Immortal Light: Wide Awake (51 page)

Lucy thought about what he
had said, and it seemed to make sense, but there was no real
evidence. Lucy had received confirmation in the
haven
that she was the queen’s
guardian, but Benjamin hadn’t mentioned anything like that
happening to him.

“
What do you think? Are you the
guardian?”

“
Other than being hopelessly in
love with you,” he smiled and kissed Lucy on the forehead, “there
doesn’t seem to be any evidence that what Peter even proposes is an
option. We’ve never had a King’s Guardian and a Queen’s Guardian
together. The king always had his army, and there is no prophecy of
a king returning, only a queen. It’s only a theory, and based on
how I feel, I wouldn’t call it a valid one.”

Lucy could sense a hint of something in his
voice, perhaps disappointment or sadness, but it didn’t last as he
held her tighter.

“
I’d say one guardian in this
relationship is enough, don’t you?”

She could hear the smile in his voice and she
relaxed back into his side.

They sat staring into the
fire. In spite of the terrible things that had happened to her, she
felt safe in his arms. She knew that he would always take care of
her, and she thought about their bond. She thought about everything
he had said and about what he said in her
haven
to keep her from letting go,
and she was suddenly curious.

“
Benjamin?” she whispered, wrapped
in his arms, feeling the warmth of the fire on her skin.

“
Uh huh?” he responded in a
relaxed stupor.

“
Why did you
never tell me you loved me before, or even hint that I meant
anything to you? I mean, you hung around the biggest … you know
what I mean?
”

Lucy was getting upset, and when Benjamin was
silent, she sat up and looked at him. His expression was one of
serious thought and introspection, as though he were looking for
the exact right words. Lucy waited for a response.

“
Well
…
”
he
began,
“
there are
lots of reasons.
”

He looked into the fire as if searching for a
place to start, and Lucy could see that it wasn’t as simple an
answer as she had been expecting; but then, the answers never
were.

“
When we met at the flagpole and
bonded, I had no idea if you felt it, too. To be honest, it kind of
scared me.”

Lucy turned all the way around, crossing her
legs and putting her back to the fire so as to give Benjamin her
full attention.

“
Why did it scare you?”

“
Because I’d
never felt that before. I’d never felt such a strong
light
connection with
anyone and I really sort of had problems deciphering the other
emotions I was feeling.”

“
What emotions were
those?”

The question was innocent enough, but all Lucy
had to do was think about it for a moment and she would have
realized they were the same emotions she had trouble
deciphering.

“
I didn’t know what love felt
like.” He looked a little embarrassed saying the words.

Lucy couldn’t help but laugh, not at his
difficulty with love, but that she had been experiencing the same
thing.

“
Don’t worry, I can totally
relate,” she said, blushing a little. “Then, when did you figure
out that you loved me?”

“
It took a while. It was all I
could do not to go down to the library. All I did all day was think
about you, but then there was the bond we made. I was struggling
between telling Peter that I met a girl that made a connection with
me and running to the library and telling you I loved you. It was a
trying time.”

Lucy just smiled, knowing she had gone through
something similar.

“
So, you can
imagine when you showed up in my
haven
, I was quite shocked. I spent
most of that night in the Haven Room trying to figure out how you
got there and what it meant.”

“
How did you finally figure it
out?”

“
Peter came down to the room
looking for me. I told him about you and he told me to keep my
distance.”

Lucy contorted her face in confusion. “Why did
he tell you to keep your distance?”

“
Well, we both thought you were
the queen. He suspected that maybe you were the guardian, but in
either case, he didn’t think it appropriate to get romantically
involved with you. If you were the guardian or the queen, you had a
job that I shouldn’t interfere with.”

Lucy looked back on all of
her interactions with him during the past few months and found that
she was able to be objective in her thinking. She could understand
his distance and why he felt it better for her to build her
own
haven
and
stop spending time with him, but it didn’t explain one
thing.

“
So, why was it all of a sudden
okay to be with me?”

“
Well, that’s the thing about
Peter; he’s wise and can see things that we can’t. He can tell when
reapers are around. He knew Sukabra was here and that’s how we knew
it was time to tell you. But, Peter doesn’t know everything. So I
thought: if I can’t be in love with her, then I’m at least going to
be near her.”

Lucy smiled inside as he spoke because the
entire time she had been feeling the need to be near him, he was
feeling the same thing. He simply had a more disciplined way of
controlling it.

There was silence for a moment until Benjamin
asked a question of his own. “So, why didn’t you say anything to me
out here?”

Lucy laughed, threw her arms around him and
held him close as she had craved doing for months. Leaning away
from him, she looked into his eyes as he stared back, waiting for
an answer.

“
Well,” she began, “there are a
lot of reasons.”

The two laughed and Lucy fell back into his
arms and kissed him.

As sleep and the warmth of the fire began to
overtake them, there was a loud bang at the door. It startled all
of the occupants in the room out of their various states of
drowsiness. Benjamin and Jack looked at each other to make sure
they had heard the same thing.

After a few moments, the sound came again. It
was loud and seemed to rattle the whole house. Jack hurtled himself
over the couches and grabbed his jacket with its array of knives
from the coat rack. Benjamin pulled his sword from its resting
place by the fire and drew it. Motioning Lucy and Kat to the back
of the room near the Christmas tree, he closed his fingers around
the knob and slowly opened the door.

Standing in the frame were
two giant men—men that no one seemed to recognize immediately—and
they were both holding swords. The one in front was clean shaven
with dark hair. His skin was pale, as though it
hadn
’
t seen the
sun in years. His face was harsh and chiseled, but it was his eyes
that gave Lucy the sense that there was nothing to fear: their
green irises practically glowed as he stared at Benjamin. The man
behind was more rugged looking. He had a handlebar mustache that
turned right-angles around his mouth and stopped at his chin. He
wore a long, curly ponytail that draped over his shoulders, and a
thin scar ran down his left cheek. It was obvious that both men
were young, maybe in their early twenties, but there was a look to
them that made them seem almost ancient. It was the look of
experience.

“
My name is Klarr and this is my
brother, Aux,” spoke the man in front. “We are captains of the
king’s Silver Serpents.”

Lucy looked inquisitively at Kat, who just
shrugged her shoulders.

The man continued, “Who are you, and why have
we been summoned here?”

Lucy did the same as the rest of the room and
stared at the man who spoke in a deep Irish accent. Benjamin and
Jack stood stone-faced; both had their weapons drawn. The moment
was becoming tense as neither Jack nor Benjamin seemed to have had
the slightest idea what the stranger was talking about. It was then
that Lucy noticed their swords. The light that gleamed off of them
wasn’t the rich amber color of gold that she had become used to.
They shined the color of polished steel or chrome; their swords
were silver. Lucy didn’t understand it, and Benjamin was just about
to respond to Klarr when Peter’s unmistakable voice came from the
darkness of the dining room and broke the silence.

“
We are friends, and you are here
because I summoned you.”

Chapter
23

Footsteps clicked rapidly in the dark hallways
of the top floor of a building in downtown Los Angeles. A man ran
toward a tall, burgundy-stained wooden door at the end of the hall.
As he arrived, he pressed a small, almost invisible, intercom
button. An electronic crack came back, and a silken male voice came
over the speaker.

“
Come in, Mr. Kaisen.”

Mr. Kaisen walked into the room. He wore a
black three-piece, pin-striped suit. He was of average height and
very lean build. His hair was dark and neatly combed with a part on
the right. Despite the youthful look of his face—a man no more than
thirty years old—he carried himself with confidence.

The room was a wide, open space that consumed
nearly every square inch of the top floor of the building. A tall,
four-poster bed sat on the far wall to Mr. Kaisen’s right. To his
left, in the dark recesses of the far corner, sat a large, mahogany
desk in front of a floor-to-ceiling wall of bookcases filled to
capacity.

Kaisen’s shoes clicked with every step until
he touched down on the carpet that surrounded the desk.

“
Sit down, Mr. Kaisen.”

Behind the desk sat a man whose face looked to
be late middle-aged. His hair was short and dark and looked as
though it had only been groomed by ten fingers in recent days. But,
the strangest thing about his appearance was the feebly withered
hands he clasped together; they were ancient hands that had no
business being attached to his arms. His voice was a low and deep
Londoner accent and he spoke slowly and clearly.

“
I am disappointed in you, Mr.
Kaisen. That girl is no different than the others, yet you failed
to get her. You had better have a plan going forward. I would truly
hate to see you fail twice.”

Mr. Kaisen didn’t say a word, but retrieved a
folded piece of paper from his pocket and slid it carefully across
the desk..

The man at the desk unfolded the paper and
read carefully. There was a momentary grim silence.

“
This is your last chance, Kaisen.
I certainly hope—for your sake—you can produce something tangible
this time.”

Kaisen looked into the darkness of his
employer’s eyes.

“
You needn’t worry, Mr. Suen. I’ll
take care of this one myself.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to personally and public thank the following
individuals for their many contributions in reading, editing,
inspiring, and supporting this work of fiction. Without their help,
I could never have accomplished this feat.

First, my wife, Sarah, without whom I would never
feel inspired and would never have had anyone read this book so
many times. My mother Patti Sperry, for she was my first
inspiration in literature and she put in so many hours to dissect
the content and grammar of this work. My children, Arwen, Eleanor,
Jack, and Alice who are the characters in my real-life fantasy. My
father, Ron Jr., who invested in me even when it was difficult to
bet on my dreams. My siblings Ron III, Laura, and Kris: you have
been there for me no matter how ridiculous my ambition seemed. My
Grandparents, both living and passed; Ron Sr., Sandra, Kathleen,
and John; you are the foundation upon which my life and dreams were
built. To my surrogate family, the Sharps: you all have loved and
supported me since the moment I joined you in marriage to your
daughter and sister. Thank you.

To my many family and friends who read and gave
valuable feedback: Dr. Laurence M. Sharp, Joleane Sharp, James
Sharp, Libby Sharp, Jon Sharp, Lucy Sharp, Peter Sharp, Ben Sharp,
Laura van der Horst, Katelyn Stokes, Erin Stokes, Jeannetta Stokes,
Jeff Fuller, Tami Schamp, Patrick Hartsfield, Jared Fisher, Carol
Vanderville, and Dena Holm who put her own writing aside to read
mine.

To my students at ASMS who became the founders of my
unofficial fan club: Abbey, Anice, Erika, Hayleigh, Izzy, Katie,
Kayla, Liza, Maddi, Maddy, Maggy, Makia, Megan, Olivia, Paige,
Sydney, and Teal.

A special thank you goes to Dave Elkins, Jacob
Marshall, and Zach Gehring of MAE for allowing me the privilege of
using your lyrics in this book. For years you have been a huge part
of my musical inspiration and I look forward to hearing more from
you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John D. Sperry was born in Bellflower,
California in 1979, but relocated with his family in 1985 to the
small town of Roseburg, Oregon, the place John would call home
until he left on a two-year LDS mission to Italy in
1998.