Plague of Coins (The Judas Chronicles #1) (18 page)

I glanced behind me as I dropped to my knees, noticing that the eel had caught up with the other critter. They both bore down on me and soon were within inches of my left foot. I shoved Alistair’s feet forcefully enough to send him several feet into the glowing shaft. The gruesome bug popping continued. But, at least the glowing slime served as a lubricant to help his body move through the tight squeeze.

That left me just a second or two to get my ass in there with them. I scampered into the tunnel, pulling up my legs in a fetal position to try and avoid the pair of angry snapping jaws barely missing my feet. I prepared for the excruciating discomfort of having my toes or an entire foot severed. But, miraculously, the pair remained outside the tunnel’s mouth, writhing in anger as if forbidden to follow us inside. I took full advantage of their limited vigil, pushing on my son’s ass and urging Amy to keep moving.

“Can you see anything yet?” I called to her, once we got far enough from the tunnel’s entrance to be reasonably safe from an unprotected attack from the rear.

“Oh, my God...Oh My GOD!!”
she cried out. Unlike earlier, her shrill voice bore the distinct sound of awe and wonder.

“What?!
What do you see up there?” I tried focusing all of my senses on her and what she was experiencing.

“Oh, my God...William,
hurry!
I just reached the end of the tunnel, and this is
so
incredible! You’ll never believe what I’m looking at unless you see it with your own eyes!!”

What in the hell?

Suddenly, I heard slithering noises behind me...coming up fast! I had seriously underestimated the ill-will I had caused the two apparent guardians of the pond and this passageway. If anything, the smeared guts from the destroyed glowworms would speed their arrival.

Thankfully, it sounded as if Amy had crawled out of the tunnel. With one last powerful shove, Alistair soon joined her. I uttered another quick prayer for his safety since I realized he fell out of the damned tunnel with no way to protect himself. I started to call out to them, but my words dissolved before they left my throat. It started with an extremely bright light entering the tunnel from where Amy and Alistair had exited. That alone would’ve supported Amy’s excited reaction moments earlier. But, what I saw next with my own eyes far exceeded that wonder.

As my slime covered head and torso peered out through the tunnel’s end, I beheld a world that until that moment I believed was pure fantasy. It didn’t seem real...how could it
be
real?

What sat before us—what
surrounded
us—was a garden of sorts. A magical garden....

The
Garden of Eden.

Chapter 18

I fell out of the tunnel, not caring where I landed. The ground was laden with soft grass. Grass, I should say, that gathered onto itself where I needed a cushion and then evened out again after I landed safely upon it. Amy and Alistair were lying on the grass nearby. Amy sat up with a look of complete contentment upon her face while Alistair slept soundly next to her. His breathing steady, it gave me hope that I had a little more time to find a way to care for his injuries. More importantly, there were no more slithering noises coming from inside the tunnel. We were no longer in immediate danger.

Where we landed, was at the edge of an incredibly beautiful meadow. I imagine some folks out there are ready for me to say that we stepped out of one reality and entered into a spectacular realm that stretched for miles and miles. Like ‘Harry Potter’, or something Aesop and the Brothers Grimm might concoct.

Not so. Yes it was truly amazing, and altogether unlike anything I’d ever seen. But the entire area extended no more than half a mile in any direction. We were in another room that belonged to the cave system...albeit an enormous room wider than several football fields. That’s considering the width of the room. The height was a whole other beast to consider. I couldn’t see the room’s ceiling, and where the apex should be was a swirling combination of orange, blue and purple lights beyond wispy white clouds. It was as if a beautiful sunrise, or sunset, from the world outside had been sucked into the very top of the mountain we were presently within.

And how do I know it was a mountain? Well, that was more from what I learned later on, though it made some logical sense at that moment. The inward tapering walls of this enormous cave room bore the same groove striations and slick surfaces that I’ve often seen when spelunking through the hundreds of mountain cave systems I’ve visited during my long stay on earth. The same trickling water that dripped down the walls was present, as well. Only in this strange environment the walls were covered with bright green moss and algae.

A gentle stream coursed through the meadow of unique green and purple grasses, colorful flowers, and other plant life. Everything was in some ways similar to, and yet, different from anything I’d ever seen before.

In addition to the soft lights above that reminded me of an evening and morning sky, an extremely bright ball of light emanated from near the very center of the cave. Like a miniature sun or virgin star, it swirled slowly above the cave floor a quarter of a mile ahead of us. The terrain sloped down to this light from where we were, giving us all a clear view of everything else that had elicited Amy’s amazed and reverent response earlier.

Two tall waterfalls emptied into a large pond to the right of where this light hovered, and what looked like a small forest of tall, thick green trees formed an arc on the other side of the light, to our left. It looked as if we might encounter some of this wooded area if we were to wade through the meadow toward the light. In front of the light sat an incredible garden filled with exotic-looking flowers, the likes of which I’d never seen anywhere on earth before. The flowers’ rich cinnamon and honeysuckle-like scents filled the warm air around us...air that was clean, fresh and entirely free of pollutants. Like one might find on an uninhabited tropical island.

As I mentioned, there were many things in this place that had compatible counterparts in the ‘outside’ world. Not just plants and such. I had no desire to find out what kind of fish and other creatures flourished in the stream and pond ahead of us, but flocks of colorful birds that ranged from finch cousins to those as big as condors flew all around us. Their songs were amazingly beautiful. Deer-like animals were also plentiful, with the key differences from their cousins thriving above ground being their three-toed feet instead of hooves, and their eyes. Their eyes’ iridescence was more vivid than the creatures we had just suffered through.

“Isn’t this incredibly awesome?” Amy’s intense green eyes shined brightly with excitement. Stunning. I’m now talking about her. Really, I can’t recall any woman I’ve known down through the centuries having eyes as ablaze as this female’s. Even my Beatrice—as gorgeous as her eyes were in her youth, couldn’t quite compare with Ms. Golden Eagle’s fiery emeralds. “If this really is the Garden of Eden, then I know in my heart that Jeremy has to be around here...someplace!”

Like a young kid, she seemed ready to run through the meadow of this unspoiled paradise, calling her brother’s name and perhaps even skipping through the meadow like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music
.

“I would think if he’s actually here, he would already know that
we’re
here. Right?” I had a hard time warming up to the reunion she sought, since going out of the way to make it happen had proven disastrous for my kid’s health. I moved over to Alistair, to check the strength of his vital signs. “Maybe your brother needs a moment to detect our presence. Be sure to yell at the top your lungs, so he has a smidgen of a chance to hear you.”

Ahhh, it felt so delightful to be a smartass again! She took it well, responding with a playful scowl. Really, it was all in good fun. Besides, if Jeremy really was there then great, and if not, then we needed to get busy finding an exit out of there. Especially since Alistair’s breathing had worsened again.

“Jeremy!!!”

Huh? I guess she took me seriously. I didn’t expect her to respond to a dare. Her yell echoed eerily throughout the cave.

“Well, if he’s here, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that he heard you loud and clear, little sister,” I said, offering a wry smile. “In the meantime, we need to get busy finding a way outta this place before the Sirens make us forget about leaving!”

Rather than respond to my wit this time, she looked over at Alistair, lying on his stomach and struggling to breathe again. Her serene countenance faded while she studied him.

“Yes, you’re right,” she agreed. “We need to get help before Ali gets any….”

Her statement unfinished, we had just heard something, or
someone
, stepping toward us from behind a tall tree nearby that resembled a walnut tree. Both Amy and I moved to protect Alistair, who remained asleep despite his discomfort. I tried to convince myself that his soft snores were a good thing...that somehow he’d be all right in the end.

My heart fell when I saw the barrel of an assault rifle pointed at us. I assumed that Stanislav’s mercenaries had followed us down the chute, or found a different entrance into this magnificent place.

“Who in the hell are you?”

From behind the tree, the male’s voice mimicked Amy’s accent.

“Jeremy?
Is that really
you??”

Amy sounded tentative, as if she feared being disappointed.

“It is Jeremy,” replied the voice, equally tentative. “So it’s really you, too, Amy?”

“Yes!”

The rest of what she said was a mixture of squeals and saying his name over and over again as she ran to the tree. I remained poised to come to her rescue, but soon she emerged hand in hand with a strikingly handsome young man. Clearly related to her, he bore the same raven hair and chiseled facial features, along with the same eyes...piercing green lights that surely reflected similar passion to his sister’s lust for adventure. Only his build was different, as Jeremy’s six foot frame and powerful physique hinted at a previous life as a successful athlete as compared to her slender form.

“William, this is my brother, Jeremy,” she said, proudly. “And the man lying on the ground is William’s father, Alistair.”

Jeremy’s dazzling smile faded once he saw my son, and completely fell when she told him what had befallen Alistair.

“It’s a pleasure, Jeremy,” I said, studying his facial expression. Something deeply alarmed him about my son’s condition. “Amy has told us so much about you.”

“Hopefully it’s all been good,” he said, forcing a weak smile despite his serious tone.

“It was,” I deftly cut to the chase about Alistair. “As Amy told you, my father was bitten by some kind of eel with jelly-fish characteristics—no doubt poisonous. Do you have a first aid kit with you by chance?”

“Yes, I have some medical supplies,” he said. “But, your dad’s color is bad, and he’ll need more attention than I can give.”

“We’ll take whatever you can afford to give us. If we could just—”

“I might be able to get you something far better than anything modern medicine has to offer!” he blurted out, suddenly, perhaps not even aware he had interrupted me. “But first I have to make sure you’re protected.”

“Protected?”

“Yes, protected,” he repeated, solemnly. “You can all easily die here if you’re not protected.”

Amy and I already knew about other critters carrying potentially nasty bites, but I could tell he spoke of some other menace. The fear in his face said it was something far worse, and obviously something that wouldn’t be easily intimidated by the late-model Izhmash assault rifle he carried.

“What do you mean we can die?” I said, frowning, I’m sure. “Are you talking about Stanislav’s men?”

“No...no, It’s not them,” he said. “I’m talking about a creature that guards this place. If we can avoid him, I might be able to get you to a place that can eradicate Alistair’s injuries. There’s a man in the village near here called Zoran...have you met him?”

“Yes, we met him twice, actually.” I was curious as to what the strange leader of the village could do for us. Especially since Zoran resided at least three hundred feet above where we were right then. “The second time was less than an hour ago, when he poured some weird oil concoction on our heads.”