to help others would quickly lead to the possibility of others understanding the powers of my emerald. Once this occurred, he said that I would spend my life trying to stop others from taking the emerald from me.

  After explaining my concerns about using the emerald, Jasmin was still insistent that we use it to find the missing girl. Jamie and Michael understood my concerns. Drew said nothing, but appeared to be strangely agitated.

  I asked Michael and Jamie whether there was something else we could do. Could Michael’s nano-drones help us find the girl? Did Michael have some other kind of gadget that could help us?

  After a lengthy discussion, we couldn’t agree on what to do.

  In the background, the TV was a constant reminder of the missing girl.

  “Once we know her location,” Jasmin says, “one of us can pass an anonymous tip on to the police.”

  I’m not so sure it’s going to be that easy.

  I want to help, but is this going to open the door for me to get involved in every crime or evil act that occurs on my planet?

  “Just this once,” Jasmin begs, as she runs her fingers through her long, black, silky hair.

  Our conversation has been going in circles. I want to talk to my mother or father, but I suspect that they would give me the same warning as Capurni. The emerald could not be used to help every person who had a problem. It had to be used for more serious, more global problems.

  But what could me more serious than saving the life of a helpless eleven year-old? If we really want to change our world, doesn’t it start in our own neighborhood, one person at a time?

  “Okay,” I finally say. “Let’s save her.”

  Jasmin hugs me.

  Looking at the picture of the girl on the TV screen and holding my emerald before me, I say, “Akem, Jennifer Jacqueline Johannseon.”

  to be continued…

  Books by B.C. Harris

  LOST WORLDS

  Keeper of the Emerald

  Book 1

  FIERY ILLUSIONS

  Keeper of the Emerald

  Book 2

  FINAL QUEST

  Keeper of the Emerald

  Book 3

 

 

 
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