The Gods of Destiny

By Papa

When Carson Wildermuss overhears two men planning to kill a Princess to get a rock, no one but Ben, his brother, believes him. And why should they? It's only a rock, and as Ben tells him, "There's no royalty in America."
Left to their own devises, since their sisters are off doing other things, the boys spring into action, enlisting the aid of two cowardly mutts, Boomer and Slick, to solve this mystery. Only to soon discover that they are way in over their heads.
And when they find the rock, and have to save the girl, Jaden, and her mother, it only puts the murderous men on Ben and Carson's trail.
Owen Lords and Fenn Poole are after something far greater than a mere rock. Apparently, a spaceship has crash-landed on earth and it contains aliens of the most unusual variety--one looks like a guinea pig, the other a small human and of course, there's the mysterious monster eating just about everyone that comes in contact with it.
And as the two boys race across their small town, retrieving parts of the ship, eventually with the help of Wee, one of the aliens, they just keep amassing enemies.
Before long, they have the two murderous men, two angry gangs, and the mysterious monster chasing them and they still haven't found out the whole truth about things. Something is severely wrong with this situation, among them: How come Wee keeps changing color every time he reveals something to them; how do you fit a durgle (the house-sized monster) in bathtub-sized spaceship, how in the world can two pint-sized aliens subdue the durgle, and last of all, what has the other alien, Woe, hidden in the woods behind Jaden's house?
In a story full of house-sized mysteries, narrow escapes, chases involving a zoo-full of animals, and one astounding ending, can the boys get to the bottom of things before they get killed by those chasing them? Or worse, will their parents ground them before Ben and Carson uncover the truth, save the girl, the aliens and, heck, even the town they live in?
Oh, the Wildermuss brothers are on their own this time, but they are not going it alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papa
• Release date: Dec 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463716960

Book preview

Chapter 1

A Glimpse into the Future

Terrified, the two boys inside the house felt their deaths imminent, as real and solid as the dark that now surrounded them as another bullet thwacked against the bricks.

The gang leader shooting at the house right now wasn't hitting anything. His indiscriminate shots seemed a form of sadistic terrorizing—or therapy to calm his rage—as a way to rattle the boys into giving up. Him and the others had been pursuing and shooting at them most of the day.

To both boys, the erratic nature of the men (and monster) awaiting them outside made the violence just another natural thing to deal with, like seeking shelter from a tornado or turning on a flashlight when sunset brought the night. The men they could deal with—the monster, however, was another thing entirely.

But the Wildermuss boy's courageous hearts would not let them abandon this quest. They had given their word and intended to keep it. Defiant of the death both boys felt hovering close at hand, (And for heroes, they considered themselves the complete opposite.) they still refused to give up.

Inside the dark house, the larger, burlier of the two boys crept up to the window, risking his life just peeking out at the surrounding mob. His forehead glistened with fear-induced sweat.

Grunting from the strain, he squatted beneath the picture window, grabbed a four-fingered hold onto the wood frame, and raised his dark eyes an inch above the sill. With another grunt, he bent down again and stared at his brother with eyes as wide and black as the sky outside.

Ben said, I count twenty.

Just as terrified as his older brother, but the more composed of the two boys, Carson handled it with better aplomb. Dog, that's a lot, he said.

The armor Carson wore caught twinkling reflections of the outside flashlights that roamed the interior of the house like the errant paths of spot lights around a prison. Carson kept low to the ground since the gleam of his armor presented a potential danger; if the gang leader saw it, he might take a potshot at him.

In the next instant, someone cut the power, killing the AC and within minutes, the house grew as stifling as an oven in the humid June night. Like his brother, Carson took off his helm to breathe easier and to keep the bottom edge of his dark-rimmed glasses from fogging up.

The heat already had Ben panting (Either that or his panic.) and he was glad he had removed the hot space suit. Besides, it was small enough to carry in his pocket.

Tucked into his right elbow, Ben lugged an ebony box. Long, red welts crosshatched his forearm where he and Carson had fled through the forest to this spurious haven and from that flight, tree limbs and bushes had found his arm an irresistible target.

Ben scratched his arm and glanced at the box now, as if hope lay somewhere inside. For him, their grim situation had killed everything but hope.

Bell, his sister, had built the seemingly-magical box only a few days ago, (She was missing it by now.) Somewhere inside, was a gun. A gun right now would turn up handy. (Ironically, Ben had no desire to shoot anybody; he merely wanted to shoot back to keep the men outside from storming the house.)

And the men were preparing to do just that.

Still huddled beneath the window, Ben reached into the box again, his arm slipping much deeper than seemed possible. After a second of delving its depths, he drew out a peppermint candy cane. He lifted it up to the light, frowned at it and then dropped it back into the box. It wasn't even close to Christmas.

To Ben's dismay, the box decided what it gave you. Not you.

A strange thing in itself, every time Ben opened the box, a new and different thing appeared. Bell had explained how the box worked; something about canceling the quantum probabilities in the universe and summoning them into the real world. It was surrounded by fields, (She'd said.) magnetic fields, electrical fields, and quantum fields. Ben knew nothing about such phenomenon--to him a field involved green things, weeds and a mob of biting bugs. Ben hated fields of all kinds and he wasn't too happy with the box either.

The next bullet pierced the window above Ben's head. (Had the nut job seen the candy cane?) Glass rained down on him like crystallized tears, spattering the carpet with a tattoo of glistening thuds.

Behind him, the woman yelped, cowering behind the couch, covering her ears with her hands. Unbidden tears ran down her cheeks.

With a grunt, Ben slunk lower to the ground.

Her daughter, a girl with the wild, blond hair scooted over to the younger boy, Carson. You have to get us out of here! she shrieked. Her otherwise pretty face looked stricken with a cluster of disparate feelings: indecision, panic, and overshadowing all of it was terror, much terror. Her eyes implored him to act as she painfully clutched his bicep in a stranglehold.

Carson smiled at her and gently pried his arm of her death grip. Her face cemented with terror, he wanted to fortify her weak courage and reassure her. Don't worry. It'll be alright.

The girl looked unconvinced.

Behind the leather sofa, her mother mimicked the girl's frown. What could two eleven-year-old boys do against that rabble outside? Boys she'd just met. A dozen men alone had climbed out of their vehicles.

Like her daughter, she had blondish hair, though the mother's tended towards brown. In the gloom of the house, whenever she glanced towards the boys, her gold-toned glasses became twin lighthouse beacons on a foggy night. Her face held a primal fear every mother hoped to never encounter; the terror of seeing her child in grave danger.

But besides encouragement, the boys could do nothing else. Their well-meaning involvement had compelled them to save the lady and her daughter, Jaden, but this was way beyond their capabilities.

Ben Wildermuss glanced at the whimpering woman and shook his dark head. Ben blamed his brother for their part in this debacle. Carson had insisted they help. And although Ben believed in helping, he held a strong distaste about getting killed for it.

A second later, with a frown, Ben shook these thoughts away. Quit being so petty, he thought.

The peril the woman and her daughter faced had forced them to act. They'd had no choice with the scientist, the two gangs, and the monster eager to retrieve the stones and determined to let nothing stop them.

Ben shook his head; they couldn't fail them or the others. Too many people were depending on him and Carson for that to happen; the people in the house, the king, Wee and Woe. Shoot, maybe even the people in this town, if they could rely on what Wee and Woe had told them about the durgle exploding.

Ben reached into the box again, his mouth set as he tried to will it to give him something useful. He would settle for anything: A gun, a hand grenade, a transporter. Anything to save them from what came next. Next would not be pretty for any one.

When Ben removed his hand, he held an antique, gilt-framed picture of a man in buckskin clothing, his extended arm holding a long rifle, its butt resting on the ground.

Shoot! I don't need a picture of a gun. I need a gun!

Hopeless, he thought. Utterly hopeless.

Inside the small but nicely-furnished house also lay two mutts named Boomer and Slick. After the first gunshot, Boomer had fled into the back bedroom and was right now quivering under the bed. Slick, however, now scratched at the front door, whining his discontent. Slick wanted to leave, to flee into the night before things turned deadly. The dog kept glancing at Carson, asking him to open the door while his eyebrows alternately twitched up and down in worry.

Carson pushed up his glasses, and considered the mutt for a moment. Mentally, he sent soothing sounds to him; scared dogs bit people, friend or foe.

As strange as it sounded, Carson could talk to animals. He'd learned how years ago, from a friend of his, a Neanderthal.

He told the dog, We're safe for now.

He also could sense a person's thoughts and feelings so he knew the men wouldn't break down the door for a little while, although Carson had no way of knowing that for sure. Of the jumble of thoughts outside the house, he caught snatches of eagerness, nervousness and of men mentally preparing themselves, getting ready to attack, but no one was acting on those feelings.

And as the growing intensity of their thoughts built towards an odd sort of courage, Carson doubted the men would hold back much longer.

Carson again tried to call to his friends but something blocked his mental summons, perhaps the hills behind the house or the distance too great for his mental reach. Either way, it amounted to the same thing--a house-sized pickle.

Wac-a-mole-like, Carson took a quick peek out the window again. The men were now spreading out, moving to surround the house. Oh yeah, they'd make their move soon.

The girl with the wild hair ran a hand through it, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her hair stayed down for only a moment, then popped back up into its abnormal place. Carson watched her for a second, captivated by her matchless prettiness. When she too rose to peek out the window, Carson yanked her back to the floor.

Don't, he said softly. He smiled at her to soften his harsh treatment. If they see movement, they'll shoot into the house. And the monster might throw in a lava bomb or something?

What! her mother said. They have bombs!

That one does, probably, Ben said, recalling the exploding trees. And although they'd barricaded the doors, Ben doubted it would stop the thing waiting outside. The durgle hadn't appeared yet, but it had chased them here, so it had to be lurking out there somewhere in the dark.

Ben shivered at the thought of the dump-truck sized thing--and not over its size, but its ability to transform into a lava-spitting monster. Not good, not good at all.

A heavy thud sounded at the rear of the house. Someone kicking the back door!

Staying low, Ben scrambled across the floor before he rose to a crouch and eased into the kitchen. To barricade the back door, they had tilted and wedged the refrigerator against it. That would hold the men for a while, but Ben's fear drove him to be sure.

The door thudded again and the refrigerator slipped a fraction of an inch. The table behind it scrapped across the tile floor, making a sound that grated on Ben's jangled nerves.

On the outside, Ben heard someone grunt in pain. They hadn't expected it to be that difficult. He grinned. Serves them right.

The men could batter that door for a half hour or more before they knocked that out of the way, since it was backed by the oven, kitchen table, with the microwave, blender and coffee machine piled on top the table.

Just give them the rock, the woman said.

Ben jumped; he hadn't heard her come near.

She knelt against the hallway wall and peered into the room at him. The door thudded again and the woman flinched.

Quiet and mousy-looking, the woman's straight hair hung past her shoulders. Dressed in a navy-blue blouse and black slacks, her clothing was splattered with tears that she occasionally sniffed back. To Ben, she appeared barely in control of herself. And who could blame her--it terrified him and he had experience with this stuff

Ben looked at her for a long time, before he said, We can't. We don't have it.

"Then, tell them," the woman said. She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head at him as if this train wreck had a simple solution.

They won't believe us, he said.

Where is it?

I'm not sure. We buried it in the woods yesterday. In the dark. If the ground looks normal again, we might not never find it.

Not ever, the woman said. An English teacher at the middle school in town, his use of a double negative irked her, and her conditioned response to a student's grammatical errors was to correct it. Then tell them that.

Ben shook his head, rose slowly and glanced out the kitchen window to the left of the door. Built on a slope, the bedroom windows stood about ten feet off the ground. Unworried about that part of the house, he double-checked the kitchen, looking for other ways they might defend themselves but found nothing.

Several of the gang members now stood around back there, their legs spread, checking their weapons and waiting on whoever was beating at the backdoor. And eventually, the door would give.

Ben heard a muted thud downstairs. They were now attacking the door down there. And he had no idea what to do. Run maybe? And Ben yearned to run, to put distance between him and that dark, solid figure hovering over them.

Ben moved back through the kitchen to the living room where he found Carson and the girl he liked, their heads huddled together. Carson said something and they giggled.

Ben shook his head. Carson had gotten a lot of swagger since he'd met that girl. Ben doubted his brother took their jeopardy as seriously as he should, distracted by the girl and all. But then that was Carson--sometimes, he seemed unflappable around danger. And they did have help waiting; they only needed to signal to them, although Ben didn't see any way of doing that--not right now, at least.

The gang's early arrival had caught them off guard.

The woman moved into the hallway, slid down the wall and draped her arms across her knees. Well, what can we do? Her blue eyes glued wide with terror, she kept running her thumb over her wedding band, as if thinking of her husband at work.

The men outside didn't give them time to discuss it; they finally decided on their next move.

Give us the rock, the bespectacled bald man yelled from outside. There's no need for violence to end this.

Owen, the astrogeologist, Ben thought. Him and his buddy had started this mess. And not their main worry. What they didn't know--and desperately needed to know--was the lava monster's plans. It had already tried to kill them several times and once it grew tired of waiting and decided to storm the house, they had no way to stop it. The impatient beast wanted the king and it wouldn't hesitate to kill them to get to King Fulther and his ship.

They had no choice in the matter. If they gave up, the men killed them, and convincing the men they didn't have either the other half of the rock or the king was a doomed effort. The rock and the king were hidden back in the hills behind the house, waiting for Carson to send them the stupid signal.

Ben scooted to the window and opened it a smidge--new, it slid open with ease.

He yelled out. We don't have the rock! Besides, you're not getting it. It don't belong to none of you.

Doesn't belong to any of you, the lady said, her pet peeves showing.

The boy frowned and went back to yelling out the window. He decided to take a drastic approach to this siege.

Help! Help! Ben screamed into the night. And even as he did this, he knew no one would hear him; they were so far out in the boonies it was ridiculous. The woman had dialed 911 five minutes ago but the cops wouldn't get here in time to save them. Miles from the city, the solitary and long, winding road that led to this place practically guaranteed it.

Danged, we should've brought Ginny. The goose could act as their very own carrier pigeon and fly a message to Wee and Woe. But then, would the translator understand the squawks of a goose? Ben didn't know. Carson might.

Darn it! Darn it! Darn it! How had they let them box them in like this?

"You're out of time, boys. Either bring out the rock or we'll take it by