Lockhart ignored them and spoke to the sergeant major. “Stay here in case she slips by us and tries to escape.”  He glanced at Miriam who was down on the floor by the technician, trying to staunch the bleeding.  She had kicked away the man’s gun.  Alexis moved Miriam back.  She would apply her healing magic to the wound.

Lockhart and Lincoln walked carefully into the safe.  The safe was a huge room all by itself.  It had row after row of shelving that held all sorts of alien and unsafe human items.  Some of the bigger items filled the floor to their right side, but most of the biggest items and the remains of crashed ships filled the Quonset huts outside the main building by the airstrip.

Lockhart pointed one direction with his old police revolver in hand.  Lincoln nodded and started down the right side with his handgun, ready for action, while Lockhart went down the center aisle.  The woman crawled through the shelves and got behind them without their knowing it.  When they were well down the aisle, she made a dash for the door.  She ran fast enough, but stayed bent over, so when she exited the safe, Don Thomas’ bullet went over her head.  Then she turned invisible.

Alexis looked up.  She had become fully human again, but she still had elf upbringing in her, and had just recently been an elf.  It was how she came back early from their journey, and how she stayed for as long as her father was alive.  She squinted and saw the woman well enough, right through the invisible spectrum.  She grabbed her wand, and the woman got hit with a hurricane force wind.  It lifted her from the ground, shot her right past the elevators, and slammed her into the far wall, hard.  The woman banged her head and went unconscious.  She dropped whatever she carried and became visible again as she fell to the floor.

Miriam dared to interrupt.  “I think I heard a popping sound in the Lieutenant Colonel’s elevator.”  Alexis nodded.  She heard it too, but she was busy.  She knew exactly what made that sort of sound, and she held her breath until the elevator arrived back in the third basement.  The door opened and Katie came out dragging the unconscious man by the collar.

“He is out cold,” Katie said.  “I don’t believe I killed him, but I may have.  I am sure he has some broken bones.”

“Lincoln may have killed this fellow, and Alexis got that woman.” Lockhart said as he gave Katie a hug to bring out her smile.

“She is fine.  Coming around.”  Don Thomas shouted from where he ran to check.  He cuffed the woman and got on the intercom which was beside the elevators.  “Medical team to the sub-basement, stat.  We need two stretchers.”  He brought the woman back, and the things she stole.

Lockhart, Lincoln, and Katie went into the safe and placed things on the shelves where there was space.  Only Katie spoke.  “I would like to see the inventory on this place.”

“Classified,” Lockhart said and smiled at Katie’s raised eyebrows.  “Just practicing.  It’s in the office.”

When they closed the door, Lockhart set the vacuum separately, and the vacuum key locked so no one who got shut into the place would accidentally suffocate unless the culprit had the extra key.  The medical team took the two men on the second elevator—the big freight elevator.  The others went up on elevator number one, and Don Thomas excused himself while he dragged the woman off to get locked up with Gilbert.

Miriam brought them to the director’s office.  It had been cleaned and straightened to an extent Lockhart had never seen.  He turned to Miriam first with a request. “I need to see the full dossiers of the people hired since Weber was here five years ago.”

“Right away,” Miriam said as Lockhart turned to Katie.  They kissed.  Alexis and Lincoln were on the couch kissing.  Miriam backed out of the door.  “I’ll be here if you need me.”  She shut the door quietly.

###

In the castle on Avalon, Boston wanted to show Sukki everything she had seen, and introduce her to all the friends she had made since her arrival.  Sukki appeared to be loving it, but when Boston started talking about all the islands in the archipelago, Roland put his foot down.

“First, we have to go to Mirroway to see Mother.”

“Okay,” Boston said and got a sly grin on her face. “But then we have to take Sukki home, and you have to go with me to meet my Mother and my family.”

Roland stiffened.

Lady Alice looked over at the three children, which is how she thought of them.  She smiled as her gaze shifted to Bobbi.  Bobbi was crying again, and Lisel, the high queen of the elves and Ivy, queen of all the fairies kept trying to comfort her, but Alice knew they were happy tears.

“You have no family?” Lady Biggles, queen of the dwarfs asked.

“I do,” Bobbi said as she wiped her nose and looked up.  “But we are not close, and my brother is old now and not well.”

“No man?  No children?”  Lady Biggles asked in a melancholy voice.

Bobbi shook her head.  “I fell in love once.  I was just out of law school and working for the FBI.  He was eight years younger, and white besides.  It would never have worked.”

Lady Goldenvein, queen of the dark elves, or goblins to be more precise, reached over and patted Bobbi’s hand in sympathy.  She said nothing, but that got the others moving.  They all hugged Bobbi and they cried some more with her.”

Alice turned away from the scene and tried to forget what she heard.  Glen did not need to feel guilty about one more thing.  Besides, the naiad that lived in the spring that bubbled up in the middle of the castle, at the center of the Island, arrived.  Her waters began next to the tower that housed the Heart of Time, the place where the whole journey of the travelers began.  They needed to go to the tower.

The naiad said nothing until they arrived.  They went into the tower together and the naiad spoke in hushed tones.  “You took a terrible risk letting mortal humans into the heart, even if they had elves to help and guide them.  They might have changed all of history and it might have been impossible to fix.”

“It was a risk, but mostly for them.  I did not know if they would come back dead or alive.”  They stood in silence for a minute and watched the Heart of Time beat with light.  The light got brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer, just like a real heart.  The naiad spoke again.

“Lady?”

Lady Alice smiled for her friend.  “Now it has been thoroughly tested, and with my Storyteller lost for all that time, something I did not know was going to happen, it got cleanly tested, beginning to end.  When it got broken and his children went through the Golden Door to find all the pieces, I did not know if it would ever be made whole.  We saw the pieces seamlessly fit back into the crystal but did not know how history may have been affected, or maybe infected.  Now we know.  All is as it should be.  Hopefully, no one will ever have to invade history again.”

“Hopefully, the crystal will never get broken again,” the naiad said.

“That too,” Lady Alice agreed.

END

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MONDAY (Tuesday and Wednesday) coming:

Between now and Christmas, the posts will cover three long stories – novelettes –  that have appeared on this website in the past but you might not have caught them. First for the Fall, a haunting story of Ghosts for your reading pleasure. It was interesting to write considering in the beginning of the story everyone dies.

I hope you enjoyed reading the Avalon stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. You can always leave a comment, or write a note to mgkizzia42@gmail.com, or better yet, leave a review on the books up on Amazon, Smashwords, or wherever you prefer to find your books. Thanks.

Tune in Monday for details on the coming stories and what is being planned for 2024. Ghosts will begin on Tuesday so be there, and Happy Reading.

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