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  The Gatekeeper Trilogy

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  Gates of Delicia

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  The

  GATEKEEPER

  The Gatekeeper Trilogy: Book 1

  SCOTT FERRELL

  The Gatekeeper

  MysticPhysh Publishing

  Copyright © 2015 Scott Ferrell

  Find out about the author by going to these sites:

  bit.ly/munboy

  https://www.facebook.com/a.munboy

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: rebecacovers

  Cover Model: Matt Asboe

  Cover Photographer: Rebekah Chandler

  ISBN: 1503348695

  ISBN-13: 9781503348691

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to two special kids who put up with Daddy disappearing behind a keyboard and a pair of headphones.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Part One: The Gateway

  Hero

  Outbursts

  Aoife Connelly

  Dream Girl

  The Gateway

  Cold Confusion

  The Jo-Shar

  The Elder

  Answers?

  Flight

  Empathy

  Part Two: Alisundi

  Journey’s Beginning

  The Plunge

  Behind Every Hero

  The Ashlings

  Into the Trees

  Meet the Parents

  Power Awakening

  Taken

  In Pursuit

  Part Three: Delicia

  Musical Montages

  Sholto

  Through the Swamp

  Balataur Attack

  A Savior

  Minotaur

  A Promise

  Into Delicia

  Fear, Pain, and Desperation

  Finding Seanna

  Circle of Atlas

  A Climb to Doom

  Daresh

  Betrayal

  In the End

  Note From the Author

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The first flip sent a spider web of cracks streaking across the windshield. The second crunched in the SUV’s roof. The vehicle’s structure weakened and crumpled. The third spin sent the ruined windshield flying into the darkness as one sheet of ruined glass. Tiny leftover flecks of it tumbled around inside the vehicle with Grace Porter, along with random car parts that had rattled loose. She blacked out on the fourth rotation.

  ***

  An unknown liquid dripped somewhere near her, quiet plops like a leaky faucet. Drip, drip, drip. Each one cut through the haze in her head like little drops of consciousness. It called on her to wake up. Drip, drip, drip. She kept her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to open them. She didn’t want to face the outside world. All she wanted was to slip back into the darkness away from the pain.

  She felt something warm slide up her forehead into her hair. It contrasted with the cool breeze that chilled the sweat on her brow, sending a tiny shiver down her stiff body. She wanted to run a hand over her forehead, but her arms felt like bricks hanging over her head.

  Grace couldn’t get her bearings. It felt like the vehicle was still rolling and rolling inside her head. Her stomach lurched and churned. She thought she might throw up. She swallowed down the sensation and steeled herself. What was she going to do? Sit and wait for somebody to rescue them? She couldn’t do that. They didn’t have the time to wait for somebody to come along and trust they would notice a vehicle had slid off the road and tumbled down the side of a mountain.

  She forced open her stinging eyes. Her vision blurred and twisted. She felt bile slide into her esophagus. She swallowed hard and squeezed them shut. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face the situation no matter how much she knew she had to do something. She was too weak.

  Her breath came in quick, short gasps that violently ripped themselves out of her lungs. Her heart hammered out of control. Her chest felt ready to explode.

  “Richard?” she gasped, her voice raw from the bile that had burned her throat. No answer came. At least, she didn’t think there was an answer. Her ears rang and throbbed. It caused the world to go mute like she was underwater. Even her voice sounded distant and not like her own. “Richard, are you okay?”

  Still no answer.

  Grace swallowed and wrestled her eyes open again. The SUV rested upside down, rocking with a creak and groan. All she could see was the ground around her and darkness out beyond the vehicle. The seat belt strained and dug into her shoulder, holding her suspended in the passenger seat. She tried to relieve the pressure by pushing herself up by the crumpled roof, but her weakened arms shook with the effort.

  The world started to spin again. She squeezed her burning eyes closed and tried to steady her breathing. She tried to take deep breaths, but her lungs contracted on their own. The world went on tumbling inside her head.

  “Richard?”

  She reached to her left hip but couldn’t gather the strength in her trembling fingers to push the red button that would release her from the seatbelt. She had to get herself under control. She clenched her fingers into a fist and forced a long, ragged breath into her lungs. She would get control of herself.

  But memories slid across her eyelids. They squeezed their way into her thoughts, forcing her to relive them. She saw her husband, Richard, with one hand lazily draped over the steering wheel. She saw her own hand bridge the gap between them to run fingers through his hair. It was black but already peppered with gray, even though he was only in his mid-thirties. A small smile appeared on his lips at her touch. She loved the way his soft hair felt in her hand.

  Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, but instead of sliding down her cheeks, they crawled up her forehead. Grace tried to push the thoughts away. They were barely minutes old, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Maybe they were older memories. How long had she been unconscious? Were they memories from another time? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t tell.

  She loved to watch him drive. She could tell there were things going on inside his mind, but knew if she asked what he was thinking, she’d get the same answer: “Driving.” She had left the question unasked and turned back to the road in front of them just in time to see a shadow dart across the headlights. Just a flash of darkness, gone in half a moment, but Richard had reacted. He jerked the wheel and slammed on the breaks. Grace felt the car slide toward the edge of the mountain road, felt its momentum slow as it neared the dark drop-off. She felt relief as she thought they weren’t going over the side. She felt the car pick up speed. She felt it tumble off the road.

  Grace clenched her aching jaw and shook the memories from her mind. She had to steel herself for what she’d find in the driver seat. At best, she’d find her husband unconscious. At worst…well, she didn’t want to think about that. She knew the possibilities of what she might find. It wasn’t something she was willing to consider at that point. It wasn’t something she ever wanted to consider. He would be there.

  Ric
hard always carried a small knife in his right pocket. If she could get it, she would be able to cut herself free and go for help. She tried to focus on that. Get the knife, she told herself. Cut yourself loose. Get help.

  With her mind tumbling, her breathing uneven, and her heart pounding against her ribcage, she opened her eyes. She turned her stiff neck to the left to find the driver seat empty, the crumpled door wide open and hanging on one hinge. A half-moon hung in the sky somewhere out of her line of sight. It illuminated the empty driver’s seat like a spotlight. She stared at the seat where her husband should have been.

  “Richard.” The word caught in her throat. More tears forced their way into the corners of her eyes. “Richard!” Her raw voice cracked.

  She let go of the roof and yanked at the seatbelt with increasing violence. Panic set into her pounding heart until it hurt worse than any other injury she had yet to realize she had suffered.

  “Richard!”

  She fumbled at the button, but the restraint refused to let her go so she could find her husband. She turned to the left as far as her neck would let her, looking for him. Two young, twin pine trees had stopped their tumble down the mountain. She stared at them until her eyes blurred. How could such small things have stopped their SUV? As if to add validity to the question, the saplings creaked and the vehicle slid a fraction of an inch.

  The movement cleared her mind and vision. She twisted further, careful to not shift too much or risk sending the vehicle farther down the side of the mountain. Out in the darkness beyond the SUV, her husband was nowhere in sight. In that moment, she knew the worst had happened to him.

  With that realization, she gave up. Whatever determination she had to find him fled almost as quickly as it had settled into her. She went limp, hanging from the seatbelt. A sob crawled up her throat, along with the bile she had been fighting. She turned her head just in time to throw up on the SUV roof. She retched until her gut was empty and knotted. She drew a shaky hand across her mouth and wiped a bit of vomit off her cheek once the heaves had subsided.

  A whisper drifted down to her from the darkness. Grace went still. She strained against the sound of her own heartbeat drumming in her ears to hear the voice again. Her ears felt stuffy and her head throbbed, but she was certain she had heard something. Was it Richard?

  The thought breathed new life into her. She reached for the seatbelt release button again but stilled as the sound floated to her again. Louder this time, clearer. In a flash of understanding, she knew it wasn’t her husband. She knew it wasn’t even human. She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her heavy breathing and a whimper that worked its way up her ragged throat. The voice faded away.

  The unknown liquid continued to drip from the engine, pattering on the ground. It reminded her of fairies landing heavily on leaves while they danced and played around her and Richard.

  She stared out the gaps in the car where the windows used to be. She saw nothing but ground and darkness. The car’s headlights no longer worked, smashed in the first few moments the vehicle had started to tumble down the mountainside.

  She renewed her efforts to get out of the car. She pushed at the button, but the locking mechanism wouldn’t release her.

  The voice came back. It was closer, now, speaking in an unearthly language. A lilting cadence of grunts and hisses.

  She knew what was out there. She didn’t understand the language, but she had heard it before in what felt like another lifetime. A time she didn’t want to remember. She jabbed at the seat belt release over and over. If she could get out of the car, maybe there was a chance she could escape or hide. She needed to get to Gaige to protect him. She knew they would be after him next.

  The voice outside faded and a figure appeared in front of the car, wearing a cloak blacker than the night. It slid out of the dark toward her on the sloped ground. Her eyes widened and she doubled her efforts on the seat belt. Every yank was more desperate than the last.

  She abandoned the efforts when the cloaked figure stood outside her window. Her breathing was nothing more than gasps. The fabric, stitched with runes she recognized, swayed gently in the soft breeze gliding along the mountainside. She flung her hand out at the figure in desperation, but nothing happened. She stared at her trembling fingers. Why wasn’t anything happening? She tried again. The night remained dark and still.

  “Grace Porter, you live still?” came a voice in heavily accented English, thick and dark. “To finish you, I could kill but maybe you prove useful.” An oversized boot appeared from underneath the cloak to push aside a piece of the SUV with the toe.

  The figure knelt beside her busted window and reached in toward her. In the scant light the stars and half-moon provided, Grace saw the hand, gray, rough, and cracked. Three fingers extended toward her. One thought flashed through her mind before everything went black. What will happen to Gaige? Who will protect my son?

  Part One

  The Gateway

  1

  Hero

  I pushed myself off the ground again and flicked my arm. Pins and needles crawled up and down it like tiny unseen bugs. I turned and glared at my teammates, seething so hard my head hurt. I needed a target to vent my anger. James Mitchum stood, puffing hard with hands on his hips. Target sighted. I stalked over to him, grabbed the large boy’s face mask, and yanked it close to mine. “Are you going to do your job or what? I’m getting tired of being plastered to the field before I get a chance to throw the stupid ball!”

  James growled and narrowed his beady eyes. The effect pinched his face into something that resembled a wilting jack-o’-lantern.

  Jonathan Miller grabbed my wrist. “Come on, Gaige. We’re all doing the best we can.”

  I turned my glare on him, suppressing the urge to remind him a running back was supposed to have the ball in his hand when he ran. His three fumbles showed an obvious lack of understanding that simple concept. “Are we really?” I let go of James’s face mask and waved at the scoreboard at the other end of the field. 45–0? What a joke! “Is that the best we can do?”

  Jonathan opened his mouth to reply, but his mouthpiece fell out. He tried to catch it. The chunk of plastic wiggled in his hand like it had a mind of its own and wanted nothing more than to escape. It fell to the ground. He stooped to snatch it up, dropped it, and picked it up again. He straightened and wiped the river of drool that rolled out of his mouth with a hand. He rubbed the mouthpiece on his dirty pants and shoved the hunk of maroon plastic between his teeth.

  “Huddle up!” I barked before he could recover enough from the mishap to say whatever he was going to say. I turned away from my teammates, adjusted my shoulder pads, and looked to the sidelines for the next play.

  Our offensive coordinator looked over the play sheet a moment. The aging man had a slightly bewildered look on his pinched face. He shrugged and waved a play in with a series of half-hearted hand gestures.

  What? Again? I ground my teeth in frustration. He had called the same pass play three times already in that game. It had worked exactly zero out of three times. “Does he know anything about football?” I mumbled under my breath.

  I turned and looked into the faces of my teammates. I felt my blood pressure rise and throb in my temples at what I saw. They had already given up. There was no chance we could catch up, of course, but seeing the quit in their eyes downright pissed me off.

  I jabbed fingers in between my face mask and helmet, pushing at my stinging eyes. Sweat ran over my eyebrows. It was unusually hot and humid, which only added a sliver of irritation to my emotional state. A sliver the size of a six-foot two-by-four. I thought about changing the play. There had to be something better than that same, stupid play, but I couldn’t think of one to call in its place.

  “Split right, pro, seven, two, ten. On two.” I spat out the play, resigned.

  My team didn’t even bother breaking the huddle properly as they took their positions without much enthusiasm. They wanted nothing more than for the game t
o be over. I didn’t blame them, but I wasn’t about to give up with time on the clock.

  I bent over James and called “hut.” There was a moment of hesitation before the ball slapped my hands. Apparently, I had forgotten the snap count. Something I never did. I guess my brain was filled to the max with being too pissed off to remember something like the snap count.

  I stumbled, recovered, dropped back three steps, and faked a throw to a receiver, Martin Olsson, coming from the right on a slant route. I had thrown that pass three times before. The first time, a defender batted the ball away from the receiver’s outstretched hands. The second time, I wound up on the turf, sacked before I had a chance to even think about throwing it. The third time, the ball hit Martin between the eight and two on his chest and bounced to the ground.

  I had no intentions of throwing it a fourth time. Instead, I pulled the ball down, tucked it under my arm, and squirted through a hole in the mass of padded bodies along the line of scrimmage. A defender managed to get a hand on my jersey, but I pulled out of his grasp. I stepped to the left. The linebacker waiting to tackle me took the bait and stumbled toward the fake. I cut to the right and darted around him. Imagine my amazement when I saw nothing but daylight in front of me. A safety on the far side of the field angled to catch me, but I poured on the speed. I sprinted along the sidelines. The opposing team’s coaches and players standing there blurred past, looking like a smudge of humanity. They were screaming for somebody to tackle me.

  I lost myself as I ran. I didn’t have to think. All I had to do was pump my tired legs as fast as I could manage. Sweet, blessed silence inside my head.

  It ended too soon. Eighty yards later, I crossed the goal line, scoring the Gate City JV Vikings’ first and only points of the game.

  My team ran down to celebrate like we had won the freaking Super Bowl. Anger rushed back in to fill the empty spaces in my head. I pushed my way out of the knot of pads and sweaty teens. I saw nothing to celebrate. I stalked to the sidelines, passing Coach Graham without a word. I ignored the pulsing vein in his neck.