The Colleen Colgan Chronicles- Book 2- The War of the Blood Demons

By Richard Phelan

Colleen returns to Scottsville to gather evidence to stop global warming before it's too late. It's a world on the brink of extinction, battling the superheated environment, man-eating Blood Demons, and Elijah - a religious fanatic Hell-bent on the destruction of the human race. Reunited with Erin, the girls join forces with Caleb—a teenage former apostle ostracized by the surviving humans. They must repel a Blood Demon invasion ten thousand strong under the command of Elijah. If they fail, all surviving humans will be savaged by the blood-thirsty demons. But if they succeed, is their fate even worse? If Colleen's mission is successful will she blink Erin and her people out of existence? Colleen’s genius friend Albert stresses the Trekie mantra The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one... but do they?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Phelan
• Release date: May 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370195190

Richard Phelan

I was born and raised in Canton, MA. I currently reside there with a wife who thinks she owns the place, three kids who back talk, three dogs who don't come when called, and I love each with all my heart.I have a background in Physics and Engineering and I love the Sci in Sci-Fi.

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The War of the Blood Demons

The Colleen Colgan Chronicles - Book 2

Rich Phelan

THE WAR OF THE BLOOD DEMONS Copyright © 2017 Rich Phelan

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

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Colleen stared wide-eyed as shadows slid across the ceiling above her bed. Powered by the silver moonlight and scattered by skeletal branches of the Chestnut tree outside her window, the craggy limbs seemed to reach for her with a ghostlike grasp.

She turned her head sideways. Red slits peered at her from out of the darkness. She pressed her lips tight. Somehow they had found her. She could almost make out the glow of bleached, decomposing skin, falling off in clumps. She felt jagged claws tearing into her skin. No, not claws. It was the yellow slime-covered fangs sampling her flesh. How did a Blood Demon slip through the wormhole? It was impossible. Last year, in the clearing behind Livingston Academy, that portal closed for all eternity. Erin, with flowers in hand, had disappeared in the glow of the CM minutes before the wormhole was ripped to atoms by a black hole. And Blood Demons were creatures of the mainland. They didn’t exist on Antarctica so they couldn’t get to the portal. None of that explained the red eyes glowing in the dark in front of her.

The eyes shifted low across the covers like a minion of evil in a soldier’s crawl. It wasn’t fair. They could see, smell and hunt in the dark, yet she lay blind like a crippled gazelle at night on the Serengeti.

A low buzz droned in the dark to her left. She fumbled blindly across her nightstand, almost knocking her mother’s picture over. She grabbed onto something that tickled her palm, but not in a funny way. Being eaten alive was nothing to laugh about.

She thrust her iPhone in front of her like Van Helsing wielding a crucifix. The display spilled blue light over her bed turning the red eyes purple.

There was a hiss, and she screamed. The phone slipped out of her hand and fell onto the sheets. When she brought it up again her hands were shaking enough to generate spastic pulses of light. One pulse caught the purplish glint still crouched low on the sheets. She set the beam on the creature’s eyes and followed the furry torpedo contour to a sleek point.

Air wheezed from her lungs. Her shoulders slumped as if her entire body was no more than a deflating balloon. Fred, you scared the stuffing out of me. She slid her arm underneath the soft underbelly of the ferret and pulled him onto her lap. Now my nightmares have no choice but to come while I’m awake, I guess.

The phone tickled her palm again.

Hi Albert, she said in a hushed voice.

It’s ready.

Colleen swallowed hard, her heart pounding against her ribs.

Are you still there?

She opened her mouth, but couldn’t push any words out.

Colleen?

It was like the first day of recess in third grade when Kyle Clapton pushed her off the swing. She landed on her back with a thud knocking the wind out of her. She was afraid she would suffocate in front of the entire class so she got up and ran. It only took two steps for her breath to fill her lungs again, but she kept running anyway.

Yeah, sorry. She gulped. Got a little dazed I guess.

How long’s it been anyway?

For what?

You know for what.

She knew exactly for what. Eighty-two hours, but who’s counting.

You are, he said. No wonder you can’t focus.

I’m not tired. I haven’t even smelled a yawn in days.

Even though Albert couldn’t see her wide, tormented eyes there was concern in his voice. Something’s not right. You have to go see a doctor. You might have that disease—

I’m not sick. At least not physically, I’ve just got a lot on my mind. She sucked in another deep breath. So it’s working?

Like I said, it’s ready, Albert sounded as if she had just asked him if the sun was the center of the solar system. The question is—are you?

No. But I’m doing it anyway.

In for a dime, in for a doll—

She hit disconnect and sat back, stroking Fred in the dark and occasionally wiping the droplets of sweat that formed on her forehead.

At eighty-six hours she heard her father’s door shut and his footsteps click off the hardwood floors down the hall then the stairs. The thought that she had to do this to him again made her sick. And this time it would be worse. This time he would know she was missing. Last year he thought she was sleeping at Erin’s house even though she was actually using bikes, boats, horses and planes to make her way to Floria. This time she may not be within one thousand years of her father with quite possibly no way to get home. He’d probably think she was dead, maybe he would be right, but if that were the case then he would never know for sure what happened to her.

She thought about telling him everything that had happened; everything she needed to do, but she was pretty sure if she said anything they wouldn’t let ferrets with sharp claws stay with her in the padded room.

Colleen catapulted out of bed and dug through her dresser. She stuffed shorts, shirts, and snacks from her night stand into her backpack. When she got to the knob on the top drawer of her nightstand she paused and closed her eyes as the nausea cascaded over her.

She didn’t want to think about it, but that was impossible because the it wasn’t the nausea itself. The it caused her stomach to churn. The it had been lodged in her frontal lobe like the cancer of her childhood since Erin said good-bye and disappeared into the light twelve months ago. Then eighty-six hours ago when Albert informed her he’d finally been successful in activating the CM the it exploded. Saving the world was something worth dying for, but murdering your best friend to save it was unthinkable.

But what choice did she have? Sit and do nothing while everything unraveled. Watch the tsunamis rumble over storm barriers and wave to people while they were sucked out to sea in the mother of all riptides? Fly a kite in hurricanes that level entire cities? Better yet, set up a lawn chair by the side of the road and watch thousands of people throw themselves in front of trucks carrying grain and vegetables, just so their children could have food for one more day.

One of her father’s favorite sayings was knowledge is power. Now that she was armed with the knowledge of the destruction of Earth, she needed to use that power to do something about it.

She opened her eyes, took a deep breath, reached into her nightstand and pulled out a handheld video recorder. It felt like nuclear-grade plutonium in her palm. Even wrapped in T-shirts, she could feel its heat. Then she grabbed an extra battery.

Last, but never in the running for least, Fred, he of limitless courage and never ending loyalty, hopped into the more crowded than usual backpack.

Colleen floated down the staircase feeling like she just guzzled a bottle of Benadryl. She passed the doorway to the kitchen, the sweet smell of toasted cinnamon not even registering, before gliding out the front door.

All of this was made possible because of Albert’s self-proclaimed genius. He called it his Vulcan-like logic. He deduced that if he was the inventor of the time machine, and he knew he would need to operate it more than once, it made perfect sense that he would have left clues how the small, crystal wonder-ball actually worked.

And so that singular assumption had preoccupied his already cluttered mind for twelve months since Colleen pulled him aside before science class and placed a National Geographic, bookmarked on page seventy-five , into his hand.

He was a blood hound when it came to these things. And based on how much his nose was stuck in that most telling of National Geographic magazines, Colleen knew he had picked up a scent.

He made it seem effortless, but Colleen knew better. He told her how he studied the magazine under infrared light to search for hidden messages and then applied World War II decoder techniques. He even admitted to being so desperate that he tried a Cap’n Crunch decoder ring.

On the corner, between the yellow flashing light and school zone sign, she saw Albert leaning against the light post in front of the library. He had his hands in his pockets, looking straight ahead.

Colleen shook her head. There was no denying he had the brains, but he was about as smooth as sixty-grit sandpaper.

She caught his eyes and tilted her head twice, gesturing the way she'd seen it done in the old gangster movies, toward a group of azaleas bordering the library.

Albert looked around before he stepped between the shrubs. His eyes shifted back and forth before he pulled the CM out of his pocket. The clear outer shell surrounding the metallic core still sparkled.

He slipped his hand into the grooves. This thing is still dead.

That’s brilliant, Colleen said.

Don’t jump down my throat. I was just showing you that it doesn’t currently work. Why are you so touchy?

Albert pointed to a black spec on the metallic core of the CM. Take a look at this. When he positioned the CM in a shaft of light filtering through the leaves, the black spec looked like the reflective mesh of a fly’s eye. It’s the key, but I could spend seven lifetimes and never figure out the how to activate it.

Well I don’t have seven lifetimes. She looked at her watch. In fact I only have five minutes before my school bus gets here, so spit it out.

Albert lowered his backpack to the mulch and pulled out their favorite National Geographic.

 I focused on this. Albert raised the magazine and flipped it open to a page bookmarked with a sticky note. Page seventy-seven was dominated by a picture of a hand-written chart.

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The only thing that stood out to Colleen was the paradox of how such a brilliant scientist could have such ugly chicken scratch for writing. OK, what am I looking at?

Look to the left of each July under the temperature chart. There’s either a dot or a dash.

So?

Albert rolled his eyes. There’s no logical scientific reason for either’s existence.

There’s a name for simple stupid marks. It’s called doodling.

But they’re not next to the July inputs on the snowpack chart. A smirk broke out on his face. It’s a code.

For what?

I was looking up all the secret codes used in every war, and in the end it was a derivative of the most basic; the father of them all.

Colleen was sure her face was as blank as a sheet of printer paper because his smile disappeared.

Morse code, he said.

Of course, Colleen said and rolled her eyes.

It was so easy. I just never imagined I would make something so hackable.

So what does two dots, a dash, a dot and two dashes spell? Colleen asked.

It’s not that easy. Albert had a way of talking at her instead of to her. As it ends up it’s exactly opposite. Where there are dots you need dashes and for the dashes you need dots.

Colleen smirked. That’s so obvious! I must be an idiot.

Albert opened his mouth.

Think before you speak, Colleen said. She made those comments for his sake. She knew, even though he would never admit it, he liked the banter between them.

His lips squeezed together. He plucked a pen out of his backpack,, the type with a laser pointer typically reserved for use in his science presentations, and held the CM in the other hand. He squeezed the pen and the end of it lit up red. He pointed it toward the CM. A small red dot appeared on the inner core of the CM. He directed the red dot across the surface of the core until it danced around the small fly’s eye.

Albert took a slow breath then exhaled. His hand steadied and with it the pen did as well. He squinted into the CM and the dot stopped fluttering as if Albert had hypnotized it. It disappeared into the reflective mesh. Albert pressed the pen, some quick twitches followed by long depressions.

It startled Colleen when the core began to spin. She wanted to touch it, feel its power again. You really did it.

Red numbers, ones that Colleen recognized, materialized in front of her eyes. Colleen pulled her hand back. A trip through that wormhole is a one-way ticket into the galactic trash compacter.

Albert put his glasses back on. Don’t you think I know that? He had a weird way of gloating. There was no smile, no I told you so, only a friendly reminder that he was smarter.

The red digits suspended in front of them spun like a slot machine.

Colleen’s eyes widened. The numbers had never spun before. Albert had activated something, but what? She wanted to say something even if it was just a Wow!,but to do that she would have to start breathing again.

Starting with the first red blur to the left, one-by-one red digits locked in. When all was said and done, a new ten digit number hung in midair before them.

Colleen couldn’t pull her eyes away from the numbers. She couldn’t believe that it really worked although she didn’t know what the new numbers meant.

Albert waved his hand up and down in front of her face.

She blinked. You’re a freakin’ genius.

Yeah, you’ve said that before.

But this time I mean it. What just happened?

This is purely a guess, Albert said. But I believe I would have, if I could have, armed this thing with some kind of wormhole search functionality.

Meaning?

Meaning, this device can define the wormhole that’s already programmed into it and use that criteria to look for the next closest match.

Colleen put her hand on Albert’s shoulder. Would he never grasp the ability to communicate with her? I need dates and locations.

Albert shrugged his shoulders. I can’t give them to you. The location should be close to the original wormhole. As should the date because those are the baseline coordinates I’m assuming the CM uses to search.

Assuming? Not only did the word itself scare her, but so did the way he said it. There was no place for assumptions when it came to time travel. How close?

Exactly.

Huh? Colleen's face darkened.

Based on the increasing digits, it appears the search only moves forward from the original date. This is purely an educated guess, but since it’s almost exactly one year since you last used this, then the assumption is that these coordinates are a minimum of one year later on the other end.

He used the A word again. And a maximum?

Albert clicked his pen in and out. It was a one of his nervous ticks. Who knows, maybe an extra five millennia.

Did you say millennia? She had to pause for a second to recall the number of years that make up a millennia. You mean I could get sent five thousand years in the future?

I’m just saying it’s possible. Those answers annoyed Colleen. With the number of wormholes approaching infinity, chances are it’s closer to a year than five thousand years.

Can you be sure the other end of the wormhole is in the same place as the previous one?

The clicking of his pen was deafening.

Just great, Colleen said.

The next question is when do you want to try this out?

Colleen took a deep breath. There were way too many assumptions, even if they were of the Albert kind, to be comfortable with this. We better do it now …before I change my mind.

Albert nodded and pulled his sneakers out of his backpack. I thought you would say that.

Chapter 2

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Colleen skirted Livingston Academy. The last thing she needed was an unplanned visit to the murky confines of Principal Vanderlinde’s office even though she didn’t go to his school anymore. She motioned Albert close to the tree line that framed the soccer field. A weird feeling of déjà vu swirled in her head when she thought of the previous September with Erin. It felt like a lifetime ago, and in many ways it was. She was a different person. After the butt-whooping she'd put on Nick Larsen in the mud that torrential night, no one bothered her anymore. No more monkey calls. She was finally one of the kids, but still different in many ways. Not because of her monkey brain though. She had faced death – real violent, vomit-inducing death—several times and had come out of it very much not dead.. How many school kids could make that claim? It gave her a confidence she didn’t recognize at first. But when she stepped back into her normal life, she knew there was nothing that could intimidate her in the hallways or classrooms at school. She had been transformed into a person of action. She had become more like Erin. She wasn’t sure if other students looked up to her because she’d never experienced that before, but their eyes and their attitudes were different.

Colleen had never returned to that clearing in the woods after she said good-bye to Erin, mostly because she missed her friend. Being in that spot would be painful.

She recognized the familiar stand of ferns from yards away. The green stems bending toward each other under the weight of their thick leaves. Colleen gave a quick scan of the field then pushed through the ferns into the early morning mist trapped by the canopy. The jungle was eerily quiet. It reminded her of the day she was jumped by an apostle, sent by Elijah to kill her, from this exact spot.

Are you ok? asked Albert.

Yeah, Colleen said, looking down at her shoes. Why?

You just seem…

Think about what we’re doing.

I know, Albert said. I know.

Walking these paths, Colleen felt closer to Erin, if just by memory.

Despite the year absence, she found she could navigate the jungle paths blindfolded. But as added insurance, she pulled Fred out of her backpack and let him lead the way. His agility amazed her. In fact his three-legged gallop over branches and between rocks looked oddly natural as if proving that God had over-engineered the four-legged model.

Erin’s words echoed through her mind- If you meet someone who knows how to operate the CM then maybe I will see you again. Maybe Erin had known that they would find a way to use the CM. But if she knew the devastation Colleen intended to cause, then why would Erin leave it behind for them to use?

Stepping under the natural tunnel formed by a snapped tree resting head-high on another, Colleen peered into the clearing. No words were necessary.

Albert extended his hand and surrendered the crystal device. The touch of its glass-like texture gave her goose bumps. Thanks, she said.

Colleen slid her hand underneath Fred’s belly and lifted him off her shoulder. Sorry, bud. I’ve got enough to worry about on this trip. She kissed him on his slender nose and offered him over to Albert.

Albert put his hands up and stepped back. I prefer mechanical pets. They’re much more predictable.

Colleen placed Fred on the spongy turf. I’ll miss you.

Albert had a somber almost depressed expression. It should be all set to go.

Am I correct in assuming since you gave the CM to me, there's something that still prevents it from working for you?

I’ll begrudgingly admit it’s a flaw in the design.

That’s a first. Colleen attached the tin leads to her wrists and her ankles. Remember, if you’re asked, you heard me mention that I ran into Erin and I planned on staying at her house for the weekend, right?

Why didn’t you just tell your dad you were staying over my house?

What if I don’t come back and you were the last person I was known to be with, do you think that will end well for you?

Albert pushed on the centerpiece of his glasses. "What I think is, if you believe there is a possibility you won’t be coming back, maybe you shouldn’t go in the first place."

Colleen slid her fingers into the grooves and a tingle shot up her arm. She felt the power of its whirling core. Nausea ripped at her stomach. She doubled over and puked all over her new Sketchers.

Are you ok? Albert called.

How can I look her in the eye, knowing what I intend to do?

Think of Henry Tandey, Albert said.

That will be tough because I don’t have the first clue who that is.

He was a Private in the British Army during World War I.

So?

Pay attention now, Albert said in his annoying tone. During a World War I battle, he came upon a wounded, unarmed German soldier. Private Tandey pointed his gun at the soldier and cocked the trigger, but a feeling on compassion overtook him and he didn’t shoot. Instead he watched as the German soldier limped off and by so doing changed the course of world history.

I don’t get it, Colleen said. How does letting one soldier go during a battle in World War I change the entire world’s history?

It wasn’t just any soldier’s life that he spared. The young German soldier was Adolf Hitler.

What? Is that story true? Colleen asked. Someone could have killed Hitler when he was young and chose not to do it?

I’m going to let you think about it and answer your own question. Would I make up a story?

But what does that have to do with me blinking Erin out of existence?

Albert smiled, pleased he was permitted to explain. If Private Tandey had shot that soldier like he should have, then there’s no Hitler. The entire course of history would have changed. But he didn’t and so we’ve lived the last ninety years, in some ways, as a result of Private Tandey’s decision. Most decisions, like what shirt to wear in the morning may not have a lasting effect on the course of history, but others, like killing or sparing Adolf Hitler could possibly change everything. So who’s to say this reality, where Hilter was spared, is the only possible reality—a branchless tree. Perhaps there is another branch of reality where Private Tandey shot Hitler which caused time and history to travel in two totally separate directions. Both branches created by his decision, one based on his decision to shoot, one based on his decision not to, yet we can only experience the branch we’re on.

So you’re saying if I go to the future and bring back evidence of what we’ve done—I mean will do—to the planet and, in doing so, convince people to make a change, then I may not blink Erin and her people out of existence? I’ve just created another branch on the tree, one where they don’t exist. But they’ll still exist on their own branch, in their own reality.

Albert shrugged his shoulders. I’m just saying it’s a theory, albeit by some of the smartest physicists on Earth.

How many of these new world Einstein's have tested this theory by time-traveling and mucking up the universal time clock?

None, at least that I know of. But it’s very possible and maybe even likely that time isn’t a branchless tree trunk where it can move only in one direction. Some of the greatest minds of our time, of all-time, believe that time itself grows like a tree with almost infinite branches. Each branch represents an alternate reality, but all are valid and real and alive.

How confident are you in that theory?

Albert pushed his glasses onto his nose. It’s one possibility. And if not think of this—the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one.

Colleen shook her head. I should have known we wouldn’t get through this without at least one Star Trek reference.

Albert placed his hands on Colleen’s wrists then he jerked back as if he’d touched a live wire. Please be careful, he said. You don’t know what’s on the other side of the portal. You don’t even know for sure that Erin made it. And Elijah…

That name lingered in Colleen’s ear. She had almost forgotten about him. Elijah tried to have her killed twice last year; once in the field behind Livingston Academy then again in Floria when he turned the Korombai against her, Erin, and Boas. He almost succeeded both times despite being separated by over four hundred years. What would he try to do when she was in his location during his time? You’re trying like heck to keep me here, aren’t you?

Albert held up his hands. I’m just pointing out the fact neither of us knows what awaits you on the other side, so just be on your toes.

She nodded in agreement. I will. Then she added. You’ll get your chance at some point.

Albert didn’t look convinced. I want to believe that in the worst way.

Colleen stepped back and gripped the CM again. Albert’s face was washing away in the bubble of brightness. But before he disappeared, she could see his eyes get wide. And what if you’re not home by the end of the weekend? he asked.

Then it doesn’t matter, she said.

Chapter 3

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Colleen blinked; she was alone. Familiar white spots danced in the air like fireflies on a humid night. She gasped for oxygen, drawing huge breaths in and out of her burning lungs. Something about time travel literally took her breath away.

The heat blasting her face soothed her. It sure felt post-Armageddon Antarctica. But it was the look of things that had her confused. Tall stalks of grass bending under their own weight grew between weeds, shrubs and sago saplings. Circling her at a distance were fully mature Teepok and Strangler Firs. This wasn’t the clearing she'd left on her last visit.

Birds chirped above her. Colleen held her breath and listened for something else, something more subtle; the snap of a twig or the unnatural rustle of branches. Everything seemed to have a rhythmic flow that felt natural. If she was back in Scottsville, she'd arrived unannounced.

She cut through the grass arms outstretched, and didn’t hesitate when stepping between the trees. Her destination was the gray rock visible on the other side of the tree line. The CM felt slick in her hand, so she unzipped her side pocket and tossed it inside.

The grass gave way to gravel. Colleen skidded down the slope to a wide stone ledge. Déjà vu coursed through her veins as she stared down on the windswept ocean of tropical green.

Colleen glanced back at the overgrowth from which she had just emerged. Knots tightened in her stomach. She was in the right place, obviously, but was it the right time? The tall reeds and saplings were nature’s clock. Time had passed since this space was clear, but exactly how much was impossible to tell, at least from this vantage point. To get that answer, she needed to descend below the canopy and find out what, if anything, was waiting for her.

She crawled over the ledge and dropped onto the rocky path. Clusters of crab grass grew in the compacted tread of the path. She stumbled a few times on shaky, unreliable legs.

Further along the trail the grass spread and thickened. Was it like this before?

After an hour of skidding and stumbling the ground leveled.

Before, shrubs and other greens had formed a border between the path and jungle, but now they grew thick in every direction.

Colleen had to turn sideways to squeeze through the maze of leaves. She shrank away from their tickle because she was terrible at spotting the poison ones.

No path equals no people, ran through her mind. She shook her head trying to knock those words loose. Then it hit her like a Nick Larsen round house right. Something went wrong after Erin left her last September. Nothing else made sense.