by Jen Gentry
In the back of the limo, Marta cried out and then collapsed. The stunned driver rushed from the car to call for an ambulance. He’d not seen the bloody battle that surrounded him. He only knew that something was very wrong with his employer.
Aunt Gemma received a text message from Bradley saying Marta was in the hospital. Something had gone wrong with her and the baby she was carrying.
Bradley searched frantically for a way to reach Emily. He really wanted to know if Emily could come home as soon as possible. Marta asked for Emily in her distress. Bradley felt useless in the face of this tragedy. Needing to do anything to help his wife, he’d move heaven and earth to get her whatever she wanted.
Gemma’s reply to Bradley consisted of four words: I’ll get her home. That finished, the woman sent her fingers flying over the keyboard as she sent Emily an email giving her the awful news and telling her to come home right away for Marta’s sake. Her message wasn’t the only one sent out to the Amazon. While Gemma prayed for Marta, the guardian angels of Perry House sent their own messenger to Liam. The message was dire. The Demon Prince of Rio, Dicydius, had attacked Marta himself.
***
Ethan and his men searched for Lazar for hours until well after dark. They came back to the campsite empty handed. Liam watched as they returned safely. The demons surrounding Lazar had made no attempt to attack the camp or any of his charges. That was fine with Liam. As long as they were in such close proximity, Liam and his legion would be extra vigilant, though.
The angelic commander stayed in the sky above the campsite, never wavering from his duty as the messenger from Perry House arrived. The news was grave. Worse was learning that Dicydius had attacked Marta himself. Liam clenched his jaw. The time to bring Dicydius to his reckoning had come, but first he needed to get Emily safely on her way to be with Marta.
He found Emily on her knees in prayer and placed his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. Emily knew instantly Liam was there.
“Liam, I know you come with news. What is it? Is everyone alright?”
“I believe you should check your email. Yes, the news is grave, but remember who you are in Christ and that nothing is impossible with him.”
As Emily checked her email, Liam spoke with her personal guardian, Terrence.
“You will stay with Emily, Terrence, and be on your guard. I am not sending you alone. We know that the dark ones are on the move, and I want Emily covered from all sides at all times.”
“Yes, Commander, for the Lamb who alone is worthy, I shall carry out my duty to guard his saint.” Terrence lifted his broad sword high into the air in salute.
A few hours later Ethan took Emily to meet Jorge at the helicopter landing site.
“Emily, I want you to know that if it weren’t for Lazar lurking around and threatening the safety of my team I’d be taking this trip with you.” Ethan wrapped his arms around Emily, as she laid her head on his shoulder.
“I know you would, and I want you to know that if not for Marta needing me right now I wouldn’t be leaving you, but I’ll be back. I promise you.”
Ethan wanted to be able to tell Emily to stay away, but he just couldn’t do it. He needed to tell her what she’d come to mean to him. This wasn’t the time, and he knew it.
“Listen, Jorge is going to stay with you until you get on the plane in Rio. I need to know you’re safe, so I want you to call me when you get back to New York. Please stay in touch. I’ll keep the satellite phone with me, so you can call anytime.” He lifted her chin and kissed her urgently, then peered into her eyes, savoring the look and feel of her.
“Have no fear, God is with me. He will take care of all of us, including you and Marta. I will call; count on it. Oh, the notes you need to finish reading are in my footlocker, and here, I wrote this letter for you. Ethan, it is imperative that you keep this story of the lost giant kings to yourself. I promised I would share it only with you, as it’s a sacred story. I hope it helps you.”
Ethan held Emily’s letter and watched as the copter lifted off. He prayed in his private and solemn way that Emily was right, and the Lord would watch over them all. In the meantime, he would continue his search for the lost giant kings.
***
Liam followed Emily all the way to Rio. He had a visit to make, but he would wait until she was safely on the plane to do it. This visit was personal business for Liam. He and Dicydius had a long history together. Once they’d been brothers in arms, as they served the Lord together in harmony in the heavenly realm.
That was in the time before Lucifer had forever divided them. The time before he’d watched many of his brothers fall in the open rebellion against the Father of them all. Those days of camaraderie were long gone. Dicydius’ attack on a saint near and dear to him was a call to battle if ever there was one. Liam was determined that this would be his last tangle with the Demon Prince of Rio.
Together with his warriors, Liam lit up the sky over Rio with the bright light of righteousness. They hit the city hard, driving out all the demons in the area as they called out to Dicydius personally. Soon, the white-hot fervor of the angels spread out all over the city, as even the demons began to beg Dicydius to show himself.
Dicydius was left with no other places to run or hide. If he did not fight for his realm now all would be lost to him anyway. If all else failed, maybe he could reason with Liam. Cloaked in his black clouds, Dicydius appeared before Liam on the streets of Rio.
“What is it now, Liam? Why do you bring this destruction upon us here?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Dicydius. You attacked a saint of our Lord. You know there is a price to pay for daring to touch those covered under the blood of Christ.”
“NO! NO! Liam, don’t do this. We are brothers, you and I. You can’t mean this. I won’t go into the abyss.”
Liam grabbed Dicidius by the throat. “You are a foul and evil being, and you are not my brother. Look now as the Host of Heaven descends upon you and renders the Lord’s judgment against you. You cannot touch the saints of God!”
Dicydius looked up in horror as thousands upon thousands of angels descended from heaven upon him. They overtook him until nothing but his smoke remained.
***
Emily touched down in New York in the late evening hours. She made a quick call to Ethan just to let him know she was safe, and then made her way to the hospital.
Aunt Gemma and Bradley were in the room along with Marta’s parents. Bradley briefly explained that Marta had some kind of internal bleeding, and if they couldn’t find the source of the bleeding and stop it soon they would be forced to operate and terminate the pregnancy. Presently, Marta was sedated. The pain had become unbearable for her.
“Well, that’s not going to happen. Let’s pray.” Everyone formed a circle around Marta, and held hands as Emily led them in prayer.
Soon, Emily could see the whole room fill with light. She knew her aunt could also see the light, but no one else in the room did. They continued to pray and angels of the Lord filled the room. Emily watched in awe, as Jesus descended surrounded by Heavenly light, then stood at Marta’s side. He lifted her hand to his lips and touched her forehead. He looked at Emily and smiled before ascending in the light. The angels followed after their Lord.
“Emily, is that you?” A small voice croaked out as Marta slowly woke up.
“Yes, love, it’s me. I’m here.” Emily grabbed Marta’s hand and held it to her chest.
“Geez, Em, if I’d known all it would take to get you home was for me to be in the hospital I’da come here sooner.” Marta smiled and told everyone Jesus had come to see her and told her she and her baby would be fine.
Everyone in the room laughed and cried with relief when Marta sat up and threw her arms around Emily. They’d just witnessed a miracle, and now, Marta and her baby would be fine.
Chapter Eighteen
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will dra
w near to you.
James 4:7
Alone in his tent, Ethan put his satellite phone on his bedside table. He’d spent another whole day searching the forest for Lazar with no luck. It was some relief to know Emily made it safely to New York, and her friend Marta seemed to be on the mend. Emily insisted she’d be returning as soon as Marta was released from the hospital. Ethan’s protest she take her time fell on deaf ears. Loath as he was to admit it, he wanted Emily at his side. It just felt right to him to be able to have her close to see for himself she was safe.
He scoffed at the notion anyone in his world would be safe with Lazar running amuck in the forest. For the millionth time, Ethan wondered over his lost friend, Dr. Carmine Lazar. He couldn’t understand what had driven his brilliant friend and colleague to this extreme. He’d known for years that Carmine was jealous of him, but he’d tried to smooth things over with his old friend by including him in the success of his own career. Even to the point of making him a partner.
Things began to go awry in Syria, as far as Ethan knew, anyhow. Carmine began acting strangely after returning from his leave to take care of some personal business. Then Will finally blew the whistle on Carmine. Will caught him red handed trying to poison the teams water supply. And now Will was dead, presumably by Lazar’s hand.
Ethan sat on his cot and hung his head in his hands. Lord, forgive him for not taking Lazar as a threat seriously before it was too late for Will. It was just beyond him to believe that anyone he’d cared so much about could be capable of murder. This was a mistake he was determined not to make again, and why he’d put everything on hold to try and find Lazar before he could hurt anyone else. What was it Emily told him before she left? She’d said God was with them and he would watch over and take care of everyone. Ethan prayed it was so because Lazar seemed to be out of his own reach.
Later, after he’d slept fitfully and cleaned up, Ethan pulled out Emily’s letter and read it carefully. He was astonished by the story of the lost giant kings Mari shared with her. He didn’t wonder why Mari and Anke shared this story with her instead of him. He just knew that it would be right for them to do so, given her connection to Mr. Perry and the Spaniard’s journals. They must’ve felt Emily could be trusted to do the right thing with this knowledge. It proved he was on the right path to finding the burial site of the lost giants.
Now was the time for Ethan to read the rest of the notes Emily had translated. Those notes were still locked in her footlocker, and he headed in the direction of the tent she shared with Phoebe.
Phoebe was just rising from sleep herself. A feline smile crossed her face at the thought of Emily no longer sharing her tent. Good, and if I can help it she won’t be returning. One day Ethan would realize Phoebe was his perfect match. She’d been careful about her relationship with him. He was elusive and hard to catch, and even harder to hold.
Ethan was a challenge to be sure, but Phoebe had her heart set on him. Though truth be told, he had no idea of it, yet. She just needed time to make him see the error of his ways and come around to the idea of a more intimate relationship with her. Emily had gotten in the way, but her sudden departure solved that problem. Maybe now was the time to make her move on Ethan before Emily clouded his thoughts and distracted him again. She pondered over this while dressing when a knock sounded outside her tent.
“Hey, Pheebs, are you decent? I need to come in for a second.” Ethan’s voice both thrilled and surprised her.
“Yeah sure, come on in. I’m up.”
Ethan made his way into the darkened tent and went straight to Emily’s footlocker, paying almost no attention to Phoebe.
Phoebe did her best to draw Ethan’s attention to her, but he kept fiddling with the footlocker.
“Whatcha looking for?” She came up beside him, doing anything just to get him to look at her.
“Oh, uh, Emily left me some papers in here.” Ethan looked up at Phoebe standing next to him half dressed. “Hey, I thought you said you were decent. Put some clothes on, will ya?” His annoyance rang through his tone.
Never one to be shy, Phoebe flipped her hair and went back to putting her clothes on. “I could pack the rest of Emily’s things for her if you want, and we could get Jorge to take them and ship them to her.”
“No, that won’t be necessary. Emily called earlier. It looks like her friend is doing a lot better. She’ll be back soon.” Ethan kept trying to pry the lock open and missed the flash of anger that crossed Phoebe’s face.
Trying to keep herself calm, Phoebe tried another tactic to get her way. “Really, Ethan, don’t you think it’d be better if Emily didn’t come back. I mean, with Lazar after us and all. Wouldn’t she be safer at home? I know it’d be less of a distraction for the team if we didn’t have to look out for her, you especially.”
Since Ethan had recently been thinking the exact same thing regarding Emily’s safety, Phoebe’s words struck a chord making him a little defensive.
“Phoebe, Emily has more than proven herself to be a contributing member of this team, and as long as she remains a contributing member she is welcome here. But maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.” The lock he’d been working on finally snapped open, and Ethan grabbed the papers out of the footlocker just before storming out of the tent.
Phoebe stayed behind and put the spilled contents of Emily’s footlocker back in place and locked it up. Ethan was right. Emily had earned her place on the team. She was always respectful and pulled her own weight around camp. Catching a glimpse of herself in the small mirror at her bedside, Phoebe didn’t like what she saw. Who was this woman who played petty little games to get her way?
“Seriously, Phoebe, you need to grow up and get a life.” She chided herself as she left the tent to get to work. She didn’t know the little demon, Jealousy, fell off her shoulders and hit the tent floor with a thud as she stepped out. His hold on Phoebe was slippery because Emily prayed for her.
Clearly annoyed and out of sorts with himself, Ethan avoided the work tent and took Emily’s notes straight to the privacy of his own. What if Phoebe was right? Was he being selfish in wanting Emily to return? This was exactly the kind of distraction he’d been trying to avoid with Emily. The fact was he felt responsible for the safety of all of the members of his team. That was it. He needed to stop thinking of Emily as more than a member of his team.
With that thought in mind he pulled out her notes and fully engrossed himself in them. He took up where Emily left off in the clearing, as she’d read the words of Juan Martinez de Soledad out loud…
It was a decision I will forever regret. Mi Dios! God help us all.
Ari the giant led us into the deepest recesses of the forest. Days and days of cutting through the deep foliage as men dropped dead of one ailment or another along the way. In all, it took a total of thirty-eight days to reach the base of a small mountain range. Twenty-one men followed the giant at the start of this trek, only twelve of us remained.
Ari climbed up trees and pointed out the positions of constellations in the sky that he used to lead us to these mountains. I have correlated those constellations with the present dates to draw this map in order that our Capitan can again trace our steps in the event we find gold.
As we drew closer to this site, Ari became increasingly erratic. He kept talking about the dead kings. All his brothers are dead, and now he can’t enter the cave where they are buried as the cave has been cursed by the human priests who rule in the giant kings’ stead since the death of the last of them. Ari hates the human priests and blames them for his banishing. Ari makes no sense at times, as he tells it, his banishment took place over several hundred years ago. Surely, any human priests that lived that long ago would be dead by now. Yet he curses, despises, and lives in fear of them.
Ari also spoke of the knowledge of dark magic the giants taught to the priests. He would not travel at night, as he saw things behind every tree in this God forsaken land. The men became afraid as well. It seemed as though
evil abounded in this dark forest.
We climbed the mountain step by step with Ari pushing what was left of our band. After two days of climbing we reached a flat cliff with an edge that led straight down to the jungle floor some two hundred feet below us. A large crevice slit the face of the cliff like a missing slice of pie, starting at the edge that led to the drop into the forest. Down into this crevice Ari wanted us to go. This cave, he said, was the burial site of his brothers, the last three giant kings to rule in the cities in the clouds. The gold would be found in the cave.
Ari refused to go near the opening. He was afraid. Again, he spoke of a curse placed by the human priests who buried his brothers here.
One by one the twelve of us who’d survived this cursed quest into hell descended down the mouth of the cave…
That was it. Ethan flipped through all the pages in his hand. There were no more. He pulled up the mattress on his cot and took out the actual pages he and Emily retrieved from Mr. Perry’s journals. It was there he found the maps of landmarks and constellations meticulously drawn by Juan Martinez de Soledad’s hand. He now had the only known map to the burial site of the last three giant kings.
Ethan could only wonder what actually happened to Juan Martinez de Soledad. He knew from Mr. Perry’s letter the man died in an ancient native village. But it seemed he’d not been able to complete his journal before his demise. Senor` Soledad obviously had a very tragic passing, and he’d never returned to his homeland.
After a moment of grief for the men who’d passed this way before him, Ethan carefully placed the actual journal pages, Emily’s letter to him, and Mr. Perry’s letter to her with the notes of translated pages. He found an old map box, stored all the pages together in the box, and hid it under his cot.