Chapter 15
They brought me back to my room and a feast of breakfast goodies were waiting as well as a very stiff military dude in the regulation black uniform I‘d seen the other men wearing with pride. This one was fully armed and looked more like a c ross between human and Dursvan. He had one electric blue eye and the other was the same green as my own. Really cool looking. He had a stick up his ass and white rings around one arm that looked like one-inch wide plastic bands. He saluted Juris and me with his palm to his left shoulder and dipped his head keeping his eyes on me. They roamed the room and were never still. His face was smooth, pleasant looking with those eerie eyes. There was no divination between the iris and the pupil. His hair was a smooth mix of gray and black. He followed me into my room and I threw myself at the food.
"Who‘s this?" I asked shoveling in the eggs and bacon.
"Captain Kiannyn. He is a Dursvan Heart Fighter," Oriel smiled. "A---"
"Bodyguard, personal protector," I answered, pulling the new knowledge loose from my overstuffed head. He looked only a few years older than I did; I knew from the cultural stuff I‘d acquired that he was both older and stronger than he looked. To have achieved the rank of captain in the Heart Forces, he would have had to master swordsmanship, archery, hand to hand, guns, horsemanship and pretty much what a Navy SEAL for which they trained. I eyed him with new respect. If my mother had had such, she might still be alive.
"These...Druz creeps, how did they find me on...Earth?" I called it that for lack of another word to call this plane. My mother‘s plane was known as Celene. "So, I‘m like what, a Prince, King, or Emperor?" My eyes got huge. Wow. I could rule the world. I found a sausage link.
Mmmmn, maple. I took all of them, picked up a plate, fork and chowed down. Several of the soldiers joined me for breakfast, pulling up chairs from around the room.
"Oh no, Lord Jadewyn. We have both a King and an Emperor. You are more of a...war leader, an icon for the troops to rally behind, the power behind our arsenal," Oriel said reaching for a fruit that looked and smelled like a pear but was deep purple.
"War Leader? I know as much about war as I do about crocheting." I wasn‘t one of those kids who was crushed with WOW or X-box.
He looked at me in puzzlement and then smiled. "You are making a joke."
"Not really," I paused, went inside my head to look for the nearest Druz string and touched it gently. Fire burst into my hand, ran in both directions back up the string to me and down the strings to the heart of the Druz stronghold. Went racing up the lines to jangle somewhere close as I screamed and tried to pull free and could not because I had tied myself to both ends and whatever was at the other end was reeling me in like a fish on the hook.
"Help me!" I screamed and struggled to pull the coin out. As soon as I uttered the words, lights flared, green fire fought against a sea of red and I was blown out of that place to see a glimpse of the Dursvan‘s startled face as I was pulled into darkness. Dumped onto a cold hard surface so hard that it knocked the air out of me and addled my wits. Scraped my hands and my knees. Rolled over on my back and the cold leached into my fingers, back and inner core. I smelled old oil, dirt, and stale exhaust. Over my head was a darkness lighter than what was around me, I could barely see walls of a pit where the night sky obscured by clouds dimmed a city haze. I knew where I was now. Tried to move and my neck and back protested with a sharp stab of pain to remind me I had broken them not so long ago. I heard the night noises fade, saw the sky grow darker and realized I was fading out, not the other way around.
*******
Pattering woke me. Gentle pats on my face, hands and body. Cold ones, too. One slid into my mouth and I swallowed. Tasted rain. Not clean, crisp but tasting of the ashy residue of city life. The sky I could see above me was gray and turbulent with streaks of lightning that flared and thunder made the confines of the pit seem both too small and enormous. I had flashbacks of my mother‘s arms around me, the coppery taste of blood and terror in my mouth and nose.
Rolling over, I was able to push with my arms and sit up, keeping my neck as straight as I could as the moment it tilted, sharp shocks zipped down my back and arms. It burned as if ants were stinging the length of the nerves as if I had whacked my funny bone.
Over to the left was the ladder that fed out of the oil pit, I tested the rungs before I risked my weight on them and slowly, climbed out. Reached the lip and hung there until I could garner the energy to slide the rest of my body over the edge. I was right, I was on the old concrete pads of the closed and abandoned factory; it was in worse shape now than when my Dad had found me here. I hated this place; it brought back old memories of death, despair and abandonment. My parents had said I was too young to remember what had happened to my mother and me in this place, but I did.
No one was wandering about. Most of the buildings had either fallen down or been dismantled. The realty management had left the guard shack at the end of the chain link fence and in it; I found both a telephone and a fire alarm system. Of course, there was no electricity turned on but when I pulled up the receiver, I felt a surge of energy pass through me to the phone and heard the sudden dial tone. I pushed the buttons before I could lose it and heard a harried voice on the other end. I wished for a cell phone but that wasn‘t going to happen.
"Hello?"
"Murphy?"
There was utter and complete dead silence that I could actually feel. "Who is this?" He sounded tight and suspicious.
"Murphy, it‘s me."
"You‘re dead. I went to your funeral. I kissed your dead fucking body."
"No, Murphy. Not yet. I will be though if you don‘t help me."
"Prove it. Prove who you are," he demanded harshly.
"I have a gold coin, Murph and my mom didn‘t wear underwear."
"Holy Christ," he whispered. "Where are you?"
"Your phone safe?"
"How do I know? Why would they bug me? You‘re dead!"
"No, they made it seem like I was. I‘m where I started, Murph. Can you come get me?"
"Stay there. I‘ll be twenty minutes. You need Reilly?"
He was the SWAT paramedic. "Yes."
"How bad?"
"I‘m mobile. Sore. Might need a cervical collar."
"I‘m coming. Stay out of sight." He hung up the phone without saying goodbye. I huddled under the counter and waited.
Twenty-two minutes later, a blue sports coupe pulled up to the gate in a spray of gravel and two cops in city clothes jumped out. One carried a medic‘s box and both had guns out and ready for anything. I stood up and hobbled over to them. I‘d stiffened up and felt worse than a run over cat. Murphy hugged me gently, set me on the front seat and Reilly went over every inch of me. When he turned my neck, I winced and saw sparks. "Hurts?" he asked.
"Like an electrically short. They said I broke my C3 in the car accident, pinched my spine. How long ago was the car crash, Murph?"
"Five weeks. It was five weeks ago you and your dad were killed."
"I‘ve been missing for five weeks?" I swallowed and he used a penlight in my eyes. His hands were cool as he slipped a cervical collar around my neck and it bit into my chin. "You‘ve been dead for five weeks, Jade," Murphy said soberly. "FBI guys with quiet, understated badges have been nosing around. They took your dad and your body away in a refrigerated truck. They denied it was your dad in the car, said it was either a kidnapper or your accomplice in the murders."
"It wasn‘t the Government people that killed Dad," I muttered. I winced as I moved on the back seat. Everything ached from my sudden contact with the cement. "It was something called the Druz. Creatures from another plane. They want the coin and me. They want me to bring them home."
"Will you?" He swung my legs into the car and belted me in.
"No. They‘re a warrior race. Once back on their own plane, they‘ll just gather up their forces and attack Earth and Celene."
"Celene?" Both of them got in the car and we drove off. I kept my head down.
"My mother‘s home."
"How bad is he, Reilly?" Murphy asked and shifted into third gear. He hit the highway in minutes and he was heading for the precinct.
"Bad enough for a hospital but I guess that‘s out of the question. His neck is probably re-fractured, his eyes are un-equal which means he has a concussion and I felt some crepitus in his side. His pressure is a little low, pulse rapid, lung sounds a little bit sticky. You nauseous, seeing double and having trouble staying awake?" He had to poke me to get a reply. "Jade, sta y awake, hey! Boy, wake up!"
"Where are we going?" My eyelids felt so heavy all I wanted to do was sleep.