Elect II—10 Green People, part 2 of 3

December 6, 2016December 2, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Monday morning, Doctor Singh met with the new hire in the biology department.

“Doctor Assur, it is good to have you on the staff at last,” Professor Singh was clearly delighted. Doctor Assur merely looked around the small office and saw that it was at least a corner office.

“Who had this office?”

Professor Singh knew the question would come up. “Doctor Hilde, Biochemistry. He got involved in the Pentagon project last year and is no longer with us.”

“Is there money?”

“Well, yes, some. The school has a research reputation. There is some NSF money. Orlov and Maynard have some CDC money,” Professor Singh paused and understood. “Oh, there is a small budget. You can give me the expenses for furniture and such, and as long as it is not extravagant, I am sure the university will reimburse you.

“What about quiet?”

“Oh yes. This year all is quiet. Orlov, Maynard, myself and the others are very quiet people.”

“Good. Now if only we could get the students to shut-up, right?”

Professor Singh tried to smile.

###

Monday evening, Maria and Emily cornered Professor Orlov. He seemed in a hurry, but they handed him the papers before he could escape. They had discussed it and determined that Orlov and Maynard were the most obvious suspects, and maybe the only suspects.

“From the coroner’s office,” Maria said.

“Apparently there are a number of mindless young people rampaging around the woods behind the parade ground,” Emily added.

“The baseball field?” Professor Orlov wanted to be sure he knew where she was talking about. “What do you mean, mindless?”

Maria pointed to the papers, and the professor took a minute to read. He said only one thing while he was reading, and it was softly spoken, like he was not aware he said it out loud. “No,” he said. “That’s not right.” He looked up at the girls and waved the papers. “Mind if I keep these. I need to examine the findings closely and check out a couple of things.”

“No, fine. We were hoping you might help us track down what might be happening.” The professor grabbed his briefcase and shot out of the room in a hurry and without another word.

“I would say we got his attention,” Maria said. Emily just nodded. The janitor was there and he wanted to close up the science building for the night.

###

As the light broke above the horizon on Tuesday morning, Amina brought a troop of police armed with dart guns into the forest behind the parade ground. Melissa went with her, as she said, for moral support.

“No one is making a record of this?” Melissa had to ask. Her magic would not show up on camera except in the effects, but Melissa was mostly shy when it came to magic in public.

Millsaps answered. “Any blabbing to reporters is grounds for dismissal.” He moved several yards away from the girls. It was not really what Melissa was asking, but it was good to know.

“Jessica would be better at this,” Amina was not keen on the idea of getting too close to the mindless ones.

Melissa shook her head. “We know where they are, just not exactly where or how many.”

“You can’t catch it if they bite you, can you?” Officer Rob Parker asked. He was assigned to stay with the girls.

“No, they are not zombies, I mean like in the movies,” Melissa answered. “Julie and Maria have ruled out any danger to us all, unless one of us is tempted to eat one of their brains, we can’t get contaminated.” Melissa picked her boots way up against the grass which was still tall despite the winter. She watched her steps and so she did not see the look of disgust that crossed Officer Parker’s face at the idea of eating someone’s brains. She also bumped into Amina when Amina stopped suddenly.

Amina shook her head. “I cannot see them well. It is like they are an empty space in the world that should not be there, like they are absent and that makes a hole.”

“What?” Millsaps stepped over to hear. The whole line of police had stopped.

“The space is behind those trees and up in the trees. They are becoming active with the light. Please. I don’t want to look anymore.”

Millsaps nodded. “Stay here.” He waved to both sides of the police line and pointed to the trees and also pointed up in the trees. They started forward. Amina, Melissa and officer Parker watched, and listened.

Very quickly there were screams and screeches and howls like howler monkeys defending their territory. Amina knew a few would break through the police line and she dreaded finding her way to those last mindless souls. Their very existence scratched against her senses like coarse sandpaper. She feared if she examined them too closely she might start to weep and not be able to stop. She could not identify them, who they once were, and that, at least, was a blessing.

Her thoughts were interrupted when two of them came rushing out from the trees and headed straight toward them. Officer Parker got to one knee to be sure he struck his targets. He squeezed the trigger twice, slowly, and the mindless ones staggered, stumbled, and went down like the tranquilized beasts they had become.

Amina drew in her breath and looked to the side as she felt another one. Melissa had him. She had her hands up and one hand sweated around her wand. The young man looked frozen in place and would remain that way as long as Melissa’s strength held out. Rob Parker squeezed off another shot and the young man’s eyes rolled up and he fell to the grass even as Amina screamed.

“Joel!”

Elect II—10 Green People, part 1 of 3

December 5, 2016December 2, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Sunday evening, Julie Tam, the Chief Medical Examiner stood at the head of the room. She had slides. Lisa and Ashish sat in the front row with Emily and Priestess Sara. Lisa and Sara were getting along great, though Lisa was ten years older. Melissa, Maria, officer Rob Parker and officer Millsaps sat in the second row. Millsaps said he was protecting the coffee and donuts. Mindy, Amina, Jessica and Heinrich Schultz sat in the third row. Mitzy from the police desk was behind them but just to take notes. Latasha came in late, two girls in tow, grabbed a coffee and donut and sat in the fourth row beside Mitzy.

Jessica whispered to Heinrich. “I usually sit back in the third row in class. The ones up front get called on.” Heinrich nodded, but hushed her as Julie saw Latasha come in and immediately got everyone’s attention. When Mitzy got the lights turned off, Julie put up the first slide.

It was a row of bodies in the morgue, all young men and all pale. “There is no blood in them,” Julie said without emotion. “But I found traces of what for a time I thought was arsenic, the same as I thought killed our Janet.” Julie acknowledged Latasha who looked stoic about it. “Then I found this.” She went through three more slides and all showed a two-fanged bite mark on the bodies.

“Vampires?” Melissa asked softly, her voice trembling.

“Not vampires,” Emily and Lisa spoke together.

“It looks to me like a spider bite,” Julie said as she took a ruler to the white wall. She put it up as if to measure between the fangs. “But my measurements suggest that if it is a spider it is bigger than any on earth. The poison imitates arsenic. It is quick and final, and then my guess is the spider has lunch on the victim’s blood.”

“Go back to the first slide.” Lisa waved at Julie. She clearly saw something.

Julie nodded and when she arrived, Lisa pointed. “Carl Weathers and Leon Johnson. They are all drug dealers, and local.”

Ashish spoke up. “If we can get all the names, we might narrow down the exact area.”

“I know all of them,” Latasha whispered. Ashish heard and nodded in her direction.

Julie understood that they would get the information from Latasha later and prepared to move on to the next topic. She looked grim. “This next slide is gruesome,” she warned them and flipped forward again to the correct slide. It was a living room, but one covered in blood, and the blood was splattered everywhere, most noticeably on the walls and around the fireplace. Julie took her ruler and pointed out several things as she spoke. “A leg bone, part of a skull from a six-year-old, and the chewed bone from a forearm. This creature or these creatures do not appear to be interested in blood one way or the other. In the first house we found almost nothing but blood. This is the third, and they all appear to have happened after Thanksgiving. In the first house, the turkey was still on the table, untouched.”

Julie went to the next slide. It was hair samples, coarse and golden. “Whatever kind of animal this is; it does not appear to match any animal known on earth.” Heinrich sat up straight and put his hand out as if trying to touch the hair through the slide before he spoke.

“I have heard of this kind of thing only once.” Heinrich pulled his hand back. “Night creatures. But I was not involved and I have no clear idea how it ended. I might be able to confirm it if I can see the samples.” He turned to Mindy. “Set animals.”

Mindy nodded. “Big surprise they are not a myth.”

Lisa turned around to Mindy. “Can you get me pictures?”

Mindy nodded again. “And whatever information I can surmise. That should not take long. There is not much information.”

Meanwhile, Julie was at the computer getting into a different program. “This last is most disturbing of all,” she said as she played the video. “Recorded by a pedestrian on his phone. This just came in yesterday.” It was a half-dozen boys and three girls all bouncing around the base of a tree by the little woods that grew at the back of the parade ground. The photographer was standing on the parallel street.

One boy began to climb the tree, and the others followed. “The man said they were all screeching and howling like a bunch of animals.” Julie talked over top. “He said he knew college kids could sometimes act strange, but this seemed extraordinary. None of the kids ever spoke a coherent word.” At the top of the tree, two young men began to fight, like it was some contest to see who could touch the very top first. There were no punches or such things. It looked through the poor quality video like they were slapping and scratching each other. Then they fell. One went straight to the ground and hit hard. The other appeared to crack his back on a big branch before he slid off and finished the journey. The video cut off and Julie paused the recording.

“The man called 9-1-1,” Julie said. “The one who hit the branch died. The one who hit the ground spent all of yesterday in the hospital, strapped down. I did an autopsy on the one that died. I found his brain, all but the cerebellum, the lower, animal portion, was atrophied. My suspicion is a virus, possibly some new kind of plague. The staff and I were careful not to touch the brain unprotected. None of us have shown any symptoms. My guess is the disease, if that is what it is, cannot be caught through the air. How it came to infect these students is beyond me.”

“The brain atrophied?” Maria asked.

“Yes. Completely non-functional. All centers of memory, logic, thinking if you will, were useless. The man is for all practical purposes no more than an animal.” Julie turned the video back on, and it was a much better recording of the young man in a hospital bed, growling, howling, yanking and tugging on his straps. “The man bloodied himself trying to escape. Two nurses were touched by the blood. They are in isolation, quarantine just to be safe. Meanwhile, all they have been able to do for the poor young man is keep him sedated. We might have to keep him in a cage eventually, for his own protection as well as ours.”

Jessica had her hand up. “I saw three students like that,” she said, and everyone turned to her. “I came out of environmental science and three of them were screeching and bouncing around a small fire made with twigs. I thought they were playing caveman or some stupid college thing, but when I came up close, they ran off.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Maria asked.

Jessica shrugged. “College kids do act strange sometimes. But then one of them should have been in Maynard’s class. I told her she missed class, but she just shrieked at me.” Jessica shrugged. “Maynard makes me shriek sometimes, too.”

“There is a connection there.” Amina said as the video finished and Mitzy turned the lights back on.

“I feel it too,” Emily said quietly, and thought about her encounter with the pajama man. Maria spoke to Julie.

“Professor Orlov is teaching anatomy and physiology. Do you have some notes we could share with him?”

Julie smiled as she got the copies of her notes. She came prepared.

“Latasha?” Lisa spoke up.

“If there is a giant spider terrorizing my neighborhood, I am going spider hunting.” She turned to look at her friends. They did not seem too keen about that idea.

“I have the night creatures,” Lisa said, but she assumed as much before the meeting began. “Latasha, if you find the spider, don’t go it alone. Get back-up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Maybe I could help you track it,” Jessica offered. “Being a hunter has to be good for something.” Everyone talked about the spirit of Artemis in her, like it was some special power or something, but Jessica could not see it. This would be a test, a private test for Jessica to see if that spirit of Artemis meant anything or not.

Elect II—9 Clues, part 3 of 3

November 30, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Latasha went to the movies with Wendy and Mini, and she did not ask Keisha if she wanted to come along. Keisha was not speaking to her. Somehow, Keisha twisted things to the point where she blamed Latasha for Janet’s death. If Latasha just let Janet have her boyfriend. If she did not make Janet feel so guilty into revealing the drug deal in the parking garage. If Latasha had not become such a righteous ass, thinking she was going to join the police force, Janet would still be alive.

Latasha explained in her most exasperated voice. “It was the bad guys who killed Janet. Why do you want to keep me from putting the bad guys in jail?” But Keisha would not listen, so Latasha went to the movies with Wendy and Mini.

The movies were a safe place. The girls could talk or just watch the film, depending on how things worked out. They were not stuck at someone’s house with potentially awkward silences. Wendy and Mini wanted to see if they could still be friends with Latasha, and Latasha needed to find out the same thing. It turned out, freshman year off made little difference. They slipped back into the same relationships and even laughed when they remembered the same jokes they used to laugh at. It was good.

Of course, all through grade school, Wendy and Mini, Janet, Keisha and Latasha were all friends. Wendy and Mini only started to back away during middle school when Wendy decided she wanted to be a lawyer and Mini thought she might be an accountant, like her father. Now that Latasha had some direction and her grades were improving, Wendy and Mini were open to being friends again. Latasha was glad until on the way out they heard the scream

Latasha ran toward the scream. Wendy and Mini hardly knew what else to do, so they followed. It came from around the corner at the dark end of the parking lot. Latasha found a man, dead. He was about twenty-eight, dark hair, looked Hispanic, and there were little packets of drugs on the blacktop all around. Latasha guessed she startled whatever was going down.

When Wendy and Mini arrived, Latasha found her eyes drawn up the side of the building. Someone, or something appeared to be climbing directly up the brick side of the movie theater. She could not be sure. It was all in shadows before the movement topped the building and disappeared.

Latasha got out her phone and called Detective Lisa. She left a message and called Mitzy at the police station to send a car, and an ambulance to pick up the body.

“We can’t wait around for the police,” Wendy started to back away.

“I thought you wanted to be a lawyer?” Latasha came right back.

“I do, but—.”

“Then you better get used to the police,” Latasha said and she looked at Mini.

Mini put her hands up. “Dominica always sticks with her friends. You don’t mind if I hide behind you when the police show up.” Latasha did not mind. Wendy just frowned as a patrol car came roaring in, lights on.

It was officer Dickenson, a young and well-built African-American male who made Wendy and Mini smile and who tied Latasha’s tongue in knots the one time she met him. “Latasha.” He recognized her right away, or Mitzy told him.

“Here.” Latasha pointed at the body. “I got pictures for Detective Lisa, I mean Detective Schromer.” She held up her phone.

Dickenson nodded and knelt by the body. The man was definitely dead. “I don’t get it,” he stood. There were cocaine packets all around the body, and money, too. “A dealer, carrying and it is all just left here.”

“I think we interrupted the deal,” Latasha said.

“Any idea which way the perp. went?”

Latasha pointed up the side of the building while she spoke. “And I am not sure it was human.”

“You called Schromer?” Latasha nodded and Dickenson also nodded as he stepped to his car to report in. “Good, because she deals with all that spooky stuff.”

###

Emily got up extra early. She was going to drag the ROTC freshman on a five-mile jog. All she had to remember was to not set as wicked a pace as she did last time. Last year she nearly killed a couple of poor sophomores. For her, a five-mile jog, even in full pack was no big deal, but even practically walking, most of the freshmen would come in huffing and puffing and collapse to the dirt. She imagined Jessica and her team would do well enough. They had gone early to stretch and get warmed up.

Emily stepped outside when it was still dark. The walkway lights were on, and she spied two women in jogging outfits no doubt trying to get rid of last night’s supper. Eat too much and then jog it off was not a good plan, Emily thought. Fortunately, that was one problem she would probably not have to worry about for some time. She had the same high metabolism Latasha had, she just did not show it like Latasha in the constant tapping of her toes and drumming of her fingers.

Emily pushed a hand through her hair as she caught another sight. There was a guy in his pajamas, barefoot in the cold of December in New Jersey. Apparently he was not concerned that his fly was wide open, his shirt was torn and he was in danger of losing his pants altogether. He got in the way of the joggers and grunted. He grabbed the hair of one and put it to his nose.

“Hey!” Emily shouted as the women yelled at the guy to leave them alone. They hurried off as Emily approached. The guy looked briefly at Emily like a deer caught in headlights, then he took off running into the dark. Emily wanted to chase him down and ask him what he thought he was doing, but she had to meet the freshman class. She tried to picture the guy’s face in her mind with the hope of recognizing him again if she saw him, but all she could really remember was the blank and empty stare in the guy’s eyes. It did not look right. Emily shivered in the cold. She had to jog to the gym to warm up.

************************

Next Monday, Emily, Latasha and Detective Lisa begin to pull some threads together. It appears they are dealing with more than one mystery. Don’t miss the Elect II-10, Green People, and…

Happy reading

Elect II—9 Clues, part 2 of 3

November 29, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Ashish drove.

“Josh is scared and I don’t blame him,” Lisa said as she looked up from her paperwork. “First Emily and Sara see something, and I see something. Then the girls fight off a small army. Now, people are being eaten right in my neighborhood.” Ashish said nothing. He just sipped on his coffee, so she continued. “I know they call me the spooky lady. I deal with all the spooky stuff, but this is beyond the pale.”

“How so?”

“Last year, when the Pentagon ran that super soldier contest. I mean, even the zombies were scientific, more like Frankenstein monsters. Even the witch was human, the professor’s daughter. It was plenty spooky, but mostly rational—explainable up to a point. But this year, we are being overrun with orcs and trolls, ogres and elves. Apples are missing from Avalon, wherever that might be. A door needs closing and a mystery needs to be solved, and the girls have not got a clue. Oh, and an ancient goddess has come back from the dead.”

“I thought the gods were immortal.”

Lisa grunted before she added, “And people are being eaten right in my neighborhood.”

Officer Rob Parker waited by the door as Lisa and Ashish walked up. “It isn’t pretty,” he said, before he looked up at the noon sun and wrote something in his little notebook. There were already police everywhere, and Julie Tam was scooping up bits and pieces of bone to slip into plastic bags. Pictures were already taken, but there was little noise as everyone’s moved through the crime scene. Every word was in whispers. There was blood everywhere—on the couch, the rug, the walls and all over the fireplace.

“They were eaten,” Julie confirmed.

“Third one since Thanksgiving. And all less than a block from your house.” Ashish looked at Lisa. She looked ready to cry.

“I knew Helen Monteri. She had nice kids.” Lisa pulled out her phone and stepped back outside into the light. An hour later she phoned home. “Josh? You know the trip we talked about taking to Florida? Well pack yourself and the kids. I got you all booked on a flight before sundown. No. You need to go and I don’t want to argue about it. No. The Monteri family got eaten. Yes, eaten.”

Lisa glanced over by the curb where a strong light came on to eliminate the shadows. It was the news reporter, Courtney Chase. Millsaps had her and was giving an official police statement. Lisa trusted Millsaps’ discretion, but meanwhile she thought it wise to back into the shadows of the closest tree and keep her voice down.

Another hour later, Lisa put her phone away. Ashish was right there.

“Coincidence?” he suggested.

Lisa shook her head. “I think someone wants my attention and is taunting me.”

“Paranoid?”

Again Lisa shook her head. “In my gut. My senses are flared.”

Ashish quieted. He knew what that meant. Lisa was never wrong about such things.

Elect II—9 Clues, part 1 of 3

November 28, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Emily knocked on the door and Priestess Sara let her straight into her cramped little office. Sara had a desk and there were two chairs facing the desk, but that was about all the office could hold. The bookcases made the room feel especially small. They covered every wall apart from the door and the window and were filled with books, mostly religious tomes.

“Not much room,” Emily commented.

“Not much budget,” Sara responded. “The Chaplain’s office does not rank very high on the priority list these days.”

Emily nodded and took one of the chairs that faced the desk. Sara opened the window a crack and spoke. “I know it is December, but the fresh air helps keep things from getting too stuffy. If it gets cold, I can close it.” Emily nodded and held up her hands to indicate she was fine with the fresh air.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come by here earlier in the semester.” Emily started right out with the apology. “I suppose it wasn’t fair for me to get you tangled up in all this and then not spend some time, you know, helping you sort all of this out.” Emily slouched a little and ran a hand through her hair.

This time Sara held up her hands to say the apology was not necessary. “The others and Lisa and Heinrich have helped tremendously. My rational mind still says no way, not possible, not real, occasionally, but my gut knows better these days. I don’t even jump anymore when someone calls me priestess.”

“Priestess.” Emily had to say it just to check. She smiled.

“Your majesty,” Sara returned the smile with a nod of her head.

“See? I didn’t jump either.”

“Yes.” Sara turned serious. “But it is a lot to swallow, having your whole view of life, the universe and everything turned upside down.”

“I don’t think what is going on around here is in any way normal.”

“I wouldn’t think so, but you could help me, maybe. Tell me, what was it like to find out you were one of the elect?”

Emily’s smile fell away. She hardly knew where to start. She rambled a bit about some incidents in middle school and high school, but opened up when she arrived at New Jersey State University for her freshman year. She told everything as she remembered it, and it took well over two hours. Sara was a good listener. By necessity, much of what she told was about Pierce. He was made in a lab by Doctor Zimmer, and said he had a younger brother. When Pierce was activated, he could not help acting as a super soldier or assassin or whatever the government wanted him to be. She told how she had to kill him. She explained how Pierce knew and could have blocked her knife and could have stopped her, but he did not. She began to weep, and Sara came around the desk and held her until the sobbing subsided.

“I really loved him, you know,” Emily said as she sniffed and Sara handed her a tissue. “And he really loved me. He said it was part of the test. His handlers wanted to know what was stronger, his love or his programming.”

“Love won,” Sara said softly and Emily cried a little more as the phone rang.

Sara stepped around the desk to pick up the phone. “Hello?” She mostly listened before she said, “Excuse me.”

Emily saw what looked like a double image for a second. She imagined it was the tears and rubbed her eyes. It sounded like the door, but when she looked up she saw Sara by the window. There was a young man on the ledge outside the window. It looked like Pierce, but Emily knew it was Pierce’s younger brother, and he must have been listening in. She saw him staring at her. She saw him jump from the ledge and Emily jumped to her feet only to find it was not Sara by the window. It was Zoe. By some exercise of godly power Zoe made Emily retake her seat and calm down. Then she spoke.

“Trust me,” Zoe said, and vanished. Then Emily jumped to the window, but Pierce’s brother was gone. Sara, the real Sara took that moment to come back into the room.

“Getting too cold?” Sara asked as she shut the door quietly behind her.

Emily looked and shook her head before she explained what just happened.

Elect II—8 Thanksgiving Break, part 3 of 3

November 23, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Emily paced in her room. It was Saturday evening but she dared not go out again. Wednesday and Friday had resulted in attempts on her life, and her friends Molly and Cathy were seriously injured. Clearly someone wanted her out of the way, and she suspected it was someone at the school since the bogyman last summer said as much. The thing was, she had no idea why. All she knew was Zoe asked her to find a door on the university side of what? And she was supposed to solve the goddesses’ immortality mystery. What did she mean the apples are missing from Avalon? Emily read all about King Arthur, but it did not help. As for creatures, now she had met several. And how was the world going mad, blah, blah, blah. It did not make any sense.

Cheeky goddess, Emily thought. But according to Mindy, that was the way the ancient gods and goddesses worked. They set up the impossible tasks and then sat back and watched the humans stumble. One thing was certain, Emily now had a greater appreciation for the Odyssey than ever before.

The smart thing would be to stay home and maybe transfer to a different school. But Emily was not going to do the smart thing. She was going to bank on the fact that the attempts on her life occurred in Columbus and not at the school. It was like whoever wanted her to leave the school was not going to tip their hand by attacking her on school grounds.

Emily’s little brother Tyler came to her door. He seemed worried about her. Emily thought it was a sign that he was growing up, but she would never say that. He would have been insulted if she had.

“Are you pacing for a reason, or just concerned about Molly and Cathy?” he asked.

Thus far Emily said nothing about the attempts on her life. She certainly detailed nothing about the bogyman last summer, or mentioned the attempt at the mall. The news portrayed that as a random act of holiday shopping violence. The incident at the bowling alley was a bit harder to explain except to say some maniac came in shooting up the place and they don’t know why.

“No reason,” Emily answered. That was not entirely dishonest. She was simply repeating the same thoughts she had a hundred times. A search for alternatives, she imagined, but she did not find any. Zoe and the others all expected her back at school. She promised Pierce she would finish her schooling at New Jersey State. She was just going to have to be careful and keep her eyes and ears open.

There was a loud crack and something scraped Emily’s arm before it lodged into the wall. Emily threw her brother to the floor and yelled, “Stay down,” as she crawled to the stairs where she rushed down to the front door. The man in the trench coat was out front near the streetlight. Emily turned off the lights in the front hall and went out to the darkened porch, hoping she might not be seen. She heard Marion’s shout.

“Police. Drop your weapon and put your hands up.”

The man turned and started to run in the opposite direction. He pulled his gun back out as he ran. He fired once to his rear and once toward Emily’s house when he saw her. Then at once he arched his back and without a sound he fell to the ground and the gun fell from his hand. Marion and Emily arrived at about the same time. The man had an arrow sticking out of his chest.

Emily looked up at the shadows down the street. There was a figure in the dark, and she called out. “Elf. Show yourself.” The figure slowly moved into the light, and it was unquestionably an elf, and not of this world. “What brings you here?”

“You, and my wife,” the answer came. “Boston and I still work for the Lockharts. I believe you met Katie.”

“Of course, how is the baby?” Emily hardly knew where that thought came from.

The elf shrugged. “Human.”

“Of course. Your wife?” She had to ask.

“Elfkind, but she was born human. She presently acts as Liaison between Avalon and the men in black.”

“Men in black? No, please excuse me?” Marion had her hand up like a school girl. “Who are you?”

“Roland. And I came with information.”

“I thought you came to save her,” Marion said and Emily hushed her.

“It is a message from Avalon. Several of the golden apples of youth have been stolen from Avalon by the rebel faction. They made their way to the doorway that leads to your university. That is all we know except to tell you that the apples are very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“How so?” Emily wondered

“One big bite might delete a hundred years of life, and if you are only sixty,” Roland shrugged.

“Younger than your birth?”

“You would cease to exist.”

“And someone at the university has some of these apples?”

Roland nodded. “Lady Alice, that is Zoe said find that door and close it, and if someone offers you a big bite of a delicious, irresistible golden apple…resist it.”

Blue police lights came roaring up as Roland stepped away. A hole formed in the air—a hole to another place altogether where the stars were brighter than Marion or Emily had ever seen. Lieutenant Reese Anthony stepped out of the police car as Roland stepped through the hole, smiled for Emily and waved at Marion. Then the hole slowly closed until it winked out of existence like it was never there.

Lieutenant Anthony watched the elf disappear. He looked down at the dead man with an arrow sticking out of his chest. He shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

“One good thing,” Marion said. “You will find this man’s gun killed the other two men.”

Emily nodded, but then had a thought. She bent down and grabbed the dead man’s trench coat by the sleeve. She ripped the coat sleeve, suit sleeve and shirt sleeve in one pull. The man’s arm had a small tattoo—a circle with three squiggly lines.

“What is that?” Marion asked. “A fastball?”

“No one knows. A secret society. Mindy says it has something to do with immortality.”

“The apples of youth,” Marion took Emily by the arm. “You can’t go back to that school.”

“But that’s the problem. I have to.”

************************

Thanksgiving has come and gone for Emily, and far from solving any mysteries, they just keep getting more complicated, and more intense. Be sure to return on Monday for the Elect II-9 Clues, to see what turns up.

Happy Reading

Elect II—8 Thanksgiving Break, part 2 of 3

November 22, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Back in Columbus, Susan and Emily stopped in the food court so Susan could complain about Emily’s attitude. “You are so distracted.”

“What? You don’t like what I am wearing?” She was in a dress and her long winter woolen coat, a rich burgundy color with big brass buttons.

“No, you look fine, which for you is a bit of a miracle. But I mean you have money for Christmas presents and you are not anxious to spend it. Are you feeling all right?”

Emily smiled. Susan was famous for getting money from her parents to go buy presents for people and accidentally spending it on herself. “I’m just waiting until I find something for someone else,” Emily said and sat back. They heard the sound of a firecracker in the distance. The bullet split the table where Emily had been hovering over her burger. She grabbed Susan and dragged her to the ground over Susan’s very loud protests. Then Emily scooted from under one table to under another and slowly worked her way in the direction she imagined was the source of the gunfire.

The screaming started in a second, and people began to run as soon as they saw the man with the gun. As far as the man’s position was concerned, people running away was sort of a dead giveaway. The man craned his neck and tried to catch sight of Emily, but Emily was already closer than he was looking. Another moment and the man holstered his gun, having attracted far too much attention. He started toward the exit at the end of the food court, and Emily cursed softly because she was almost at the point where she could jump him.

The man suddenly doubled over and fell to the floor. Emily looked with her eyes but did not vacate her safe spot. There was another man by the exit. He was mostly hidden by a trench coat so Emily could not quite make out the man’s features, and he left before she could get closer.

Emily was fairly sure what happened, and confirmed her guess when she found the man on the floor soaked in blood. She turned him over. He took a bullet in the heart, and it was a perfect shot.

Susan stepped up to her shoulder and commented. “I see with you the violence has escalated. Back in high school you just beat people up.”

###

The following night, Emily went to her now annual Thanksgiving bowling tournament with Molly and Cathy. This time Marion, the police woman went along for the ride. They made her get some funky shoes and pick out a ball. Marion insisted she had not been bowling since high school herself, but Cathy thought that was a good thing because she might be someone Cathy could beat.

“Roll it this year,” Molly teased. “Throwing is cheating.”

Cathy explained for Marion. “Last year she got mad and put her ball through the back wall of the alley.”

Emily shrugged off her embarrassment, and when Cathy went first, Marion spoke quietly. “No identification on the man, but the guess is he is a drifter. He opened a bank account yesterday afternoon and five thousand got deposited.”

“Gee,” Emily responded. “I thought I would be worth more than that.”

“But who do you figure the other is? We haven’t a guess. A friend wanting you alive?”

Emily shook her head. “I was thinking rival gang wanting credit for the kill, like a competitor.”

Marion shrugged just before they heard the rat-ta-tat of a semi-automatic and both hit the ground. Molly caught a bullet in her shoulder. Cathy got shot in the leg. Marion and Emily escaped, and Marion had her gun out, but there was confusion in the alley. Once again people were screaming and running away.

Emily managed a peek around the corner into the next lane where a man sat, unmoving. He appeared frozen with fear. Otherwise, Emily could not see anything.

Marion risked rising up. Her hands sweated on her gun, but she had a clear lane, saw the man with the assault rifle coming close. She managed a shot. She hit him somewhere. His gun went off and two more people fell, bloody to the floor while he backed into the snack bar. There was a very long second before people rushed out of the snack bar, and both Emily and Marion caught a glimpse of a trench coat, but nothing more.

When the two of them got to the room where the woman behind the bar was cowering in the corner, they found the man with the rifle on the floor, dead. He had Marion’s bullet in his stomach, but the killer shot the man in the heart.

“Bet the bullet matches the other one,” Emily said.

“No bet, your majesty,” Marion responded.

Elect II—8 Thanksgiving Break, part 1 of 3

November 21, 2016November 14, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Detective Lisa left work worried about what might be happening at the house. Her husband Josh could not be there all the time for the children, and something was lurking around in the dark and the shadows. She caught glimpses of the stalker three times now, but all she could say was it was not human.

Josh kept the back outside light on after dark. He kept the front porch light on, and the one over the garage as well. He normally kept those two on for Lisa, for when she got home, but now they were doing double duty. He spied out the windows.

Megan, their eight-year-old daughter, sat in front of the television again. Josh considered canceling the cable contract. For some reason, certain cartoons had taken an unnatural hold on the girl. It was getting so he could not go through a whole evening without hearing about how she wanted to go to Florida.

“Boys,” he called up the stairs. He heard shuffling around before he got an answer.

“Yeah?”

“Anything out back?” More shuffling before the answer came.

“Mister Filbin’s shepherd got loose again.”

Josh jumped when the doorbell rang. He felt like he was under siege. Maybe he would talk to Lisa about Florida if she could take the time off. He opened the front door and shouted again.

“Boys. Grandma and Grandpa are here.” He welcomed them and let Megan tackle them while the boys rumbled down the stairs. Josh went once more to the kitchen window to try and see Mister Filbin’s dog, or whatever might be out there. He did not know all the details, but he heard about what happened at the university.

###

Anna Lee woke up to the sound of broken glass. The men crashed into her rooms and she moved, but as fast and as strong as she was, there were too many of them. She ended up unconscious, but managed to crawl under the table before she passed out. That was her salvation. In the middle of the floor, they would have tripped over her and likely would have made sure the job was done and might have thrown her body out the window. Under the table, out of the way, they ignored her. After they found what they wanted no one bothered to crawl under the table to make sure the job was finished.

When Matthew found her, she was still unconscious. They rushed her to the hospital and got her on a respirator, but the doctors were uncertain if she would recover. Matthew also noticed the concrete block was removed from the wall and the scroll was taken. He could not say what was on the scroll, but there were three things he could say. The scroll was in perfect condition, though Anna said it was over three thousand, six hundred years old. It was written in a language that Matthew never saw before or since, and he was familiar with the look of just about all of the ancient scripts. And Anna Lee said it was the most valuable piece of writing in history. It was secreted away and guarded since the time of Christ and it could bring about the end of the world if it fell into the wrong human hands.

Lieutenant Tomlinson of the New York Police Department knew he was out of his depth. He called Miriam at the FBI, and she called Lisa. She thought the scroll might end up at Jersey State in search of a translation. Jersey State did have some of the most sophisticated translation programs in the world down in the archives room.

Lisa went to the university and knocked on the door to the suite. Melissa was the one who answered. Sara was present, helping the girls pack for the Thanksgiving holiday. When Lisa stepped into the room, she went straight to Emily and hugged her. Then she told her. Anna Lee spent most of last Christmas in Columbus Ohio with Emily and her family. Emily cried.

“She has not regained consciousness, and the doctors are not optimistic, but she is an elect. Don’t count her out.”

“I need to go to her,” Emily said.

“You need to go home for Thanksgiving and see your family. Miriam at the FBI has her under twenty-four-hour surveillance. I will call you if anything changes. I just thought you should know.”

“What were they after?” Sara asked. Everyone stopped and stood around to watch and listen.

“A scroll, ancient.” Amina spoke first and shook her head to say she could not see any more.

“A scroll,” Lisa repeated with a nod. “And they found it. Mindy, there is a good chance it may turn up here. It seems it was written in some obscure, ancient language. They will probably need it translated. We need to watch for it.”

Elect II—7 Orcs on Parade, Part 3 of 3

November 16, 2016October 28, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Jessica grabbed Melissa and took the recruits into Captain Driver’s office as soon as Emily ran out. She pointed at Captain Driver’s gun safe. “Open it,” she said, as the others piled into the room.

“Oh, I don’t know if I can,” Melissa said.

“Sure you can,” Jessica insisted.

“I’ve seen you do harder things,” Maria said.

“Just to borrow?” Sara asked. When Jessica nodded she turned to Melissa. “I believe in you and it can’t hurt to try.” Melissa looked at Sara and nodded slowly.

“Here goes.” Melissa closed her eyes. After a moment, everyone heard three faint clicks, and the safe door swung open. No one was more surprised than Melissa, and that included Greta, Hilde and Natasha who until then had only heard rumors.

“I did it,” Melissa told Sara and Sara hugged her while the military retrieved their weapons. They loaded up plenty of ammunition.

“Sorry, Maria, but if Captain Driver complains I want to say only ROTC people used the rifles.”

“Wouldn’t touch one,” Maria said

“Me neither,” Sara added, but everyone figured that.

“I could try,” Melissa offered

“No,” Jessica responded. “You need to have your hands free.” She did not explain.

It was then that Diane came running in, yelling. “Weapons. I need a weapon.”

Jessica handed over her rifle and made a command decision. “Greta and Hilde go with her. Natasha, stay with me.”

“What? No.” Natasha wanted to complain, but Jessica interrupted.

“I need back-up. That’s an order soldier.”

Natasha straightened up. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Jessica smiled at Sara and Maria. “I always wanted to say that.”

Diane, Hilde and Greta ran out as Jessica got another rifle. Then the ones who remained went to the center of the gym. Jessica pulled over the pommel horse, Maria and Melissa, the vault. Sara and Natasha got the balance beam. They draped the floor mats over them all and in this way made a kind of fort in the center of the room.

“As long as orcs can’t come up through the ground, this is better than being against the wall,” Jessica said as she watched the doors. “Walls fall down.” Natasha and Melissa both got up on chairs.

“Better view,” Natasha said and pretended to look over the vault.

“Uh-huh.” Melissa agreed, but her eyes stared at the floor in search of orcs.

The door opposite the parade ground door began to shake. It was locked, but it only took a moment to rip it off the hinges. A monster of an orc came in first. He was four feet wide at the shoulders and his knuckles fell just short of dragging the ground. By contrast to the first one, the orcs that followed all looked like normal enough goblins, and some of them were no more than two or three feet tall.

Natasha got down from her chair and she and Jessica opened fire. Three of the orcs fell before a volley of arrows came in answer. The women all ducked, but Jessica caught one in her side. It was a lucky shot that slipped between a crack where two floor mats did not quite meet.

“Damn!” Jessica fell to the floor and Maria immediately hovered over her. A second volley of arrows came, but they all bounced and ricocheted away because of some unseen force. Melissa was still up on her chair and had her hands up.

“The wall can deflect some arrows,” Melissa said through a strained voice. “But I have no hope it will deflect a charge.”

“Help me up. Help me up,” Jessica complained, and Maria helped her sit and hold her rifle. The orcs looked ready to try that charge.

Sara, who had been silent in disbelief until then, was shaken back to reality by the sight of Jessica’s blood. She stood, shepherd’s crook in hand and hollered as loud as she could. “You hold it right there. Don’t you dare come any closer.”

The orcs paused. Sara glowed a little with a pure, white light. “Zoe protect us,” Sara added for good measure, and the orcs looked afraid to move forward.

The light that surrounded Sara appeared to spread as she spoke, but only to one side. Then it flashed brilliant for a second and when it went out, two dozen well-armed elves stood beside the small, makeshift fort. One ogre who seemed very eager for a fight, came with them. The elves ignored the women and the orcs quickly focused on the elves. The fight looked inevitable, as the monster that tore off the door, a distorted troll of some sort and the ogre charged each other. They would have torn the gym to shreds in moments, but something happened no one expected, least of all Sara. Zoe appeared between the two charging beasts, and she was dressed in the most ancient looking armor and decked out with a sword, a long knife across the small of her back and several other instruments of combat hanging here and there. Zoe threw her hands up and some force emanated from her hands that picked up the two combatants and flung them to crash into their respective walls, and she said one word.

“Enough!” The elves all went to their knees and dropped their eyes, no longer concerned with the orcs in the least while Zoe first turned on the orcs. “You don’t belong here,” she said. “Begone.” And they all vanished. There were no flashy lights or trumpets, they just were not there anymore.

At that point, Emily and her troop piled into the gym, and Heinrich at least had the good sense to follow the lead of the elves and fall to his knees. Amina was a bit slower, but she soon joined him, and Mindy followed her example, though her eyes never looked down.

“Good,” Zoe said and turned on the women in the fort. She spoke matter of fact, like she was speaking about the weather. “My rebellious ones have no business coming here. They can drill a hole in the atmosphere of Avalon, but the only way they can make it a passage to Earth is if someone here, on this side opens the door.” Zoe turned to the new arrivals. “My queen,” she said, and in a way that was possessive, not submissive. There might be other queens in the world, but Emily somehow belonged to Zoe. “You must find out who opened the door here and where it is and close it.” She smiled and turned finally to the elves. “Captain Riverbend.” The name was sharply spoken.

An elf, a female scooted a bit forward but dared not look up. “My lady?”

Zoe paused in a kind of dramatic moment before she softened her tone. “Thank you for helping my friends, but you don’t belong here either. Please take your troop back to Avalon before Lady Alice finds out.”

The elf looked up, and she was a pretty creature, and looked young. “But you and lady Alice are—”

“Hush. No need to get into that. Things here are complicated enough. Go on, now. And be sure to take the big, frightening, ugly, smelly, boil-faced brute of an ogre with you.” The humans all looked, though perhaps only Emily and Heinrich could look at the beast for more than a second, but instead of anger at the insult, it appeared the brute beamed with pride.

One man’s insult… Emily thought.

“Yes, my Lady,” Captain Riverbend responded and an archway appeared in the air in the gym. That was the only way to describe it as the gym remained, but through the arch there was some other place altogether with green grass and trees still in bloom; and it was everyone’s idea of lovely. The elves stepped through and the ogre followed and then the archway slowly shrank and disappeared.

“You, too, Mister Schultz.” Zoe had moved on to talk to Heinrich. “No stories of the Kairos if you please. These women have enough on their plates for present.” Then she turned to Maria and Jessica. “Now Maria. You have to get that arrow shaft out of her side before it festers.”

“But the blood,” Maria protested. “I’m not a surgeon.”

Zoe shook her head. “Lay on hands,” she said. “The spirit of Eir has not left you without gifts. Sara can help you understand how to lay on hands, but you are the one who must do it.”

Last of all she turned to Sara. “Priestess, you were chosen by the source for your tasks before the foundation of the world. Perhaps we all are, only we don’t see it.” Zoe stepped up and put out her hand, and Sara took that hand to shake before she realized what she was doing. “Now, you can just talk to me. I will hear you. And call me sometime. Maybe we can do lunch when things quiet down a bit.”

Zoe stepped away from them all and headed toward the back wall. “Emily, find and close that door, and solve my mystery. Apples are missing from Avalon. Something to do with immortality.” Zoe paused for a moment. “Immortality? Fools.” She sighed. “So much to do.” Zoe shook her head and walked right through the wall, and was gone.

Maria’s hands glowed with a golden glow. She and Jessica watched as the hole in Jessica’s side closed up. “You have still lost some blood,” Maria said. “I don’t know how deep the healing will go.” Jessica looked up, but she was not complaining. The pain was gone. Meanwhile, Maria had something to say to Sara. “By the way, Priestess, the phrase is not “hold it right there, don’t come any closer.” It’s, “You shall not pass.” And you need to bang your staff.”

###

The following day, Julie Tam from the Medical Examiner’s office called Lisa. “Tell Latasha it was arsenic, or something like it. Her instincts were right. Janet did not die of the drug overdose, though they stuffed enough drugs into her system to kill an elephant. I will be running more tests and give you a more complete report in a few days.”

“But where would drug dealers get their hands on arsenic?” Lisa asked.

Julie had some thoughts. Lisa took notes, but after that she decided to call Latasha herself.

Ashish was right there. “Are you going to tell her about Carlos?”

“Not yet, but she needs to know what to look out for.”

Elect II—7 Orcs on Parade, Part 2 of 3

November 15, 2016October 28, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Once outside, Diane did not have to take them far. There were a dozen nasty looking brutes a hundred yards off across the parade ground. Fortunately, there were no people between them and the orcs.

“We may need to run,” Heinrich whispered.

“Diane, go back to the others,” Emily said.

“I’m not afraid,” Diane said, though her voice shook a little.

“Not the point. You are unarmed. I said go back.”

“Yes Ma’am, Majesty.” Diane started out Army and turned Amazon. Mindy and Amina thought that was great.

“Arrows ready,” Heinrich said as the two parties stopped twenty yards apart. The orcs were hard to look at, not because they were especially frightening or ugly, but because they looked unstable. They were on earth, on the parade ground that doubled as a ball field in the summer, but they appeared to still have a foot in some other realm. Besides that, whatever they once were, elves, dwarfs, imps of one sort or another no one could say. They all appeared to share the same distorted, mean and pained expression.

“Why are you here?” Heinrich asked. “You do not belong here.”

One orc, no doubt the leader, took a step forward. “We were sent to find the called one and her coven of evil.” The voice was distorted as well as the face, and hard to hear without feeling the chill of death.

“And what will you do with her?” Emily had to ask.

“We will kill her and crush her bones and have her for our meat.”

“That doesn’t leave much negotiating room,” Mindy said quietly while Amina spoke over her head.

“The others. There are two groups.”

“Return to the Second Heavens while you can. You cannot survive here,” Heinrich ordered the orcs, not that they were likely to listen.

The orcs laughed, and Emily took that occasion to speak softly to her group. “Back away slowly, like from a wild dog.” She was anxious about the others. She chided herself for jumping before she had all the facts. She swore once again that it was a mistake she would not repeat, assuming she survived this encounter.

The orc laughter stopped as suddenly as it started. Diane, Hilde and Greta ran up from behind with military issue rifles. They must have busted into Captain Driver’s gun locker and ammunition box.

“Armed and ready, Ma’am.” Diane was all military that time.

Emily raised her sword. “Aim!” She skipped right over ready. “One warning.” She looked squarely at the orc leader. “Run,” she suggested.

At sight of the rifles, several of the orcs at the back began to move away. But the orc leader chose to be stupid and charged as Emily said “Fire!”

Of the orcs who braved the guns, five were struck immediately. One took two arrows dead center and went down, but the others continued on. The guns fired again. Mindy and Amina pulled their small knives, but counted on their bows to fend off any attacker until help could arrive. Heinrich took down two with his sword and without a sweat, but one went for the rifles and the other went after the archers.

The orc leader was the one who was miraculously untouched by arrows or bullets. He went straight for Emily. And he had a wicked looking sword with a jagged edge. Emily and the orc went thrust and parry for a good ten seconds, and Emily dropped her shoulder twice when she went for the orc’s legs. She remembered what Heinrich told her and scolded herself. When she dropped her shoulder the third time, the orc dropped his weapon to parry, only instead of aiming at the orc’s legs, this time Emily went for the arm. She sliced through the orc’s arm without even pausing at the bone. The orc dropped its sword with the arm and looked up, dumbly, as Emily followed up with a slice through the orc’s neck.

Greta and Hilde both shot the orc that attacked Diane. It collapsed before it reached the girl. Mindy and Amina double-teamed their assailant. While Amina blocked the orc’s big club with her bow, held like a staff, Mindy, the short one, slipped under and stuck her knife in the orc’s heart—or at least where a heart would have been in a human. The orc staggered and Amina jumped up and thrust her knife into the orc’s ear. Whatever hesitation Amina had with killing, apparently it did not include orcs.

“Quickly!” Amina shouted. “They are attacking the gym from the other side.” And they ran.

###

Latasha and Keisha walked to Janet’s house, Keisha happy to have her friends together again, Latasha with some trepidation, but she didn’t say anything. There was an ambulance out front. When they rang the bell, Janet’s mother looked to be in shock. Janet came home from an outing barely an hour ago, and now she was dead. Keisha burst into tears. Latasha called Detective Lisa. She would cry in a minute.