‘Gilster . . . Gilster, what
happened?’
His eyelids fluttered. ‘Run,’
he said his voice barely a whisper as he struggled for breath, ‘run
now, they’re here.’ The effort proved too much, his eyes closed,
his head fell back. Daria had no time to react as someone grabbed
her roughly from behind hauling her to her feet, fingers digging
painfully into her skin. She was pulled away from Gilster towards
the centre of the room, kicking and screaming as she went. Three
men surrounded her. Tears for Gilster and herself ran down her
cheeks.
‘What have you done,’ she
sobbed, still struggling to get free. The man holding her was too
strong and she was quickly subdued.
‘Search the place,’ said a one
eyed man, ‘see if anyone else is here and then we can get going.’
He turned his attention to Daria. ‘I’m so sorry Chosen,’ he said
sarcastically, ‘he got in the way is all, so we killed him.’ He
laughed at Daria’s stricken face.
The other man returned. ‘If
there was anyone else, they’ve gone,’ he said.
‘Damn,’ spat the one eyed man,
‘I was hoping to catch all of them in one go, never mind, we know
approximately where they’re heading, perhaps we’ll get lucky and
find them. We can’t hang around waiting for them, much as I’d like
to.’
‘Why’s that then?’ said the man
who had searched the place.
‘Idiot,’ screeched the one eyed
man, ‘the machine has a time limit and it’s nearly up. Come on,
activate that thing, we don’t want to get stuck here forever, let’s
get this Chosen back to Anubis and collect our reward. We’ll find
the others eventually.’
At the mention of Anubis, Daria
began struggling again. ‘No . . . please, let me go.’
‘Wait a minute, what’s this?’
said the one eyed man holding up the paper with the co ordinates
written on it: he’d found it sitting on the kitchen table where Max
had left it after copying the co-ordinates. ‘I can’t believe it,
we’ve got the co ordinates back; I never should have sent those two
layabouts in the first place . . . I wonder what happened to
them.’
‘They’re dead,’ spat Daria, ‘my
friends killed them, and they’ll kill you too.’
The one eyed man laughed,
‘they’re no lose to me.’ Then he punched Daria in the stomach,
winding her badly. ‘That’s for stealing the co-ordinates.’ She
would have fallen to the floor if not for the man holding her
tightly. The one eyed man continued as if nothing had happened.
‘It’s about time we had some luck, maybe we can catch them before
they go through the portal.’ He turned back to Daria. ‘You may see
you friends sooner than you think.’ There was a whirring sound and
a flash of light, but in the split second before they disappeared
Daria saw Gilster move, ‘thank Apollo,’ she thought, ‘he’s still
alive, I just hope Max and Haven return before it’s too late. Then
they were gone.
Max and Haven finished their
lattes, picked up the stolen GPS and headed back to the car. Quite
convinced they had input the co-ordinates correctly, they now knew
in which direction they should be headed.
‘Well, this news should put a
smile on Daria’s face,’ said Haven, ‘she’s been itching to move on,
now we can.’
‘I can’t believe we actually
worked it out,’ laughed Max, ‘with no instruction book and one,
extremely quick lesson, I think we did very well.’
‘I knew you could do it,’ said
Haven, ‘like I said before, beauty and brains.’ Max blushed and
punched him playfully in the arm.
They reached the car and began
the short drive back to the resort, discussing along the way things
they would need to take with them. The GPS had informed them the
place they were seeking was eight hundred miles in a south westerly
direction. Max told Haven the only things in that direction were
mountains; her car would only get them so far so they would
probably have to walk the rest of the way. The clothing Max and
Daria had bought would not be sufficient, they would need to buy
warm and water proof clothing. Haven wondered aloud if Lucas would
be able to help them with that. Max laughed. She had enjoyed their
day together and didn’t want it to end, she felt happy and
contented when she was with Haven, something she hadn’t felt since
her parents had died.
They arrived back at the resort
still laughing; parked the car and walked towards the cabin. The
closer they got the more worried Haven looked.
‘There’s something wrong isn’t
there?’ said Max.
‘Yes,’ said Haven quickening
his pace, ‘something is seriously wrong. I should be getting a
sense of them by now, but I’m getting nothing.’
‘Maybe they went for a walk or
something,’ said Max, ‘we’ve been gone a while, I expect they were
getting bored.’
‘No,’ said Haven reaching the
front door, ‘it feels all wrong.’ He flung the door wide open and
ran in, calling for his friends. It took five seconds to find
Gilster behind the sofa. Pushing it out of the way Haven crouched
down, horrified by the sight of the gaping wound in Gilster’s
shoulder. ‘Gil . . . Gil, talk to me. Are you alright? What
happened?’ Max looked over his shoulder and drew a sharp intake of
breath. Gilster was on the floor surrounded by a pool of his own
blood; she knelt down and immediately felt for a pulse. ‘He’s dead
isn’t he?’ said Haven softly, ‘we’re too late, if only I hadn’t
suggested stopping for a coffee we may have been back in time to
stop this happening.’
‘No, he’s not dead, I can feel
a pulse, but it’s very weak. He’s been shot but luckily the bullet
went straight through.’
‘You have such barbaric weapons
in this world,’ said Haven angrily, ‘this would never happen in my
world.’
‘I know, I hate them too,’ said
Max, ‘but we can’t waste time worrying about that now, he’s lost a
lot of blood and we need to get him to a hospital as soon as
possible.’
‘No,’ Haven was adamant, ‘no
hospitals, your doctors are butchers; ‘you must help him Max, use
your healing energy.’ Looking into his eyes, she could see the pain
he was feeling for his friend.
‘I don’t think I’m strong
enough to help him,’ she said sadly.
‘You are strong enough, believe
in yourself and I will help, I can channel my energy through you
and that will boost the healing power.’ She looked back down at
Gilster, his colour was pale, his breathing shallow, he didn’t have
long to live and she knew it.
‘I’ll try,’ she said.
‘That’s all I ask.’
She placed her hands over the
open wound in Gilster’s shoulder and closed her eyes to
concentrate; Haven placed his hands over hers. She opened herself
to the universal energy, allowing it to flow through her into
Gilster. She felt the energy from Haven’s hands flowing through
her, it felt tingly and warm. When Haven saw the colour returning
to Gilster’s face he relaxed a little. It was working, his friend
would survive.
Suddenly his eyes widened in
fear. ‘Daria,’ he thought, ‘where is she, I forgot all about her.’
He jumped up and ran from room to room. He thought maybe she was
hurt or worse, dead, but he knew in his heart he wouldn’t find her,
all sound of her thoughts was gone.
He returned to the lounge-room
with slow, heavy foot-steps. Max was washing her bloodied hands in
the kitchen sink; her back was to him so she couldn’t see the look
of dread on his face.
‘I need to rest now, it’s taken
a lot out of me,’ she said yawning, ‘but I couldn’t have done it
without your help. Gilster needs to sleep to continue healing. Can
you carry him to his bed?’ When he didn’t respond she turned round
and saw his grief stricken face. ‘He’s going to be fine,’ she said,
thinking it was Gilster he was worried about.
‘It’s Daria,’ he said with a
heavy voice, ‘she’s gone, whoever did this must have taken
her.’
Max ran into his arms and
buried her face in his chest. ‘No, this can’t be happening,’ she
sobbed. ‘We’ll find her,’ she said, ‘no matter what happens we’ll
find her. Won’t we?’
‘I hope so,’ whispered Haven
holding her tightly, ‘I truly hope so.’
Shibby came out from the
bathroom, where he had been hiding and rubbed himself around Max’s
legs. ‘Oh my God, you’re ok,’ she said, picking him up and burying
her tear-stained face in his fur.
Night and day for weeks they
ministered to Gilster, until he was eventually well enough to tell
them what had happened. What he said gave them great cause for
concern. He told how he had been sitting quietly in the lounge room
when there was a knock at the door; thinking it was Max and Haven
he opened the door only to be struck savagely and pushed back.
There was a struggle and just as he started to sing his deadly
song, one of the intruders pointed a metal object at him, the next
thing he remembered was lying on the floor in immense pain,
bleeding profusely and unable to move. Daria had come out of the
bedroom but he couldn’t help her, the intruders had grabbed her and
used some sort of small metal device which, when activated caused
them disappear, then, he must have passed out.
‘It seems like they have some
sort of device which they can use to travel without using the
portals,’ said Haven, after Gilster had finished his story.
‘That’s exactly what I
thought,’ said Gilster, ‘which means we have to be very careful
because now we know they can turn up anywhere, any time. I do
remember one of them saying something about a time limit, but I
can’t be exactly sure.’
‘Never mind,’ said Max, ‘at
least we know about the device now.’
Daria was never far from their
thoughts and they constantly planned how they would get her
back.
‘Is it really worth continuing
to look for the other Chosen,’ said Gilster one day, ‘after all,
she is one of the Chosen, we can’t finish what we have to do
without her, maybe we should just concentrate on finding her and
leave the task unfinished.’
‘Daria wouldn’t want that,’
said Max, ‘besides, we need to get to Anubis’ world to find her, so
we may as well collect the other Chosen along the way, we’ll need
all the help we can get.’
‘She’s right,’ said Haven, ‘I
say we carry on, Daria would want that.’
‘It’s settled then,’ said
Gilster, ‘we will carry on . . . for Daria.’
‘By the way, how did you go
trying to find out where the co- ordinates lead,’ said Gilster,’
with everything that has happened it completely slipped my
mind.’
‘It went well,’ said Haven,
happy to have something positive to report, ‘we don’t know exactly
where it is but we have a direction to head. When you’re well
enough we’ll leave.’
It took a few more days before
they felt sufficiently organised to leave. They were uncomfortable
days with little sleep for any of them. They didn’t know if the
enemy would return for Max. Haven hardly left her side for a
second. Gilster was remembering more each day about what had
happened; he had recently recalled the men saying something about a
reward for the Chosen. Max didn’t like the sound of that, perhaps
there was more than one group looking for the Chosen. ‘I have a
bounty on my head,’ she thought.
They decided it would be best
to leave in the early hours of the morning, that way they would
attract as little attention as possible. Sleep was impossible so
they sat quietly in the lounge room each lost in their own
thoughts. Gilster was thinking about Daria, feeling guilty that he
hadn’t been able to save her; Shibby jumped up on his lap, turned
around a few times and settled down to sleep. Gilster’s hand began
to rhythmically stroke the soft fur behind Shibby’s ears, ‘how will
you cope with what is to come my little friend,’ he thought.
Looking up he saw Max watching him.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’
she said sadly, ‘where we’re going will not be a safe place for
Shibby will it?’
‘The choice is yours Max, and
it always will be,’ he said, ‘but, no I don’t think it will be
safe.’
She walked over to Gilster and
picked up Shibby from his lap, he began to purr and rub his face
against her cheek.
‘I’m so sorry for everything
that has happened to you,’ she said cuddling him, ‘but I think the
best thing for you would be to stay with Jason, he loves you as
much as I do, he will take good care of you.’
A tear formed on the edge of
her eyelid before spilling over and running down her cheek. It
broke Haven’s heart to see her so distressed.
‘Perhaps you should call
Jason,’ he said gently.
Max walked silently into the
next room still carrying Shibby. A few minutes later she returned
with Shibby and his cat-carrier, ‘it’s done,’ she said, ‘Jason is
on his way.’
For the next half hour she sat
with Shibby telling him how special he was and how much she would
miss him. Then came the knock on the door she had been dreading;
she checked the spy hole before carrying Shibby over in his cat
carrier and opening the door. She didn’t ask Jason to come in she
just wanted it to be over. Haven and Gilster could hear her talking
quietly to Jason.
‘Thank you so much for taking
care of him, I really appreciate it, he’s missing his brother but I
know he loves you and you’ll take good care of him, I’ll call you
when I get back from my holiday.’
‘You know it’s no problem,’
said Jason, ‘we’ll be fine, won’t we mate, two bachelors together.’
He laughed, picked up the cat carrier and started to walk away,
stopped, and turned back again. ‘Is everything ok Max? You don’t
seem yourself.’
Max managed a half-hearted
smile. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I’m just going to miss the big fellow,
that’s all.’
‘Alright,’ said Jason, sounding
unconvinced, ‘if that’s all it is. But you know I’m always here for
you.’
She hugged him tightly. ‘Thank
you, that means a lot to me. I knew I could count on you. Love
you,’ she said, knowing she would probably never see him or Shibby
again, ‘take care.’ She closed the door and leaned her forehead on
it. Haven came over and put his arms around her. She turned into
his chest and started sobbing.