Eden Inviolate

By Don Martinez

The Hidden-In-Plain-Sight Ranch celebrates the return of one of their own, resistance leader Alanna Sharpe, from her trip through Hell. With her comes her long-lost father, Cole, to fight alongside his family for the survival of all supernaturals.
Two tasks remain for Alanna and her friends, however. Her mother Ariel remains captive, and waits for revolution or rescue to set her free from her technological prison.
Alanna's supernatural brethren also remain under the thumb of the New Empire of America ... which is massing now for one final siege to commit the unthinkable: destroy Avalon with the fearsome power of the Damnation Blade, a weapon forged in Hell from the blood of Lucifer himself.
Will Alanna prevail, or will she ... along with all supernaturals and the entire world ... perish under the threat posed by the Regents, the SSA, and the New Empire's hellish rise to power?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Martinez
• Release date: Jul 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9780985937973

Don Martinez

The son of two 20-year Navy vets, Don A. Martinez spent much of his formative years around the Pacific Rim before settling in the continental U.S., first in Michigan and New York before finally reaching Texas.He has been writing all his life, getting his start in elementary school as a two-time Young Authors selection in Oak Harbor, Washington. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing and a Master of Arts degree in English from SUNY-College at Buffalo (Buffalo State College), where his academic focus was mythology and folklore, particularly how it is applied in modern storytelling.Currently, he lives with his wife and four cats in northeast Texas, where he works as a college writing professor.

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Eden Inviolate

Don A. Martinez

Smashwords Edition

Desert Coyote Productions

Longview, Texas

Text other than quoted material © 2014 Don A. Martinez.

Cover design © 2014 Don and Stacey Martinez.

Characters and situations depicted within © 2014 Desert Coyote Productions

Phantom Squadron Publishing Rights © 2014 Don A. Martinez, all rights reserved.

Lyrics to With You (S. Schwartz) ©2013 Singing Is Essential to Victory LLC

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First edition 2014. Available in print at most online retailers.

Smashwords edition 2014.

For Stacey, for Kahlan, and for everyone who loves freedom.

Contents

Excerpt from a Speech before a Joint Session of Congress

Chapter One: Homecoming

Chapter Two: Family

Chapter Three: Penance

Chapter Four: Breadcrumbs

Source: Alanna Sharpe Sighted in New Empire, SSA Injured in Confrontation

Chapter Five: Dragonfight

Chapter Six: Respects

Chapter Seven: Shock and Awe

Chapter Eight: The Last Dragons

Report: Dragon Shot Down at Canadian Border, 2 SSA Pilots Killed in Skirmish

Chapter Nine: Oval Office

Chapter Ten: Operation Glass Jaw

Chapter Eleven: The Final Gambit

New Empire President Found Dead: Alanna Sharpe Responsible

Chapter Twelve: The Muster

Chapter Thirteen: Lunge for Bliss

Chapter Fourteen: Alliances

Chapter Fifteen: War Council

Chapter Sixteen: Final Lull

Chapter Seventeen: Trapped

Chapter Eighteen: Duel

Chapter Nineteen: Cataclysm

Chapter Twenty: Ragnarok

Chapter Twenty-One: A New Life

Transcriber’s Epilogue

Acknowledgments

The American monomyth begins and ends in Eden. Stories in this genre typically begin with … townspeople living in harmony. A distruption of harmony occurs, and must be eliminated by the superhero …

-- Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence,

The American Monomyth

Excerpt from a Speech before a Joint Session of Congress by President Carleton Regent

March 22nd, 2031

My fellow Americans, members of Congress, members of the Cabinet, we live in dire, dangerous times. We live in fear, for our lives and for our way of living. We live in constant fear of those who lord over us, who bully us with their words and their actions.

The most simple schoolchild could tell you that this state of affairs is wrong. Morally wrong, spiritually wrong, just plain wrong. The time has therefore come for us to act.

This morning, Vice President Regent passed a document along to me. It sits on my desk in the Oval Office as we speak. This document was prepared by our international intelligence branch of the SSA. I read this report twice, and I still am not quite believing what it contains, but at the same time I have decided that we must act, because our safety is at stake.

This report concerns the activities of our greatest threat to public safety, Alanna Sharpe, the scourge of Chicago. Our sources have confirmed that she is massing an army, training them, organizing them, and preparing for a mass terror attack on a worldwide scale. A supernatural attack, mind you. Her army is made up of nothing but supernaturals like herself, like-minded in their aggression against the peace-loving people of the New Empire and the entire world.

This can not be allowed to stand.

Our sources can only tell us that the army is being massed, but cannot tell us exactly where that massing is taking place. We can’t go into this battle blind, as we have done numerous times before when we have placed our citizens in harm’s way. We must know what the stakes are. We must know our enemy. We must know their weakness.

If we do not know their location, we at least know the other three qualities. The stakes are the peace and safety of the world, for if any of these supernatural attacks takes place, the bloodshed will be on a genocidal scale. Our enemy is slippery, pernicious, hard to kill, and dedicated to their cause of a supernatural world, with normal people crushed under their boots, or talons, or whatever may be on their feet. Most of all, we know their weakness, and it is their fanatical devotion to the idea that Alanna Sharpe is their savior. Cut off the head, and the snake will perish.

So too will the supernatural threat die once Alanna Sharpe is no more.

Tomorrow I will be presenting our case before the United Nations General Assembly, and attempting to convince those nations who claim to be our allies that our intelligence is correct. Many will doubt us. I daresay that some of them will oppose us vocally. To these nations, I say this: you either stand with us, with the rest of humanity, and fight; or you stand with the supernatural threat, and we will destroy you along with them.

I say this also to anyone within the borders of the New Empire who may still hold any sympathy for the supernatural cause. You will be found, you will be held, and you will know the error of your belief.

To Alanna Sharpe and her confederates, we have this message. We are coming for you. We will find you. Your threat to humankind will not stand, so long as we draw breath. No matter where you are, we will flush you out. There is no place you can go, in this world or any other, where we cannot get to. There is no hope for you.

In light of the information we have received, I therefore request war powers from the Congress, in accordance with the Constitution of the New Empire of America. I request funds to be distributed to the Supernatural Suppression Agency, to be used for international intelligence operations aimed toward finding Alanna Sharpe’s supernatural training grounds.

I also request that, should the worst happen and this attack take place, Congress grant permission to declare worldwide war against Alanna Sharpe’s supernatural forces. This effort will spread the SSA around the globe, to hunt down and destroy all supernatural activity. I ask this humbly of the body, in the interests of world peace.

God bless us all, and God Bless our New Empire.

Stormfront

Chapter One: Homecoming

July 5th, 2031

I reach up with the remote control in my hand and click off the TV set. I think I’ve seen enough. My stomach is churning … I think I’m going to be sick.

My level of exhaustion is slightly better than it was yesterday. I hate that I had to spend most of my birthday in bed, because I was too tired to do anything, but what did I expect? I went eighteen days with nothing but water … holy water … to sustain me. I traversed the pits of Hell. I fought demons, I fought ancestors. I found Dad and had a conversation with Lucifer.

Then that even wasn’t the biggest shock. My whole world started to crumble on me while I was down in the hole, but when I emerge I find out that things up here got so much worse in my absence, which here was two years. My friends are in hiding, changed, having fought for so long and so hard. My best friend has changed the most … Michika only manhandled me in the morning with her new cat powers, but backed off in the afternoon. Things are so different now.

Yet things stay the same, and that can be comforting. On this early morning, I’m finally snapped out of my stupor in the darkened TV room by the scent of food approaching. I look up and see Aunt Kitty, approaching through the gloom, a plate loaded with food in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

No wait, it’s not coffee … I can smell it better as she gets closer, it’s orange pekoe tea. She sets it down on the table in front of me. Bad show on the tube?

I sigh and look up as she sits down next to me. Yeah. Michi was nice enough to tape this, I guess … so what happened after this speech? I turn my head slightly as I start eating the meal on the plate, scrambled eggs with two slabs of bison and hash browns.

Well, as he said, he presented his case before the UN. There was a group of fifteen nations … the media’s called them the Super 15 … that mounted the only protest against the plan, and you can probably guess which one led the way.

I nod. Jordan, right?

Got it in one. King Fahai was in attendance at the session, and spoke right after our American Führer. He gave it a go, with an impassioned speech protesting the enlargement of the SSA, claiming … and rightfully so, I might add … that any expansion of anti-supernatural sentiment would be tantamount to the New Empire assuming control of the entire world.

The food tastes good, but it’s the situation that’s leaving a bitter flavor in my mouth. Who are the other countries?

It doesn’t really matter, because none of them have much power in the body, as none of them are currently on the Security Council. Anyway, the night after the session was when King Fahai died, supposedly of a heart attack.

I can imagine what the real cause of death must have been.

Fahaian left a day later to take his throne.

I nod gravely. When did Michi change?

Aunt Kitty rolls her eyes, clearly showing me she doesn’t like what she’s about to tell me. A week after Fahaian left. We were in the middle of a fight, because we’d accidentally moved the Ranch into the middle of an SSA compound. One minute she’s rushing into the battle, I lose track of her while fighting a bunch of blueshirted bozos, and the next time I see her she’s in my old body, wailing away and blasting them with that stupid glove of hers …

She wipes her eye gently. Something tells me she’s very upset about this. Are you okay, Aunt Kitty?

She sighs and nods quickly. I’ll be fine. Anyway, once the fight subsided and we were away from the SSA, I had it out with Durga. She had been passing through the night before, wanting to check to see if you had come up from the Inferno yet, and stayed overnight only to get drawn into the battle the next morning. She had no right to make Michi her servant, not when the burden should have been mine. So as a result I kicked her ass permanently out of the Ranch. She’s forbidden to ever come back.

This news makes me very sad. Durga has been my favorite teacher, the one who helped me gain control over the Guardswoman, who taught me that control equates to power. Without her to help me, what chance do I have now?

My hand drifts down to the Sword, hanging loosely from my hip. It helped me greatly in Hell, but will the power be enough to confront what’s before me now? A worldwide war … I shudder thinking about it.

There’s more pressing matters, I know, and so I look up at Aunt Kitty, having eaten the final morsel on my plate. How’s Dad doing?

She lights up slightly. Better. He’s sitting up, eating last I saw him. He’s been lying in that bed for two years, so his muscles need some time to adjust to motion again, but his mind’s there at least.

I need to see him. I need to be reminded that what I did for eighteen days was real, that I truly did rescue him. Teacup in hand, I leave the TV room and head toward Dad’s room.

The door is slightly cracked, with light pouring out, as I approach. I knock gently on the door.

Come in. The voice isn’t Dad’s. Unfortunately, it belongs to Gabe Francis. Over the course of this entire period searching for Dad, I’ve really started hating Gabe’s half-truths and convenient misinformation. I’m dreading seeing him now, even though it should be a happy time.

Cheer up, girl. You just saved your dad from hell.

I slowly push the door open, letting the pale light within bathe me. I look over toward the bed and see two upright shadows. One of them turns around to face me, and even in the dimness I can see his white hair and weird eye tattoos.

Ah, Alanna, I’m glad you’re here. Gabe tries to smile. Tries to, because it comes out more as a smirk. It’s always a smirk with that man. I’d like to scowl at him, give him a verbal beatdown for the insanity he forced me into in the name of teaching me a lesson, but my fury can’t find a voice because of the face close behind him.

Dad’s looking up at me, his face hollow and malnourished, but his eyes as clear as they ever were. He smiles over at me. Hey, little sweetheart.

That melts me. Immediately, I’m at his side, clutching him tightly. He feels so thin …

Daddy, I’m so glad … so glad you made it. I don’t want the waterworks to start right now, not with Gabe in the room. Once he leaves maybe, but not now.

I’m glad, too. Dad squeezes me gently.

I hate to interrupt this reunion, Gabe interjects, but there’s some business we need to attend to. Cole was just telling me about you having a talk with Lucifer. I sincerely hope you kept my advice to you in mind.

I turn toward Gabe, but I keep my arm around Dad. I’m not about to let my guard down around the Devil himself, Gabe.

What was the talk about?

I sigh. I don’t want to re-live the Inferno ever, but this might be important. He was asking me for a favor, tried to bargain with me for a task, actually.

Gabe nods, his chin in his hand. What was it about?

Another sword, more powerful than the Sabre of the Invader. It’s missing, along with a prince and princess of Hell, and I have a feeling I know where we might find all three.

An eyebrow shoots up on Gabe’s face. What sword? I only knew about the Sabre.

Did I seriously catch Gabe Francis off-guard with new information? Something about this conversation makes me feel powerful. Lucifer called it the ‘Damnation Blade.’ It was held in a leather casket, but when it was opened for us the Blade was missing.

Gabe’s face goes pale. Oh God. That Blade … I’d forgotten about it.

Well crap, that didn’t last long. What can you tell us about it? Lucifer didn’t say much, other than he offered me a hell of a lot to find it and bring it back.

The agent grumbles under his breath. Are you sure …

Gabe, please tell her. Dad’s voice sounds insistent, and still powerful despite his weakened body.

All right then, Gabe mutters. The Damnation Blade, as you might already know, was also forged by Abaddon at the same time as the Sabre of the Invader. The metal was formed from lava collected from the deepest circles of Hell, mingled with Lucifer’s own blood. When finished, the Blade was said to be thirteen feet long, larger than any sword anyone save a demon could wield.

This isn’t good at all. I need to know, Gabe. What am I up against? What can the Blade do?

Alanna, please …

Tell me! I’m standing up, nervous. I’m scared out of my mind, the last thing that I need is Gabe holding back on me again.

Okay. The Damnation Blade can kill gods.

I sink back down to the bed and clutch Dad tightly. A sword that can kill gods? What good is a Guardsman going to be against something like that?

Are you satisfied? The Blade can destroy gods, so you can imagine what it can do to a regular supernatural. Gabe stands up and straightens his tie. If you’ll excuse me, I need some time to think. He storms out.

I sit down on the bed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gabe that rattled in my life. Dad’s hand finds mine.

Are you all right, Alanna?

I’m not sure, Dad, it’s just … there’s just so much stuff down there that I saw … things that I did … it’s too much for me to process. I’m not sure if I’m going to be any good to anyone up here.

Dad leans forward. It’s a great struggle for him to do, but the same hand that was on my own now finds my shoulder. You can’t be expected to carry that burden yourself, not forever. You’re going to need to talk through it. God knows I’ll need to, I spent so long down there.

For what feels like the first time in an eternity, my eyes meet his. I see the pain, the sadness, the torment that he’s been through. All at once, I’m sad for my father but at the same time I’m glad that it’s him sitting here and not Tyrelius Scolar. I lean over to him and hug him tightly.

We’ll get through it together, Daddy. I promise.

I think he’s weeping … I feel his shoulders shudder. I missed you so much, Alanna, you and your mother. You have no idea how empty it feels to be without you …

I can’t help but smirk. I think I might have an idea, Dad. It’s okay. Despite the humor of