The Keepers Of The Light (God Stone Book 2)

by Andrew Schafer

  Off to their left they could hear the sound of breaking limbs and rustling leaves.

  James held up a hand and they stopped again.

  They stayed still, listening, but the sound seemed to be moving away from them.

  “Let’s go!” James whispered urgently.

  “I don’t like this,” Paul announced.

  “Yeah, this is freaking me out, man,” David said.

  “Eyes up front, David. Don’t look back,” James said as they ran forward.

  A few minutes later they climbed the stairs to Coach’s. They tried the door and it opened. The house wasn’t very big, but it was old. They didn’t need to go past the mud room to find the entrance to the basement and once in the basement they found a false wall. They ripped the paneling away, revealing the entrance to the old tunnel. The tunnel was small, and they had to duck their heads to navigate it, but they didn’t need to go far to find the little room. Just as Coach said, there was a small trunk. Garrett opened the trunk and, sitting right on top of some framed war commendations, sat a plain-looking notebook. It was old, probably as old as Garrett, but in comparison to Coach it was written yesterday.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here,” James said.

  Soon they had crossed back through the woods and over the railroad tracks. This time all was quiet, but the tension was still thick. Once in the tunnel they began to wind their way back toward the heart of Undertown.

  “James, what is the wrong I am supposed to set right exactly?” Garrett asked.

  “Thank you! That question has been eating at me,” Lenny said.

  “Me three,” David said.

  James stopped and turned completely around to face them. “You have to lead your people to the portal, Garrett, and then you have to lead them home.”

  “Then what?” Garrett asked.

  “Apep will open the gate with the God Stones. When he does you will lead us through, back home to Karelia. Karelia is the planet we came from, but long ago something happened. Something bad enough it must of pissed off all the other gods because Turek fled with whatever humans he could from Karelia to Earth.”

  “But why? Why did he leave?” Lenny asked.

  “From what we know, something happened between Turek and the other gods. A disagreement. Garrett, you are the one who will lead us home and set things right.”

  “Um, James, does the prophecy say what exactly I am supposed to do? Do you know where this portal even is? Am I just supposed to start walking and you guys are all going to follow me? Tell me you have a better plan than that? Because that sounds like a stupid plan.”

  James frowned. “Don’t mock Turek, Garrett.”

  Garrett was tired and he had no interest in fighting with his brother again. “James, honestly, bro, I’m not mocking anyone – I’m just saying I don’t understand this. You lied to me, told me I was supposed to stop Apep, when you really knew I was going to die! Now you tell me you want me to lead all these Keepers to another world and we don’t know where the door is? Then what? We walk through? Pretty sure Apep will be there along with a massive army of giants and dragons. So then what, James? Does going through the portal just fix things? Does that ‘set things right’? I just want to understand the plan, James.”

  “Faith, Garrett. We wait for a sign. Perhaps you will have a dream, or a feeling, and you will know what to do.”

  “What? Everyone is going to sit around and wait for me to have a feeling? You realize he took Bre? Right? You realize right now she is with him if he hasn’t… hasn’t…”

  “Don’t you dare say it!” Paul said. “You were asleep for ten days! You didn’t have one dream about Bre?”

  “Well, he was talking to her when he woke up, but I don’t think that’s the kind of dream we’re talking about here,” Lenny offered.

  Garrett flushed. “You want me to sit here under the ground and wait for a sign!? I can’t do that, James!”

  “You promised me, Garrett. You promised you would find her,” Paul said.

  “I know what I promised, but I don’t know where she is, Paul!” He didn’t mean to yell, but the frustration and the weight was too much.

  In the distance, from a connecting corridor, feet clapped off stones, getting louder as a runner approached. From around the corner a man appeared. Garrett instantly recognized him as Yogi, who had been guarding Coach’s room earlier.

  Yogi slid to a stop, breathing hard as he bowed. “Sir! Our men brought someone in. Two someones actually. They are asking for Garrett,” Yogi said, his eyes flicking to Garrett, then to Paul, then back to James.

  “Well, who are they?” James demanded.

  “Two Black men, sir. The younger guy is jacked and looks military. He’s with an older guy in a fedora, his dad I think. He claims to be Breanne’s father. He is demanding to speak to Garrett. Sir… he says he knows where Apep is!” Yogi said, his eyes flicking nervously back to Paul.

  “My pops is here!?” Paul said, pushing past them.

  James nodded, turned to Garrett, and smiled. “I told you, little brother – faith.”

  54

  Forgive

  Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4

  Rural Chiapas State, Mexico

  Breanne was in an all-too-familiar place – a frozen moment of horror. The worst song in the world played on the radio as cold winter air blew across crimson crystals of shattered glass. Her mother had been hurrying because Breanne had forgotten her stupid violin and they had to go back. Why? Because Breanne was throwing a fit. She absolutely couldn’t be late for this recital. She would be devastated. All her friends would see her show up late. She was yelling at her mother, “God, Mom, just hurry, would you!”

  “Young lady, you’re overreacting. It will be fine! We won’t be that late.”

  “No! No, it won’t be fine, Mom! I can’t be late! I can’t believe you forgot my violin!” Breanne shouted.

  “Breanne! You are responsible for remembering your instrument. Now, I won’t have you speaking to me like this. I will turn this car around right now!” her mother said, taking her eyes off the road long enough to give Breanne the look. But before her mother looked back to the road, something happened – the car lost traction and slid. Her mother gasped and yanked the wheel hard – too hard. The car went into a spin and suddenly Breanne was upside down, metal was scraping, and she and her mom screamed as windows shattered, peppering her with broken glass.

  When her world finally stopped coming apart, her own scream faded and everything went quiet until all she could hear was a cold wind blowing through the car, that horrible song, and her ragged breaths as her heart beat out of her chest. Dazed, she stared down at the roof of the car as she hung there, suspended by the seat belt. She couldn’t understand where all the red diamonds scattered across the roof came from. But as she watched, the red diamonds became lost in a quickly growing pool of red liquid. “Mom?” she moaned, twisting her head to look across the narrow space between them.

  She shouldn’t have looked, but she looked, and she saw, and she could never unsee her mother’s eyes staring back at her, unmoving, fixed in death – a death she caused over a stupid middle school recital that no one would remember.

  Breanne had lived this moment over and over in her nightmares for the last five years. The two of them suspended upside down by seatbelts, the cold wind, the red diamonds, her mother’s lifeless body draining of its blood. She slammed her eyes shut, refusing to look. She had looked once, and it had ruined her. “God! Why? Why did you take her! Why didn’t you let me die! Oh god, why! Why?!”

  These were the questions she had begged to have answered over and over for five years.

  Then something very unexpected happened. A voice answered. But the voice wasn’t god.

  No, Breanne. This wasn’t your fault. Do you think this is what your mom would have wanted? Would she have wanted you to blame yourself for an accident? People need you here… now. I need you, Bre!

  The seatbelt cut into
her neck, and she couldn’t breathe. Gabi? Is that you?

  Tell her, Bre! Look at her and tell her!

  She didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to feel her guts eaten raw by the guilt of it. “God, please!” she begged, but the same god who let her mother die then didn’t answer now. Somehow, in her silent agony, she knew the answer – she had to open her eyes. She had to face it straight away – and so she did. She forced her eyelids to peel back and look into her mother’s dead eyes. “I’m sorry!” Breanne screamed. “I’m sorry for making you rush. I’m… I’m sorry for what happened… for what I did! God, I’m so sorry!”

  Her mother’s eyes, clouded in death, blinked slowly, clearing to find her in their focus. “Oh, Bre,” the dead woman said. “You never needed my forgiveness. You just need to forgive yourself. I love you. I always loved you. You need to live. You have too much ahead, too much depends on you. Now go, leave this place in the past where it belongs, and don’t come back!”

  “I love you too, Mom!” Breanne said, the words echoing as the moment became somehow less real and more dream.

  The woman hanging next to her smiled. “Oh, my little Yanni, my baby, of course you do. Now go!”

  The present moment rushed back. Breanne blinked, gasping in short bursts, tears running down her face. Her knees felt weak and for a second, she thought she might go down.

  “Are you okay, Bre?” Gabi said from beside her. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No.” She breathed, finding her legs. She looked over at the girl’s face. She was fine. Gabi was fine. “Gabi, I just had a flash.” She shook her head in confusion. “A flash of the future, but this time it was so strange… this time I think you…” She trailed off, noticing a fallen tree lying across their path.

  “The future? This time? What do you—”

  Breanne held up a hand, silencing her as she frowned at the long shape. This was no sensation of déjà vu – this was more. This was the vision from before. “Gabi,” she said quietly, “that isn’t a tree.”

  As the words left her mouth they were drowned out by a loud hiss from off trail on the other side of Gabi. Breanne gasped sharply. Her heart leapt as fear grabbed her, but she didn’t hesitate, not for one second. No car crashed and no horrible Christmas song played. There was no shattering glass and no red diamonds.

  Breanne grabbed Gabi, jerking the girl back with one hand as she stepped in front of her and ripped the pistol from its leather holster.

  The giant snake struck out, it’s mouth opening to reveal curved, spiked fangs dripping with venom.

  The 9mm rose upward in one smooth motion as Breanne covered it with her left hand and racked the slide. Leveling the gun, she fired as fast as she could pull the trigger.

  Bullets ripped through the snake’s mouth and out the back of its head as its forward momentum carried it into Breanne, knocking her off her feet.

  Breanne kicked at the viper’s scaly face, pushing herself back as she scrambled to her feet. She released the spent magazine into the dirt and fumbled with the other magazine, finally shoving it into place with a click. She leveled the gun at the snake again, but it was over. The snake was dead.

  Overcome with emotion she dropped her shaking gun hand to her side and began to cry. It wasn’t the brush with death pulling her tears. She didn’t freeze up! She kept Gabi safe and she didn’t freeze!

  Gabi took her hand. “Thank you, Bre. You saved me,” she whispered.

  Breanne looked at her with knitted brows. “Gabi… were you… were you in my… my memory?”

  Gabi returned her confused look.

  In the distance a door slammed, and dogs barked.

  “Did you hear that?” Gabi asked, looking down the dirt road. “I think that’s the farm up ahead.”

  Breanne thumbed the safety on the pistol before sliding it back into the leather holster. “Jesus, we made it,” she said, smiling. But in the back of her mind the question still nagged. Was Gabi there, in her memory somehow, or was it a creation of her own mind?

  “Bre?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you tell me about your mom sometime?”

  Breanne gasped, searching the girl’s eyes as if they would reveal the answers to a thousand blossoming questions. Finally, she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and smiled. Then she said something she would never have thought she would ever hear herself say. “I’d like that, Gabi. I’d like that a lot, but only if you tell me about yours.”

  Gabi smiled shyly and nodded.

  Not for the first time nor the last, Breanne grabbed Gabi and embraced her in a tight hug. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The two girls ran toward the sound of the barking dogs and hope.

  55

  Family Reunion

  Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4

  Rural Chiapas State, Mexico

  The girls cautiously made their way up a rutted drive toward a small farmhouse. Somewhere, far beyond them, the evening sun disappeared behind the mountains and into the Pacific. The small home was framed in red brick arches and stucco walls painted yellow. The whole thing was topped with corrugated tin sheeting that carried through onto the porch, which was held up by rough-cut oak timbers.

  On the porch stood a slight-statured, mustached man, silhouetted in candlelight cast from the open door behind him. His expression was that of suspicious curiosity. He looked to be in his seventies, slender but sturdy. As the candlelight spilled out onto the porch so did wonderful aromas of cooked meat, spices, and warm tortillas. Breanne had not realized until that very moment just how hungry she was.

  The man yelled something back over his shoulder. Breanne didn’t catch it all, but she caught the name Juan and then Gabi.

  Gabi ran forward and onto the porch just as another man appeared. This man looked like a younger version of the older man. Gabi and the man embraced in a hug, followed by a flurry of Spanish Breanne couldn’t keep up with. The man looked at her, then at the gun on her hip, and began speaking fast again. Gabi went into some explanation, the man nodded, then she caught another name – Sarah – and that’s when Gabi burst into tears.

  “What is it, Gabi?! What about Sarah?! What did he say about Sarah?” Breanne begged, stepping up onto the porch. There was another flurry of words.

  “It’s Sarah! Breanne, she is alive! She is alive!”

  Breanne smiled and turned to the younger man.

  “I’m sorry, Breanne, right?” Juan asked. “I have heard Sarah speak of you, and Fredy…” He trailed off for a moment, looking away. He drew in a breath. “Fredy used to talk about your father often. This is my father, Carlos,” he said, pointing at the elderly man.

  His English was very good. Way better than her Spanish, she thought. “It’s nice to meet you, Juan. Do you have a phone?” she asked.

  Juan shook his head sadly. “Yes, we have one, but it is of no use. There is no power for anything electrical. Nothing works, not the vehicles, the home electricity, phone… nothing.”

  Breanne and Gabi exchanged worried looks.

  “It’s the God Stones,” Gabi said. “They are interfering with the magnetic fields of this planet. It will be this way everywhere.”

  “God Stones?” Juan asked.

  “Ogliosh told me about them. He said the longer our planet is exposed to them the worse things could get, and since Apep connected them to… what did he call it? A Sound… Sound Eye! That’s it! It’s going to happen even faster. Connecting them increases their power and he should only have done that when the pyramid was ready for them to open the portal.”

  “Ogliosh,” Juan said slowly, testing the word. “Who is this?”

  “The giant in the pyramid,” Gabi said matter-of-factly.

  To Breanne’s surprise, Juan nodded. “Every time Sarah wakes, she only wants to know about you, if we’ve found you. When she talks, she tells of the dragon and giant and you, always you. She said the last she knew you were up on the mount
ain with the giant,” he said, pointing. “As hard as it is to believe I knew she was telling the truth. I didn’t see the giant or dragon for myself, but when things below the mountain went bad, the whole place sounded as though it was coming apart. Manuel appeared, screaming for rope. He ran back in and we tried to follow, but before I could get down the stairs we heard the dragon roar. Heat plumed up from below, and I thought everyone down there must be dead. We got out just before the whole place came down.” Juan looked down at his feet. “Manuel didn’t make it out.”

  “I know, I saw him fall…” Gabi said quietly.

  An uncomfortable quiet grew between them.

  “How is Sarah?” Breanne asked.

  “She’s hurt pretty bad. Broke both legs, one of her arms, and some ribs. Mamá said she thinks she bruised some organs too, and she isn’t sure about internal bleeding. She says it’s too soon to rule it out. That would be the biggest worry – well, that and fever. We set the broken bones best we could as soon as we got her back here, and she has been in and out since.”

  Juan’s mother, Rosa, a weathered woman, hardened and lean from years of farm work, appeared on the porch, wearing a long skirt and colorful blouse. She smiled politely at the two girls, then looked at Carlos and Juan disapprovingly, pointing at both of them as she rattled off words Breanne knew were scolding.

  “Mamá says we are being rude. Please come in, you must be starving. Besides it isn’t safe out here. We have been seeing… well, strange insects flying around all afternoon.”

  “Strange how?” Breanne asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

  “Much bigger than they should be. Now please, come inside.”

  As Breanne stepped inside, she and Gabi shared knowing looks.

  “Juan, can we see Sarah?” Gabi asked.

  “She is in a room in the back resting. I will take you to her, but let’s get you two washed up and fed first.”

  As the girls went to wash, Rosa disappeared and soon the smells of more food being prepared fill the air. Almost everything Rosa served was grown, harvested, and processed from the farm. She had soaked the farm-grown maize in a water and lime mix before grinding it into masa and forming the tortillas by hand. Breanne watched her as she squatted in front of the stone hearth, dipping each tortilla in water before dropping it into the cast-iron skillet. With practiced precision, she carefully charred each side to perfection before flipping it and repeating the toasting process on the opposite side. Next, she loaded it with beans that she had reduced into a smooth creamy deliciousness earlier in the day. On the side, she served a spicy salsa topped with fresh avocado and cilantro, and rice flavored with tomato, garlic, and onion. The main course was goat meat that had been cooked down in a pot of unknown ingredients until it was tender, practically melting in Breanne’s mouth. Despite the spicy heat of the chiles, she couldn’t stop eating.