preyed on the lesser races. They called themselves the Na’Karat, but it was their habit of swooping down out of a dark night sky to attack their prey that earned them the nickname, ‘Nightshades’. They hunted many different kinds of creatures, but enjoyed hunting those primeval humans more than any other type of game. Man had more intelligence, and therefore had a richer, deeper notion of fear, and it was fear that the Nightshades were after. They fed on the meat, but it was the fear that sustained them, fear that fulfilled their warped sense of spiritual need.
'Where the Elders sought to help the humans, the Nightshades wanted nothing more than to allow them to wallow in their primitiveness. They were cattle, nothing more, and the Nightshades treated them as such, herded and corralled and hunted for the sustenance they could provide.'
'So, what happened?'
'War happened, Sam. War. The Elders couldn’t sit idly by and watch this occur. They went to arms against the Nightshades and swore the conflict would not end until the humans were freed and allowed to prosper as befitted an intelligent race. Where once was peaceful coexistence, now was racial hatred. Vast armies marched out of our great cities.'
'Armies led by those who would later become legends — Michael, Uriel, even Gabriel — marched onto the fields of battle. Down out of the sky came the ‘Shades to greet them, in numbers so vast the brilliant blue above was blotted out by their forms.'
Sam could see it all in his mind’s eye, his writer’s imagination filling in the details. He saw the armies of the Elders marching off to war, their raiment golden in the sunlight. He imagined heroic stands against incalculable odds, the armies of good triumphing over those of darkness, conveniently forgetting that war is never that simple or bloodless.
He realized suddenly that it had gone quiet. Gabriel was sitting and studying him. Sam felt uncomfortable under the intensity of that gaze but he wanted to hear the end. 'Who won?' he asked.
Gabriel smiled a tight, bitter smile in response. 'No one won, Sam. Battle after battle raged, the best of both races lying to rot in the bright sunlight of those fields strewn with the dead. Cities crumbled under the onslaught and the dark caverns of the Nightshades were routed and destroyed. The numbers on each side dwindled. Yet still they fought on in their stubbornness, the war continued on not for the noble reasons it had begun but out of pure hatred and vengeance for all those who had fallen before. Every man, woman and child on both sides joined in the struggle. Before long, what had once been a glorious civilization was now a decrepit ruin. The few surviving members on either side saw the destruction, and mourned for what had passed from the world. They kept on fighting until there were too few remaining for the races to survive. Both the Elders and the Nightshades dwindled in number, bled into extinction by their own foolishness. Out of the ashes of their conflict came Man, for he had watched and learned as the battle raged. Freed from the one predator that had effectively culled their numbers, they multiplied rapidly. The wisest of them remembered the lessons that the Elders had taught them and slowly led the others in that long climb toward civilization.'
At that moment Sam’s beeper went off, signaling that another patient somewhere on the floor needed him.
'Damn!' he swore, not wanting to leave.
As if sensing Sam’s thoughts, Gabriel smiled and said, 'Go on, Sammy. It’s all right. I’m sure we’ll speak of this again some other time.'
Sam thanked him for the story and slipped out the door, his thoughts on the Elders and the sacrifice they might have made for mankind had the tale been true.
Behind him, in that last, lonely room on the left, the final member of an all but forgotten race smiled another tired smile.
It was done.
The seeds had been sown.
All that was left was to see if they bore fruit.
After all that had happened that day, Jake didn’t feel like being alone. Sam was at work, so hanging with him and talking it all over was out of the question. While Sam was allowed visitors, especially during the night shift when no one else was around to tell him differently, Jake didn’t feel like making the forty-five minute ride into Glendale.
A quick glance at his watch told him Katelynn would be home by now, so he turned his Jeep in that direction and drove across town to her place.
As he neared the top of her walk he realized that she was sitting in the large swing on her front porch.
'Hi. You look tired,' she said, as he sat down next to her.
'You have no idea,' he replied. 'Hey, is that new?' He pointed to the red gemstone she wore on a gold chain about her neck.
'Sam’s friend, Gabriel sent it over this afternoon with a note saying it was his way of saying thanks for spending time with him this morning. I called and told him I could not accept something so obviously expensive, but he sweet-talked me into keeping it.' She smiled. 'So what the heck. How did the morning go?'
'You’re never going believe it, Katelynn.' He told her about the day he and Sam had shared; the discovery of the break-in, the investigation of the tunnel, their finding Kyle’s body deep underground.
Listening to him, Katelynn understood the source of the feelings of unease she’d had the night before. She’d suspected they’d find something unusual, but she never would have thought they’d find a corpse.
At least not yet.
'A secret tunnel from the house leading to the family crypt? Sounds like one of Sam’s novels, Jake.'
'No kidding. The Sheriff was ticked that I opened the door, but he got over it pretty quickly. I think he was as spooked as I was over the whole thing.'
'What do you think happened to Kyle?'
'I don’t know. The Sheriff thinks it was a drug overdose, something like that.' Jake chuckled, 'Sam would probably tell you that an ancient curse had just arisen to claim its first victim.'
The two talked on for another hour before calling it a night, never realizing how close to the truth Jake’s comment had actually been.
Chapter Twelve: Bloodstone
The dream begins innocently enough.
In her sleep, Katelynn moves through an amusement park with Jake at her side. Sights and sounds slip past in a kaleidoscope of activity. Flashing lights, turning wheels, the harsh bark of a carny’s voice. They ride the Tilt-a- Whirl, then the Viking Longboat. Jake wins her a teddy bear by knocking down milk bottles with a softball. It is a typical dream, skipping from scene to scene with no real connectivity, yet somehow making sense just the same.
Suddenly, a flashing red light intrudes from the other side of the carnival. A light so sharp, so insistent, that Katelynn is drawn irrevocably toward it. Jake fades into obscurity behind her as she moves out of his reach. The light draws her forward, and the cacophony on all sides slips away into oblivion as all of her attention is tied up in chasing that insistent beacon.
In reality, Katelynn tosses and turns beneath the sheets, the ruby red stone about her throat pulsing with light.
She sleeps on and the carnival fades away, replaced with a thick gray haze that swirls around her in lazy spirals, shifting and churning. The light shines before her, closer now, hidden somewhere in the depths of that mist.
Katelynn stumbles in after it.
The haze shifts, and Katelynn finds herself standing before the light as it hangs motionless in the air before her. It shines vividly, cutting through the murk, pulsing with an eerie life. Katelynn watches as her arm lifts of its own accord and reaches to touch it…
She soars high above the ground, carried aloft like a glider tossed into a storm. The wind is cool, flickering
