“Yes, but what if—” Haj attempted to focus. “—what if Peter found something that proved they were linked to the Monte Caves?”
“The Monte Caves is short for the caves that held the fabled treasures of Montezuma,” Tom said as he leaned toward David and Mattie from his position on a couch.
Sam was next. “It’s no good. There is nothing there. We have checked those caves, again and again.”
David added, “Then he must have found something—but what is this treasure? Don’t tell me—more stones?”
“No—a passage to home. Dred’s home below, or rather a place where his people live,” Tom said, after sipping, what he called, a spot of tea.
Pili jumped down from Mattie’s lap, and Charlie chased her into the kitchen and then into the bedroom.
“Haj?” Mattie asked him. “What happened to your wife? David told me today that Pili and Charlie were her pets. Is she alive? Or did she go into hiding?”—Mattie had been afraid to ask this because she did not want to bring up her own past, a growing past that she had started to remember. Mattie continued to guard her thoughts.
He curiously ignored her probe and asked her a question instead. “Do you remember your life in that other world, Mattie?” Haj asked her.
“I don’t remember all of the details,” Mattie lied.
What is she hiding from us, David thought.
“I will finish my story, but I want a promise from you, Mattie,” Haj said with a genuine tone.
“Of course,” Mattie agreed.
“After I am finished with my story, I want you to tell David everything that you remember. Tell him privately, but reveal it all to him. If Dred has knowledge that David doesn’t, it may cause him harm or be used against him. David must know everything! You can tell the rest of us when you are ready to do so,” Haj advised.
Mattie agreed to Haj’s terms, and everyone witnessed her words. Secretly in her heart, she only agreed to tell David selected items from her past, not the whole truth. Then Haj continued the story concerning the corruption of Peter Jenkins.
Haj knows! He knows about me! He knows everything!
Mattie was worried.
Chapter 22
Gold Rush Fever
Part Three
In the Words of Haj
He looked like Peter, and he sounded like Peter. He had his mannerisms, his specific tone, and accent, but something was different. It didn’t feel right. So I questioned Peter about it.
Peter claimed that he felt no different than before the trip. But he was different. Something had changed. He had no knowledge of being stabbed, but he remembered everything else. He even remembered that he did not like Dred.
He insisted that he was Peter, but he left out one important detail. When I questioned Peter about his remark about the girl at the camp—the one that he had said looked like my wife—Peter could not remember it. It was as if that experience was blocked from his memory.
This meant that two incredible and unbelievable things were possible. Maybe the gypsy woman was actually my wife, and Peter was in reality Dred. But how was this first idea possible, I thought. Did my wife cast a spell over me or over Peter? Did she subliminally plant a bug within the memory of Peter Jenkins? Was it a code that could only be unlocked by the genuine Peter? Maybe the woman was not my wife and it was simply a thought that was injected into Peter’s mind when my wife once spoke to him in private, I considered. I pondered the possibilities. I needed to know for sure what really had happened.
As to the idea of Peter being Dred, I was more convinced. It was a rare thing when a transference occurred that accompanied a dual-controlled memory thread. Usually the entering spirit gradually took over any memory threads that remained in the previous occupant’s brain, while the residue of the previous will lingered and struggled for control for a brief time. In some cases, the will of the original person took precedence while the will of the entering person fought desperately to remember its life. However, in the case of Peter and Dred, the dominant memory was that of Dred, the entering entity, while the memory of Peter, inside the brain, still had some degree of control as it struggled to remember its existence. Both personalities were in control at the same time, but over different memories.
Was Peter dead? Was Peter dying and not quite dead?
There were two other similar but rare types of transference, where the entering person and the existing one shared memories and control simultaneously at death. There was the extremely rare occurrence where a female and male mind shared the same brain at death, even for a brief moment. There was also the rare transference by invitation, where someone who was committing suicide invited a wandering spirit into the mind, and, upon death, they merged. However, even in both of these cases, the entering spirits were still the dominant ones, while the old memories were usually nothing more than that—inactive memory files, accessible but no longer active—no longer in control.
In Peter’s case, it was almost as if there was a simultaneous active thread of memory from both Peter and Dred. If my suspicions were true, then this is what had happened. Dred had purposely, with malice, entered Peter’s brain, and they had both merged, which expedited Peter’s death. Peter was dying, of that it was certain. But Dred had entered too soon while Peter still held on. Dred had technically committed murder of the worst possible kind—mind death. This explained the missing or corruption of the recent memory. Dred knew of some of Peter’s memories but had no access to other parts.
Whatever was left of Peter, Dred used it to my disadvantage, but I was given the single clue. If the gypsy had looked like my wife, and I could not see it—perhaps I truly had been under a spell. It was either that or Peter was just dazed by the time travel. I had to know which one it was. I had to go back in time, by myself. I had to meet this woman again, even at the risk of being locked into another spell.
There was another reason to return. If Dred had truly taken over Peter’s body and mind, then I had to hide the traveling stones from him. I had to scatter them, perhaps in the past. I had to find unknowing but trustworthy persons to assist. Without the stones, and without the telekinesis, Dred would be harmless, a raving madman to others and a mere nuisance to me. This I could handle, but with the power of the stones he would be dangerous.
It was also possible that Peter had infected Dred with intentional confusion—a memory mix. If this was true, then it would be difficult for him to function properly as his true self. In Dred’s haste for survival, he may have taken on Peter’s traits along with his memories. In any case, Dred was not the same person, not exactly. He was inherently evil, but he had the mindset of a scientist now. He was an evil Peter at the very least.
I knew that I would need to enlist people that I could trust to deal with this evil. When we returned to Cairo, I immediately contacted Tom to assist me. I told him that I needed to discuss an urgent matter with him. I phoned him at his hotel, once Peter and I returned from the past. This was minutes before a sheriff came bursting into the saloon in the past of California. We had avoided the hangman’s noose.
I told Peter that I wanted to make a phone call to David at the hotel, to tell him to postpone his visit today, an excuse that seemed to fool him. I went into a private office, while Peter, as Dred, examined my laboratory.
The laboratory had been secured for the most part. Most of the stones were locked in the safe, once we returned. The salmon stone, however, was still in the vice. I also had three stones in my bag. One was David’s white stone and two were the blue and white stones from our time travel trip. The green stone and the others were placed back into the safe. Priests had their own secret methods of traveling into the past, so the green stone would not be necessary. The only two people in the world that knew the combination of the safe was the deceased Merlin and me. So, I assumed those stones would be safe.
I needed to get rid of the stones of travel, at the very least. In my haste, I forgot to retrieve the matching blue stone to David’s white stone.
But at least I would prevent time travel by getting rid of both of the white stones, I thought. I decided to give David, in a time past, the white stone, and Mattie the other stones of blue and white.
As to my phone conversation with Tom, I was brief but to the point. “I need you to secure the funds,” I told him. Tom understood the code, and he said that he would see to my request. Tom said that he had stumbled on an old friend during an incident in front of his hotel.
A long lost companion, Samuel, from the days of King Arthur, had returned from the past and had entered the body of a government agent on loan to the CIA. There was an incident that had involved some local militants that revolted against the current government. A CIA agent had been caught in the middle of some crossfire as he came out of an American Embassy.
Tom told me that he watched the gun battle from his hotel window. His golden prophetic stone was illuminated in a multicolor pattern, an action that made him aware that an act of transference had occurred nearby.
Police swarmed the street outside the hotel, and smoke and flame engulfed several vehicles. Tom, against the advice of the hotel manager, went outside in an attempt to spot any dead soul that seemed to regain its composure. He spotted a man who crawled out of the street. The body moved toward a massive statue of a lion for safety while bullets flew over his head from the militants.
For nearly an hour, the police restrained Tom from going into the streets, until they secured the rebels, but after several minutes, he was able to move past a curious crowd and get to the statue. He found Samuel collapsed against the granite and assisted him in walking to the hotel. Sam could walk, but with a severe limp. Sam was taken to a local hospital for his injuries, although the doctors were surprised that he was still alive.
Tom told me on the phone that he first had to check on his friend Sam. Then he would make sure everything was secured or relocated, in regards to the basement and cave. I gave him the combination of the safe in code, just in case my phone line was bugged.
When I think about the events and how they unfolded, I cannot help but think that there was a guiding hand in all of it. I had not been a spiritualist, or a believer in the Christian sense of the word. I was not an atheist, but neither was I fully convinced that there was a Living Spirit, or even a Garden of Eden. The whole tale seemed ludicrous to me. I did not believe in a heaven or a hell. I was a scientist after all.
What I believed in was the power of the stones. I did not know their origins. Perhaps they came from an alien race that once visited this planet populated by humans and other animals. Maybe these ancient people enslaved the early savages, and then legends were invented to explain their existence.
I believed in a higher power, but I believed that I could not prove the power’s existence. I guess I was more of an agnostic, but these events tested my beliefs in fate. I had told David that all things were predetermined—or, at the very least, had already happened. Time was circular and not linear. I had told him that nothing was changeable. Did I really believe that? How is it that Tom had met Sam at the precise moment that they needed each other? How coincidental was it that Mattie and Mary were linked and in my presence during the trip to the past? Was there a guiding force? And if there was a guiding force, or fate, or person, who was it? What was it?
I knew that I had to do two things. I had to speak to Tom, which I had accomplished. I also needed to speak to my wife. She would have the answers, I thought.
My wife had been a faithful companion, and she was a true believer in all things spiritual and magic. We did not always see eye to eye, but she supported me and never disparaged me in any way. I believed in the science of the stones, and protecting the stones from those that would use them for purposes of evil. I had inherited the cause from those who believed in both the magic and the science.
But I would not have the chance to speak to my wife. Just as I had ended my call with Tom, Peter came into my small-scale office beside the cafe walls.
“I remember now!” he recalled. His changed demeanor instantly filled me with terror. “I was just about to throw your body into a wall when I realized that I had been infected with mercury and could no longer perform such actions. Peter saved me!”—Dred looked down at his new body with awe. He respected the handicraft of the ancient power. Peter held a sword, the Sword of Gath in the air. He had found it in the cave, but he did not know that I had removed by a special process its energy source. It would cut all the same, and he pointed its tip in my direction. Dred was alive and well in the body of Peter Jenkins.
Peter said that with his current knowledge and with additional resources that he would be able to harness the full power of the stones. He would release his people if they still were alive, he boasted. He would avenge their deaths at the very least, he said.
Peter’s plan was to start with the power of the life-giving sardius stones. Then he would use the power of the other stones to free his people. He would find a way to bring them back, even if he had to go back in time. But Anakites could not travel to the past, not without a human. Peter needed a human, and so my life was safe, at least temporarily.
He commanded me to go to the safe and retrieve the stones that I had. His eyes glowed red but possessed no demonstrable powers. I decided to obey as I thought of a diversionary plan. I contrived to entice Peter with gold and money while I ensured the safety of the rocks.
“I can finance your efforts, but I want my safety and my wife’s safety guaranteed. I can take you to the real gold mines, those that Merlin once told my father about during his travels. I also have access to money and treasures now in my name. You can…”—I was interrupted.
“No! I don’t think so. I can’t trust you. Tell me where the gold is, and give me the stones to travel. I will go there by myself. I want it all!”—I knew then that he did not realize that he could not travel in the past alone. I knew more than he did.
Then, before Peter could speak another word, his eyes fluttered and closed. He was hit on the head and knocked unconscious by someone that was behind him. With a blow to his head, Peter collapsed, the ancient sword fell from his hand, and he fell to the floor.
It was Aysha, my wife, who had saved me that day. She had disrobed from her usual veil and black robes. She stood with her beautiful curls of black hair that fell on her bare back. She wore a strap blouse vest and Capri pants, and she was barefoot. She had an American baseball bat in her hand. It was an old, dark-colored bat that someone like “Moonlight” Graham would have used in 1904. An American had given it to me during a speaking tour. The antique wood cracked after hitting Peter’s head and was in several, splintered pieces on the floor.
“Go back to me, my husband! Go quickly, before he arises! I will wait for you!” she said. I wanted to ask her more, but she insisted that I leave her. She said that she would flee and seek out the others. She insisted that I gather the stones and leave. Her words sent chills down my spine as I realized that Peter must have seen what I truly did not. I had not seen Aysha in the past, as Peter had, for it was hidden somehow from me. Aysha must have placed a spell on me, I thought. The important thing was to scatter the traveling stones. I would have to think about Aysha later.
I remembered that David had told me of the tragedy of his father’s suicide. I decided to take one of the stones to a young and impressionable David Hughes. I planned to give the other stones to Mary in her past, in Old California. I had to scatter the traveling stones and keep Peter from going through time again. I could take several trips in what would appear as seconds in my current time.
I could bring several gold nuggets to buy off Peter with, I thought. I could give him wealth that would greatly distract him. No one is truly more distracted than those souls swayed by the force of greed that exists in this world. Perhaps, I thought, I could make him wealthy enough to give up his quest for the stones. That was a wishful thought indeed.
I left Aysha after a quick but passionate kiss. I felt her warm breasts against me for one last time.
I was in the basement and through the pink cloud in less than twenty minutes, while Aysha, in the office above me, tied up Peter with thick sewing thread.
Just before I left, I made two more phone calls. I called David again at his hotel and reminded him not to come to the cafe. In fact, I advised him that there was great danger in Cairo, and used the recent militants as an excuse. I sensed that David faced a great peril with the reinvented Peter. I also called Tom once again. I repeated my request for him to look after Mattie and David. I suggested that Tom place David in a fake police force and hire him. These calls I made while Aysha tied up Peter.
Tom, along with Sam, did indeed take care of David and Mattie. In my absence, they used the excuse of hiring David as a government agent in order to keep their eyes on them and ensure their safety. It was something that David could believe in and not be suspicious of. It satisfied David’s restless mind. David had sought purpose in his life, ever since the death of his father. This fake proposition satisfied his propensity to work and use his deductive reasoning skills to resolve complex problems. David was told that his inventions were needed, which gave him an outlet to develop his technical skills as well.
What I did not know was this. Peter later explained my disappearance with a lie. The explanation was that I had somehow met my death with a most unfortunate accident.
I had no time to think through everything. I engaged the time cloud in the basement again and was soon transported to San Francisco in 1906, just about a year from when Peter and I first arrived in Sacramento. Aysha had said two additional and final words before I left her. She said, “San Francisco.” And that is where I went to—San Francisco—the stones were in control as I focused just on the name of the city.
I materialized through the cloud. I carried my stones in a satchel around my neck. I was on a street near Market Street. The street was unmarked. I went up to a man to ask about the time. He carried a newspaper and was haphazardly dressed. His shirt was not squarely tucked into his pants, and his tie not firmly in place. Instead of the time, he gave me his newspaper. He obviously did not want to converse with me. He thought I was a panhandler and walked away with a snub.
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 26