“We thought about that. Arramos might not have many allies left. Supposedly there’s some sort of apocalypse going on in most of the world, so soldiers, equipment, and war machines are limited. He’s already hit us pretty hard, maybe with everything he had, and we survived.” Elam firmed his jaw. “But even if he brings a bigger arsenal, Jennifer and the others volunteered. They’re willing to take the risk.”
“Then I volunteer to stay behind. If the plan falls apart, I’ll step in and face Arramos.”
“But getting you out of here is the reason for the plan. The point is that Arramos won’t force Jennifer to open the portal because she can’t do it. But you can. We can’t risk that. Maybe he’ll return with more children, and he’ll threaten them as a way to make you open it. You know how hard it would be to refuse him.”
“Compromise, then. If he brings children, demand their release as well and fly them out of here. I’ll stay hidden and watch. I’m not about to let a girl risk—”
“Is there a problem?” A white-haired girl strolled toward them from the direction of the parking lot.
Sapphira looked her over. She wore the traditional Second Eden battle uniform, identical to her own down to the rips and stains. Sapphira forced a friendly smile. “I assume you’re Jennifer.”
“I am.” Jennifer extended a hand. “I am honored to meet you. I’ve read a hundred stories about your courage, sacrifice, and faith. You inspired me in my own faith every time.”
“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Sapphira shook her hand. It felt like reuniting with Acacia. Yet this girl seemed so green, so inexperienced. She didn’t wear the face of a girl who suffered under Morgan’s cruel whip for untold years. She couldn’t know how to deal with pure evil. “I heard about your plan, and I’m impressed with your courage as well.”
“It’s not really a big deal.” Jennifer displayed a palm-sized pouch—clear and filled with liquid. “My flammable fuel. My mother is coming in a minute with a wire arc we built. It’s practically invisible. When I set it on fire at the portal, it will look like—”
“Wait!” Sapphira’s headache stampeded across her cranium. Thundering hoofbeats hammered at her skull, and her leg and side throbbed as well. “Just stop for a minute.” She lowered herself to the ground and leaned her head against Elam’s leg.
After taking a deep breath, she gazed up at Jennifer, again attempting an amiable smile. “I’m sorry, but you act like Arramos is a simpleton. I’ve dealt with Morgan, Mardon, Semiramis, and too many other evil beasts to count. They wouldn’t be fooled by this charade, and Arramos is smarter than all of them. And besides, you don’t even sound like me.”
Jennifer lifted a handheld device and pressed a button. Sapphira’s voice emanated. “You don’t even sound like me.”
Sapphira narrowed her eyes. “What good will that do?”
“I have your voiceprint. My mother will be hiding in the bleachers. When it’s time for me to talk to Arramos, she’ll type an appropriate response on her computer, which she will send to …” Jennifer turned her collar inside out, revealing a tiny device clipped to the material. “This speaker. We tested it. It’s loud, and the sound quality is perfect.”
“How will your mother know what to say? Arramos will try to trip you up.”
“She’s a quick thinker. She’ll be fine.”
Sapphira shook her head. “No, no, no. You don’t understand. Arramos is the devil himself. He invented deception. You might fool him for a while, but he’ll ask questions your mother can’t possibly answer. Then he’ll see through the disguise and kill everyone.”
Elam grasped Sapphira’s hand.
“Do you have a better idea?”
She looked up at him. “Let me hide with Elizabeth. Maybe in the bleachers. I’ll tell her how to answer. Obviously I can’t open the portal from there, and I’m too crippled to get to it even if I wanted to, so Arramos can’t coerce me to open it.”
“Do you really think that will work?”
“No. But it’s better than the other plan, and I don’t think you’ll let me stand out there on my own to face Arramos.”
Elam shook his head. “You’d keel over in less than a minute, and then it would be too late to replace you. Catherine would be a goner.”
“She might be a goner no matter what we do.” Sapphira wrapped her arms around Elam’s leg and closed her eyes. “I don’t think either plan will work, but we don’t have much of a choice. Jennifer’s our best chance. She has the courage and smarts to keep a level head.”
Jennifer’s cheeks flushed pink. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“It really is a pleasure to meet you.” Sapphira lifted a hand.
“The pleasure’s all mine.” Taking her hand, Jennifer stooped, kissed her cheek, and whispered, “I heard that you danced with Elohim. May his presence guide my every step in this dance with danger.”
Sapphira firmed her grasp on Jennifer’s hand. “Just let him lead and feel his love.”
When Jennifer rose, Elam picked Sapphira up again and carried her to the concession stand embedded in the back wall of the bleachers. After entering a side door to a food storage room, he set her in an old upholstered chair in a corner. “How do you feel now?”
She leaned her head back. “Woozy.”
“Adam brought these for you.” Elam picked up three water bottles from a nearby counter, set one at each side of Sapphira, and pushed one into her hand. “Drink as much as you can. You lost a lot of blood.”
She twisted off the cap and began drinking.
“I’ll come and get you when everything’s set up.” He stroked her hair. “That water should help you feel better soon.”
After draining the bottle, Sapphira looked at an electric analog clock on the wall. It had stopped at 1:45. “How much time do we have before Arramos returns?”
“About twenty minutes.” He took the empty bottle. “Drink the other two soon.”
As he walked away, she called out, “Elam?”
He pivoted, his brow raised into his scraggly hair. “Yes?”
She reached out a hand and wiggled her fingers, their sign of love.
He did the same.
She smiled in spite of the horrible pain. “Will you stay with me while I do my part of this plan?”
“Definitely.” He winked. “I have to make sure you don’t hop on one foot out to the portal.”
When he exited the room, she lifted a second water bottle and looked at it. Weariness set in, a dizzy sensation that promised relief if only she would allow sleep to hold sway for just a few minutes. She settled back in the chair and closed her eyes. It would be best to relent during this respite. Who could tell when the next opportunity would come?
As she let her mind drift, the feeling of sleep approached, but a pulse of pain in her head chased it away. Each time she tried to doze, new peals of pain erupted, first in her leg, then her side, then her head again, as if demons with mallets took turns pounding on various body parts.
Finally, exhaustion held sway. Sleep arrived. Aware of an oncoming dream, she let it swallow her mind. She walked on the football field, empty of people. Except for a few splotches of red marring the green grass and faded white lines, no one would be able to tell that this had been a field of murder and heartbreak.
Light flashed at the portal site. A young woman walked from its midst, dressed in a dazzling white cloak. Equally white hair adorned her lovely head, and her blue eyes sparkled like sapphires. Still, her striking new features couldn’t mask her identity.
Sapphira gave her a curious look. “Lauren? You look … different. Lovely as ever, though.”
“Thank you.” Lauren stopped within reach. “You and I are both sleeping, and our dreams have blended together.”
“I knew I was dreaming, but how can we both be having the same dream at the same time?”
Lauren touched herself on the chest. “I am a dream oracle, and I am
able to enter the dreams of certain other people while we are both dreaming. I have come to tell you what you can do to energize Clefspeare’s plant and bring him back to battle Arramos.”
“Assuming I believe your blended-dream theory …” Sapphira nodded. “Go on.”
Lauren ran her hands horizontally as if spreading something out. “Clefspeare’s plant is now rooted in the soils of the birthing garden, but it is growing much too slowly. If he had grown quickly, he could have flown to the existing portal, but I have seen that your situation here is getting far too dangerous. If it reaches a critical stage, and you need Clefspeare right away, you will have to take this step.”
“It might already be critical, and I can’t take a step at all. A bullet fractured my lower leg, and I can barely stand.”
Lauren covered her mouth. “That’s terrible!”
“It’s crippling, but my injury provided an advantage. The helicopter pilots who shot me died. Anyone who sheds the blood of an Oracle of Fire dies soon afterward.”
“Can you get someone to help you walk? Elam, maybe?”
“Elam will help if he can. Also, a girl named Jennifer has disguised herself as me. She plans to take my place at the portal while Elizabeth, her mother, relays my voice responses through a speaker. I don’t like the idea, so I won’t mind changing that plan and moving the portal instead.”
“Good. We’ll see how it goes and maybe make adjustments along the way.”
Sapphira narrowed her eyes. “Lauren, I would love to believe that you’re alive and that you’ve come to give me a strategy, but how can I know that this dream is anything more than my wishful thinking?”
“When you wake up, come to the portal and look through it. If you see me in a chamber that has a column of pulsing white light, then you’ll know.” Lauren withdrew a gemstone from her pocket. Its glow coated her skin in an unearthly green aura. “And I’ll have this jade on a chain around my neck.”
“That will serve as proof.” Sapphira nodded. “Go on. Tell me everything I need to know.”
CHAPTER 22
THE BATTLE BEGINS
Tamiel flew toward a pair of lights flickering on the ground, campfires perhaps. He smirked. How kind of Bonnie to provide a beacon for his arrival. Yet, their reunion would have to wait a few moments. One more detail had to be taken care of.
After visually marking a spot about a hundred paces in front of the garden, he descended and looked around for any movement. As he neared the ground, an ice-covered hut came into view, barely visible in the light of a distant fire. He landed and hid behind it, the sword he had stolen from Lauren at the ready.
“Psst!”
Tamiel looked toward the source of the sound. A man waved from behind a nearby hut. “Tamiel,” he hissed. “Over here!”
Tamiel bent low and skulked to the hut. When he arrived, the man’s face clarified—disfigured and burn-scarred behind a pair of owl-eye glasses. “Mardon, I am gratified that you kept your promise.”
“Of course I did.” Mardon clutched a handkerchief tightly. “What gave you the inkling that I might not?”
“I have heard rumors that you possess information that will allow Clefspeare’s growth to flourish.”
“I have kept that information a secret. The garden needs flames from an Oracle of Fire to grow a dragon, just as Makaidos did when he sprang from the soil. I have listened to their conversations, and they know they need warmth, but they haven’t put everything together.”
“My understanding is that Makaidos’s bones and some kind of verbal call were also necessary as well as a rubellite gemstone.”
Mardon gave his head a brief shake. “Not in this case. They were needed because Makaidos was dead. Clefspeare is not. This is a restoration, not a resurrection, though perhaps the bones might speed the process along. Also, Jared’s photoreceptors were revived by the parasite I created, so there is no need for a rubellite. In any case, only the Oracle’s flames are essential. Acacia is dead, and Sapphira is still on Earth as far as I know. Zohar is here, but he is a naïve boy who can be stopped with relative ease.”
“What of the life reservoir? Rumors say that the energy can stimulate Clefspeare’s growth, which is why we dispatched agents to try to neutralize the pool before it fills.”
“I have no knowledge about the life reservoir. You are on your own in that regard.”
“And, of course …” Tamiel touched Mardon’s chin with a pointed fingernail. “Someone who hates my master as much as you do would never lie to me.”
Mardon stiffened. “I … I have always been completely honest with you. I do hate Arramos, but … but I am keeping my end of the deal.”
Tamiel pulled his finger back. “And Arramos will keep his.”
Mardon dabbed at his sweaty brow with his handkerchief. “If you would be so kind, tell me your understanding of what his end entails.”
“Very well.” Tamiel rolled his eyes. “You get Second Eden and Sapphira while Arramos gets Earth, but he will kill anyone who stands in his way, even those with whom you seem to have established friendships.”
Mardon folded his handkerchief and slid it into a pocket. “Kill whomever you wish, but make sure that you include Elam. I must have him out of the way.”
Tamiel frowned. “Your twisted obsession with Sapphira disturbs even me.”
Mardon pulled at the hem of his shirt, though it needed no straightening. “Well … be that as it may, killing Elam was part of the deal.”
“Fear not. Elam will die. Arramos has long wanted to assassinate the king of Second Eden.”
Mardon raised a finger. “And Arramos stays out of Second Eden. That’s the part I’m worried about. I don’t trust him at all.”
“You need not worry. Since he will own Earth, this frozen wasteland will mean nothing to him.”
“Then why is he so adamant about sending his troops here?”
“If my agents in the reservoir realm fail, I must deploy a backup plan, and going through Second Eden is the only way to get to that realm. The portal at the garden provides the last steps on that path, and I cannot get past the final safeguards without military muscle.” Tamiel looked toward the garden. “Now back to your role. Do you have the potion?”
“Of course.” Mardon withdrew a half-empty vial from an inner pocket. “It will initially cause the plant to grow, but less than a minute later, the plant will convulse and die. While they are watching with joyous wonder at the growth, I will have plenty of time to escape before they realize what is happening. Then when they are despairing over Clefspeare’s death, you will be free to fly in and kill them.”
Tamiel altered his voice to a skeptical tone. “Suppose, just for the sake of speculation, that the potion fails to work, and a ferocious dragon develops. You will be a hero in their eyes, Clefspeare will battle my master, and, assuming the omega dragon wins, you will get the revenge you have longed for.”
Mardon’s brow knitted. “You think I will double-cross you.”
“I am not willing to take a chance. Clefspeare is too powerful.”
Mardon’s voice grew anxious. “Watch from here. You will see. If the plant continues growing, you have a sword.” He swung an arm as if striking with the sword. “You can cut off its head before it gets too big. Although the plant cannot be torn easily, it will succumb to a blade.”
“Oh, yes, the ever-vigilant Bonnie Bannister who now bears Excalibur will allow me to fly in and destroy their final hope, and a quickly developing dragon will refrain from shooting balls of flame at me as I approach.” Tamiel chuckled. “I would have better odds surviving Lauren’s embrace.”
“Then do you have another suggestion?”
“I am glad you asked.” Tamiel thrust the sword into Mardon’s stomach and twisted the blade.
Mardon’s eyes grew big, terrified. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but only a gasp blew out.
Tamiel set his lips next to Mardon’s ear and whispered, ?
??I will apply the potion myself. If the dragon continues growing, then I will be close enough to kill them all before they know what hit them.”
His eyes filling with tears, Mardon gurgled, “Sapphira … my love.”
“Enjoy your swim in the lake of fire.” Tamiel ripped the blade upward through Mardon’s heart. “And say hello to your mother for me.”
* * *
“Sapphira. Everything’s ready.”
Sapphira opened her eyes. Elam stood next to her, his arms extended. “Jennifer’s in place. Billy senses danger, so Arramos is probably on his way. We also have a storm brewing to the east. It looks … well … apocalyptic.”
“Apocalyptic? What do you mean?”
“Better if you see it for yourself.”
“Just a second.” Sapphira picked up one of the remaining bottles, uncapped it, and drank quickly. After she swallowed the final drops and set the empty bottle to the side, she wiped her mouth with a sleeve and nodded. “I’m ready.” Her splinted leg aching from foot to knee, she set her other foot on the ground. The chair she had been sleeping in was lower than most. Climbing up might be a challenge.
As she shifted her weight, Elam pulled her to a standing position and lifted her into his arms in a cradle. “How’s the pain?”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Pretty awful.” She gazed into his still-weary eyes and smiled. “But you’re here now, so I’m feeling better already.”
He carried her to the passage leading to the field. “Am I a pain-relieving drug?”
“No. It’s just that your handsome face is so overwhelming.” She put on the voice of a schoolgirl with a juvenile crush. “The pain just runs away and hides.”
“The same effect you have on me. My brain goes haywire.” He halted and glanced around. “Where were we going?”
“Oh, stop it!” She pulled toward him, kissed his cheek, and whispered into his ear. “To the football field. Just don’t look at me, and you’ll remember where you’re going.”