Attrition of the Gods: Book 1 of the Mystery Thriller series Gods Toys. (16 page)

Raphael notices the onlookers from the tent. Prince Edward is aghast, Sultan Baybar seems confused. The two Templars look wary.

“Enough!” shouts Raphael. He looks to the delegates and shoos them back into the tent as if they were kids. Then he turns to the two Djinn. “First of all, using Vril to enter a dream is not strictly breaking the rules, it is only a violation when the human is fully conscious, which by the way, we know you did with the Roman, Saul, Reuben, as well as a few others. The Council are concerned about you flouting the rules and what seems to be a perversion for blood! So I recommend you agree to Ben’s request and clean up your own act before you start casting these aspersions at your fellow competitors, agreed?” He then turns to Ben. “As for how you discovered the name of Reuben’s protégée: we are aware of your alliance with Levi since the sacking of Constantinople. That alone does not break the rules but you know you cannot have influence over any who don’t carry your pedigree.”

Ben explains, “I don’t want influence over Aquinas. I just want to kill him.”

Reuben is still raging. “Well, you can fuck off! You say I have a blood lust?”

Raphael is aware that this meeting is going around in circles. He decides to make a ruling.

“Reuben concedes the Holy Land and he will pay the gold tribute. As for Aquinas, he will remain with Reuben for two more years, then he will be sent to Ben. I suggest, for convenience, that Paris is the best place for the transfer. He is not to be killed, only retained. That is my final decision. Now recruit your ambassadors and let’s get out of this godforsaken place.”

Raphael wipes his brow and wonders why these two ever fought over these barren lands in the first place; they are his least favourite place on the planet. He is also curious as to the high value both Djinn put on this Thomas Aquinas. Still, it is not for him to ask.

The two disgruntled Djinn take their place in the respective cavalcades as Raphael rounds up the dignitaries.

As the groups leave, Hugh, the king of Jerusalem, asks Raphael, “Have you agreed what is to be done?”

“Yes,” replies Raphael. “If I were you I would return to Cyprus. The war is won, this land belongs to Islam. I must take my leave.”

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Raphael mounts his steed and rides out to the wilderness. He drives his horse as fast as the Arabian stallion can gallop. Out into the distance he can see what he is looking for: a bright light. As he gets closer the light becomes clearer. It is a cascade of blue and white electric bolts crashing against each other, covering a spherical space. The phenomenon emits a large clattering sound as Raphael gets nearer. The animal is stuttering as Raphael holds the reins fast, forcing his horse to ride straight into the electric storm. As they are about to enter, the light grows brighter and the noise louder. Raphael kicks his heels in and they both disappear through the bolts.

As the horse’s tail is swallowed, the electric bolts peter out until a spark no bigger than a Chinese firecracker dances around the sand and eventually dies.

The horse and rider appear on the dark terrain of the corona, a neutral zone between the frequencies inhabited by Arc Hon and Djinn. Dark red skies are punctuated by a bright white light setting in the horizon. The beautiful black stallion collapses as soon as he enters this strange world, gasping for air as its very bones crumble and the hide from its back melts away.

Raphael walks away from the remnants of the horse and sits on a marble seat. He looks around uncomfortably as he awaits the arrival of the Council. This place is not his favourite either. Not too different from the Levant, he observes; however, it is a plane that both Djinn and Arc Hon can exist in while still in human form and so is ideal for Council meetings. But it is a soulless place, a land left over from times forgotten even by someone who has lived as long as Raphael. If magic ever really existed, it was here in this nether world that it was spurned. Many times the Arc Hon, and more recently the Djinn, have called upon the corona’s unique power to aid the governing of the game, especially the arrival of the thirteen that marked the inception of the quest.

Raphael was not one for hocus pocus but this barren void that contained no living thing, not animal, insect or bacteria, even though it had all the necessary components to sustain life, gave him a sensation he believed was akin to man’s emotion of fear. He reflected that perhaps it was that he didn’t actually understand what this place was and how it came to be that caused this emotion or perhaps the eerie fact that any living thing that arrives here without the symbolic invite suffered the same fate as his horse did just moments earlier. But he knew what really freaked him out about this place was that even knowing that it was void of life, he always felt he was being watched, and not by a friendly gaze.

A buzzing noise tells him someone else is coming. He can see in the distance a dramatic swirling of a swarm of insects heading towards him at high speed. As the millions of bugs cluster around the seat next to Raphael they transform into a small black male.

Chamuel bows to Raphael who returns the greeting. Neither talk but Chamuel makes an exaggerated gesture of wiping his brow and flicking sweat, which amuses Raphael. Michael arrives next. A huge geyser erupts, spurting hot liquid over the terrain. The liquid rises up and covers the third seat, transforming into their leader, the high Arc Hon.

Each Arc Hon politely bows to the others but still no one speaks. There are still three seats unoccupied in the hexagonal stone courtyard. A wind rises and encircles them as glistening debris whirls at great speed. With a whoosh it stops and two Djinn are revealed. Not from the thirteen who are competing to become the Host of the human world, however, but two of the first to enter the physical plane and gain knowledge of its many alien ways: Solfrid and Baal. This is a rare meeting of the joint councils of the Djinn and the Arc Hon. Raphael is not sure exactly why this one has been called.

The High Arc Hon, Michael, speaks first. “My fellow Arc Hon, Amitiel will not be attending so we can begin.”

Solfrid, red haired, blue eyed and ivory skinned, speaks next. “How goes the challenge? Who is in place of the Host?”

They all look to Raphael. “It is not conclusive,” he says. “Reuben has lost ground against Benjamin, so too has Zeb. Levi has changed his alliance from Reuben to Ben. Simeon and Isaac have joined together to defeat Asher who has influence on the north and east. Daniel has set up the house of Solomon in Ethiopia and…”

Solfrid taps impatiently. “Yes, yes, but what of the bloodlines? Are they of pedigree, are the Djinn controlling the purity of the bloodlines?”

“Well,” says Raphael, “the humans tend to copulate with whatever is about but, yes, there are clear bloodlines with enough pedigree to rule. I only fear for the likes of the southern tribes as their progress is slow.”

Michael concludes, “We are happy with things in general. No real violations. Reuben and Naphtali do bend the rules a lot and Gad seems to make little or no impact anywhere. Besides all that though, there is the matter for which we are all gathered.”

A picture develops in the centre of the courtyard. All of them recognise Amitiel as she sits in a market square talking to a young man who looks besotted.

“This young man goes by the name of Marco Polo,” says Michael. “He has appeared from nowhere and claims to be the son of Nicoli Polo, a man who has no son. His aura shows he is Djinn but we have the locations of the thirteen, so he is not one of them.”

Baal and Solfrid exchange a look.

“Am I right in assuming you have called us here while Amitiel keeps surveillance on this man, expecting to prove that one of us has taken this guise?” says the somewhat rotund Baal.

“Actually to disprove it,” says Michael. “Now that we are left with no doubt the question remains: who is this Marco Polo? Only you two and the thirteen have entered the physical plane as far as we are all aware. We all know the energy needed to open a new gate and any Djinn crossing over and taking physical form would have to first undergo the metamorphosis here in Gheisthelm. This Marco Polo has already crossed into the land of Zeb’s Mongols. We believe he plans to make his way into the Orient and even down through the southern continents. It is like he is mapping the progress of each of the Djinn.

“Why don’t we simply enquire of him what he is doing?” asks Baal.

Chamuel responds. “It was only by coincidence that we found him. Levi was with Amitiel in Constantinople when they both sensed the presence.

“Expecting Reuben or Ben to appear, they were both shocked to see this strange young man race around the corner followed by two guards who seemed to be trying to apprehend him. Amitiel has since learned that he is planning a trip around the East with his so-called father. I shall meet with this traveller myself. Incognito, of course. I will get to the bottom of this before he leaves for the East, if we are all agreed?”

Chamuel shrugs as his sign of agreement; Raphael nods then looks to Baal who also nods in agreement, even though his face doesn’t show it.

“Excellent. Now if you have no further business I will call the meeting to a close.”
 

Stoke Prison

1913
 
– President Woodrow Wilson publishes “The New Freedom”, a collection of speeches in which he reveals: “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

Shane sits alone, hunched over a letter that he holds loosely in his hand. He contemplates the events that have led him here, in this bastard prison with only the ranting of a madman to keep him amused.

Shane has been avoiding Leo today. Well, not just Leo; he is avoiding everyone. It is exactly a year to the day that his reaction to something left him serving this six-year sentence. He should have known at the time that life was going too well and something was bound to happen to fuck it all up. And something did. 

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After meeting Sara, Shane had gone from drinking and fighting in the roughest bars in Manchester to attending charity galas, book launches and theatres together with this beautiful, intelligent, and fun young woman. Shane was very happy and very content with his new life. It was like he was finally leading the life he ought to be living. Sara had somehow tapped into another Shane, the little boy who loved looking after his baby sister, who played out for hours with friends from the estate and found so many things funny.

Not only that, but Sara could relate to his grief too. Even though she had been only six at the time she remembers crying so hard she couldn’t breathe when her mother died. This beautiful woman who loved her unconditionally had suddenly become poorly. But people usually got better when they got sick and the young Sara always believed that her mummy would soon be up and about again. Unfortunately the monster called cancer did not let her mother get better. Instead it left behind a six-year-old girl, alone and vulnerable with no one even to wipe the tears away. It was her hatred of cancer that drove Sara to study medicine and she hoped she could save every little girl’s mummy so that those little girls wouldn’t have to grow up with the same sense of loss that Sara had.

Amazingly Sara managed to get Shane to open up about Chloe. He realised that since she’d died he hadn’t spoken to a single person about her. Not because he didn’t want to but because no one had ever cared enough to ask. There were a lot of tears when he finally let loose his pent-up feelings and again he pondered that he’d never before cried for the person who he’d loved most in the world, not one tear. Somehow this eventual release of emotion seemed to stabilise his mind. The anger and frustration he’d felt all his life slowly diminished and was tucked away in a little corner.

It was replaced by joy, something Shane had not experienced in a long, long time. Although he didn’t have any proper qualification, Sara helped him find work in a tattoo parlour owned by a friend. Shane loved exploring his artistic side, a talent that the parlour owner commented on often. “Never seen anyone create art like that one,” he would tell his clients.

Soon word got around about the amazing tattoos Shane created. Some people would be dubious when realising it was the nutter who they use to avoid like the plague when out on the town, but after sitting with him as he decorated their bodies they soon found him to be a polite, well-spoken and funny human being. Who would have guessed such a big change could occur in such a short time? Nowadays Shane hardly drank, never took drugs and had not had a cross word with anyone since the day he met Sara. Even when a burly Hell’s Angel walked in calling Shane every name under the sun for beating up his brother a few years back, Shane had politely apologised, offering the man a free hit or a free full-colour forearm tat. Thankfully he took the tattoo and was so impressed by the artwork that he insisted on paying.

Sara worked late hours so Shane learned to cook. He wanted to look after this person who had transformed his life. When she came home it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. Not that Sara minded. She was just as happy as Shane with the transformation in her life and, besides the occasional whispers behind her back about the psycho she was dating, only good had come from her meeting him – or so she thought.

Sara was a high performer. She had passed all her exams a year early at school, got top grades in her A-levels and passed her medicine degree at Manchester with a first. As well as this she was also a concert-level violinist and a talented skier too. She was even asked to represent Great Britain in the 2002 Winter Olympics but she turned it down to follow her passion in medicine.