Rising (30 page)

It was amazing.
 
Death could be knocking at the door with giant dragon wings and fangs
bared and Jeremy would be saying, ‘Awesome, dude.’
 
He was like a gamer geek plunked right down
in the middle of his own fantasy quest.
 
Only, this wasn’t a game.
 
I
turned my attention back to Homer.
 
There
was something important I needed to ask him.

“In your visions,” I stammered, “have you ever
seen a warrior woman, kind of like a Viking?”

Homer’s expression softened and his eyes
twinkled again.

“Of course, I have.
 
The Viking, or Nordic, and Celtic clans were
the last to expel the reapers from our world.
 
From what I’ve seen, the reapers have been here twice before.
 
The first time was many thousands of years
ago when mostly primitive people lived on the earth.”

I thought of the pictographs made by the
ancient people in Cuba.
 
Clara squeezed
my hand.
 
I’d forgotten she was holding
it.

“And, the second time was during the Dark Ages,
which I think now was appropriately named for more than one reason. We have few
records of what happened in that time period.”

“Yeah, but that was because the Black Plague
was killing so many people,” I protested, realizing I was repeating one of Mr.
Hamilton’s history lessons.

“I think now that the Black Plague was more
than a rampant virus.
 
I think there were
also the black giants that were killing just as mercilessly at the same time.”

“Wouldn’t there be some kind of records?
 
Some sign that they existed?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” said Homer
thoughtfully.
 
“With the shadow scouts,
they have the ability to watch people and even make them believe and say things
that may not even be true.
 
Think about
the hysteria that the shadow scouts spread at the football game last night.
 
Once fear takes hold, people will believe
many things.
 
Perhaps, the shadow scouts
ensured that the fear of the plague was spreading, while their masters fed
without detection.
 
Another thing is that
they didn’t have the means of communication that we do now.
 
The reapers could wipe out a whole village
then let the ash-eaters suck up the evidence and no one would ever know they
were even there.
 
Of course, I think
there is evidence in other ways that no one but a
Setti
would catch onto.”
         
“What’s that?” asked Clara
eagerly.

“There are myths about creatures that stalk
vulnerable humans by night and feed on their life force.
 
Do you know what they are?”

“Vampires,” snapped Jeremy.

“Yes.
 
Of
course, that life energy was changed to blood over time.
 
The reapers have been twisted into mythical
monsters, vampires and werewolves, all kinds of boogie-men.
 
I think it’s also interesting that so many
cultures over the centuries have their version of the Grim Reaper.
 
The Romans had a similar creature in their
myths called Charon, the ferryman of the River Styx in the underworld.
 
All gave it different names, but it always
looks very similar to what the ancient clans called
myrkr
jötnar
.
 
And, its purpose
was always linked to death.
”

Something he said bothered me about the
‘mythical creatures.’

“Why did you say that people believed they were
creatures who stalked by night?”

Homer looked puzzled for a minute.

“Oh, I suppose I forgot to mention that.
 
The reapers feed only at night.”

“Why?” asked Jeremy.
 
“Do they get burned by the sun or something,
like vampires?”

“No,” said Homer, chuckling again.
 
He apparently thought Jeremy was pretty
funny, even when he didn’t mean to be.
 
“Actually, during the daytime, they rest by soaking up solar energy,
taking away the light of our world.
 
Have
you not noticed the quickly changing seasons and the cloud cover spreading more
each day?”

Of course, we had.
 
Everyone thought it merely some freakish
climate change.
 
Scientists spouted their
inane theories on a daily basis, speculating and hypothesizing on the
atmosphere’s odd behavior.
 
Most of it
was due to humanity’s abuse of natural resources that seemed to be dooming
us.
 
But, that’s all they had—theories.
 
The truth was, no one knew why temperatures
were dropping more quickly or dark clouds churned everywhere or a hurricane
spawned out of nothing with no solid and logical scientific explanation.
 
Perhaps, the scientists were half right.
 
It was the fault of the human race.
 
But it wasn’t the overabundance of cars and
pollution or the abuse of the earth that caused it.
 
It was our ever-increasing spread of fear in
this world, our faithless abuse of one brother to another that lured these dark
beasts here to feed on the hopeless.
 
The
mere thought of what we’d brought on ourselves made me angry at our own
ignorance.
 
Homer had paused in his reverie,
while we stewed in this new reality.
 

 
“You
know,” continued Homer, “there’s another thing that made me wonder about the
Dark Ages.
 
Have you all heard of that
old nursery rhyme: ‘Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies—”

“Yeah, but that’s about the Black Plague.
 
My history teacher told me about that.
 
It’s a child’s song about filling your pocket
with flowers to keep away the smell of death everywhere, or something like
that,” I said.

“Yes, yes, I know.
 
That’s what’s in the history books.
 
But, think about it again.
 
‘Ring around the
rosie
’
could be symbolic of the circular formation the shadow scouts and reapers form
around their victims before they kill them.”

My mind suddenly wandered to the vision of the
warrior woman, surrounded and impaled by four reapers.
 
I snapped back, while Homer went on.

“The reapers are black, but the Europeans they
devour who made up this little rhyme are generally fleshy pink, or ‘
rosie
.’
 
Then,
there’s ‘a pocket full of posies,’ which could be a reference to the fact that
people in the medieval era carried posies, flowers, to ward off the black
death, meaning the plague.
 
But, the
black death could also mean the black reapers.”

“That’s just weird,” said Clara.
 
“How can flowers keep away these killing
machines?”

“You have to remember,” said Homer, his blue
eyes shiny and brilliant, “that this was a superstitious age.
 
They surely thought these creatures came from
some dark fairy world, which they believed was very real.
 
I know that the Celtic people put floral
wreaths on their doors during pagan holidays to keep fairies and mystical
beings from stealing young maids during the night.”

“How horrible it must’ve been when they came,”
said Clara softly, her voice lilting sadly.

“Yes,” agreed Homer.
 
“Just like the end of the nursery rhyme says,
the flowers do nothing to stop the black death, being the plague or the
reapers.
 
Thus, it ends, ‘ashes, ashes,
we all fall down.’ ”

Homer didn’t need to explain the final
line.
 
I think we all got it.
 
Clara pulled her hand away from mine and
tucked her hair behind her ears nervously.

“Homer,” I said, “you mentioned that you have
visions of these past clans.
 
Well, I’ve
had one, too, but only one.”

I pulled the brown velvet pouch from my pocket
that I’d carried ever since Theresa gave it to me.

“A woman gave this to me who found it in some
ruins in Cuba,” I explained.
 
Homer had a
look of deep understanding on his face.
 
“The stone in here has been in my dreams.
 
I know now that it is the remains of, well,
she was a Vanquisher long ago.
 
When I
held it in my bare hands, I saw her last moments, but she spoke in a language I
couldn’t understand.”

“Old Norse,” said Homer.
 

“Yes, I just realized that recently.
 
But I don’t remember the words enough to try
and translate what she said.”

“I know Old Norse,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Really?”

“I’ve had quite a bit of free time in the past
years out here.”

“Yeah, I bet, without a
tv
or anything,” said Ben sympathetically.
 
“It must be awful.”

Homer just smiled.

“I don’t want all those things distracting me
from what I need to do.
 
I receive
visions best when in solitude.
 
Well,
then, Gabriel, shall we step into your vision and see what the Viking
Vanquisher has to say?”

“You can do that?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course, I can.”

“Of course,” repeated Jeremy, “he’s got that
whole mind’s eye thing
goin
’ on.”

Homer stood up then sat on the coffee table
directly in front of me.
 
I’d never seen
eyes so clear and blue as his.

“Clara, take the stone out for him,” he
said.
 
“If you don’t mind, Gabriel, I’ll
just need to hold onto your arms.
 
I’ll
see the exact vision you see with physical contact.”

“Sure.
 
That’s fine.”

It was better than holding my hands, I guess,
which would’ve been way too weird.
 
His
rough hands grasped my lower forearms.
 
I
glanced at Clara as she held the stone over my open palm.
 
Her hazel eyes were warm and gentle as if she
were comforting me before she let me go to this other place.

“Are you ready?” she asked softly.

Homer had closed his eyes and bowed his
head.
 
I nodded, feeling the weight and
cold sting of the stone in my hands and hearing my last words sound muffled and
distant.

“Here we go.”

12

GABE

Here I was again, watching the fierce woman
warrior defying the beasts to come closer.
 
Something was different this time.
 
I must’ve been propelled several minutes earlier than before.
 
I was seeing more of the memory laced into
the stone.
 
The tall monoliths stood
strong behind her with its swirling wormhole; electricity crackling in
between.
 
There was a bright light
casting a circular glow and another warrior standing behind her.
 
I don’t know how I missed him.
 
His long, dark hair was whipped by a fierce
wind.
 
He held his muscled arms up to the
sky.
 
There were intricate tattoos with
interlacing knots weaving from his wrists all the way up his forearms and
curling slightly to the tops of his biceps.
 
He was a Guardian, holding his halo of protection in place.

“
Heimta
,
Freya!”
he bellowed.

His voice was deep and desperate.
 
The warrior woman he called was edging closer
to the rim of her Guardian’s shield.
 
Something had gone wrong, because their other clansmen lay dead outside
the circle, close to the monoliths.
 
There were nearly a dozen reapers circling the perimeter of the light
shield, all
hooded in strange, black
garments with an unnatural sheen
.
 
I couldn’t see any shadow scouts, but I could feel their menacing
presence.
 
Ash-eaters lingered in the
distance, rustling in the dark.

“
þeir
ar
þróttigr
,
Blyn
!”
she shouted over her
shoulder.

She watched the
circling reapers, edging closer and closer to the border of the halo of
light.
 
She crouched like a cat, waiting
for the first attack.
 
One of the giant
reapers to her left swung his sword-like arm in the air then thrust it down
upon the light shield just above her.
 
Sparks spattered into the air, flinty and bright, but the arm never
penetrated her Guardian’s shield.