Chapter 2
With three tugs, Billy signaled the others. It was time for the next step. While he stood with Excalibur at the cave’s entrance, Elam would start the new march inside. He had been in this cave before, and since the shadow people feared it, or at least everyone hoped they still feared it, they would not be likely to venture into its depths.
As Ashley passed by, she touched his hand again, prompting him to smile. What a comfort she had been during the four-plus years he had been separated from Bonnie. Now that he was twenty and his tough training had molded him into a man, he longed to fulfill the prophecy and marry Bonnie. Surely she would be ready, too. She was always far more mature than anyone else her age.
He turned and followed the pull of the rope. He could sense Ashley in front of him, and she likely sensed him as well. She always did before. Over the years his emotions had let her know that he needed a woman’s support. Of course others had wanted to help. Several fathers of village girls had inquired about his availability, which explained the friendliness of some of the twentysomething females and the giggles rising from teenaged girls as he walked by. But there was no way he could offer them hope. He and Bonnie would eventually get together. Even if it took a hundred years, he would wait for her.
For the time being, Ashley had been able to tell when he needed a boost. A kind gaze, a caring smile, a soft touch—she gave each one at the right time, never hinting that her gestures suggested anything beyond a sister’s love. She was salve for a Bonnie-sized wound.
After nearly a minute, the rope’s steady pull slackened. Elam had stopped. Billy turned and set his feet, taking his stance as rear guard while Walter unfastened everyone from the line and let it drop to the ground.
With the rush of water now a distant whisper, every footstep and every popping joint sounded like thunderclaps. Ashley ventured a whisper of her own. “I’m going to let you know what I’m doing step by step. Right now I’m examining the cave’s back wall with a photometer. It’s definitely showing readings that are consistent with what I have seen at other portal locations. The key is in finding the strongest signal.” A few quiet seconds passed before her whisper continued. “Ah! I think I have it.”
After a rustling sound crackled in the motionless air, her volume rose a notch. “I’m setting my flash unit on the ground at the focal point, and I’m about to turn it on. There’s no way to stop the noise.” A click sounded, and a low hum reverberated in the cave. “Billy, I’ll let you know when it’s ready. The last time I tested it, the light-bending ions took twenty-three seconds to charge. We’ll assume the same now. Elam will give us a five-second warning, and we’ll all stand back.”
As Billy faced the cave entrance, the tingle returned. Its level of intensity grew quickly, and his danger alarm spiked. Something was coming, something deadly.
He turned on Excalibur’s glow to maximum and searched the nearby floor. Nothing.
“Billy,” Ashley said, “it’s not time yet.”
“I know, but we have company.” He turned on the beam. It shot into the cave’s ceiling and bored into the rock. The brilliant light cast a wave of energy out onto the cave floor. A skittering mass of black halted about ten paces away, then began a slow retreat.
“Looks like a bunch,” Walter said. “I counted six sets of beady eyes in the front line.”
“Five seconds,” Elam called as he and Walter and Ashley backed toward the side walls. “You’ll have to risk turning the beam this way,” Elam said. “It’s do or die now.”
“Great choice of words.” Billy flexed his biceps and swiveled toward Elam. “Ready!”
Elam chopped down with his hand. “Now!”
Billy copied his motion, slicing downward with the beam. As it cut a vertical line from top to bottom on the back wall, sparks exploded as if he had cleaved a high-voltage cable. He angled his head away from the arcing fireballs and finished his sweep. The beam struck Ashley’s ion box, a baseball-sized black cube with mirrors on the top and sides. As sparks continued to fly, he kept the beam in place. Yellow bolts shot from the top of the box and cut jagged lines all across the back wall.
“Is this supposed to be happening?” he called.
Ashley stared wide-eyed at the fireworks display. “No! The ion box was supposed to open a portal, but I think that wall was already a gateway of some kind, like a portal that just needed a burst of energy.”
“Keep it up!” Elam shouted. “At this point it’s better to go forward than back.”
Billy firmed his grip. The tingling sensation mounted. His danger alarm blared. “Something’s behind me!”
“Uh-oh.” Walter leaped and hacked with his sword. “Just keep energizing that gateway. I’ve got your back.”
Sparks flew everywhere. Light poured from Ashley’s box, creating a rectangular aura on the rear wall that looked like a glowing door.
Ashley raised a hand. “That’s enough!”
Billy swung the beam up and turned. Walter was hopping and hacking his sword against the floor so fast, it looked like he was dancing a violent jitterbug.
“Get back!” Billy called. “I’ll fry the vermin.”
Walter jumped out of the way. Billy chopped down with the beam and waved it back and forth across the stony ground.
Sizzles and squeals echoed, and purple smoke filled the cave with a burnt carrion stench. The shadows melted away, leaving a scattered collection of flat white bones.
Billy spun around. Ashley and Elam stared at the aura, which now looked like a golden painting on the back wall, a door as wide as the cave itself, stretching from floor to ceiling and as bright as Excalibur’s beam.
“Our portal?” Billy asked, shielding his eyes.
“I think so.” Ashley pushed her fingers against the wall. Her hand disappeared up to her wrist.
Walter joined her. “Feel anything?”
“Just air.” Ashley retrieved her hand and flexed her fingers. “I think it’s safe to go through.”
“Will the shadow people follow?” Walter asked.
“Not likely.” Billy put Excalibur away. “They risked a lot by coming this far, but going through a door of pure light?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Elam gave them a firm nod. “No time like the present.” Leading with a hand, he walked into the glow and disappeared. Ashley followed, then Walter. After a final look at the steaming pile of bones on the floor, Billy joined them.
He broke through into a bath of cool air, though not nearly as cold as what they had left behind in Second Eden. A quick scan revealed a high wall encircling him, its perfectly vertical face interrupted only by a pile of rocks at one point of the base. A tent big enough for two campers had been set up in front of the pile, and a campfire smoldered a few feet from the tent’s entrance flap. Nearby, a huge man slept on the ground, obviously Yereq.
Ashley grabbed Billy’s shirt. “This is the old mobility room where Walter and I found Sapphira.” Her voice pitched into a squeal. “We’re in Montana! We’re home!”
Walter slapped Billy on the back. “You did it!”
Billy let his mouth drop open. The portal opening hovered in place, a brilliant rectangle sitting an inch above the ground right over a large X that someone had painted in black. On one side, the portal was bright and shining, an obvious doorway, but from the other side it seemed that nothing was there at all. The window to the other world was completely flat, invisible from any angle beyond ninety degrees in either direction.
Everything made sense. His mother had found the portal at this spot and had marked it to make sure she could find it again. She was probably the one camping out, maybe waiting for some kind of response after sending the rubellite, and Yereq, her guardian, slept close by.
Smiling, Billy rubbed his hands together. A reply to her note had arrived. Pressing a finger against his lips, he crept toward the tent. Judging from the sun’s angle, it was getting close to midday. Why would she be sleeping so late? Maybe they had been up most of the night.
As he approached, the tent flap pushed to the side. His mother came out, stooping to fit through the opening. With her head down, she didn’t notice Billy. Carrying a cooking pot, she shuffled to the campfire, picked up a small log from a nearby stack, and threw it onto the embers.
Billy walked to within reach and looked at her from the back. Her hair was shorter, grayer, and her posture just a bit more stooped. Was it from the heavy burden of losing her husband and son and trying to retrieve them from an invisible world for more than four years, or had those years physically aged her body that much?
She crouched and stirred the ashes with a stick, deathly quiet. Billy’s memories drifted back to another morning when his mother prepared breakfast, the morning he kissed her cheek and left a burn, giving her proof that he was different, that he was genetically a dragon child. She was humming that morning, her sign of peace and contentment, but now, not a sound.
Billy spoke softly, yet clearly. “Mom. I’m back.”
She stopped stirring but neither spoke nor turned. Yereq woke and sat up with a start, his eyes wide as he stared at Billy.
Trembling, his mother straightened. The stick shook in her hand. Then slowly, ever so slowly, she turned. For a moment, she just stared. Her eyes darted, first side to side, then up and down, as if drinking in every detail. A teardrop fell from one eye. She laughed, then sucked the breath back in, her lips quaking.
Finally, she raised a hand and caressed Billy’s cheek. A smile breaking through, she spoke with a hoarse, tremulous voice. “Who is this handsome young man who looks so much like my son? You are taller, your face is thinner, your body more muscular, and …” Her voice cracking, she shouted, “Oh, Billy!” She threw her arms around his neck and wept. “You’re here! Oh, thank God you’re here!”
Pulling her into a tight embrace, Billy patted her on the back. “Yes, Mom, and you’re the reason.”
She pushed herself away and looked into his eyes. “I am?”
He gripped her shoulder. “We found the rubellite.”
She gasped, and her eyes grew wide. “You did?”
“Yep. I don’t know where you got it, but it was made for Excalibur’s hilt.” He flicked his head toward his back scabbard. “Now it lights up like nobody’s business.”
She stared at him for a moment, blinking. Her head tilted, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “That was six months ago.”
“Well, it’s complicated. You see—”
She looked past him and locked her gaze on the others. “Then you didn’t come with Gabriel?”
“Gabriel? No. Why would we?”
Her voice spiked. “Because we sent him through the portal to find out what was over there!”
Ashley, Walter, and Elam joined their huddle. “How long ago?” Walter asked.
Her eyes darted back and forth between Walter and Billy. “Late last night, maybe eight hours ago.” She nodded at her tent. “That’s why we camped out here. We finally got Apollo to open a large enough portal, so we did it as soon as we could, even though it was at night. I hoped to follow when he reported that it was safe.”
“It’s far from safe,” Walter said. “There are these shadow people that—”
Ashley nudged his ribs. “We’ll find him. Since he can fly, he’s probably fine. He just won’t be able to get past Abraham’s wall.”
“He won’t be fine if Goliath sees him. Gabriel’s probably not as fast as—”
“Walter!” Ashley nudged him again and looked back at Billy’s mother. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Bannister. We’ll find him.”
Billy’s mother touched his cheek, tears again falling. “How is your father?”
“He’s doing great. He has a shelter and a regeneracy dome, and ever since the dragons started taking turns resting by Abraham’s wall of fire, they’ve all stayed strong. But I guess you didn’t hear about the transformation, did you?”
“I heard he’s a dragon again and that you have your fire-breathing back. When Acacia came through the portal, she told everyone in the mines, and Gabriel told us.”
He slid his hand into hers. “Then you also know we need reinforcements. We think an army of giants and shadowy beasts are going to attack some peaceful villagers soon, so we need more dragons.”
“Yes, the former dragons are lodging close by. Yereq can have them here in less than an hour.”
Billy looked at Elam. “How much time do we have?”
“First light of dawn is about two hours,” Elam said. “We still have to parasail down to the marshlands and then float out the southern wall, but I think we can make it.” He glanced at the glowing portal. It was still bright and showed no signs of weakening. “We can wait an hour.”
Billy laid a hand on Elam’s back. “I almost forgot. Mom, this is Elam, son of Shem, grandson of Noah.”
She nodded and offered a weak smile. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”
“Likewise,” he said, bowing. “I appreciate the politeness, but we should hurry. The longer we wait, the more danger for Gabriel.”
“Yereq!” Marilyn called.
Yereq walked up and replied in a deep, echoing voice. “Yes, Marilyn.”
“It’s time to summon Kaylee, Tamara, and the others. We’re going to Second Eden.”
Elam raised a finger. “We can take only one at a time. Our raft is too small for more.”
She gave him a quizzical stare. “Raft?”
“We have to navigate a river,” Billy said, “but we’ll explain the whole thing while we wait. We talked it over and decided it would be best to start with Dorian. Then we’ll come back for the others, one each night until Pegasus rises too early in the evening.”
“Pegasus is our moon,” Walter added. “We need at least four hours of total darkness to do this safely.”
“I think Dorian will be happy to be first. Kaylee is burning up the Internet and the phone lines searching for her son and Dallas’s daughter. Elise is helping, so they’ll want to keep working on that.”
Yereq pulled a cell phone from his trousers pocket. “I will climb into cellular range and summon Dorian.” Tromping with heavy footsteps, he headed for the wall where a rope ladder dangled from above.
Billy’s mother let her head droop. “When will I be able to come with you?”
“Well,” Billy said, glancing at Elam, “we talked about that. You see, we have to get five dragons into Second Eden. By the time we get the fifth one in, Pegasus will—”
“We’ll get you over there,” Elam said. “By that time, maybe we’ll be faster and can do it in a shorter window.”
Billy looked into his mother’s eyes. She desperately wanted to come to Second Eden and see her husband. “Elam’s right, Mom. We’ll make it happen.”
With her gaze still on the ground, his mother sighed. “Only five more days. I can live with that.”
After a few seconds of silence, Billy took in a deep breath. It was time to ask the question he had been avoiding ever since he arrived. “Uh … Mom? Have you heard from Bonnie?”
She compressed his hand, a new tear sparkling in her eye. “Not a word in more than four years. Some of the Caitiff chased her and Sapphira in the mines, but every tunnel is flooded now, so there was no way we could keep searching. Even when the waters were rising, we sent in cave divers, but we didn’t find any sign of either of them.”
Billy tensed his jaw. He couldn’t say a word.
A gentle hand rubbed his back—Ashley. She, too, stayed silent, but her touch said it all. “Don’t give up hope,” she was saying. “We’re here for you.”
As usual, Ashley’s healing hand did wonders. His muscles loosening, Billy touched the string of beads around his neck. “Acacia and I found this on the ledge while the floodwaters were rising. Since it wasn’t broken, I was thinking she left it there on purpose, like a sign that she’s okay.”
“There is another clue,” his mother said. “When I arrived at the overlook in the mines, I thought I saw Bonnie flying Sapphira off the ledge, but it was dark, and it happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure. But Yereq found one of the Caitiff, and it confirmed what I thought I saw. Bonnie and Sapphira were definitely there, and they did jump.”
Elam pointed at himself. “I’ve been through a portal in that river. The magma was cool back then, and it got too hot later. But now that it’s water—”
“They could go through it,” Billy finished. “And that means we can go, too.”
“I’m game,” Walter said. “Compared to what we just did, diving through an unknown portal at the bottom of a flooded chasm should be a piece of cake.”
“You can’t.” Billy’s mother flattened her hands and set one on top of the other. “According to our diver, the magma hardened in layers. You have lava rock, then water, then lava rock, and so on. We don’t know how many layers there are or how thick each one is.”
Billy ground his teeth together. All the clues led to the same lousy conclusion. Even if Bonnie escaped through a portal, she was stuck somewhere without a way to call for help. Obviously, in four years, she would have contacted her friends if she had been able.
“And we haven’t heard from Shiloh,” his mother added. “Not a word since she was kidnapped.”
“And Acacia’s missing, too,” Billy said.
After several seconds of awkward silence, he motioned for everyone to sit around the fire. While they waited for Yereq to return with Dorian, he related the story of how he, his father, and Acacia found Shiloh in the protected ghost town and failed to rescue her, and worse yet, how Acacia fell into the prison herself and disappeared with Shiloh.
As the minutes ticked away, all five exchanged stories, including how Billy’s mother, Adam, and Carly had reconstructed Apollo. It had taken over three years to get a working model, and it would have taken longer if not for the help of a dead physicist who made them promise to keep his identity secret because of his shame. Obviously, being a resident of Hades meant that all his brainpower had been for naught. He had lost his soul. Still, he was willing to help. Why? He never said, and no one thought it proper to ask.
Shelly was now married and living in Morgantown. Since she was pregnant with her first child, she had to excuse herself from the adventures and make her home ready for the new arrival. Walter’s parents were in Castlewood watching Monique and Rebecca. His father retired from his law practice and was running Ashley’s computer company, Stalworth Enterprises, with help from a local computer wizard named Fred. For a while, people asked where Ashley and Walter had gone, so Walter’s father kept brushing them off with a story about them traveling somewhere with Billy and Jared on a secret mission. Eventually people stopped asking.
Stacey was attending the local community college now, so she was relatively independent. Carly moved into the Bannister home on a fostering basis and later began attending the same college part-time while still working on the Apollo project. Adam and his father started an electronics supply business, which helped in finding parts for Apollo.
“Speaking of Apollo . . .” Ashley excused herself and returned a moment later with the hourglasslike portal device. As the storytelling continued, she looked it over, practically taking it apart and reassembling it with her practiced fingers.
Billy’s mother touched Walter’s hand. “Your father walks with a cane now. He took a bullet in his spine and was in physical therapy for months. He’s doing great, considering the circumstances.”
A tremor ran across Walter’s face. He looked at Ashley. She took his hand and interlocked their thumbs.
Walter fished a small, rolled-up parchment from an inner pocket. “Mrs. B, can you give him and Mom something for me?”
“Yes, of course. I can mail it to them.” She took the scroll and looked at it. “It’s sealed with wax.”
“It’s personal.” A distinct jitter rattled his voice. “I want them to be the first people on Earth to read it. Then they can tell you what it’s all about.”
“Okay.” She laid the scroll on her lap. “But that makes my brain go wild with speculation.”
Billy suppressed a grin. Since Walter was being so secretive, it wouldn’t be right to give anything away. The message explained to his father that he had asked Ashley to marry him, and he hoped that somehow his family could come to Second Eden for their wedding. Of course, they were waiting for the expected war to be over first, so maybe it would be safe when the time came.
After a few more minutes of storytelling, Yereq climbed down the rope ladder, followed by Dorian. Billy and company greeted her and explained the transformation procedure. They had figured out long ago that each former dragon had to wear a rubellite ring while in the garden. Yet, Patrick was still unable to transform into Valcor, even after borrowing one of the rings Elam still had in his possession.
“I do not have one,” Dorian said, showing them both hands.
“I have two.” Elam pulled a ring from his pocket. “This one used to be Ashley’s. She’s wearing her mother’s now.”
Dorian slid it over her finger. It was a little loose, but manageable.
After they had gathered at the portal, Billy kissed his mother on the cheek, careful to hold back his scorching breath. “I read your note, and I told Dad that you love him. Is there anything else you want me to tell him?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling. “Tell him scales or skin mean nothing; my love will never fail.” She returned his kiss and, raising a fist to cover her mouth, said no more.
Ashley read her photometer. “The doorway deteriorated a little bit. At this rate, it will be gone in about three and a half hours. Yereq should guard it to make sure nothing comes out from the other side. You won’t like what resides over there.”
“Flat shadow critters.” Walter twisted his shoe on the ground. “Yereq can probably stomp them like cockroaches.”
Drawing his sword, Billy led the way through the portal. When he stepped back into the cave, it was darker and colder than before, but no shadow people slithered about, likely frightened by the portal’s glow and the sight of their fellows’ bones.
When the others joined him, Walter again fastened everyone together with the rope, Billy in front, then Ashley, Walter, Dorian, and Elam. Billy strode ahead, quickly at first, but when the portal’s light faded, he slowed, listening for movement and tuning his danger radar. Since the shadow people had been alerted to their presence, they might have amassed at the cave’s entrance. An ambush seemed likely.
Soon, the exit arch came into sight, barely visible now that the portal was well behind them. The tingling sensation crawled along Billy’s body, and his alarm sounded. They were close, very close.
He halted. Ashley bumped into him, but only lightly. She tugged on his shirt and breathed a ghost of a whisper in his ear. “I sense a presence.”
Billy pointed at himself, trying to signal, “So do I.”
From her belt clip, she pulled a flashlight, modified for use with her homemade batteries. “It’s real close.” She shone the light at the base of the wall. A dark form turned its ribbonlike body away from the light and shivered as it emitted a series of high-pitched clicks.
“That’s strange,” Billy whispered. “It stayed here alone.”
Ashley stooped. “It’s scared, but it wants to communicate.” She flicked off the light. “What do you want to say?”
The portal at the back of the cave painted a dim glow on Ashley’s profile. As more clicks sounded, she nodded several times. “This one seems quite intelligent,” she explained. “I sense mostly feelings. That noise it’s making doesn’t mean anything to me, but I’m getting a few words from its mind.”
Billy glanced back and forth between the shadow person and the cave exit. His danger alarm heightened. Could this one be a decoy, told to get their attention while the others massed for an attack?
Ashley looked up at Elam. “I think he knows you. He said something about being sorry for not building the fire.”
“The fire,” Elam repeated in a whisper. “Where could that have been?”
She half closed one eye. “Does ‘skotos’ mean anything to you?”
“It’s a forest in the Bridgelands.” Elam crouched beside Ashley. “Does he have a name?”
Ashley turned back to the shadow. “What is your name?”
A short burst of clicks rose from its dark face.
Ashley shook her head. “He’s saying it with his language, but I can’t pull it from his mind.”
“Zane?” Elam asked. “Is your name Zane?”