End in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 3)

by Gary Williams

  Curt’s gaze turned stoic. “I am the Deliverer. It gives me an option that no one else on Earth has been bestowed. But you’re the key, Tiffany. Unless you get to Coral Castle and find the image of the Jewish tree, even if I’m successful, those inside will be stranded there.”

  “No pressure or anything.” She reached into her purse, withdrew her pistol, and offered it to Curt. “You’re going to need this.”

  “I wish,” Curt said waving her off. “Father N told me the only weapons that will work in Eden are the ones created there. Besides, you’re going to need that in case you run into Josette Laval at Coral Castle.”

  Bar deposited the weapon back in her purse and pointed to the rowboat near the water. “I suppose that’s your transportation?”

  “See you on the other side,” Curt said with a ghost of a smile. He turned and walked toward the shore.

  ****

  At just under five feet tall, with platinum blonde hair in a modified pixie cut that featured her long bangs, Bar was considered somewhat of an enigma by her CIA peers. Her effervescent youth and diminutive size were often misinterpreted to be unprofessional and lacking in drive. Tolen, however, had always appreciated her talents, judging her not on age or appearance, but on her merits. She also sensed that Curt Lohan admired and had confidence in her abilities, and for that, she liked the man. Thus, with a tug at her soul, she watched him walk away as if he were a man heading toward the gallows.

  CHAPTER 37

  Curt watched Bar drive off in his Mustang. He climbed inside the small rowboat and pushed away from the vegetation-lined shore. The craft traveled silently, drifting across the water. The wooden rowboat resembled something from centuries ago: stained and worn with a heavy smell of teak. Facing the back of the boat, Curt settled onto the middle bench seat, placed the two oars in the oar locks, and began to row.

  A wall of trees buffered the cove on three sides. The water was placid, reflecting the early evening cloud cover as dusk settled on the landscape. The mirrored surface was occasionally interrupted by fish boiling the fringe of their environment. It was a haven of tranquility and solitude.

  Unfortunately, it did little to settle his nerves. Curt swallowed a lump attempting to steady his resolve. He pushed on toward the wide mouth of Six Mile Creek. On and on he rowed, navigating the small craft through the middle of the channel. At the edges, the creek was consumed by overhanging foliage and an assortment of scrub oaks. A worn “No Wake” sign was perched against the dense shoreline to his right. On the left, the creek was lined by large cement piles which stretched away into the distance. This was all that was left after the fifteen-hundred-foot dock floated away. It was here, only a few nights ago, they battled the Serpent, Scott and Cody were consumed, Kay was killed, Sherri suffered an injury which sent her into a coma, and Tina had been abducted.

  He rowed methodically, trying not to think about what he was doing. Father N had warned him the journey into Eden via this route would not be easy. Yet his determination drove him, and he soon found himself rowing past the Outback Crab Shack restaurant. Although the river had retreated from its high point, the restaurant was in shambles, decimated by the flood waters. He continued underneath the State Road 13 bridge where the channel meandered in wide, sweeping turns. Sweat streamed down his face, but he didn’t dare stop. Even with the last vestiges of civilization now behind him, he continued.

  Curt turned, admiring the stillness of the watery surface. It had a unique aroma, a smell which brought favorable memories and a reminder of countless hours fishing the St. Johns River with Scott. He recalled short excursions when everyday responsibilities were shelved, if only for a few hours. A time when frivolous humor and camaraderie brought focus to his life. During and after these fishing trips, Curt had always felt revitalized, his outlook refortified. He had Scott to thank for that.

  Scott was the voice of reason in Curt’s erratic life. He was what balanced the scales that kept Curt from falling into chaos. Their banter, their shared humor, their sincere concern for each other’s well-being had strengthened Curt as an individual. Scott was the stable one, the married one, the one with a child.

  With child.

  Curt had barely given thought to the fact that Sherri was pregnant. He had been far more concerned with the tasks at hand, only now really considering the fact he was going to be a father. Maybe.

  The pit of his stomach felt hollow, and he continued to row as disheartening remorse threatened to overtake him.

  The channel narrowed as he went. Each stroke of the paddles continued to send the small boat skirting over the surface toward fate. Birds fluttered and called, hidden within the trees and underbrush. Fish frequently broke the surface. A light breeze brushed his face. The creek was growing darker as the sun set.

  Curt’s hands ached, and he realized how tight he was holding the oars. He loosened his grip slightly and felt welcome relief.

  Farther up the twisting waterway he rowed. Curt and Scott had fished this channel many times before, but they had never ventured beyond a certain point which Curt estimated to be a half mile from the main river. There, downed trees and limbs stayed hidden just below the surface, preventing boats with propellers from advancing. The rowboat, on the other hand, glided effortlessly over the surface, avoiding the underwater debris and transporting Curt deeper into the still creek than he had ever ventured.

  His mind began to wander. The notion that the St. Johns River was actually the Pishon, one of the four rivers of Eden, seemed so farfetched, yet it made perfect sense given everything that had transpired. It seemed to explain how the three God Tools had wound up in Florida, given their strong relationship with Eden. Only a few days ago, to think that this creek would lead Curt to Eden was preposterous. Now, as his ingress continued, the notion not only seemed entirely plausible, it was exactly how things should be.

  Curt was never one to believe in destiny. Yet, he could feel the tug of something indefinable; a force pulling him farther and farther up the creek.

  You get one to give one, Father N had told him. Only after Father N explained did it make sense. Everything made sense now.

  The environment fell quiet as the channel narrowed. Curt rowed around the next bend where the creek was now streaked in shadows. The breeze died, and all life had gone silent. The only sounds to be heard were the repetitive dipping of the oars and the gentle swish as the rowboat slid over the murky water. Curt could hear his own breath. An eerie sensation of doom swept over him.

  He stopped rowing, allowing the silence to prevail. He listened for any sign of life, anything. Curt swung around toward the bow.

  Not far away, a body drifted face down. Splayed blonde hair floated on the surface. Curt rowed forward, pulling alongside. He reached into the water and grabbed an arm. The skin was like leather and coated with slime from the creek. With difficulty, he managed to drag the body aboard.

  It was Kay Marks.

  He carefully laid her on the floorboard, pulling off seaweed. Her skin was ashen yet intact. Despite her submersion for several days, she had not yet been scavenged by aquatic wildlife.

  He gazed down at her. A well of emotions flooded his soul. He fought off tears knowing this was just the first of a torrent of challenges.

  He covered her with a tarp he found in the hold under his seat.

  Curt resumed rowing, faster this time. The small craft skimmed over the water. He fell into a rhythmic cadence, his body wet from exertion.

  A straightaway led to another twist in the creek. He steered left, moving through the bend. The evening light continued to fade as the channel straightened once again. The natural cover was more pronounced, as clumps of trees at the water’s edge leaned over, casting elongated shadows. Curt realized he could no longer smell the river. He eyed the water. The bottom was now visible, and he could see white sand coating the creek bed.

  Suddenly, everything changed. He was cast in utter blackness. The small craft bobbed, then went still. Curt experienced unpa
ralleled fear.

  The almost-faded evening light returned, as if a switch had been flipped back on, reigniting the world behind the trees. He scoured the clear water but saw only the white sandy bottom. His surroundings remained deathly quiet.

  Curt saw a rustic shack on stilts on the shoreline ahead on the left. Curiously, he rowed to the shack and tied off the rowboat on a rickety dock. Curt hesitated. He pulled the tarp back from Kay’s face. Even in death, there was a deep sadness etched in her expression. Granted, she was the mother of a seed, but it was his fault for getting her and Scott involved in all this. If he had only not dragged Scott to the gunpowder magazine inside the Castillo de San Marcos where they found the Fish, Kay would be still be alive.

  Riddled with remorse, Curt covered her back up and forced himself to direct his attention to the shack. “Hello?” he called.

  He received no response. Curt stepped onto the dock and found the planks far more stable than he would have guessed. He easily ascended the three steps to a small upper deck.

  Two cedar rocking chairs sat on the deck. Centered between them was a door to the shack. To the left of the chairs stood a pot containing only dirt. Curt went to the door and knocked. He waited, but no one answered. He walked to the side of the deck to see around to the front of the structure and to the shore beyond. Oddly, the land on shore was unkempt, with no area for parking and dense vegetation.

  This was not a place to live, but a place to pass through.

  Curt returned to the door between the rocking chairs. He took a deep breath, reached into his pocket, and removed an object. He rubbed the ancient arrowhead between his fingers as if willing himself positive energy, then placed it back in his pocket.

  He took one last look at the rowboat and the tarp concealing Kay Marks’ body.

  This time he didn’t knock. He turned the handle and entered. He stepped across the threshold, feeling strangely lightheaded. When he came to his senses, he was standing inside the gunpowder magazine at the Castillo de San Marcos. He jumped when he saw two men lying on the ground looking up at the ceiling. One of the men had a flashlight trained on some scratches above. It was Scott and…himself.

  What he saw made no sense. He rubbed his eyes, but the scene remained crystal clear. They—he and Scott—were talking.

  “I don’t see it. Are you sure you see letters?” Curt said.

  “Squint your eyes and don’t focus on the claw marks. It’s like looking at one of those optical illusions which contain embedded images,” Scott said.

  This was the past, he realized. This was the conversation they had when they interpreted the French writing on the ceiling right before they found the Fish underneath the stone tile last summer. He wondered how this could be.

  He whipped around. The shack door was gone, replaced by the wall of the gunpowder magazine. Have I crossed through the fabric of time? Is this Eden?

  The men on the floor—he and Scott—continued their conversation. They rose, crabbed through the exit into the antechamber, and vanished from sight.

  Curt didn’t know what to do. Should he also leave? Where would he go? Before he could decide, the other Curt and Scott returned. More conversation ensued. He watched as the two of them continued examining the room. Curt recalled this was when Scott stepped across the stone tiles, listening. He knew exactly what was going to happen next and read the anticipation in the two men’s eyes as they lifted the tile.

  There was exuberance as the two of them discovered the Fish skeleton. They seemed so carefree, so nonchalant about what they were unearthing, but for Curt, who was watching the events unfold for the second time, there was no excitement; no thrill of discovery. He now saw the Fish for what it truly was: a deadly harbinger. If he had only known then what he knew now.

  He wondered if he had been brought here as an opportunity to change the past. Curt knelt beside the men and reached for Scott’s arm. His hand went through it as if he were trying to grasp fog.

  He had no impact here. The glum conclusion was that he was watching the past, not reliving it. He was merely a spectator.

  When Scott and the other Curt left the room with their prize, Curt hesitated. He decided to follow them. He squatted, crabbed through the exit and rose in the antechamber. He made his way into the storeroom, past the historic boards and displays, and emerged in the Castillo’s courtyard.

  Scott and the other Curt were gone. There was not another human in sight.

  This isn’t right. On the day we found the Fish, the fort was open to tourists.

  He examined the sky. Although daylight, he couldn’t see the sun.

  Curt exited the Castillo by passing through the sally port and across the bridge over the moat. Still he saw no one, as if an apocalyptic event had occurred. He felt a compulsion to run. He jogged past the park ranger station, down the sidewalk, and to San Marco Avenue. The streets were clear. No cars were in sight. He ran across the street to the north end of St. George Street near the old city gates. He was still running down St. George Street when something caught his eye in an alcove on the right.

  Curt stopped, backed up, and slowly walked toward a series of outdoor tables near a coffee shop. There were two people—a man and a woman—in conversation over coffee. As before in the gunpowder magazine, they were unaware of Curt’s presence.

  Curt recognized Professor Marvin Sellon.

  The woman spoke, “It was a birthmark, Marvin; a most unique birthmark at that. Probably never see another one like it in a million years. So now it’s your turn to share some information. Tell me about the man in Bolivia.”

  “Oh, him. He’s a monk. He claims Subject X is a five-hundred-year-old French Huguenot, originally from the Fort Caroline settlement in Jacksonville, who was sealed up alive in the Castillo by the Spanish soon after its construction in 1695.”

  The woman stared at Marvin. She rolled her eyes, stood, and walked away, leaving her coffee on the table.

  This was another scene from last summer; another painful reminder. He had also gotten Marvin involved, and it had also cost the man his life.

  With mounting sorrow, Curt watched as Marvin took a sip of coffee. He stood, gathered up both cups, tossed them in a garbage bin, and walked away, disappearing around a corner. When Curt thought to follow after him, as before, the man had vanished.

  It’s just a memory, Curt told himself. Strangely, though, the memory was not one of his. He wasn’t there when Marvin had chatted with the woman, whom he knew to be the assistant coroner. Why were these images appearing to him?

  He walked to the nearest storefront and touched it. The brick felt real, unlike trying to touch Scott’s arm. Now what? If this isn’t Eden, where am I?

  With nowhere to go, Curt thought of his house three blocks from the historic district that had been destroyed in the fire last year. He had elected to take the insurance money and not rebuild, instead moving into an apartment after a brief stint of homesteading in Marvin’s house and then living with Sherri. He still owned the property, but it was cleared.

  He now felt compelled to go home.

  Curt left St. George Street and headed to the neighborhood to the west of the historic district. He was alone. The air was fresh but somehow foreign. He made his way down Saragossa Street, past the two-story historic homes cradled close together with small, well-manicured front yards and large oak trees. He passed a bed and breakfast and walked down his desolate street.

  He paused when he spotted his house. It looked as it had before the fire destroyed it. Everything suddenly went dark, except for a light flickering through his bedroom window. The house erupted in flames, and the structure quickly succumbed to the fire. In an instant, the dwelling was gone. Daylight returned, and the lot was barren.

  He stared in disbelief.

  Curt found himself standing in the hallway of a house: Marvin Sellon’s house. Scott and the other Curt came charging at him. He pressed back into the wall as they raced past. There was a thunderous explosion. Curt turned just i
n time to see the closed bathroom door tear off its hinges and launch across the hallway, slamming into the wall. Scott and the other Curt ran out the front door.

  This was the first time they had put the Fish in water in Marvin’s bathtub, Curt remembered.

  In the blink of an eye, Curt was standing on a dark beach with the howling wind whipping his hair. Salt filled his nostrils. Bodies flew past him, flailing as they bounded out to sea, sucked into a raging vortex of water not far out. He saw Sherri, Tina, and the other Curt clinging to each other on the beach as they tried to hold their ground.

  A moment later, all was quiet, and he was standing outside the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church a few blocks from his house. He faced the entrance to the nineteenth-century structure where Henry Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil and the Florida East Coast Railroad, was entombed in a mausoleum at the southwest corner of the church.

  “I guess this is the way,” Curt said to himself, climbing the steps toward the decorative mahogany door. As he approached, the door slowly opened. Cautiously, he stepped inside.

  The inside was dark until a light appeared from a lantern, filling a small enclosure. Curt walked toward it along a narrow corridor which angled down. A short distance away, he saw Tolen, Scott, and his doppelganger staring at an image on the wall. He realized he was inside the cave below the inverted pyramid on Bayard Point.

  “It’s a...cartouche,” Curt heard himself say.

  “Yes, upside down, but a cartouche nevertheless,” Tolen responded.

  “This has to be a joke,” Curt said.

  “Normally, I’d agree, but the paint looks genuine. It appears to be the result of aging, similar to portraits found in the tomb of Horemheb in the Valley of the Kings. These cracks, this kind of wear, only occurs after thousands of years.”