Keeper of the Black Stones (15 page)

Paul paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Whatever,” he mumbled. “You're starting to creep me out.” He turned his flashlight down to the hole in the ground and coughed. “So, uh, who goes first?”

I straightened up. “I'll do it. It's only fair. Keep your light on, though. I don't want to fall.”

When my feet hit the ground a couple minutes later, I looked up at the trap door. “Okay, your turn,” I called up. I heard a moan, and the creak of the ladder above me. In less than a minute, Paul was by my side.

“What is this place?” he asked breathlessly. We were in a dark underground room, much smaller than our basement. The room was lined in thick concrete blocks. There was no light coming from the outside, and I guessed that the room was probably soundproof as well. Not a room built for entertaining. A room built for keeping secrets.

Paul found a cord in the ceiling and pulled it. We both jumped as several light bulbs clicked on and flooded the room with harsh artificial light. The light revealed a small metal desk with an old wooden chair against the back wall. A computer monitor and hard drive sat on top of the desk, along with several pens and pencils and one red three-ring notebook. Beside the desk stood two wooden bookshelves, filled to bursting with books. Next to those, a large map of England was taped to the concrete wall.

I ran my eyes over the map to the floor on the left, and froze. The desk and map were odd, but at least they were everyday items. The large black slab of stone lying next to them was not. The cold chill ran down my spine again, and I shuffled backward several steps.

“Oh my God, is that it?” Paul asked nervously.

I ignored the question and inched my way forward, toward the stone.
It was large, perhaps 7 to 8 feet wide and 10 to 11 feet long. Easily 3 to 4 inches thick. Hundreds of symbols were etched into the dark surface, in a language I'd never seen before. The stone was glossy, but didn't reflect light the way it should. Instead, it seemed to suck the light from the room around us, building its own dark aura. And it hummed. I could feel the pulse of the stone in my bones, like a giant, steady heartbeat. It beat again and again, matching my own heartbeat, and I forgot to breathe. Doc hadn't been lying, then. The stone did speak to him. And it called to me the same way it called to him. I'd been hearing it for days. I just hadn't realized it.

As I stood there, transfixed and listening, the writing on the stone began to glow. I blinked and looked again, to see that the glow was gone.

“Did you see that?” I gasped, reaching for Paul and taking my eyes off the stone for the first time.

“See what?” Paul whispered. “The only thing I see is that creepy stone.”

“The symbols … I think they moved,” I said, surprised that Paul hadn't seen it.

Paul shook his head. “Didn't see anything like that, buddy.” He took a step toward the stone and bent over to look at it.

I followed slowly, wondering if I'd been seeing things. Then the humming started again, louder than before. This time it went straight to my head, and I gasped and fell to my knees. The stone thrummed louder, and took on its eerie glow, burning brighter and brighter until the symbols themselves lifted up off the surface. They hovered just above the stone's surface, ghostly, fiery reflections of their physical counterparts. Then they began to move, dancing around the edges of the stone to the humming rhythm of its heart.

“Holy…” I breathed. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

“Hey, what on earth are you doing?” Paul asked nervously.

I stood, keeping my eyes fixed on the dance in front of me. “You're honestly telling me that you can't see that?” I whispered.

“See what? This isn't funny anymore.”

Paul grabbed my arm, and the dance ended as abruptly as it had begun. The symbols fell back into place, and the stone lost its glow. I moaned quietly. The symbols had been strange, eerie, and frightening, but they'd also been surprisingly familiar. Losing them was almost physically painful. I focused on the stone, trying to bring them back, or make the slab glow again.

“So how exactly does this thing work?” Paul asked, breaking my focus.

I cleared my throat and tried to find my voice. “Doc didn't exactly leave directions in his journal. He just said that the stone … spoke to him.”

“Well what the heck does that mean? That stone doesn't look like it has any kind of speech capabilities.”

I smiled. “Actually, I think I know exactly what it means.”

Paul didn't hear me, and reached out to touch the stone. “So this is it,” he said, bending down. “This is the stone that can take us into the past.”

“Stop! What are you doing?” I grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

“I'm just touching it. Why?”

“I don't know. Who knows what might happen? Maybe you're not supposed to touch it,” I answered.

“Ah.” Paul nodded. “Good point.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets.

As he spoke, though, a jolt of energy shot from the stone into my bones, and the unearthly glow returned. I felt an irresistible urge to put my own hands on the stone, and allow the symbols to race across my skin. Confused, I closed my eyes, trying to focus and clear my head. All I could feel, all I could hear, was the stone's humming, drowning out all other sight and sound. Drowning out thought. Then it was gone, leaving in its place a feeling of calm contentment. Of readiness. And a clear, precise light in my mind.

I could feel the stone beneath my hands, as though I were already touching it. My mind explored the deep, cold grooves in the surface, and felt the light touch of the symbols as they moved. A shot of heat moved from the stone, through my hands, and down my spine.

“I wonder what the symbols mean,” Paul said quietly.

I heard him through the haze of the stone, like he was standing on the other side of a wall, or under water. I suddenly became acutely aware of my surroundings–the smell of mildew and garlic, the friction of a cricket rubbing his back legs together outside. I could taste the sodium that clung to the salt water embedded in the concrete of the walls around us, and felt Paul's heart beat as if it were in my own chest. I heard sounds that didn't make any sense. Horses running, and the sound of metal screeching against metal. Men yelling, or cheering.

Looking down, I saw a hazy, half-formed path in front of my feet. Listening closely, I heard exactly where it would lead. And when.

I opened my eyes, breaking the spell, and turned to face Paul. His face had gone slack and white as he stared at me.

“I know exactly what the symbols mean,” I said quietly.

“How do you know that?” Paul asked.

“Because,” I replied slowly, “the stone just told me.”

Reis Slayton jerked awake, then lifted his head and sat up. He looked around, confused at the unfamiliar surroundings, and then remembered. The Evans family–grandfather and boy. One odd friend. Mission–protect against unknown threat. Reis sat still, waiting for his heart rate to return to its normal rhythm. His bed sheets were wet with sweat, despite the cool temperature inside the house, and he sighed. How many years, and he was still waking up like this. The logical part of his brain tried to remind him that the dreams couldn't hurt him–those things had happened in the past, and couldn't come through to his current reality. After all these years, and the continuing nightmares, he was starting to wonder if that were true. If his subconscious–his own personal ghosts–would ever forgive him, and let him rest again.

He moved instinctively to place his right forefinger on the left side of his chest, searching for the built-up scar tissue just above his heart. These scars were painful reminders of the three 9-mm bullets that had torn into his body nearly three years ago. There were nine other visible scars over his chest and abdomen, wounds he'd been lucky to survive. But none of the physical wounds were as painful as the wounds and nightmares he still carried in his head. Those were scars that ran much deeper than Reis cared to admit to himself, even in his frankest moments. To Reis, the scars were a form of penance. A reminder of someone he had once loved, and the price he had paid for failing to save her. He had survived for a reason, he thought, though he couldn't understand what that reason was. Why had fate led him here, to protect a kid in the middle of nowhere?

He sighed, then stood up and made his way to the window, seeking to put his mind at ease with the dark of the night. He poked his finger through the blinds and looked out, searching for nothing in particular. Sudden movement in the yard below drove all thoughts of the past out of his mind.

A stray light appeared under the garden shed's door, shooting out into the heavy fog in the yard. Someone was inside the shed, and about to come out. Reis glanced at his clock, and saw that it was 1:47AM. No one had any good reason for being out there at this time of night. He was reaching for his 9mm Browning automatic, which he always kept at the ready, when the door to the shed opened and two people stepped out.

Reis jerked his gun up, then recognized the boys and set it down slowly. Below him, Jason turned and put the lock back on the shed's door, then turned back toward the house. Reis stepped closer to the window and watched the duo creep back toward the house, and through the door.

“What the…” he mumbled to himself. What the hell were the boys doing in the shed this late at night? And why were they sneaking around like they'd just murdered someone and hidden the body? Reis turned from the window when he heard the door shut in the mudroom below, and listened closely. No excited whispers or nervous laughter. Whatever the boys had been up to, it had scared them enough to keep them quiet. Probably served them right. Reis grunted thoughtfully and snapped the blinds shut behind him.

He had no idea why Fleming was paying him to babysit the old man and his grandson, and that lack of knowledge made him distinctly nervous. If this kid was prone to sneaking around in the middle of the night, it would make his mission even more difficult. He sighed, shook his head, and walked to his closet, where he pulled out the green duffel bag that housed his personal armory. As long as he was going to be awake talking to himself–and watching for more midnight excursions–he could use the time to prepare for whatever lay ahead. His instincts were telling him that this job would either be extremely boring or incredibly difficult. Being prepared was the best he could do, for now.

10

“W
hat's going on? Why are you wigging out on me?”

I slammed my bedroom door behind us without replying, and rushed to my desk to turn on my computer.

“Are you going to tell me or what?” Paul asked anxiously. “What was that all about?”

I motioned sharply for him to keep it down, then took a deep breath and tried to calm down myself. My senses had returned to normal as soon as we got in the house; I couldn't feel Paul's heart anymore, or hear a cricket scratching its legs, or smell the water in a damp wall. But my heart was still racing, so I knew I hadn't dreamt it. All of those things had been real, and they'd come from the stone. The dancing symbols had been real, too. Paul hadn't seen them, but there were a million possible reasons for that. The symbols–and what they'd told me–were true. They weren't sane, or normal, and they certainly weren't rational, but I'd never been more sure of anything in my life.

Now I just had to figure out how to use them.

I outlined for Paul what I'd seen, including as much solid detail as possible. To his credit, he sat and listened without interrupting or asking any stupid questions. I glanced at him as I finished, wondering how he was going to react. His face was completely expressionless.

“You're looking at me like I'm crazy,” I observed quietly.

Paul jumped, then grinned. “You're over reacting. This is how I always look at 2AM.”

I smiled at his joke and relaxed marginally, thankful for a friend who could tell jokes in the face of that kind of story.