Dark Emblem

Modified on 2011/10/18 09:49 by Kerrick Categorized as Books, Deathlands

I have broken the rainbow
Against my heart...
I have blown the clouds of rose color and blood color
I have drowned my dreams.

   - Luis Munoz Marin
   First Elected Governor of Puerto Rico

   All things are taken from us, and become portion and part of the dreadful past.

   - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

   This book starts off with an insight into Doc's past, his encounter with the "eye" the whitecoats used to view him, and how he was eventually pulled forward in time.
   The next chapter starts off with the companions arriving in the hospital in Raleigh-Durham. Ryan has been meaning to make a trip north to check on his nephew Nathan, who is running Front Royal now, but they're running low on ammo and supplies, and making a trek across two states infested with mutants is the last thing any of them want to do. They decide to check the hospital for more supplies, then make plans from there, but they're attacked by more stickies (which overran Freedom Mall when they were there) and decide to retreat and make another jump.
   This time, they land in the castle in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they meet Silas Jamaisvous. He recognizes Doc and tells him that he's doing research on chron-jumping and asks him to help finish his final research so he can get a chron-jumping gate active. Doc jumps at the chance to go back to his own time.
   While Doc and Mildred are helping Jamaisvous, Ryan, Krysty and Dean decided to head over to the main part of the island to talk a walk around San Juan. Along the way, they meet a man named Soto who asks them for help fighting what he calls the chupacabras. These creatures appeared at the same time as Jamaisvous; they were content to feed on livestock until recently, when they turned to human victims.
   After some discussion with the rest of the group, they decide to help the villagers. Everyone except Doc and Mildred piles into two jeeps along with two locals and one of Jamaisvous' men, and they all drive to the mountains to find the supposed lair of the chupacabras.
   The place is riddled with caves, but they find the lair after some searching - it's an old redoubt, where Jamaisvous first appeared. They kill most of the creatures and seal the entrance, locking the rest inside to starve, then head back to the castle.
   Back in the castle, Mildred awakens before dawn to the call of nature. She finds Doc's bed is empty - it hasn't even been used - so she goes looking for Doc. She finds him, along with Jamaisvous, in the mat-trans chamber. Jamaisvous is about to send Doc on an experimental journey through time to test the system. She challenges Jamaisvous, who tells her that Doc is doing this willingly. Mildred attempts to stop Doc, but Jamaisvous' bodyguard hits her with a taser, and is knocked out. She awakens just in time to see Doc vanish to... somewhen else.
   Doc jumps to several different gates in different times, finally arriving back in the present, unharmed except for a nosebleed brought on by the final jump.
   By this time, the rest of the group has gotten back to the castle; they kill two of Jamaisvous' guards and burst into the antechamber to find that he has handcuffed himself to her and he's holding her gun to her head (he took it when she was tasered). He retreats into the control room and closes the door over the handcuffs, severing them and freeing Mildred. While JB works on the lock, Jamaisvous sets the controls for his own jump back to 1999. Doc has returned and is hiding under a desk; while Jamaisvous monologues about his grand plan, Doc stabs him in the thigh with his rapier and grapples with him. They fight and Jamaisvous, despite his lame leg, gets free - he's much stronger than Doc, who's weakened from his multiple jumps. Jamaisvous gets into the chamber and slams the door; Doc grabs a table to pull himself up, but ends up dumping the computer on it onto the floor just as Jamaisvous disappears. Unfortunately for Jamaisvous, it's the one programmed with the coordinates - with this one destroyed, the system defaults to the randomizer, which sends him back to Omaha in 1896.
   The rest of the companions finally get into the control room to find Jamaisvous gone and Doc wounded but alive. Mildred says that the system needs to be rebooted so they can use it for teleportation and not time-jumping; after 24 hours have passed, she declares it good, and they leave Puerto Rico.

DEATHLANDS, OUTLANDERS, EARTH BLOOD, and JAMES AXLER are all the property of Gold Eagle / Worldwide Library, and are used here strictly under Fair Use guidelines.