Sample Chapter from Child of Light

Chapter 1

One man stood against the tyranny.  A little girl stood watching him in the distance.  She could hear agitation in his voice, as puffs of frosty smoke escaped from his lips.  The weather on the planet had long since fallen out of order—every day like summer, every night like winter.  Her stomach grumbled and gurgled with anticipation.  A stranger stood in the shadows.  The man asked the stranger a question—silence.  Footsteps scampered in the distance heading like a predator for its prey as an assassin approached the man from behind.  “Daddy!”  The voice of the girl dissipated in the cold city air.  She found herself panting, unable to gather enough strength as a murderous demon approached with a knife.  She stumbled and fell unable to regain her wits.  A glow passed her and a spiritual pressure knocked her forward.  Infuriated, the man caught the assassin and reversed the knife on him.  Blood oozed from the wound, staining along his shirt and pants spilling onto the pavement.  The moment seemed to last for hours.  A sardonic grin betook the man’s lips, as the dying body rested along his shoulders.  The girl ran to him, crying.  The ground beneath her gave way and she could feel herself falling into darkness.

Deva awoke from this reoccurring nightmare and fell to the wooden floor.  The dream haunted her over and over.  Disoriented, she realized she must have fallen asleep before dinnertime again.  "Daddy!" she said.  He's going to be in trouble... I think.  But maybe it was just a dream.  Or worst a memory.  She looked around the dark room and rubbed her cold shoulders.  "Daddy, I have to tell you about my dream."  She ran over to his room, but the bed was vacant and cold air blew in from an open window.  She closed the window and ran to the dark hallway.  "Daddy... where are you?"  She could hear voices coming from downstairs.  She ducked behind the stairway railing so they would not see her.  Her father stood in the living room talking to someone.

"Cyrus, are you sure you don't need me to be there?" a young man said to her father.

"No way,” Cyrus said.  “Stay with the twins.  I have other business to take care of."

"It's probably a trap."

"I'm sure it is."

"Then let me come with you instead."

"Come on Copper, we both know, you'll only get in my way."

"Alright,” Copper said.  “Go it alone, but I'm going over there after we’re done and wait it out for you,"

"Stubborn," Cyrus said smashing his cigarette into the ashtray.  “I’m leaving soon.”

I gotta follow him! Deva rushed back to her room and threw on a coat. 

“Hey!” a voice said from Deva’s window.  Her friend waved to her from the fire escape.  He had smooth dark skin, and wooly gray hair so shiny it looked metallic.  Deva flipped the window screen down, and pulled her friend into her room. 

“Silver Matrices!”    

“Just call me Silver, okay?” he said.  “Are you coming?  I think I know where they’re going, but you have to be quick.  They stationed here at your house before leaving.”

“I’m in, let’s go!” she said.  Anything to escape her mundane routine of eating dinner, listening to reruns on the radio, and putting on her pajama pants.  “You always know where the fun is!”

“What can I say, I’m like a psychic or something!” he said.  He covered his finger over his lips then pulled her by the hand out of the window.  “Alright, be absolutely silent and follow me.”  They climbed down the fire escape and watched Copper and Cyrus through a window.  Her father stood with a group of people.  Copper prepped a set of children wearing black cat suits.  “That’s my bro there; I’d know the back of his head anywhere.  Looks like he’s telling them how to use that doohickey he brought.  He built those for tonight, but I don’t know what they do.” 

“Are those children?”

“Yeah, twins to be exact.” 

“No fair, daddy never lets me do anything fun.”

“It’s not fun Deva, but dangerous… I’m sure.”  They watched Copper place a pair of goggles over one of the twin’s eyes.  Copper demonstrated the night vision capabilities and different uses of the buttons.  “That’s so cool!  I want to use gadgets like that!” Silver said.  “Ah man, there’s gotta be a way to get into the base along with them.  I heard there heading for a government base.” 

“It can’t be easy to get in if they need all those gizmos.” 

“Even if we can’t get in, we can see a real base of the House of Lords!”

“Oh!” 

“You probably have no idea about what I’m talking about.”

“Not really.”

“Whatever.  It’s where I want to work when I get older,” he said and grinned at her.  “That and become a universally recognized baseball player.” 

“Ha-ha, cool… oh I almost forgot.  I have to tell daddy about the dream again.  Maybe I can tell him once I get there.”

“Sh, they’re leaving the apartment now.  Let’s go,” he said and led her down the fire escape.  “I think the base is somewhere downtown.  It’s blocked by all these gates.  Like I said it’ll be cool just to see it.”  Deva nodded, following him into the trunk of their car.  “Quiet.”  He slammed the trunk closed, the only light coming from a glow-in-the-dark emergency button.  “We’ll use this button to get out once we stop.”  They heard them load the car and start the engine.  The silent and dark trip only took a little under twenty minutes to complete.  The car came to a rest; they heard hushed whispers then silence.  Silver and Deva found their chance to escape the trunk.  “There’s the base,” Silver said and pointed across the street. 

“Yeah, but where’s daddy?” she asked.  After hiding from Copper, they observed the twins slink across the street towards the base.  The twins approached a barbwire fence.  Latching onto the side of the wall, they managed to climb up the outer side until they reached the barbwire.  One twin swung the other up and over the wire with a flip to the other side.  The second one bounded off the wall, hovering slightly in the air before flipping sidelong over the wire.  Deva and Silver rushed up to the wall in amazement. 

“Wow, did you see that?” Silver asked her.

“Yea, we need to borrow some of your brother’s stuff!”

“Uh-huh,” he said, “especially if we want to get in here.”

“I wish we could get in.  That would have been fun.”

“Maybe there’s still a way.”  They searched along the wall.  A few minutes passed, all went quiet.  They suddenly heard a rustling from behind the wall.  “Wait, wait.”  He pushed her behind a lamppost to hide.  “What is that?”  He pointed to a dark figure that leaped over the wall and into the street.  “Who is that?”

“You don’t think the twins got finished that fast do you?”

“Nah, there’s no way.  Besides, where’s the other one?”  They watched as the figure came running down the street towards them.  “Ack!  Um, hide.”  He fled behind a trashcan, Deva quickly followed.  The figure stumbled down the empty street racing with an incredible speed straight pass them.  They could see her more clearly in the headlights.  She appeared to have some sort of package locked under her arm.  Suddenly the gates of the base opened up and an alarm from a military vehicle sounded.  The black figure paused and turned to the car that approached her.  The rain started to dampen the street causing her to slip slightly.  The military car connected against her small frame sending her flying several feet.  “Oh my god!” Silver said. 

“Should we do something?”

“Can we do anything?” Silver asked turning to find Deva was no longer beside him. “Deva, Deva?”  He looked around for her, but she had already started running to the girl.  She raced in front of the cop car just as it threatened to run the girl down.

“Out of the way kid!” the officer in shotgun said through a megaphone.  “This is soldier business; you don’t know what you’re messing with here.”  Deva shook her head, and tried to help the girl up.  Just as she reached for her, the girl slid back from her touch.  She jumped to standing, rushing away as if nothing had hit her.  The car swerved to miss hitting Deva and stopped.  “Dang it kid, you really have no idea what you just unleashed,” the driver said to Deva.  The car darted passed her nearly striking her down.

“Are you alright?”  Silver came to her aid.  She nodded.  “Good, let’s hurry.  I don’t want to miss what they do with that little girl.”  

“Or what she does to them,” she said.  He grabbed her hand as they raced after the military car.

A brigade of military vehicles and one limousine followed close behind the lead car.  They inscribed the emblem of the House of Lords on the side of each car.  Up the block, a shallow crowd gathered; the limousine stopped in front of a dilapidated building.  Officers with batons held back the crowd.  “Look at that!” a woman cried out.  Silver and Deva looked up to find the girl on a ledge four stories up. 

“Come down now, that’s an order!” the officer said through his megaphone.  The girl shook her head.  She had a confident grin on her face.  Her thick dark hair blew violently in the rainy winds; a single streak of blond hair ran through her fleecy hair.  Her nearly black skin shined brilliantly in the searchlights

“You cannot keep me!” the girl said.  “I am a human being!”  From behind, a soldier tried to pull her in from the window.  After overpowering him, she threw him down.  The other soldiers caught him in a net, as the girl laughed.  The girl held a manila envelope up in the air.

“What is that?” Deva asked Silver.

“It’s some sort of package,” Silver said.  “Maybe she stole it from them.” 

The girl waved her prized possession in the air.  “I will show the world what you have done!” she said.  The cop shook his head and wiped the rain from his face.  He turned to the other officers and discussed a plan before heading back to the limousine. 

“Come down now,” the officer said.  “This is your last warning before we bring Her out.”  The smile faded from the girl’s face.

“Who’s Her?”

“Someone we don’t want to know,” Silver said.    

The officer turned to the limousine.  “Alright Selene, come out,” the officer said.  As they opened the car door, the crowd gasped. 

“I can’t see… what does she look like?” Deva asked bobbing her head around.  A pale child stepped out of the car and into the street.  Her golden hair rolled down her back striped with shades of crimson.  With frightening white skin and lightning yellow eyes, she almost seemed unreal.  “I can’t believe my eyes.”  Deva wiped them, and then peered again.  “Nope, my eyes were right.”

“Her skin has no color,” Silver said and cringed.

“A freak!” a person said from the crowd. 

“An angel!” another woman said. 

The pale child strolled towards the building; even the soldiers moved out of her way.  The pale child caused the front door of the building to freeze into a block of ice and it exploded into bits of debris.  The whispers in the crowd settled, rain poured gently from the clouds above. 

The girl on the ledge watched with wide eyes as the pale child entered the building.  “No, I’ll never go back!” the girl said as she turned her back on the crowd.  Fire poured from her mouth.  The building exploded with flames; it poured out of each window shattering glass windows.  A piece of glass jabbed the girl in the arm and caused her to fumble with the package.  It descended to the street below.  The soldiers swarmed to collect it.  The building exploded in bursts of flames, encasing the rest of the old wooden building.  The pale child appeared behind the girl in the window.  White mist billowed from the pale child’s fingertips.  The fire died down and the building turned as frosty as snow.  She grabbed the girl by the throat and tossed her down to the ground below.  The girl hit the ground face first and pale child landed on her feet beside her.  She dragged her back into the limousine and the soldiers drove away just before the firefighters arrived. 

“Oh my god!” Silver said.  “Let’s go see if she’s alright.” He grabbed her hand, but they ran into someone who picked them up by the collar.  He lifted them up.  “Lemme go!  You’ll be sorry.”  Silver took a swing at the air.  Deva tapped his shoulder and pointed to Copper’s face.  “Uh oh…”

“Busted!” Copper said.  “Fun time’s over!  Trouble time starts now!”