“More stories” said Mercedes.
“Yes” said Drax. “I understand these….”
“What does it say?” Asked Tina.
“There seems to be a story about a long distant land, a utopia where perfection is epitomized, like Eden, Atlantis, and Shangri-La… The old indigenous translation into Spanish is Tierra de la tiempo.”
“The land of time” said Mercedes.
“There is more about a battle and light versus dark forces, chosen ones destined to meet again and again and conflict over the land of time. A union of thirteen races mastering the elements, exploring all there is to see and do in the vast and infinite universe then discovering their own past, being time masters… the pregivers….”
“So they were here?” Asked James.
“I don’t understand” said Celia.
“I’ll explain later” cautioned James.
“The pregivers had an artifact by which to control the forces of time, the time stone but they also had a magnificent vessel that was the heart of their extravagant space universe civilization , a ship or station or place…connected to the land of time and based on the harmonious notes of the cosmic symphony. It gets faded here. But the legend of the holder of the stones… he, James, is the one to fight for forces of light against the dark emissary of evil. James is destined as others before him supposedly… to stop the coming… uplift and walk amongst angels.”
“James is an angel” asked Celia. “No doubt they were correct.”
James’ face focuses as a blank stare as his mind starts to form inward as he sees the vision of the entire universe and then a white light that he sees not just in his mind’s eye but in actuality before him glowing and vibrating as it reached out to him and he saw eyes appear in the light, white eyeballs with black pupils floating amidst the sea of white light before him. “Who are you?” He asked not fearing it. The light moved and he understood it. He recognized the light and knew it because he felt its presence before, inside him, the growing force that was accumulating and giving him greater abilities he understood had formed itself outside of him allowing him to see and communicate with its life essence now before him. He remembered each incident of his experiences with the cave writings and the pregiver legend and realized it was all common and part of the same plan, his fate to be here with this form to subsume and to join with it.
“What is it?” Asked Tina. But James’ mind remained fixated on the life force before him glowing brightly ever shining and beautiful like the sunlight piercing in its own energy. It spoke to James softly with its movements and he understood it. “What is it James?” Screamed Tina. “There is nothing there” she yelled dismounting her horse and approaching James. James’ mind and body remained focused linked with the form in a psychic bond. “I am afraid to leave them. I don’t want to leave them.” He sheds a tear and several tears fall down his face as he looks into the light being staring into him speaking to him softly and seeming sympathetic with his plight. He knew he had to do what was necessary. He dismounted his horse to the dismay of his companions and approached the light.
“I know what I have to do” he turned to them and smiled with his face full of tears. “I was given these powers for a reason and I know what must be done. I won’t see you guys for a while but I will always be with you. Remember that!”
“James? You’re scaring us” said Tina.
“Yeah what’s this about?” Asked Mercedes.
“Sometimes you have to go your own way” said James.
“He has to fulfill his destiny” said Drax.
“James, don’t go” said Celia.
“I will never forget you…” he looked into her eyes and drank the sorrow within as she shed tears with him. “Any of you.” He looked up and he lifted his arms up and turned to the energy being with light wings stretched like an angel engulfing him. He felt his molecules pull apart and his physical body disassemble as he was being pulled upward, uplifted by a higher source and James generated into that source he was completely absorbed into the light as it filled the entire cave. As his physical body deteriorated and he formed a cloud of pure white energy, he remembered the faces of his friends and the words that echoed his very being since he was a child, knowledge is power.
Tina looked up in shock and tears, “I will miss you”, as she saw her friend formed upward into a white halo of smoke and light last seeing the white of his eyes as he faded disintegrating into the empty air above them. Celia, Cornelius, Drax, Mercedes, and Tina remained there confused. A beam spot in the cave was triggered and the entire room was covered in light.
Drax, Tina, Mercedes, Cornelius, and Celia found themselves with their horses back at the location near the scorpion car away from the caves. A white light hovered over the desert sky above twirling and glowing, stretching its wings above them as they stood and watched and felt it was James, his being, his essence, his nonphysical spiritual self-leaving and saying goodbye one last time as the light slowly dissipated and Tina approached looking sadly and disdainfully into her oldest friend fading away into empty air to a light energy being that he had now become. The others stood by grieving and mourned for a moment of silence. The vortex suddenly opened in midair absorbing the whole white light.
“He’s gone” said Mercedes sadly. Celia wept. Tina sobered. Drax moped.
“We should get going” said Drax holding the time stone he picked up off the ground. Drax, Tina, and Mercedes entered the scorpion car and Celia and Cornelius mounted their steeds and the vortex roared before each of them to their respective destinations.
CHAPTER 86
Time Period: 1890 A.D., Tennessee
The ranch of Johann McGurk in Central Tennessee was a quaint range-like feel as the wooden fences and plowed hayfields adorned landscape below the crimson orange country skies over the crop-filled terrain.
“I always wanted to be a spy but cowboys and Indians were never my strong suit” said Tina admiring her pink western shirt and white cowgirl hat and boots complete with matching spurs.
“I don’t even have a gun” “you don’t need one” said Drax.
“This is a pretty laid back time” Mercedes said turning as she pushed up the sleeves of her white western shirt and matching hat and boots.
“The year is 1809 A.D.” said Drax.
“The heart of the old west. I always loved this era as a kid. Something about it makes me feel like home.” Said Tina.
“Well, it’s not. Let’s keep our eye on the ball.” Said Mercedes.
“I hope Celia and Cornelius made it home OK!” “Yeah, they’re good people” said Tina.
“Come on, we should get outside to see if they need a hand. We got some time until the time stone recharges.” They walk out. “Hey McGurk” yelled Drax.
“You got some work for us.’ Then suddenly Tina is drawn to something. “That is really weird” she said.
“What?” Asked Mercedes.
“I just feel like going over to …” she walked across the ranch and headed running outside of the perimeter of the ranch and headed out into the open desert.
“Wait Tina” yelled Mercedes.
“Let’s go get the car” said Drax. Drax and Mercedes drove along the desert ground and caught up with Tina who had slowed down and approached a wall about a mile from town, the wall appearing to be made of stone but had a metallic look to it as well. It was greenish, curve, and had holes in a strange sequence that seemed other worldly.
“What did you find, Tina?” Asked Drax.
“I think it’s a code. I don’t know what it is but I was feeling the need to approach it. I wish I could understand. It’s a pretty compelling feeling, if you know what I mean.” She stared deep into the wall. “Maybe this is alien in origin, like the pre givers again.”
“It could be” said Drax getting out and looking at it with her. Mercedes joined and stood back as Tina and Drax crouched down studying the design. “I have never seen anything quite like this, not even in the pre giv
er caves we were in. Why would it be out in the open like this and what could it mean?” Asked Drax rhetorically.
“This could take ages to study by the top scientific and crypt archeological minds in the field.” Tina said.
“Let me see” said another voice behind them that shocked them and made them turn in horror.
“Oh my God, who are you?” Said Drax.
“Who are you?” Said the man, a slight middle aged man with glasses, wavy brown hair, a brown mustache, and glasses.
“Howard Kowolski?” Asked Tina curious with a shock. “We got to stop meeting like this.”
“How do you know my name?” He asked.
“Uh we found out about your past from your future” she brushed it off to the dismay of her companions.
“Hmm, time travelers huh? I would not have believed it too long ago. I have been trying to unlock the secrets of the wall since I arrived a decade ago.” He said.
“Arrived from the future?” Asked Mercedes.
“Yes, I imagine you came the same way” he said nodding.
“Sort of.”
“I have been close to unlocking the code to this wall but every time, I forget. I think I am growing a little senile. What an odd phenomenon?” Said Kowolski randomly touching his head looking up.
“A little?” Asked Drax.
“You really were here ten years?” Asked Tina.
He nodded fast. “Be wary, travelers. There are many beasts about there from another world, another dimension. They were brought by your machination friends, super spy Milton Drax.”
“Yeah, we know that” said Mercedes rhetorically.
“There is the worst to come. Energy is the key and then…You see, I have learned that there are natural hotspots of negative energy on the world’s electromagnetic grid axis and if there occurs a solar flare on the precipice of the end of the year bigger than any in the history of the world it could be enough to trigger those spots and cause them to simultaneously rupture causing there to be born a conduit directly into the past, the natural effect of what the time stone achieves but artificially stronger. We must stop it. We must destroy it!” He panicked. “And I lost my time stone. I lost my marbles.” He runs off in the distance waving his arms around.
“Poor dude” said Tina.
“Yeah, a little crazy too” said Mercedes.
“So how do we solve this so we don’t end up like crazy boy over there?” Said Drax.
“Leave that to me” said a woman’s voice. They turned and saw a tall voluptuous long legged woman with a black leather skin tight outfit, gloves, and biker helmet. She took off the helmet and let her long blonde locks hang down beside her. Her deep brown eyes and plush lips made Drax feel unbelievably attracted to her.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“Tina knows me.” The woman said.
“I do?” Asked Tina as Drax and Mercedes turned to her.
“We met in the future.”
“That fortune teller we met.”
“Right” she smiles.
“But you look different, and yeah, how you been?”
“Well, I am not really her. I am her descendant from the year 2055 A.D.”
“Oh yeah, I knew that.” Said Tina sarcastically.
“My name is Alexandra and I am her great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter. I travelled here from what you would call the future.”
“What I would call?”
“Our perceptions and definitions of time are different from yours. I am here to help you now!”
“How?” She asked.
“The alien riddle on the wall”
“That’s a riddle?”
“I will translate it…”
“OK”
“The last time there was a great wonder in the clouds, the coming of a new horizon dawns, the cornerstone, legendary and secret, the book of time goes on.”
“That’s it?”
“That is it!” She replied confidently. “I must go now.”
“Wait, there is more you could tell us.” Said Mercedes.
“Yeah, why did you help us, who sent you?” Asked Drax.
“I cannot answer your inquires. I can only say this; each of us has a purpose in time. When it is to be known, it shall be known. We are all part of one great linen cloth in time.” She smiled at that last part and put back on her helmet nodding, “in the name of justice I fight,” to them and jumped up in the air and vanished in a haze of white yellowish light as a vortex appeared and consumed her.
“Wow” said Tina.
“She was amazing and beautiful” Said Drax.
“She is Soteira” said Mercedes. “The one who randomly appears and helps people in 2012 and I suspect now all of time.”
“Oh my God” said Tina.
“Yeah but we have the answer to the riddle.” Said Mercedes. “And look the time stone is lit up” they saw it glowing and the five orbs buzzing brightly.
“Did you see the patch on her uniform?” Asked Drax.
“Yes, it was dreadfully familiar” said Mercedes. “A colorful curved weapon or bridge symbol with words etched on it.”
“The culto?” Asked Tina rhetorically. “Could they be good guys in the future?”
“Stranger things have happened.” Said Drax. “Let’s get out of here buddies.”
“Let’s ride” Mercedes said as they entered the scorpion car and vanished into the hazing vortex emitted by the time stone.
CHAPTER 87
Time Period: 2012, A.D., Chronix Bay
Around the city of Chronix Bay, there were sirens and lights from police cars wailing as federal agents suited up running about and hovering about the scene of a gruesome series of bloody murders.
“What do you got, Mac?” Said FBI Agent Adam Kartwell, a smooth-talking man in a dark grey suit with his hands on hips and dashing smirk.
“Seventeenth woman this week, killed and totally drained of blood… you know exsanguinated.” Said Mac, a chubby balding man in a cheap suit holding a white box and wearing white gloves.
“So we’re still hunting count Dracula” said Adam.
“I don’t like this. I used to hear stories of olden times when there were similar occurrences and they were never solved.”
“We might be fated to suffer the same fate.” Mac nodded as the two men stood overlooking the coroner taking the latest victim away in a body bag.
“Strange claw marks” said Adam looking at the face of the latest victim, a petite blonde woman, with three claw marks on her bloody face, gashed in like a wild animal tore at her flesh, loose pieces of brown hair surrounded the wound. Adam looked at the back of his hand and saw the brown hair on his body and extended fingernails.
The tall skyscrapers and structures of the modern era were a sight for sore eyes and Mercedes, Tina, and Drax looked up at the Chronix Bay twin towers as a jet 747 engine plane soared overhead.
“Yes,” said Drax. The year is 2012. We’re back. We made it home.” He pumped his fists in midair.
“But we’re a man down” said Tina sadly.
“Don’t worry” said Mercedes consoling her with her arms around her. They heard loud booms coming from the air above with loud echoes.
“Sounds like firecrackers” said Tina.
“It’s not firecrackers” said Drax looking at the launching of small projectile missiles from the side of the building to a distant location. They looked up and saw a familiar sight, Satyr flying up towards the apex of the central complex.
“Oh no, what is he up to?” Said Mercedes.
“Let’s go check it out” Said Drax. “We can arouse less suspicion by taking the elevators. I still know the access codes.” The trio walked into the building and into the elevator and stood in formation like a triangle as they headed up to the top floor.
“We can still change things and stop the Machination’s experiment or more of it from harming the past?” Asked Tina.
“We got to try” said Mercedes.
The elevator made it to the top floor and they walked off onto the roof out of a cylindrical entryway. Satyr stood over an alter set up with lit candles and roaring flames in gold bowls. A struggling limp form laid on the table, a young woman with brunette hair and wearing a white gown. She was shackled at the wrists and ankles with chains pouring down the alter. Satyr chanted in a different language as he held a curved dagger over her body with both hands.
“What the hell is going on here?” Yelled Drax. He ran over the alter as Satyr turned and turned the dagger to him. Satyr lunged forward and Drax dodged and struck Satyr in the jaw over and over with his clenched fists. Then Adam came running up the stairs gun drawn.
“Hold it, FBI” he yelled. Tina and Mercedes ran over to the alter and tried to undo the restrains on the helpless prisoner but were unable to free her. Loud noises and booms continued above them. Drax continued to pummel at Satyr who grabbed Drax and tossed him to the floor. Adam yelled again for them to get up and they did.
“You fool” yelled Satyr.
“Dad!” Said Adam, I know it was you behind the killings of those women and the others in the past. Drax looked at him with a perplexed grin. He kicked at Satyr who grabbed Drax by the leg and pushed him back. Drax fell back. Satyr opened his large mouth and reached with his tongue extending long like a hose towards Adam and grabbed him by the neck wrapping itself around him and choking the life out of him, causing him to drop his gun as Adam held for his neck. He fell to the ground as his face turned blue from oxygenation. He collapsed as he looked with shock as the last thing he saw was Satyr’s rage.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, indeed” said Satyr. Drax ran over and he kicked Satyr’s hand as he was distracted. The dagger went sliding on the floor near the large alter.
“This is not over” yelled Satyr as he ran over the edge of the building up a ramp and jumped upward into the air and over the six thousand feet below as he lifted himself up flapping his extending wingspan. Drax picked and pocketed the knife.
The Time Stone Page 41