Unveiled: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Novel (The Dark Skies Trilogy Book One)

by Lysa Daley

  If I could glare holes into his head, I would. How could he know my uncle is dead? He must be in contact with the Grail. And if he is, that bodes poorly for me. "Don't talk about my uncle."

  "Fine," he shrugs. "Let's talk about the sword. Do you have it?"

  I feel a little jolt of surprise. "Do I look like I have a sword?"

  "Perhaps you stashed this legendary Sword of Stardust someplace for safe keeping." He looks out the window. "Perhaps you gave it to your little friend, the Arcturian thief."

  "What were those... things... that were after me?"

  "You answer my question." Suddenly he doesn't sound quite so friendly. "I'll answer yours. Where's the sword?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about?"

  "I think you know exactly what I mean, Princess."

  We drive in silence for another couple blocks as the caravan of SUVs merges onto the wide main street of Ocean Grove.

  "But no worries." Sunglasses waves his hand. "I've sent a team up to the smoldering pile of ash that used to be your house, as well as over to your uncle's karate studio to retrieve that sword. If you've hidden it, we'll find it."

  Our snakelike fleet of autos winds through the town's business center, out to the city’s outskirts.

  Then he adds, “And if we don’t find it, I might have a trick or two up my sleeve to get you to tell me where it is.”

  Finally, we turn toward a rundown 70s-era square box of an ugly office building. It doesn't fit in amid the old Spanish style and the sleek modern buildings of Central California. It certainly doesn't look like an official government complex.

  We pull into the dim tunnel-like subterranean parking garage. The caravan circles round and round, down and down, passing spaces occupied by Hondas and Fords and other sensible government employee automobiles.

  It seems odd that a building this size would need so many levels of parking.

  After descending at least four stories down into the bowels of the building, I say, "Jeez, looks like your parking space pretty much sucks."

  "On the contrary, my dear." Sunglasses smiles. "I have the absolute primo spot. Just wait. You'll see."

  After descending a couple more stories, it finally looks like we've hit a dead-end in the form of a dirty white wall. The caravan crawls to a stop.

  "Be right back," Sunglasses pops out of the car.

  I release my seatbelt and slide over to get a better look at what he's doing. The driver must think I'm going to make a break for it because she instantly hits the door lock button "ka-thunk."

  I resist the urge to laugh out loud. Right, like I'm going to make a run for it from the bottom of a six-story parking garage with multiple carloads of big burly agents right behind me.

  Sunglasses struts toward the empty white wall pulling something from his suit jacket. Looks like a key. Nothing interesting at all. There's a small rectangular box that looks like an electrical outlet. He inserts the key and twists.

  As he does, the entire wall vanishes as if it was never even there.

  In front of us lies still more descending tunnel. However, the dimly lit, dirty cement pavement is gone, replaced by pristine white floors and clean walls illuminated by the warm, bright glow of lights.

  Sunglasses saunters back to the car with a smug grin plastered across his face like he's challenging me not to be in awe of him.

  There's no way I'm going to give him the satisfaction, so I quickly slide back to my spot and re-secure my seatbelt like I never moved in the first place.

  I avoid glancing into the rear view mirror where I'm sure the stone-faced lady driver continues to stare at me.

  Once he’s back in his seat, the SUV crosses the threshold from the old garage into the new. It feels like we've entered a new realm. The passage has gotten wider, and the ceiling rises higher as it continues to circle down, down, down at a much steeper angle.

  How far can this possibly keep going? It seems architecturally impossible.

  Finally, we emerge into a flat wide-open space, the size of a football field, with a soaring domed ceiling that rises straight up hundreds of feet. Everything about this space seems implausible.

  "Welcome to my little office," Sunglasses croons, as the caravan of SUVs swings around to the rear and parks, one after another, in a nice straight line.

  "Okay, your highness." Sunglasses pops out of the car and opens my door. "I have someone who is dying to meet you."

  But before I get out, the driver lady, who has remained silent until now, speaks, "Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?"

  "Agent Holmes," Sunglasses begins, instantly annoyed. "You and I have already discussed this."

  "I know, sir," Agent Holmes continues in a hushed voice filled with concern. "It's just... it might upset the Alliance, sir. And we have no idea what the implications of that would mean."

  But Sunglasses is out of the car, walking away. "You worry too much, Agent Holmes."

  With just the two of us in the car, Agent Holmes glances back at me like she could have lived her whole life without ever setting eyes on me.

  "What Alliance?" I ask. "The Pleiadian Alliance? The whole council of light thing?"

  She ignores my questions.

  “But you know, right?” I push her a little further.

  She continues to ignore me.

  “Can you, at least, tell me what’s up with the sunglasses-at-night thing? How come you don’t wear them? I think you’d look super tough in ray-bans.”

  “Asking too many questions can be dangerous for your health around here,” she finally says.

  “Right.” I nod.

  Then she adds, “If this all goes bad. You know, for us humans and all the other creatures that have the bad luck of living on Earth, remember this wasn't my idea."

  "Gotcha," I say, sliding out from the backseat. “But promise me you’ll think about the whole sunglasses thing.”

  We're obviously in some secret underground government facility. Apparently they don't all exist out in the barren desert of Area 51.

  It doesn't even seem physically possible that such a vast space could be kept hidden this far below the surface.

  It isn't until I've taken a few steps away from the car that I see what appears to be a small aircraft.

  Except, it's oblong and has no visible wings. Sleek and smooth and impossibly aerodynamic, the craft seems to be made totally out of some liquid-looking metal. There are no visible doors or windows, not even a windshield. It hovers silently ten feet off the ground right in the very center of the dome.

  I'll just go ahead and call it a flying saucer.

  "What do you think of our little prize?" Sunglasses asks, all puffed up with evil pride. "I suppose you were too young to remember coming to Earth in something similar?"

  When I turn to look at him, I realize he's trying to get a reaction out of me.

  "Guess it slipped my mind," I shrug as I feel a sharp sting in my arm, right above the gash. "Ow!"

  “Sorry.” Agent Holmes has poked me with a needle.

  "Hey!" I protest. Before I can stop her, she quickly wipes the blood on a cotton swab and drops it into a glass vile.

  "Just need to run a couple of little tests," Sunglasses explains. "Find out exactly what we're dealing with here. Just to confirm that you truly are of royal Pleiadian origin. But we’ll talk about that when you wake up."

  Before I can ask what he means by “when I wake up,” my eyes go fuzzy, and I wobble on my feet. Then, everything goes black.

  Chapter 18

  Someone is calling my name as I begin to wake up. “Astrid. Astrid. Are you okay?”

  The sweet, soothing voice sounds familiar. My eyes slowly flutter open, but my eyelids feel heavy and dull. At first, when I see the face with the perfect green-blue eyes hovering above me, I’m certain that I’m still dreaming. It’s some beautiful, wonderful dream, but still a dream.

  “Chad?” I whisper. The face above me is my sweet, sweet Chad Olson.

  “It’s
alright,” he says, and I realize that I’m not dreaming. He’s here with me. “You’re safe now.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, struggling to sit up on the hard cement bench where I’m laying. But as soon as I’m upright, my head starts to throb, probably from whatever drug Agent Holmes gave me.

  “Oh hey! Nice of you to join the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty.” A third figure says, stepping out from the shadows. It’s the smiling face of my best girl Ruby moving to my side. “We’ve been so worried. You were out cold for so long that we started to think you might not wake up.”

  “Ruby? What are you guys doing here? Both of you?” Struggling to clear my eyes, I see that we’re in a small, dimly lit sterile white cell. “Where are we?”

  “In a freaky underground facility,” Chad replies. “We think we’re under the federal building on the edge of town.”

  So I haven’t been moved then. “How long have I been here?” I’m woozy as they help me to my feet.

  Ruby gets me some water from a small sink in the corner of the cell. The area on my shoulder where the mean lady agent stuck me with a needle aches. It hurts worse than my still unhealed cut.

  Chad and Ruby exchange looks, before he says, “Well, we got here the day before yesterday. You were already here. Totally unconscious.”

  “I was waiting for Phoebe to pick me up after school on Friday, when one of those big black SUVs, just like the ones we saw the night the meteor hit, pulled up. Two big guys in suits forced me into their car.”

  “And I never even made it to school Friday morning,” Chad explains. “The goons in suits grabbed me as I was going into StarCoffee to buy breakfast.”

  “But the weird thing is,” Ruby says, “they’ve totally left us alone since we got here. So we don’t have any idea what they want.”

  When I finally look around, I notice the craziest thing about our cell. There isn’t a fourth wall. It’s totally open.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I begin, gesturing to the gaping hole that should be a wall. “But this doesn’t exactly seem like a very secure cell if one whole wall is gone.”

  Ruby gestures to the darkness beyond the cell as a draft of fresh air wafts in. “Take a look for yourself.”

  Chad walks me to spot where the floor just ends. Such a gentleman. He holds my arm to keep me steady so I can gaze out into this mysterious darkness.

  I immediately understand why there's no need for a fourth wall.

  This little cell might as well be built into the side of a mountain. It's four, maybe five, stories off the ground.

  “It's like someone took a giant spoonful out of the wall to make this cell,” Ruby says, moving to my other side.

  With an additional two or three stories above us, the massive blades of a slowly turning fan spin on the ceiling.

  “I feel like we’re trapped in the first act of one of those horror movies that may eventually involve hideous power tools,” I say, gazing up at the slowly turning fan blades.

  “Oh jeez.” Ruby grimaces. “I really hope not.”

  “There's one door, no vents, and no visible cameras, but somehow, I'm pretty sure we’re being watched,” Chad says quietly. “Maybe from above us.”

  “Yeah, we’ve heard noises coming from up there,” Ruby explains, her eyes darting up at what appears to be another opening in the wall on the floor above us.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Chad asks me. “I mean, why the thugs in the suits brought us all here?”

  Oh, boy. How do you tell someone you’re an alien and intergalactic bounty hunters are trying to kill you? “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  They both laugh. Ruby counters, “I think we might.”

  “Only if it has something to do with gigantic reptilian monsters and flying saucers,” Chad adds with no trace of shock in his voice.

  “I take it you saw them?”

  Ruby nods. “It’s the craziest thing ever. And it has something to do with you? Right? Something to do with the ways you’re… special?”

  Special? That’s not exactly how I’d phrase it, but okay. My heart is heavy knowing that Ruby and Chad are mixed up in this whole awful thing because of me. If anything happens to my friends, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

  “I’m really sorry, guys,” I say, unable to look them in the eyes. “I’m afraid it does have something to do with me.”

  “It’s alright, Astrid. Ruby takes my hand. “You can tell us.”

  So, I pretty much let it rip. I tell them the whole thing. The Grail. The sword. My dying uncle transforming into a MoonEyed Blue. Not to mention Jax.

  They both listen in silence, eyes wide like little kids during story hour. When I’m done, Ruby wraps her arms around me, tears glisten in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  “Wait. Just hang on,” Chad asks, agitated and pacing in front of us. “You’re telling me that this Jax guy swore to your dying uncle that he’d get you safely to this oracle, then stole the gold along with your special sunbeam sword —“

  “Stardust. Not sunbeam.” I correct him. “It’s supposedly forged from the dust of seven stars. But whatever.”

  “Okay, sorry.” He goes on, “He took your stardust sword then just bailed on you while the house burned down and the cops showed up.”

  “Yep. Pretty much sums it up.”

  “What a jerk.” Chad clenches his jaw. “If I ever see that guy…”

  Ruby interrupts, taking the conversation in a different direction. “You know, my crazy Aunt Libby claims that aliens abducted her in the middle of the night and inserted an implant in her brain.” She laughs quietly, but I can see the gears turning in her brain. “We always thought she was just nutso. But maybe she was telling the truth, after all.”

  Before anyone can say more, heavy footsteps approach from what sounds like the end of a long hallway. The footsteps stop outside our cell door; then we hear a loud electronic beep.

  The cell door hisses open as two burly guys in black suits, with their holstered guns plainly visible, fill the doorframe.

  "Come with us," barks the bigger of the two agents.

  Together, we move forward as a trio, but the smaller suit points at Chad. “No, not you.”

  "Resist and we will shoot," says the other, hand on his firearm.

  Resist? How are we supposed to resist two armed men?

  But scanning their faces, I realize they're afraid of me. Like quaking-in-their-boots afraid. They must think I have some crazy alien superpower like a laser vision death ray or mind control.

  If only.

  “No,” Chad objects. “We stay together.”

  The guard points his gun at Chad’s head. “Only the girls.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, smiling at Chad, hoping to reassure him. “We’ll be fine.”

  I can tell he doesn’t want us to go without him. His “good guy” instinct to protect us has kicked in.

  With no other choice, Ruby and I follow the two suits out of the cell. The sound of our footsteps echoing off the empty walls reverberates as we walk for what feels like an eternity down one eerily quiet, maze-like hallway that turns into another almost identical corridor. There's not another soul around.

  "So how's it going?" I ask the guard next to me.

  No response.

  "I like your suits," I continue, noticing they're wearing nearly identical single-breasted wool suits. "Are you required to wear black or can you throw in a charcoal gray or a nice navy blue now and then?"

  Still nothing.

  "Casual Fridays, maybe?" Ruby adds.

  Eventually, we turn down a hallway that dead-ends at a bright green door. It's the first color I've seen in this secret government facility or whatever it is. There's a small window in the door covered with thick metal mesh.

  A futuristic keypad/camera duo on the wall next to the door scans one of the agent's handprint, then the iris of his left eye, followed by a ka-chunk that releas
es the lock.

  The door swings open, and we emerge back where I began in the big open room with the sporty little flying saucer.

  The sea of black suits parts revealing a familiar figure. It's the towering reptilian Grail bounty hunter. With a serious looking weapon slung over her shoulder, she appears larger than her clones. This is the prime, up close and personal.

  "There's our girl!" Sunglasses, who stands beside the Grail, moves in my direction.

  So the suits and the Grail were working together this whole time. I think back to my uncle talking to Sunglasses up in the canyon the night the meteor landed. He must have trusted Sunglasses.

  Which must mean that these government suits somehow double-crossed him.

  “And Astrid’s little friend, too.” Sunglasses takes me firmly by the arm and pulls me in the opposite direction. “Come with me. I'd like to introduce you to a very important figure who's eager to meet you."

  He escorts us through the suits toward what appears to be a platform or stage. I can’t see who or what’s on it until we pass the cluster of agents.

  My heart nearly freezes when I see the hulking, scaled alien encased in metallic body armor that’s draped in a floor-length deep red cloak. He stands, at least, 8 feet tall, and the breadth of his chest is enormous.

  This can only be the Crimson Lord Ciakar Rigel, the leader of the Draconian Swarm.

  The monster who haunts my dreams.

  The one who wants me and my sisters dead.

  “My lord, I have brought you one of the vile Seven Sisters of Destruction,” Sunglasses calls proudly up to the alien.

  Unlike in my nightmares, here I finally see the entirety of his strange alien face. His scaled forehead rises to a peaked skull. His reptilian skin is a dark greenish-yellow with round scale-like protrusions running from his cheeks up over his bald head. His nose hooks up, and his chin is bearded with whiskers that look like wire.

  “Well done, human!” the Crimson Lord bellows as his strange alien eyes examine me. “That is… if this child is truly one of the seven threats.”

  I force myself not to look away and push down my fear. Finally, I realize there’s something strange, not right. Something nearly translucent about him.