CHAPTER 12: AN ANCIENT ALLY
“We forgot Jinx!” Alora cried from the back of the van, over Elly's shoulder and against the hammer of the wind and rain outside. “She will be scared!”
“Don't worry, bub!” Emily shouted back. “Rowan will get her. I'm sure she'll be just fine.”
“She won't be just fine,” the young girl humphed, turning to face James. “She will be hiding under Jack's bed as usual.” Her face suddenly turned hopeful and she tugged on Jame's sleeve to get his attention. “Maybe Jinx will use the flap to get out and go to the neighbour's house. She loves playing with Fritz and Kelly.”
“Maybe,” James said, his voice and thoughts distant.
“James, why are you ignoring me? This is serious!”
“I'm not ignoring you, gnat. There is something on my mind. I keep thinking about what Rowan said about him giving up his life for us. He said he was willing to die for us, Alora. Do you understand what that means?”
“Yes,” she replied in a whisper, her eyes downcast.
“I have to get back to him—”
“You're not going anywhere Einstein,” Caleb intervened, turning around on his box to face the siblings. “As smart as you say you are, you're pretty stupid not to realise that it is you that these creatures are after. You and Alora.”
“He's not stupid,” Alora defended her brother.
“Don't worry about it,” James said, holding a hand to his sister to calm her. “Caleb is just scared.”
“And so should you!” Caleb said indignantly. “There are crazy monsters out there that can read our thoughts and possibly eat us, and you want to go back and confront them?”
“I killed one, remember?” The younger boy was angry, but his shaking hands showed he was still unnerved with the memory of the fight in the park. “I am sure they can die again just as easy as that.”
“You are stubborn you know that,” Caleb said, looking out of the van window at the pelting rain. “Not like Jack at all. More like... me.”
James half smiled at the similarity and said, “Then I suppose you understand then.”
“Yes,” Caleb laughed ironically, “I do.”
“We're almost leaving town,” Emily's voice called back over the boxes that they leaned against. “The mountain road is just up ahead.”
“Do you think Kaelan has his spies in the forest?” Alora asked, resting her head on James' shoulder. “He might know about dad's second house.”
“I doubt it,” Caleb scoffed, “those ugly things look like they hang out in some of the bars I go too.”
James laughed, then quickly covered his outburst with a hand. When he spoke, the corners of his mouth flickered amusement against his stern visage. “They feed off of the living, Rowan said. And when there aren't any people to eat, where else will you find living things? The forest of course.”
“You're right,” Caleb replied, his eyes drifting into an alluring memory. “You know... Cassandra may have long claws and a red stone stuck in her forehead. But she sure is pretty.”
James shook his head and rested his head against Alora's.
They are watching the back door. The voice warned Rowan as he made his way to the lounge room. He looked back over his shoulder and grimaced. He felt like a cornered mouse. But there isn't many there—perhaps three? I will keep an eye on the front door, so maybe you can fight your way into the backyard and escape over a fence.
“Giving me pointers now, on a hopeless fight?” Rowan asked with his lopsided grin. “I can take more than three.”
The front door looks to be six or seven—
“Oh.” The lore-kin weighed up his odds and turned towards the back door.
—But I can't be sure. My power is stretched over nodes hidden in this house, and I cannot see beyond the porch. Toram put those nodes in the house's foundations so I could keep watch over everybody...
Then suddenly out of the silence a large crash hit the front door.
Run!
“I—” But before he could finish his protest, the front door of the house caved in and the edge of a large axe glimmered through. Rowan turned and ran back down the hallway just as the front door was hacked again and finally kicked off its hinges. A group of shadows rushed into the lounge room with a gush of rain and wind following after them.
Rowan turned right at the end of the hallway and darted passed the open door of Jack's room and the adjacent bathroom, until he found the small flight of steps to the left that led down into the laundry. Holding the rails on either side, he slid down the short flight of steps and ambled up to the backdoor that exited to the backyard. He pressed his cheek against the wood of the door, his eyes peering warily out of the rain-lathered glass window. The moonlight and stars were gone, replaced with the grey of morning and the heavy rain. A shadow moved by the pond, and he pulled back away from the window, swallowing hard.
“Wolves at the door,” he whispered the old saying, gripping his blade firmly.
He suddenly heard feet running on creaky floorboards above his head, and knew that if he didn't leave the house soon, they would find him in the laundry. The fight would not end pleasantly for him, he suspected.
Hurry!
Taking a deep breath, Rowan flung the bolt of the lock back into its holster and kicked the battered door open with one boot. A blast of stinging rain pelted his face as he leaped out into the sodden backyard with his glaive raised high...
Veil let three of her men through the front door before she followed after, her nails splayed open to viciously gouge the lore-kin she expected to find inside, waiting to spring on her.
“There is no escape, fools!” the girl shouted against the dull thunder that broke above the house, peeling back her hood and revealing her pretty, pale face beneath. It was glistening wet from the rain, and her blonde locks popped out of the grey trim of the hood and bounced on her shoulders as she moved. Burning red eyes scanned the lounge room vigorously, hungry to find her targets. “You might as well give up this game of cat and mouse...”
The house appeared empty. Her gloating expression dropped from her face, followed by confusion, and then irritated fury.
“Gone!”
One of her men, a human lackey with a thick black beard and tattoos up both his arms, walked up to the fridge and flung it open. “Empty,” he said, turning to face his master, “I don't get it. They took everything.”
Two more were rummaging in the pantry with equally confused looks. A couple of gnarled-faced Revenants pushed passed the men and stalked down the hallway, entering the bedrooms. The violent sound of beds and wardrobes being upended and hurled against the walls thundered back to Veil's ears.
“Quiet, you block-heads!” she hissed, making her way to the hallway. “You'll alert the neighbours. The storm isn't that heavy. The thunder won't keep us hidden for long.”
“And I suppose that axe through the front door wasn't subtle?” Dart replied, sarcastically. The large Revenant leaned in the doorway of Alora's room. He held a toy bear by its throat with his broad fist, squeezing tightly. “You need to realise, Veil, that we no longer fear the humans. Let them come.”
“Don't be a fool,” Veil spat, grabbing his collar and pulling the thick-necked Revenant down to her height. “Gha'haram entrusted this search to me. And if I say hack that door down with an axe, but don't flip a bed upside down... then that is what you do.”
She finally let go of the Revenant, who curled back up to his towering height. Dart rubbed his neck with a grimace—one of Veil's claws had cut deep into his freshly regenerated skin.
“Now, we must—”
Rock and roll music suddenly exploded in one of the rooms at the back of the house: Jack's room. Almost bowling Dart over, Veil pushed her way back into hall and hissed to the closest Revenant who was poking his head through the room's slightly ajar door, “Lurk, what is it?”
“Ah... no one. The room is empty.”
“Then turn that horrible music off!”
“Let us
ride into the night! With wheels of fire burning bright!”
“Brutal,” Dart said from behind her, grinning with approval to the screeching guitars and pounding drums. “The biker has taste.”
“No one can stop us––we the immortals! No one can defeat us––we the immortals, of rock and roll! Let us play into the night! Let us play—we'll win the fight!”
“Rubbish,” Veil cursed, then made for Jack's room, wanting to finish the hunt as swiftly as possible. Her clawed fingers were about to pull the hunching Revenant by the door out of her warpath when the music suddenly stopped.
Lurk turned to his lieutenant with a perplexed look and said, “Must be an alarm or something?”
A loud crash from the kitchen pulled both their attentions back down the opposite end of the hallway.
“Someone is messing with us,” Dart said impatiently, cautiously moving towards the lounge room where he left some of his men. “Ace, Tricks, Rigger...” He called out in low but firm voice. No one answered.
When he rounded the corner into kitchen the rain and thunder had lulled to a silent whisper of wind, which wheezed through doorless portal of the front porch. Laying on the ground in the kitchen under a pile of broken plates was one of the man-lackeys. Two more stood perfectly still by the dining table, their eyes wide in horror.
“What is it, you fools?” Dart demanded, and a sudden flash of lighting outside the window cast his looming shadow against the hallway wall. “Speak up! Tricks!”
“The-the plates... they just flew out of the cupboard right at Rigger and knocked him stone cold out! Like a bloody poltergeist!”
“We are the only demons here!” Dart growled, his Doom Stone shard burning furiously under his hood, and the spider-webs of red light fanning out from his eyes across his temples. The Revenant lost his steam when he spied from the corner of his eye a pile of plates levitating out of an open cupboard. Then, in mid-air, like a flicking finger dealing a deck of cards, they began to fly across the room at the last two men. Rigger and Ace tried to run, but were both hit in back of the head by a barrage of porcelain frisbees.
Dart fell on all fours and scurried behind the kitchen's counter where he waited until the last plate had smashed harmlessly against the far wall. Hearing the silence he was waiting for, Dart leaped up on his feet and ran for the open door. He was almost out when a heavy force smashed into his back, knocking the wind out of him and sending him tumbling into the ground. He lay sprawled on top of the hewed rubble of the front door, inches from the welcome mat. Rolling onto his back Dart gasped in horror at the falling tower of white metal that rushed down to meet him.
From the hallway, Veil saw the fridge fly from its alcove and knocked Dart over, then without the aid of physical hands, tip over on top of him.
“The Grey children have learned a few tricks,” she grinned darkly, amused at the enemy she faced. “Cunning little creatures—”
A silhouette of what appeared to be a small girl behind one of the curtains in the lounge room suddenly caught Veil's eye. A girl, with piggy-tails and a fanned out dress, crouching down under the sill, shivering. The dark grin grew wider, and Veil began to laugh softly. Traversing the bodies of her fallen men and the upturned dining table and chairs, she crept ever so softly towards the concealed figure. The wind from the front doorway sent the old, dusty curtains into a billowing dance; but its force was not strong enough to reveal what was behind it.
“Don't be scared, little one,” Veil said, her claws growing even longer and sharper. The flesh around her jaw began to flake and flicker off in black scabs, her eager hunger growing with each step towards her victim. It was only now that Veil realised she hadn't fed in awhile, and her body was beginning to waste away again. “It is tempting to eat you instead of capture you for the master. But his wrath is greater than my hunger...”
Her last words blew away with the wind. Reaching out, Veil's clawed hand pulled the curtain back to reveal... a doll. Its plastic, lifeless face stared back at her with rosy cheeks that did nothing to change its blank expression, and it continued to shiver as if possessed by a spirit.
“Tricked!” The left side of Veil's face was nothing but a gaping hole now, revealing her black skeletal jaw. “I will find those little whelps and tear them to pieces—argh!”
Veil suddenly found the curtain snaked around her and squeezing tightly. Her arms were pinned down, and the grey curtain continued to coil down her legs, where it pulled tight at her ankles. She crashed to the floor in a squirming bundle.
“Let me go! Curse you!”
The doll looked on in silence, the lightening reflecting gleefully on its plastic face.
Rowan tackled the Revenant with all his force, throwing the creature into the muddy ground. Luckily, he managed to dig his heels into the soft turf and spin his momentum into a low crouch without falling over. Kneeling on the creature's chest, he dislodged its Doom Stone shard with the tip of his sword, then crushed it against the stone footpath with the metal heel of his right boot.
The soft thuds of running feet on wet grass caught his attention as he stood up, looking between his rain-soaked fringe that was water-stuck to both his cheeks. Three more pale-faced horrors emerged from the mist of rain with evil grins. Rowan shifted into a defensive stance—the shattered Doom Stone shard glittered under his boot, which he gave one last twist, grinding it into dust. Gripping his bloody glaive, he edged away from the Revenant, his eye on the side gate that exited to the front yard and driveway.
A loud crash from inside the house suddenly drew Rowan and his undead adversaries' attentions up at the foggy window of Jack's room.
Who could it be? Rowan's mind raced. Then he remembered the invisible ally and grinned to himself. Whoever you are, thank you.
The Revenant turned their hungry, red eyes back to Rowan; their bloodlust was far too strong to allow their thoughts to linger on what could be happening inside.
“Veil and Dart will take care of that,” one with mud-stained pants and forearms laughed mockingly to his companions. He had obviously been crawling on all fours. “Our job is to watch the back door. Capture the kids, and... feed on the rest.”
“And this guy 'aint a kid,” another added, licking his cracked lips. His face looked dry and parched even under the rain. Rowan's eyes drifted down to the creature's hands, which held two curved daggers. “My body needs to be 'stitched up', I can feel my insides seeping out.”
“Not what you bargained for, hey?” Rowan taunted the Revenant who complained. “Gha'haram promised you unending life, but left you with a wound that will never heal.”
“Shut your mouth!” the Revenant shouted, raising his daggers up to strike. “Its a better life than rummaging in the sewers and dining with the rats!”
“Get him!” the third shouted, lunging forward with the swing of metal-toothed rake he had found in the yard.
Rowan grabbed the wooden shaft of the rake and swung it under his armpit, locking it tight, then punched the Revenant's forehead with his glaive. The weapon shifted into a spike-knuckled gauntlet and smashed the Doom Stone shard to pieces. The Revenant's red-lit eyes went black and it fell to the ground, unmoving. An instant later its body ignited into flames, and its charred corpse hissed under the spitting rain.
“You're dead, pal!” the Revenant with two daggers howled, and made a few stabs at the air in front of Rowan.
The lore-kin arched backwards, avoiding a disembowelling from the fury of the strikes, and spun down low, attempting to sweep the creature over with the rake's shaft. Nimble-footed, the Revenant laughed mockingly and leaped over the attack, landing both its leather boots on the yard tool and pinning it to the ground. A swift boot to the jaw sent Rowan reeling backwards, then tripping over a pile of hose, and sagging against the neighbour's wooden fence. His arms clung to the fence palings as if he was a scarecrow, his head swinging low below his shoulders. Spitting blood and his vision blurred from the tears in his eyes and the rain, Rowan used every ounce of streng
th to lean forward and find his footing, but began to stumble and fell head first into the mud. His shirt, which had snagged on the wooden fence, tore as he fell, revealing his muscular body under his leather jacket. Around his chest spiralled the black shapes of two dragons facing each other, with claws locked.
Both Revenant laughed in amusement at him laying semi-conscious in a large puddle of rain-water and thick mud, clutching his head.
“Nice kick,” the other Revenant said, cracking his knuckles. The red fires in his eyes seemed to be bobbing about in excitement. “Pity we have to cut 'im up.”
“Such a pity,” the dagger-wielding Revenant chuckled, and swung another boot into Rowan's ribs. The lore-kin groaned and curled up on his side, coughing blood into a puddle of water that swallowed half his face. “Okay pal, time to finish this.”
The Revenant dropped down on his knees and put his dagger under Rowan's chin, whispering hoarsely in his ear, “You want to die first, or should I just suck your life-force straight out of you so you can feel everything?”
“Come on, come on,” the other Revenant said angrily, trying to reach for Rowan over the other's shoulder. “Leave some for me!”
“Nah,” the dagger-wielder growled, shrugging his companion away, “I think you should feel this one, pal. You killed our friends in the park, and I don't think you deserve the honour of a good death.”
He stabbed his daggers into the ground, and then grabbed Rowan's face in his thick hands and pushed his face completely into the puddle that was slowly diluting his blood. A burning pain seared through Rowan's skin where the hands held him, and burned deep into his flesh as if his face was being pushed on a hot stove. He began thrashing against the hidden strength of the Revenant as he felt the water filling his nostrils and into his lungs.
Great. If I'm not Revenant food, I'll drown in a puddle!
A wall of black was fast approaching Rowan's vision, and he felt the last of his strength give way. Hands slackening, he accepted his fate. His last breath a silent scream that bubbled in his throat.
Then the force of the thick hands on his head was suddenly gone, and so was the pain it delivered. Am I dead, already? He thought, confused. His numb body felt as heavy as lead; but managed to find a hidden reserve of strength to roll onto his back, letting the water from the puddle gush out of his nose and the corner of his mouth. Rowan spluttered and then coughed raggedly, swallowing some of the muddied water. Climbing onto his hands and knees, a subtle, cold wind on his skin tickled his eyes open, and Rowan saw both Revenant suspended in midair above him.
You are not dead, Rowan, Son of Eleanor. The mysterious voice said in his mind. Not while I am near.
The Revenant were screaming, but Rowan could barely hear them. The rain and wind had picked up again and this time it was wailing down on the yard and the surrounding houses as if it were the herald of a cyclone that had come in from the sea. Elly's wind chimes under the overhang of the roof near the clothes line were ringing madly, and the old tree by Jack's window was almost bent over like an old man, its branches lashing leaves against the foggy window.
In the tumult of the storm, the mysterious force levitated two large rocks up out of the nearby pond and flung them at the Revenant's flailing silhouettes in the grey of the rain-mist. The projectiles thudded against their heads, crushing their Doom Stone shards, and putting out their red fires. Two lifeless bodies dropped to the ground in burning trails of black ash.
Breathing heavily, Rowan staggered up to side gate that had flung off its latch from the wind, and was whining back and forth.
Wait! The voice returned, desperate. You must dig under the old tree! There you will find more weapons to help you.
I don't have time. Rowan mind formed the words against the grogginess of his injuries. I can barely stand, and I have to ride to Southlake—
Dig me up, fool! I have power to restore your strength.
But the others.
Those in the house are incapacitated for now. The others are searching much further down the street. It will take them longer to figure out what happened to Veil and her men. You must do it now! Before it is too late!
Rowan turned back to the tree, and looked at the old oak for a moment. Shrugging, he staggered towards its ancient girth and fell against it. His arms stretched wide and clung to its trunk in an impossible embrace. The rain pelted down on his weary face, and he opened his mouth to taste it.
Don't waste time, dig!
Okay, okay. Rowan dropped on his hands and knees and began to claw at the muddy ground at the base of the tree. After a couple of minutes he then looked futilely at his effort—a small hole—and sighed. Then his eyes widened at a sudden thought, and he held out his glaive-gauntlet in front of him with both hands. A shimmer of light and he was looking at a shovel. Throwing his aching muscles into the task at hand, Rowan dug at the ground, shovelling as fast as his strength would allow. He was about to give up and ask what was the point to his mysterious ally, when the tip of his glaive-shovel hit something hard.
Get it out!
Will you just calm down. Rowan replied, frowning at the persisting voice somewhere above him. His eyes squinted against the rain through the leaves, finding nothing.
Rowan's strong hands reached into the muddy hole and clasped onto the corners of what appeared to be a block of wood. There were joints which alluded to a lid. Clasping on tightly, his legs locked into a bracing position, he heaved with every ounce of his strength. In a spray of mud and loose rocks, he managed to dislodge a long, rectangular object out from under a stubborn, thick root. It was a wooden chest.
Open it! Open it!
Rowan ignored the voice and began hammering the solidified mud that encrusted the lid's latch with the end of his glaive-shovel's handle. When he cleared the latch and pulled it back, he flung the lid open without caution. Inside was a thick brown blanket wrapped around what were undoubtedly three glaives in their sword shapes. There was also a copper cube of light weight with strange etchings on its surface, a leather-braided necklace that held a small diamond in a copper claw, a rusted metal helmet of Atlantean make—evident by the curved back eagle wings that merged with a circlet shaped like ocean waves—and two rusty gauntlets that had blades attached above the knuckle guards. Thomas' secret cache no doubt.
“Pieces of Atlantis,” Rowan murmured in awe. “But how will this help?”
The glaives are for James, Alora and their annoying friend of dubious virtue.
“Caleb,” Rowan answered with a lowered brow, sounding unimpressed with the speaker's judgement of character.
Yes, Caleb. I suspect he has a long way to go—but something you can help him with. Now touch the cube. I will give you the strength you need.
The lore-kin brushed his fingers cautiously over the strange looking device, and suddenly felt a surge of vitality rush through him. Grinning at the feeling of rejuvenation, Rowan eagerly grabbed it with both hands and felt the invisible energy waken every part of his weary body like a huge dose of caffeine. His cuts and bruises were suddenly gone.
“How?” he asked in disbelief, his eyes tracing both his arms. The aches in his jaw and ribs from the Revenant's kicks were also a faint memory.
I used much of my power to restore you. Now, I must rest. It may take awhile before I wake up again and speak, so take the contents of this wooden chest with you and quickly catch up with the others.
“But who are you? Where are you?”
I am Arajasta. The voice finally said, and it seemed to come from the cube now. Caught by Osirian trickery! I slew an army before they bound me in here. A prisoner of the Reflecting Cube: the thing you hold in your hand.
Rowan gazed in awe at the copper cube—its surface etched in ancient Osirian symbols, which Thomas had taught him to read when he was young. Pictographs of dragons and sky-ships fighting, and a giant crushing an army with a raised foot.
That is me. Arajasta said, preempting his next question. The Giant of Ardhis. A metaphor, r
eally, for I have no form. This cell was made for my kind—we who live in the Aether. The Azlazarani.
“A False God!” Rowan cried, remember Mathias' tales of the ancient people who had given up their bodies to live in the Aether, the spirit of the planet where all the memories went after death. The Azlazarani were the men and women who had made the Crown of Dreams before the Fall.
A False God, indeed. Arajasta laughed without insult. I was a friend of your father's, but we were separated during the war. I waited thousands and thousands of years before he found me again under the new seas and set me watch over his house. I awoken the dreams in Jack, James and Alora—
Sounds of movement in the laundry shook Rowan to his feet. Then he saw another Revenant lumbering into the yard, an arm shielding its face from the rain.
Quickly, run!
The Revenant saw him, shouted something incoherent and gave chase. Before he could reach him however, a roof gutter groaned and snapped off its supports, swinging down and knocking the Revenant back through the laundry door and into a wall.
Rowan picked up the chest in one hand and gripped his glaive in other. Giving the backdoor one last glance, he pushed open the side gate and ran down the strip of grass that bordered the neighbour's fence towards the front lawn. Under the driveway he found his motorbike—the sheet he had thrown over it was pooled on the ground around its tyres. Rowan's eyes moves to the front door, which was no longer there. Wind-swept rain blew furiously inside, and he could only guess the damage it had caused.
They're still in there. He thought, gripping his glaive tighter.
Rowan then crouched low and scurried over to a thick bush at the edge of the front lawn. There he peered through the leaves down the street, looking both ways. He could see figures of men searching three houses down on the opposite side of Hopeʼs Hill Terrace. Tall men stepping effortlessly over the fences with long strides. Rebel Lemurians he surmised. They hadn't seen him yet, so he had a chance to escape without a fight.
Quickly Rowan hurried back to the driveway where he pulled his motorbike helmet on and emptied the box's contents into the back saddles. The glaives shortened in length with a commanding thought so he could fasten the straps over the top of each saddle. Securing them fast, he climbed onto his black Suzuki Intruder and began rolling it to the bottom of the driveway. Just as the front tyre dipped into the gutter, a black shadow shot out through the front door and leaped onto the backseat, nuzzling up against his back.
Jinx.
“You scared the hell out of me, fur-ball,” he laughed softly, stroking the cat with a finger. Jinx meowed and jumped on his shoulder. Rowan grabbed her and popped her down the front of his leather jacket. Zipping it up a little higher so only her head stuck out under his chin, Rowan lowered his vizor and started the bike's engine.
Then another shadow burst from the door. The fabric of the shredded living room curtain swirled and scattered out of its way as a lithe figure charge straight at him. Its small, petite frame and blonde locks draping over each shoulder gave away its identity to Rowan without any second guesses.
“Not so fast, lore-kin!” Veil screamed, leaping over the porch as agile as Jinx, with her claws ready for his throat.
Rowan hit the escalator and roared off the driveway and down the road like a bolt of lighting. Veil's frustrated screams raged behind him; but were quickly drowned out by the relentless storm and the thrumming of wind in his ears.