Redemption (Tales of the Other Universe3) Read online

  Tales of the Other Universe

  Redemption

  Book Three

  By J.G. Taschereau

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2016 by J. G. Taschereau

  For Ben

  and, as always, for her.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Visions

  Chapter 2: The Gringo

  Chapter 3: Ghosts in the Sky

  Chapter 4: Questions and Answers

  Chapter 5: The Stray Cat

  Chapter 6: Bearer of Bad News

  Chapter 7: The Broken World

  Chapter 8: Revelation

  Chapter 9: Oldsport

  Chapter 10: The Faith We Believe In

  Chapter 11: Fatherly Advice

  Chapter 12: The White Dragon Team

  Chapter 13: Adam’s Resolve

  Chapter 14: Phoenix

  Chapter 15: Baiting the Trap

  Chapter 16: Waiting and Praying

  Chapter 17: Onward to War

  Chapter 18: The Hornet’s Nest

  Chapter 19: What Lies Beneath

  Chapter 20: Reunited

  Chapter 21: Reawakening Passion

  Chapter 22: When the Dust Settles

  Chapter 23: Regrouping and Rebuilding

  Chapter 24: Together Again

  Chapter 25: In Hope of Peace

  Chapter 26: Coming to Terms

  Chapter 27: The Beginning of the End

  Chapter 28: Oracle’s Might

  Chapter 29: Master and Apprentice

  Chapter 30: Eye for an Eye

  Chapter 31: Unfinished Business

  Chapter 32: The Last Legend

  Chapter 33: Leonardo’s Fate

  Chapter 34: The Red Dragon

  Chapter 35: Into the Light

  Chapter 36: The Edge of the Sky

  Chapter 37: A Final Offering

  Chapter 38: Redemption

  Chapter 39: A World Without Danger

  “A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”

  - Sigmund Freud

  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

  - George Santayana

  Redemption

  Chapter 1

  Visions

  Another earsplitting crack disturbed the short lived stillness in the hazy air, shaking the crumbling white city. Chunks of rubble exploded into the air and scattered to the ground below. Weaving around the falling debris, two contrasting blurs screamed through the air and crashed into each other, sending out a shockwave that vaporized the nearby white stone buildings. The black and white shapes blew apart in opposite directions before continuing their chase up into the sky. In the open air, the shapes could be discerned as two figures locked in combat with one another. The higher of the two was like a man engulfed in brilliant white light. His enemy was something else entirely, a monster that might have once been a man but had changed into something horrific with wide, bat-like wings jutting from its back and a horned mask of bone in front of its bloody face. Anyone who laid eyes on the creature would have been certain it was the vision of death itself, the incarnation of real evil in the world.

  A burst of white energy came from the man cloaked in light, bearing down on the monster and hurtling it to the city below. Without hesitating, the man flew downward to where his adversary had landed only to encounter two pulses of black light shooting out at him from the dust. The monster followed with them and made another attempt to slay its enemy as the man dispelled the initial attack. Clawed hands gripped the glowing man tight, but he countered and flipped backward in the air to disorient his attacker and knock it off. Another burst of white light at close range struck the creature and sent it back to the ground with tremendous force. Once more the man descended upon his opponent to deliver the final blow, but was stopped as the sickly talons of the monster reached upwards and took his wrists. The monster grinned with malice, exposing rows of fangs in its mouth. Centered in its chest, a bulbous black eye with its red iris stared at the captive with hungry determination.

  The horror of that hideous eye, even beyond the grotesque appearance of the pale, emaciated monster with its visage of bone, was enough to tear Juan Gomez from his nightmare and scream as he shot up in bed. The boy’s scream woke the other four children sleeping in the cramped bedroom and caused the youngest girl to begin crying. Both outbursts were enough to rouse the children’s flustered mother to come into the room and turn on the light. The bedside lamp wasn’t enough to fully illuminate even that small of a space and cast shadows across the wall. She first went to the crying six year old and comforted her in Spanish, leaning her against her shoulder as she turned her head to look at Juan. The boy was coming to realize that he had only been having a dream but he still clung to his bedsheets and trembled. The other children ignored the light and rolled over to try and go back to sleep. Laying the youngest back in bed with a kiss on her forehead, their mother navigated around those sleeping on the floor to get to the bottom bunk of the bed where Juan was sitting up.

  “Mijo, what’s the matter?” she asked him. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  Juan nodded his head and looked at his mother with eyes full of terror. “Mama, I saw him.”

  “Who, mijo?”

  “El Diablo,” he said firmly.

  His mother slid her hand down the back of his head to comfort him. “Mijo, it was just a dream.”

  “But it was so clear,” said Juan. “I was in a city, but it was empty and the buildings were all made of white stone. I saw El Diablo flying through the air. He was fighting someone.”

  “Who was he fighting?”

  “A man who was surrounded with light. It was hard to see him through the light.”

  She smiled. “That was God, mijo. He was fighting the Devil because the Devil is the enemy of mankind and everything good. And I bet God beat up the Devil, didn’t he?”

  Juan shook his head. “He was having a hard time. I think El Diablo was winning.”

  His mother stroked his hair. “You don’t have to be afraid, mijo. The Devil is powerful and his evil is so much that sometimes it seems like he has already won. But you must trust in God, mijo. God will be the one who wins the fight in the end.” She pointed to the crucifix hanging above the doorframe. “God is watching out for you. He will keep you safe from El Diablo, so you don’t have to be afraid.” She kissed his head and got up from his bed. “Try to get some sleep, it’s still early.”

  “Okay, mama,” he said, settling back down into bed.

  “I love you, mijo,” she told him.

  “I love you too.”

  She snuck back to the door and shut off the light before leaving the room. Her reassuring words remained on Juan’s mind as he set his head back down on his pillow. Juan’s gaze drifted to the crucifix above the door and he held the covers up to his face as he tried to dream of better things and forget the piercing stare of that hideous eye.

  Chapter 2

  The Gringo

  The summer sun warmed the Salinas Valley as it did with much of California, but the conditions in the valley had long been favorable enough to take advantage of that sunlight in its vegetation. It was the owners of the vast fields of lettuce, strawberries, broccoli, and spinach that took most advantage of the Salinas Valley and all it had to offer, growing much of the country’
s produce in what had been named the “Salad Bowl of America.” Along the bottom of that bowl, miles of farmland stretched out with tender leaves perking up towards the clear July sky. As those leaves reached up, dozens of workers bent down to cut the plants near the soil and stow the lettuce in their sacks. They moved slowly and methodically down the rows, hardly taking a moment to rest as part of their daily task. With so much work to do, the migrant laborers of the lettuce fields had little time to spare for rest.

  Agriculture in California and the migrant workers had been tied together since the earliest settlers from the east first encountered the fertile lands. Even in modern time, the owners of the fields depended on the labor that the migrant workers provided for two principle reasons: they were cheap enough to employ and plentiful enough that they could be replaced if need be. The Dust Bowl in the early 20th century had brought workers from Oklahoma in desperate search of work, and now that population had been replaced with a growing tide of immigrant workers from south of the border. Some of them had only recently come to the United States while others had been part of families that were there for at least two generations, but a greater commonality between most of these workers was that although they were residents of California, they were far from legally recognized citizens. It was a fact that was often overlooked by the owners of the fields, who were more than happy to look the other way as they reaped the benefits of the cheap labor force.

  A white pickup truck drove down the dusty road which ran parallel to a massive field of romaine in the heart of the valley. It came to a stop ahead of a cloud of dust and exhaust that trailed behind it, parking on the edge of the road just ahead of the first row of plants. One of the workers in the field close by could hear the loud music from the truck’s radio die out as the truck shut off and watched as two official looking men in short sleeved dress shirts and khakis stepped out. The worker kept his head down and tried to ignore them, getting back to his work at a faster pace. The driver of the truck shouted at him.

  “Excuse me! Do you speak English? Habla Inglés?”

  The worker lifted up his head and wiped his forehead, getting a better look at the two men. One was tall and skinny while the other was a bit shorter but muscular and somewhat intimidating. They stood with their hands on the hips, their eyes hidden behind reflective glasses. Even without seeing their eyes, the worker could feel their piercing stares. He tried to hide the hot flash of panic he felt by standing upright slowly.

  “I speak English,” he answered, though his accent was thick enough to reveal that it was not his first language. The men from the road walked down the slight embankment to the first row of lettuce a few feet from the worker. The driver tilted his sunglasses down to get a better look at the darker skinned man in front of him, and the look of malice that had been imagined was confirmed.

  “Mind if we see some identification, son?” he asked. His voice was deep and his tone heavy.

  “I do not carry it while I work,” the worker answered. The response didn’t seem to satisfy the driver of the truck, who turned to the skinny man behind him with a chuckle.

  “He doesn’t carry it with him, he says,” the man parroted. “Bill, you got your driver’s license on you?”

  “Sure do,” Bill answered. “You, Carl?”

  “Me too,” said Carl. “Fits right in my wallet real nice. I suppose you have a wallet, son?”

  “I do,” the worker said, starting to look downward.

  “And you got pants there, plenty of pockets too,” Carl pointed out. “Seems funny you wouldn’t think to keep ID on you. Unless you ain’t got none.”

  The worker’s eyes went back to Carl, but now his ability to hide his fear was waning and Carl could see right through him. Carl showed a wide grin and took a step forward, crushing a head of lettuce with a crisp, wet snap. The advance was enough to terrify the worker into running. He was about to bolt when a shout came from a few rows down.

  “Hey!” the voice called out. Carl and Bill looked past the worker, who froze at the thought he might have been surrounded on all sides. Instead he saw another worker, a younger man whom he didn’t know. He had only recently come to this particular field and was unknown amongst the families who had spent many seasons here. He was not well known or trusted amongst the community, known only to the regular workers as the “gringo”. His skin was tanned from many long, hard days of work in the field, but he was white, an alien in the largely Hispanic community. A dense beard of brown hair covered the front of his face while messy, sweat-drenched bangs fell down over his forehead. A pair of small, seemingly useless sunglasses sat on the bridge of his nose, doing nothing to obscure the strong blue eyes that were fixed on the intruders.

  “What you want?” Carl shouted back at him.

  The gringo pointed at Carl’s feet. “You’re destroying private property.”

  Carl snorted and spit on the damaged plant. “What’s it to you?”

  “You talk a lot about identification,” the gringo said. “Mind if you identify yourselves? Are you police? ICE?”

  Carl sneered at him. “Mind your own business, asshole.”

  “If you’re not cops, you have no reason to be here. You’re trespassing on private property.”

  Bill leaned in towards his partner. “What a pain in the ass. I bet he doesn’t have any ID either.”

  “Maybe not on him, but he’s no wetback, Bill. No need to start something here and get the cops involved when we’ve got a stake in it.”

  “Might as well call ‘em, cart all these beaners back to Mexico.”

  “Well?” the gringo called aloud again.

  Carl cursed. “I ain’t got time for this. Let’s go, Bill.”

  The two gave one last dirty look at their original target before heading back to their truck and driving off with another cloud of dust behind them. The worker watched the truck disappear down the road and looked back to the gringo behind him. He had already gone back to picking the next lettuce plant in front of him.

  “Gracias, señor,” the worker said.

  The gringo didn’t respond and kept his mind on the repetitive task of the harvest.

  Near the fields, there was a plot crammed with apartments for the migrant workers. It was in this labor camp that the workers lived in poverty, packing whole families into poorly built two or three room shacks. As dusk fell over the Salinas Valley, the hot temperature of the day dropped and the residents of the camp donned extra layers. None of the buildings were insulated, and even as the workers and their families shared bedrooms with up to eight people, the cold California nights were enough to keep them bundled up. At the edge of the camp, a group of boys had taken up a game of soccer while there was still some daylight left. Nearby, a fire lit up a small open space where the gringo sat on the cold ground and warmed his hands as he watched the boys play. Like many of the people in the camp, the children were mindful to keep their distance from the stranger.

  Adam Evans didn’t think anything of being an outsider, even in an encampment full of undocumented workers who were themselves living on the fringe of society. It had been three years since he last cared what anyone thought of him. Now his goal was simply to live day by day, finding work and purpose where he could, but never finding something permanent. He was both a free man and a fugitive, unable to stay too long lest someone identify him. Of course, now that he was on Earth amidst billions of strangers, there was hardly a chance he would be found by someone who knew him. He refused to take any chances, and so he remained a wanderer, subjecting himself to whatever fortune he might discover in his travels. Years earlier, it was a life he learned to tolerate as an exile from Aeris, but things had changed since then. He was mortal now, and he lacked a certain security he had once possessed as a Legend, left behind in a desert with the shattered remains of his sword and a bracelet that had broken off of his wrist that could no longer inspire inner peace for him.

  The can of beans he set over the fire steamed and he knew it was ready to ea
t. Adam unrolled a cloth by his side and retrieved a dirty fork, grabbing the hot can with his other hand and moving it to the cool ground at his feet before it burned him. He stirred the beans and let the can cool for a moment, looking out to the dark lettuce fields in the distance. The slim wages Adam received for the work he did were enough to cover a few basic costs, food being the biggest, but his diet suffered. He hadn’t eaten any fresh vegetables in months, relying only on what he could get in cans. It was a terrible irony to him knowing that he was surrounded by crisp lettuce or broccoli while he worked in the fields, but he couldn’t enjoy any of it. Like a thirsty man stranded at sea, attempts to sate his desire would cause more problems for him than they would solve. So he had resigned himself to his tin of pork and beans and ate them with a dry biscuit, blowing on the still hot food before taking a bite.

  There were footsteps behind Adam. He turned to see a bottle of water being held out by a dark skinned hand. Adam saw that the hand belonged to the worker he had saved earlier that day, a man he had been heard called Manuel. He smiled beneath his beard and gladly accepted the water from Manuel. The groundwater in the area was contaminated from years of pesticide treatments and wasn’t potable, so those who lived in the camp were dependent on a meager amount of bottled water supplied by their landlords. Adam wasn’t a tenant; he camped outside, unbeknownst to the landlords, and had to go into town several miles away to get water every other day. Some in the camp thought they should go to the landlords about Adam so that they themselves would not be punished for his squatting, but in the end pity for the stranger won out against fear. It was not pity but gratitude that brought Manuel to Adam’s camp that night.

  “Gracias,” Adam said. In his travels across the American southwest, he had managed to pick up a smattering of Spanish, even if he rarely engaged in conversation with his fellow workers.