“That’s one signal.” He touched the top of his scalp. “Ashley embedded another one under my skin. One way or another, they should be able to track me.”
Chopper blades whirred in the distance. Lauren angled her head to find the source. “I hear your parents.”
“We’d better get our gear.” As they walked to the truck, he gave her a smile. “They’re your grandparents. Have you decided what you’ll call them?”
“No, but I’ll figure out something.” Nicknames rolled through her mind—Granny, Meemaw, and Papa, but they seemed so juvenile. If she had grown up using those names, maybe they wouldn’t feel so awkward.
Dad opened the truck cab’s back door and pulled out a coil of rope and two backpacks, stuffed to overflowing with an extra shirt and pants, cereal bars, bottled water, pens, and knives.
While he checked the supplies, Lauren retrieved an hourglass-like device Ashley had called Apollo and held it by one of its four outer dowels. In spite of the rough ride, its rectangular glass enclosure survived without a crack.
She checked a trio of digital meters on its hockey-puck-like top. The glass over them also appeared to be fine. She pressed one of a series of buttons that programmed Apollo’s communications protocols and its ability to generate a portal-opening flash. They were in working order.
She read the meters. Normal. There appeared to be no portal here. On the way, she had read operating instructions out loud while Dad drove. He already knew how an older model worked, but they both had to get up to speed with this new version. The first model needed a supercomputer to read the meters remotely and provide calculations for generating the flashes, but Ashley, before she was arrested, upgraded Apollo with its own processor so the settings could be calculated on-site. In fact, it now had a huge memory that allowed it to collect all light anomalies, including portal splits, both those it created and those it didn’t, thereby allowing it to replicate an opening. Not only that, Ashley downloaded the settings from other portal openings accomplished by an older model of Apollo.
Earlier, Dad had told her that Apollo had always been able to physically transport small objects to other realms, but Ashley enhanced its data transfer mode, allowing it to send digital information about objects in its glass enclosure or from a data source plugged into its docking interface. Apollo had become a cross-dimensional data station.
Dad, now wearing a miner’s helmet, complete with a light on the front, held a second helmet. “It might be too big, but you’ll need it. I also put the night-vision goggles in your pack.”
“Super.” She took the helmet. “Thanks.”
“Do you remember how to use the goggles?”
She nodded. “You’re a good teacher.”
After she put the helmet on, he held out a backpack. “Need help?”
“Sure.” She had to raise her voice to compete with the sounds of the approaching helicopter. “Let me get this coat off.”
By the time they stowed her coat in the truck and slid on their backpacks, the whipping air signaled the chopper’s descent. Within seconds it landed about twenty yards farther from the crater.
Dad ducked under the slowing blades and opened the front passenger-side door. When Marilyn Bannister stepped out, they embraced warmly.
Jared Bannister stayed put in the pilot’s seat, his hand on the steering stick. With graying hair, sunken cheeks, and deeply wrinkled skin, he looked worn and frail, very little like the man Lauren had seen when he picked up Walter not too long ago. Obviously, the mysterious disease had strengthened its hold quickly.
Marilyn slid open the rear door. With the wind beating back her short, gray-streaked dark hair, she waved an arm. “Come on over, Lauren! Jared’s not going to shut off the engine. Don’t be afraid of the blades.”
Lauren hiked up her backpack and, still holding Apollo, jogged to the helicopter. The weight in the pack bounced, but not painfully so, just a heavy but necessary burden. Might this be what her mother felt during her teen years when she carried an uncomfortable weight she had to live with every day?
“Are you sure this is enough?” Marilyn asked as she tugged on Lauren’s sweatshirt sleeve.
“Dad says it should be. It has some kind of protective coating for portal jumps, just like our pants, so we don’t want to wear anything over them.”
“That’s true.” Marilyn raised Lauren’s hood. “But mother hens have to keep their chicks warm, you know.”
“I know. I appreciate it.” Lauren hugged her, then climbed into the rear of the helicopter and waited for her father to board. When she leaned back, something sharp dug into her skin, but her scales kept it from hurting. Yes, Mom must have felt pain, especially the pain of realizing that the discomfort would never end. With people constantly teasing her about her backpack, she must have had the urge to strip it off and scare them with her wings.
Lauren smiled. That would teach those losers.
Dad climbed into the helicopter and sat in the opposite seat. “What are you grinning about?”
She stared at her feet but didn’t try to hide the smile. “Just thinking about Mom.”
“Me, too.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “My father’s checking with Larry about radar coverage, so we have time to talk before it gets too loud.”
She looked up at him. “Something we didn’t talk about on the way here?”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about all the dangers you’ve faced.” His eyes sparkled with tears. “I’m so proud of you. I wish I could tell the world about my daughter’s courage.”
She blinked. “I wasn’t brave. I was so scared I thought I’d pass out at any second. Besides, what you and Mom went through was a lot worse. I mean, you both died, for crying out loud. You’ve both been to Hades. You’ve both faced the devil.” Laughing under her breath, she shook her head. “I couldn’t have done that.”
Dad patted her hand. “A few days ago, if someone had told you that you were going to face a powerful demon, break someone out of a high-security prison, ride a fire-breathing dragon, and stand on a tank over a volcano while trying to create a musical shield that would keep you from falling into a pit of lava in another world, what would you have said?”
“I would have told them to get a drug test.”
“And you would’ve thought you’d never be able to do it.”
She nodded. “I get your point.”
“I’m sure you get most of it.” He tightened his grasp on her hand, firm but not painful. “Courage isn’t always something you plan. Once in a while you know in advance about difficult times you have to face, and you have a chance to build courage beforehand. We need tests of courage like those. But a lot of opportunities to show courage aren’t mapped out for you. They come without warning. That’s the real test of faith and character—how you react to sudden fear. If danger jumps out at you, of course you get scared. We all get scared. But how you respond makes all the difference.”
He averted his gaze, a faraway look in his eyes, as if searching for more words. She angled her head to read his expression. “Go on,” she whispered. “You can say anything to me. I won’t take it the wrong way.”
A new tear glistening in his eye, he returned his gaze to her. “Well, I guess what I was going to say is this. You have a rare opportunity. You know that danger lies ahead, so you can summon courage beforehand, but at the same time, you have no idea how that danger will show itself, so you can rely on the one who will be with you through every danger.”
“You mean God,” she said with a prodding nod.
“Right.” He looked away again, his voice faltering. “I mean God. He’s never failed us. … Never.”
Lauren tried to catch his gaze again. He seemed to be trying to convince himself of his own words. After fifteen years of isolation, separated from the love of his life, he had held her again for a few precious moments. Then, a vicious demon dragged her away, promising to make her suffer beyond all imagination. H
ow could even the strongest of men hold up against such a battering ram of horrors? Somehow she had to find a way to boost his confidence.
“I suppose it’s like that for you all the time, being ready for danger, I mean. You can sense it coming, so you can look for it.”
“True. But when I’m in Hades, I don’t always feel it. I have to rely on faith, so we’ll both be in the same rocking boat facing the storm together.”
She grinned. “I prefer a steady sofa, a mug of hot chocolate, and a picture window so I can watch the storm while curled under an electric blanket.”
“Maybe we’ll get to do that someday.” He reached for her other hand. “Let’s pray. We’re going to need a lot of help.”
“Uh … sure.” She wedged Apollo between her legs and took his other hand. “Out loud?”
He lifted his brow. “Not used to that?”
Lauren shook her head. “But that’s okay. I want to pray. I mean, I’ll listen to you … if that’s all right.”
“Perfectly all right.” He bowed his head, but just as he began, the blades accelerated, drowning his voice in the whipping drone.
She strained her ears. The words Bonnie and help pierced the noise, and the passion in his tone broke through. As the helicopter lifted off, a tingle spread across her scales, and her father’s words crawled into her ears.
“Bonnie is strong. She is brave. She is willing to give her all, a ripened tree ready to feed someone starving for life, ready to plant her sacrificially spilled seeds in the hearts of others so that they, too, can germinate into fruitful trees and restart the cycle of sacrifice and new life that you began so long ago. I know she will face this trial with faith and courage, but will her love be a dagger turned against her? Tamiel is crafty. He knows her weaknesses. Yet you know them even more intimately.
“I will never forget the day I carried her dead body through the perils of the seventh circle of Hades. I thought all was lost. My courage flagged. My strength waned. When Sir Patrick and Devin argued about what I should do with Bonnie’s body, my weaknesses overwhelmed me. I couldn’t decide, so I just turned her over to you and trusted that you would honor my faith. And, of course, you did.”
After taking a deep breath, he continued. “Now again I am weak. I have no control over this situation. We have only a song to follow and a collection of tools that I made a wild guess about. We are so ill-prepared, I feel like we’re fishing in the ocean while floating in a teacup and waiting for a hurricane boiling on the horizon.”
He gave Lauren’s hands a gentle squeeze. “So I turn my beloved over to you once more. Help both Lauren and me find the courage we need to brave this storm. Bring Bonnie home, but most of all bring glory to yourself through our weaknesses.” After taking another breath, he added, “In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen.” Lauren gazed at her father’s tears, one trickling from each eye. This man was unashamed of his emotions. That took real strength, true masculinity. Even after all that time in prison, he had not grown bitter. No wonder Mom loved him so much.
Soon, the helicopter landed at the bottom of the crater. Lauren, her father, and Marilyn got out. As before, Jared left the blades spinning at half speed. The engine hummed though not loudly enough to force them to shout.
Dad walked several steps from the chopper, eyeing the ground—mostly stone and sand, but a few sprigs of grass grew in depressions where moisture had collected. Snow hadn’t fallen here. Apparently the blizzard stayed south of Montana.
Lauren followed, carrying Apollo. Dad had mentioned two possible portals in the crater. The closer one would be harder to find than the other.
After sliding sand away in several places, he stooped and tapped the ground. “I think it was here.”
“That didn’t take long.” Lauren crouched next to him and set Apollo on the spot.
“I thought it might take longer. It’s been more than fifteen years, but some events never leave your mind. My mother and I had a reunion here after not seeing each other for four years.”
Marilyn joined them, and the three crouched around Apollo. “And then I didn’t see you for fifteen years,” she said. “We’ve been apart more years than we’ve been together.”
“When everyone’s reunited, we should all go somewhere where no one can find us.” Dad slid Apollo a few inches to one side. “The way the connection between Hades and Earth works has always confused me. When the two realms merged, this area was the mobility room in the underground mines, and when the ground above it collapsed, this crater was formed. There was a portal here that led to a cave in the Valley of Shadows in Second Eden. I used it myself. I came back to Earth and found you …” He nodded at Marilyn. “And Yereq camped out in the crater.”
“So you think the portal’s still here?” Lauren asked.
“That’s what Apollo will tell us.” He touched its top. “I’ll let you practice your spectrometer-reading skills.”
Lauren leaned closer and read the digital meter at the center. The default setting, white light, displayed a normal reading for daylight. As she pressed a button that shifted the readout through various frequencies—infrared to ultraviolet to gamma to X-ray—she read the numbers. “The readings are different than they were when we tested it on the way, but they’re not far off. Does that mean a weak portal is here?”
Dad raised his brow. “Mind if I look?”
“Not at all.” She edged away, still crouching. “I’ve never done this before.”
As Dad went through the same process, he chatted without looking up. “You’ll be in charge of sending data to Larry. All you have to do is lay my phone on top of Apollo and turn on its infrared link, then you set it to transmission mode and push its activate button. With the upgrades Carly and Adam installed, we can even send photos and video to Larry from Hades or Second Eden. That way we can stay in touch with Earth.”
Lauren grinned. “Good. I gave Walter a hard time about not taking a camera to Hades. Maybe we’ll get the world’s first photos of that place.”
When Dad finished, he picked up Apollo and extended it toward her. “Good job. The readings do indicate a portal, but it’s probably too hard to open with Apollo. We would need a big fire, something like Sapphira could provide.”
Lauren grasped a dowel. “Disappointed?”
“Not really. This would have been a simple way to get into Second Eden, but the valley where it comes out is filled with creatures called shadow people. I tangled with them way too many times. They can smother you in sticky darkness faster than a tsunami of tar.”
Lauren cringed. That conjured a scary image. Dad had come up with vivid ways of describing his ordeals.
“Then on to the mining tunnel?” Marilyn asked.
Dad touched one of his ears. “What does our radar girl think? Which direction is the song coming from?”
Lauren shook her head. “I have to get away from the noise. The engine’s too loud.”
“Then let’s go.” Dad jumped up and hurried back to the helicopter. He leaned into the cockpit from the passenger door and shouted, “Going back to the prison?”
Jared nodded, his face grim. “We’ll go and get Merlin as soon as we confirm your jump through a portal.”
“I might be running out of the portal with a demon chasing me, so keep your ears on.”
“We will.” Jared waved. “Good-bye, Lauren.”
She waved back. “Good-bye … um … Grandpa.”
A smile warmed Jared’s expression. “Keep glowing.”
She forced a smile of her own. He looked sick, feeble, in pain. Why would the disease work slowly earlier and now worsen so quickly?
Dad tugged on Lauren’s sweatshirt. “Let’s see what your ears can pick up.”
As the trio walked toward the crater’s sheer wall, he whispered to Marilyn, “I sensed danger earlier, but it wasn’t a big deal. I thought it might be a carnivorous animal of some kind, but not anymore. I think it’s human, and
it’s getting closer.”
She nodded. “Jared has a gun, and he can fly away. Don’t worry about him.”
“I’m worried about you. Lauren and I might be in a different world by the time danger shows up.”
She patted her coat. “I have two guns, and I know how to use them.”
“I’ll let you know if the danger spikes.” Dad stopped at a hole in the wall, too low to walk through. “Quiet enough now?”
“I think so.” Lauren trained her ears on the hole. With no tingles erupting on her back, her sensitivity was lower, but the song still came through. “It’s definitely coming from inside.”
“Perfect.” Dad crouched at the entrance. “We’ll have to crawl here, but the clearance improves farther inside.” He dropped to all fours and shuffled through, the coil of rope dragging in one hand and his backpack scraping the top of the entry.
After he and Marilyn disappeared, Lauren followed on one hand and both knees, holding Apollo with her free hand. Her own backpack scraped at times, but not enough to slow her progress.
For a few seconds, light from outside allowed a view of Marilyn’s boots and the seat of her pants, but when they bent around a curve, everything grew dark. After another few seconds, a hand grasped her wrist and helped her rise.
“Well, at least it’s easy to see you.” Dad’s helmet light sent a bright beam knifing around the chamber. “It’s odd that your glow is so clear, but it doesn’t shed light on anything else.”
Lauren touched her cheek. “I don’t really know how it works, just that it’s brighter when I get emotional.”
“It could be a benefit, unless we’re trying to hide.” He turned on her helmet light, sending a second beam across his. “Put Apollo down so it can get a good reading.”
She set Apollo on the floor and sent her beam against the rocky sides of the cave, then on another wall at the back, a dead end.
“Now we’ll see what our little friend has to tell us.” Dad peered at Apollo’s digital meter on its top, its display illuminated from within. “There’s definitely a portal here. The spectral readings are through the roof.”