The True Enemy Read online

  “That was the best concert I have ever been too!” Gail gushed.

  “How many have you gone too?” Mika asked.

  “That’s the only one, but I know I will never see a better one,” Gail said with a dumb grin.

  I looked at my knights...they all had dumb grins on their faces. This was not them.

  I moved up to the front of the limo. I tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Yes, miss Gwen,” he said in a hollow voice.

  “I wish to turn around,” I said. “Take us home now.”

  The driver turned to face me, his eyes glowed golden, “I’m sorry that is not possible.”

  He turned back to the road. A golden mansion appeared in front of us. The car drove up a long golden driveway. I definitely saw a pattern here. The car pulled up at the gates of the mansion. It rolled to a stop. Looking at my knights they were all now sound asleep.

  The back door to the limo popped open. Two other giant, golden-eyed men greeted me. They looked into the limo directly at me. I fought back a chill. “She will see you at the pool now!”

  “Guys come on, wake up,” I ordered.

  They didn’t stir or move a muscle.

  “She is not ready for them yet,” the two men said.

  My mind raced with what to do. I didn’t see any other options. I took my staff and left the limo. The men lead me down a beautifully trimmed pathway to a huge diamond shaped pool. The pathway and the pool were both lined with golden statues. A weird assortment of statues: a couple police officers, a dance troop, a couple of barking dogs, a roaring lion pride, a boxer, a couple women in bikinis, a man with a chefs hat, a row a fans, a team of cheerleaders, a squad of heavy armed men...it was really weird!

  I found Kristi sitting by the pool, wearing a red bikini covered with gold stars and sunning herself despite the fact it was night. She had somehow caused a star to shine down directly on her. She looked at me from her lounge chair.

  “Gwen how nice of you to make it here and with your mind in tack,” she said.

  I drew my staff. “What have you done to my friends?”

  “Nothing,” she said sipping on a golden drink.

  “You have a thing for gold don’t you!” I said.

  She laughed. “Yes, it is so much prettier than platinum or silver or bronze. Man did I ever hate the Bronze Age. Not sure what I was thinking with that one…”

  “What’s going here?” I demanded.

  “Gwen honey, don’t play coy with me I invented coy,” she laughed. “Though my daughter claims it as one of her inventions.”

  I walked forward slowly, “So Morgan is truly your daughter?”

  Kristi nodded. “Yes. Though I can’t believe she considers reality TV and a talk show to be entertainment. Not sure where I went wrong with that.” She sighed her breath smelled great, like a mix of bubble gum and mint. “Still, she rivals me for power in this world. And she somehow has that sword. Not sure what the sword sees in her but with it, she cannot be harmed. It even made that wimp Arty king. In the hands of one of my daughters wow. There might be no stopping her.” She pointed at me. “That, my BFF, is where you come in. I don’t want the sword. I just don’t want her to have it. So you will take it away from her.”

  “And if I refuse or fail?”

  “Now girlfriend those are two different things. If you refuse I will be angry and if you fail I’ll be sad.”

  “Look I’m not some puppet!” I said.

  Kristi showed me her hands. She had finger puppets on them of...Lance, Mika, Sebastian, Brett, Bart, and Gail. She waved them at me, three on each hand. “No, you are not, but your knights are, quite literally. If you want them back, you will do what I ask of you. I could say commanded, but commanded is such a yucky word.”

  “I will need my knights back if I am to have any chance against Morgan,” I said.

  Kristi waved her fingers. The puppets flew off his fingers and landed at my feet. They grew to normal size and became life-like again.

  They each stood up. “Okay that was weird,” Gail said.

  Kristi smiled. “There you have your little knights back. Now enjoy a nice meal with me and then I will send you on your way to steal a sword from my little girl.”

  I drew my staff. I rammed it into the ground. The force sent off a wave of energy through the ground knocking Kristi from her lounge chair.

  “Or we could just kick your butt!” I said. “Knoghts erm!” I shouted.

  Each of my knights was armed with weapons.

  Kristi laughed. “Please one thought from me and you are all chic peas. Either for me to eat, as you are a nice vegan option, or to stomp on. But I am above that kind of silliness.” She snapped her fingers. “I will let those who have angered me revenge me!”

  We heard footsteps, heavy footsteps, stomping towards us. We turned to see an army of golden statues lurching towards us.

  Lance looked at them all. “This, this is quite different.”

  “So apparently if you anger or annoy Kristi she turns you into a golden statue….” Mika said.

  Gazing over the group, it was apparent that a lot of people had irked Kristi off over the years: a bunch of policemen, what looked like a squad of British troops, a herd of rhinos, a couple workers with buzz saws, a drummer, the list went on. And they were all coming towards us arms extended like golden zombies.

  “We will make up for bothering Ms. Kristi!” they all moaned.

  “Give in to her or die!” they said.

  My knights looked at me. I shrugged. “Let’s show them what we are made of!”

  My knights and I leaped into battle. The good news was since they were gold statues we didn’t have to hold back. We hit them with everything we had. The bad news was that nothing seemed to stop them.

  Still, that didn’t stop my knights and me from pounding on them. We hit them with staffs and iron swords. Lance picked one off the ground and threw it at two others. Gail screamed and rolled into a bunch of others knocking them over. Bart and Brett kept firing exploding slingshot balls at others. Mika spun under statues tripping them to slow them down. I used my staff to blast a few back.

  The only one not doing anything was Sebastian. Well, he was doing something, he was on his phone texting. I rushed over to him. “Sebastian, what are you doing?”

  “Texting,” he said, “the reception here is great!”

  “Who are you texting?” I asked. I blasted back a couple more statues.

  “Merlin, I sent him our GPS address,” Sebastian said.

  “Why?” I asked. “He doesn’t have any magic. I doubt his killer farts will work on statues,” I said.

  “So true,” Sebastian said, “but he has connections.”

  “Connections?” I asked.

  He pointed up to the sky.

  I looked up. I saw nothing. “Ah, there is nothing there.”

  “Wait for it,” Sebastian said. “They’re trying to teleport. We need to hold these freaky gold statues off a bit longer.”

  “Ah, okay,” I said.

  “But when I give the signal we all need to dive into the pool fast!” Sebastian said.

  I thought I knew what he was hinting at but I didn’t have time to ask as I had to knock down a few more lumbering statues. It actually felt good to be able to pound away on these things. My only regret was that I was clobbering innocent victims of Kristi. I wished it was her I was attacking, instead of trying to stay alive.

  “Okay knights get ready to hit the water!” Sebastian yelled over the chaos. “On three!” he ordered. “One,” he paused, as we all rushed to towards the pool. “Two,” he shouted.

  “My phone isn’t waterproof!” Bart shouted.

  “Seriously!” I yelled from the edge of the pool, “now is not the time to worry about a phone!”

  I heard the beating of wings. Great wings. I looked up. I saw Carana in all her glory flying over us. She wasn’t flying along though. A giant white dragon flew by her side. He was glorious. He had Merlin on his neck. Pret
ty sure I heard Merlin yelling, “Yahoo!”

  “Three! The pool now get under the water!” Sebastian ordered.

  All the knights jumped in. I followed. We dove to the bottom of the pool. Looking up through the water I saw the area go ablaze. I could feel the heat from under the water even though I was sure the fire from the dragons wasn’t aimed in our direction.

  We held our breath. Through the water, we saw the fluttering of wings disappearing into the night sky. We rose to the top of the water and looked around. The ground was covered with puddles of melted gold. I pulled myself out of the pool.

  Carana and Fern landed near us. The wind from their wings dried us off. “Thanks for your help!” I told Carana.

  Carana grinned at me. “You helped me. I only thought it was right to come to your aid. After all, you were willing to sacrifice all for me.”

  I walked to Ferm he certainly was a magnificent creature now. He looked almost as large as Carana and ripped with muscles and shining scales. He lowered his head. I went to hug him. He pulled back, “Careful, I am still hot.”

  “Haet nu herm ma!” I said. My body became wrapped in a blue glow. I hugged Fern. “Fern you look so awesome!” I said as I squeezed him.

  “I owe it all to you,” Fern told me with a bow.

  “Well, if you have finished all this lovey-dovey stuff, can you lower me down, please?” asked Merlin. Fern lowered his body and Merlin jumped off. He headed towards me. “When Sebastian told me you were being attacked by golden statues I knew these two could help.”

  Carana let out a huge hearty dragon laugh. “Trust you to try to take the glory, Merlin! Gwen, it was the least we could do. I am only sad that we did not get Kristi….”

  Fern bounded over. “I would have loved to take a bite out of her!”

  Lance and the others came over to us. “So we destroyed Kristi’s golden army. But she got away?”

  I thought about what they said. Sure, Kristi did get away, but on the bright side, we knew she was evil. And we had destroyed her golden army. I knew our next move. We needed to somehow find a way to get Excalibur from Morgan. Once we had the sword of swords we would be able to defeat them both.

  I hoped…

  Chapter 12 - Kind Words

  That night as I sat on my bed, Merlin walked over to me. He rubbed himself against me. “You did good, Gwen.”

  “Wait, did you just give me a compliment?” I asked grinning.

  “Yes, but don’t let it go to your head.”

  I rubbed him on his back. “Oh don’t worry I won’t.” I sighed a little. “I just feel like I failed. I mean. ..Kristi got away.”

  Merlin laughed. “With a being as powerful as Kristi, or for that matter Morgan, you will never totally stop them. After all, the world does need some evil. It forces good to stand up and be strong. I know it sounds weird but the Universe likes balance and equilibrium.”

  “So I can never truly win?” I asked.

  Merlin coughed. He coughed again. He held up a paw. He spat out a fur ball. “Sorry,” he said. He looked me in the eyes. “Of course you can win. You just can’t totally destroy Morgan or Kristi, they in their own way are forces of the Universe. But that doesn’t mean you can’t combat them at every step and slow them down a lot. Sure they are volatile. You may even convince them to leave this realm alone. After all, there is literally an infinite number of realms. They have the power to visit any of them.”

  “So why do they want this one then, Merlin?”

  He shrugged. “Honey, if I knew why, I would tell you. I guess this is their natural realm. The one they were created in. But you can always convince them that this realm isn’t worth their trouble. Or persuade them that they have enough power and to just be happy. Or else.”

  “Or else what?” I asked.

  Merlin closed his eyes. “Not sure, that will be up to you. But I know you did good and that you can handle whatever this realm throws at you.”

  Hearing those words from Merlin’s made me feel good. I knew my direction. I also knew that my knights and I could handle anything!

  ***

  Find out what happens in the final book of this series…

  Girl Power - Book 4: End Game

  OUT NOW!!

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  About the Authors

  John Zakour is a humor / SF/ fantasy writer with a Master's degree in Human Behavior. He has written thousands of gags for syndicated comics, comedians and TV shows (including Simpsons and Rugrats and, Joan River's old TV show.) John has written seven humorous SF novels for Daw books (the first The Plutonium Blonde was named the funniest SF book of 2001 by The Chronicle of Science Fiction). John has also written three YA books, four humorous self-help books and three books on HTML. As well, John has optioned two TV shows and three movies. His books may be found here: http://www.amazon.com/John-Zakour/e/B000APS2F0

  Katrina Kahler is the Best Selling Author of several series of books, including Julia Jones’ Diary, Mind Reader, The Secret, Diary of a Horse Mad Girl, Twins, Angel, Slave to a Vampire and numerous Learn to Read Books for young children.

  Katrina lives in beautiful Noosa on the Australian coastline.

  You can find all of Katrina’s books here: Best Selling Books for Kids

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