The Journey: A Custodes Noctis Story (3 page)
Read The Journey: A Custodes Noctis Story Online
Authors: Muffy Morrigan
They followed—
the car was right behind him so he turned into an antiquated strip mall, dodging between the buildings. Rob heard them stop the car and the sound of pounding feet behind him. If they caught him, it wouldn’t be good. He raced along a small ally, only wide enough for foot traffic. If he could get out from behind the strip mall and into the parking lot of the
Poodle Dog
restaurant
he would be safe. The
restaurant
was not only popular, but it sat on one of the busiest intersections in the area. Rob pushed his
body as hard as he could and
was
sure he was
going to make it.
Something slammed into his back.
H
e fell, his knees
hitting the ground hard, but
was
already rolling over to get back up when they caught him.
Rob was ready to fight—he wasn’t ready for the baseball bat. While he was turning to defend himself, the bat slammed into his knees, driving him down to the ground
again
. The next blow was on his back.
“No! That does no honor!” one of them said. A moment later hands were dragging him up and then the blows began again—this time fists, but it didn’t matter, one eye was already closing, he felt two ribs break.
“Stop! No one move!” The voice was sharp and authoritarian. Rob was dropped, he felt his head crack into a curb, the last thing he was aware of was a man in blue, a badge on his chest
,
bending over him.
****
The deep dark of unconsciousness was familiar. He recognized it from the time after the wreck—he also knew what it meant. He was dying. There had been brief moments of awareness before the dark had settled on him. The blare of lights and sirens, the bite of a needle, hands moving him from stretcher to bed. Then the silence came, the dark place where he hovered between life and death. There was no room for thought
t
here, just that knowledge of death and the disappointment that all he had learned
proved
pointless in the end.
The trickle of light was so small at first, he didn’t notice it. It slowly began moving through him, healing and taking the pain away. The light was familiar, and he was sure he could hear Galen’s voice. He wondered if he had stepped over into the Other World and this was how you awoke in that realm
—even though he had not yet dropped into the glittering lake he remembered. However, if that was true
why was the healing light pulsing through his body, gently repairing the damage the beating had done? The question was still hovering in his mind when he eased from unconsciousness and into sleep.
Rob slowly woke. He could smell coffee—a
nd not very good coffee at that. I
t had a sour note to it that he was sure meant it had been cooking for far too long. It was the scent of cafeteria coffee, cheap beans
stored wrong
, then brewed with water that wa
s the wrong temperature and
kept warm on a hot plate. Somewhere in the back of his mind he laughed. More than once he’d been accused of snobbery over that part
icular beverage, and in the end
he had to admit he was a complete coffee snob. As he crept a little closer to fully awake, he realized that the whisper
of the bond
against his heart that had started after the ritual was now a steady hum.
A warm, gentle hum that was more comforting than anything he’d ever experienced. He opened his eyes. Light was pouring through the window and a tall figure was standing there
with his back to Rob. He
blinked again, the silhouette was familiar
, the quicksilver light flowing around him was the same as it had been even though
the man
was
a little more muscular
than Rob
remembered
,
and the brown hair was longer than it had been, but it was… It had to be… The ritual had worked! His heart began to pound.
“Hello?” he said, unsure if the spirit of his brother would hear him.
The figure turned and walked towards the bed. “Rob,” Galen said, his dark green eyes bright.
“Galen?” Rob whispered, feeling tears in his eyes. It worked! It didn’t matter if Galen was still dead, he was
t
here,
and
that was all that mattered. The ritual worked.
“Hey, Brat.” Galen sat down
, the bed creaking a little under him as he
did
.
That made no sense. “Galen?” Rob
asked again, reaching out to
the spirit of
his brother.
Galen made a noise half laugh, half sob, and pulled Rob up into a hug so tight it made Rob’s still bruised ribs ache a little. It didn’t matter. Galen was there, solid enough to hug him, the bond
no longer whispering
. “It’s okay, Rob,” Galen said softly. There was
a thought—Rob almost caught it,
but it was gone before he could focus.
“You’re dead,” Rob said, wondering if it was a question or a statement.
“I was,” his brother replied, tears tracking over his face. “I’m better now.”
Rob swallowed hard, trying to get his mind around that. He’d felt Galen die, he’d been the one who stopped his heart. He wasn’t sure how the ritual returned people to serve
.
“Galen? Are you sure you’re alive?”
“Yeah.” Galen laid his hand on Rob’s leg and the bond opened completely
, slowly knitting itself together until it was as strong as it had been on the day they parted. He could feel the edge of his brother’s emotion. For all the calm on his face, Galen was nearly shattered. “I’m pretty sure I’m alive.”
Rob frowned, wondering where that emotion in Galen was coming from—there was
something but what was it?
Guilt? Grief?
Whatever the emotion was, it was there, marring the bright quicksilver light
that surrounded his brother
.
They would have to deal with that—Rob caught his breath, the tears still tumbling out of his
eyes. They would have time.
Galen wasn’t returned from the dead because of the ritual.
He was alive
.
Alive.
Before he could let his emotions run away with him, he took a breath and looked around. “Hospital?”
“You were brought in yesterday morning,” Galen said, scrubbing the tears off his face.
“Yesterday?”
He’d been out that long?
“What happened?”
“You were attacked, the police brought you in.”
Rob cast back through his mind, tr
ying to find what had happened. There was only the memory of pain.
“I don’t remember.” He frowned. “Can we go?”
“We need to get you checked out by the doc first, then we can go.”
“I don’t like hospitals, Galen,”
Rob said, swallowing
.
He never had, he could see illness and death
. When he was a child
and
h
a
d
t
a
stay in the
hospital to get his tonsils out it had almost been too much. Even though Galen did his best
to keep him calm, the experience
left him haunted by the images for years.
What happened when he was thirteen had just solidified that dislike into loathing.
“You know why.”
“I know. I’ll go see if I can fin
d someone, then we can go home,” Galen said
, a soft note, not quite
a sob
,
in his voice.
“Home?”
Rob said, feeling a longing suddenly for that quiet shop he’d known when he was young. The large apartment over the store was filled with the light of love and the power and protection of generations of
Custodes Noctis
.
Galen smiled,
tears in his eyes as the light around him brightened.
“Yeah, Rob. Home.”
Rob smiled back at Galen, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge
of the bed. “Go find someone,
I’m ready to head home, Galen.”
“It’s time,” his brother said—or maybe thought—Rob wasn’t sure.
“Past time,” Rob answered, feeling lighter than he had in years. “But it’s all good now.
Let’s head home.”
About the Author
Born in California,
Muffy
Morrigan
began her writing career at the age of six, when after completing her first hand written novel she attempted to sell it to the neighbors for the lofty price of ten cents.
After myriad careers, including archaeological consultant, teacher, herbalist, shop keeper, news editor, reporter and columnist, she has settled in to her first love and passion--writing.
A popular panelist at science fiction, fantasy and
steampunk
conventions, she has presented topics on everything from writing to Victorian medicine. She was a Featured Guest at Stan Lee's
Comikaze
Expo 2012 and Author Guest of Honor at
Pandoracon
2012. She currently lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.
A portion of the proceeds from this work wi
ll go to support
Gastroparesis
A
wareness.
Author Links
Twitter @
muffymorrigan
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/MuffyMorriganAuthor
The Custodes Noctis on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/CustodesNoctis
The Sail Weaver on Facebook
The Custodes Noctis Series
The Legacy
The Legacy is the first in the
Custodes
Noctis
—Keepers of the Night—Series. Galen
Emrys
should be paired with his younger brother as the
Emrys
Keepers, providing safety and protection to the world as generations of
Custodes
Noctis
had before them. But a tragic past and an abiding evil has left Galen alone, unwilling and unable to take up the role on his own. With the unexpected arrival of his brother, who believed Galen was dead, Galen must face both their past and present to defeat a legacy of ancient evil that has haunted his family for generations.
The Hunt
More than a thousand years ago, the Hunt was founded to ride the Between World. Long believed to be a punishment for
Custodes
Noctis
who have denied their destiny, the riders of the Hunt became the stuff of nightmare and legend. Ten years ago, Galen
Emrys
denied his destiny in a desperate attempt to save his family—and the world.
With his brother Rob’s return they faced that fate together, but the past does not forget. The call of the Hunt is back, sounding clearly for Galen, and even as he fights the call, he and Rob discover that joining the Hunt—and possibly losing themselves to darkness forever—might be the only hope they have to stop something far, far worse from rising and devouring the world.
The Summoning
The
Earth has long been the battleground between the forces of Light and Dark. There have been wars that have torn the world apart many times. The
Custodes
Noctis
were cr
eated to help fight those wars and through the millennia have faced many Dark foes and driven them through the Veil into the Between World.
But the world is changing. Things are stirring that have not seen the light of day for epochs. The oldest family of
Custodes
Noctis
—the
Emrys
—have fought on the side of the Light for thousands of years. Now, Rob
Emrys
is being called by something sinister and unseen, a command he must obey. While his brother, Galen, desperately attempts to save him, Rob finds himself unwillingly summoned to what could very possibly be his death—or worse.