The Hammer of Amalynth Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Hammer of Amalynth

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  About the Author

  The Hammer of Amalynth

  Secrets of the Elements Book II

  By Michael Galloway

  © 2016 by Michael Galloway. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author.

  www.michaelgalloway.net

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  The light of the digital alarm clock shone out in the darkness, but John Sayers did not comprehend it. Instead, he silenced the buzzer and rolled over on his bed to face the ceiling. The room remained dark and quiet until a flash of light lit up the curtains of his bedroom window. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and trudged to the bathroom to peer at himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and if not for his scientific knowledge he would have sworn the gravity in his house had increased tenfold overnight. It was as if every physical movement of his body was powered by mental determination rather than the cooperation of his limbs. Nevertheless he felt the urge to press onward, driven by the possibility that today he just might hear something from God.

  He peeked out of the bathroom window and saw the sky was mottled with gray, indigo, and black. To the northwest, lightning lit up the underside of the clouds. He returned to his bedroom and brought up the latest weather radar image on his laptop computer. Just as he suspected, a band of thunderstorms that started near Glasgow, Montana, had chugged its way southeast toward the Sioux Falls area overnight and was now in the process of decaying. The storms were riding along a weak instability gradient that would surely regenerate once afternoon surface heating set in. The odds for it becoming a day for chasing tornadoes were not the best but a small part of him held out hope. He glanced at his ragged but loveable road atlas on his nightstand and then back at the alarm clock.

  Time was short if he was to make it to the church on time. He put on a pot of coffee in the kitchen and pulled out a change of clothes from his dresser. He then took a shower, dressed, and ran a comb through his hair. A cup of coffee later he was out the door and winning the battle against gravity.

  By the time he arrived at St. Andrew’s Church in the southern part of Sioux Falls, he had only minutes to spare. After parking his pickup truck, he stared up at the church through the windshield. It was built of rust-colored brick and had numerous tall stained glass windows on the sides along with a slender pyramid-shaped steeple on top. Atop the steeple was a wooden cross that poked into the sky like the mast of a ship. Against the backdrop of the dark wind-tossed waves of cloud it looked like a ship ready to ride out yet another maelstrom.

  John thought about inviting his girlfriend, Madeline Kinney, to service this morning but he hesitated since he wanted to see how much, if at all, things had changed at the church. It had been years since he last attended here and despite a few improvements to the exterior he knew there was more to a church than just bricks, windows, and crosses. A congregation driven by the will of God and of the people always had dynamics at work that could take months or years to figure out. Likewise, more than once he witnessed the atmosphere darken inside of a church and like the sky above it often did so in a hurry.

  Just as he reached the main entrance, he heard a clunking sound high above. A small, dull, silver, conical object rolled off the roof and dropped onto the sidewalk in front of him. He picked it up and recognized it as the nosecone of a hobby rocket. Over the years he had launched innumerable rockets full of sensors at tornadic storms in an attempt crack their mysteries. Naturally, he began to question the whereabouts of the rest of the rocket.

  In the steeple three church bells clanged to life. As they sounded out their melody he scanned the roof for signs of any other rocket parts. Finding none, he pocketed the nosecone. Seconds after the song ended, a stray final note sounded out. His eyes immediately locked in on the church bells.

  There, high above, another silver nosecone rolled around but came to a stop at the edge of the roof. Attached to the nosecone was a thin black strand of string-like material. The strand reached into the heavens as if it was a spider web adrift on the wind. He studied the nearby streets and woods for any signs of a rocket launcher. Finding none, he ducked inside the church. The opening notes of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” bellowed out from a pipe organ as he walked into the narthex.

  The narthex was empty except for a few chairs, a table full of brochures, and a pair of ushers. The ushers were both dressed in blue suits and handed out weekly bulletins to all those that passed by. John took one of the bulletins and then entered the sanctuary through a side entrance.

  In contrast to the gathering darkness outside, the sanctuary was bright with a white polished floor. Around the perimeter beautiful renditions of various significant Old and New Testament moments were depicted in the stained glass windows. Behind the altar a large, well-lit, wooden cross loomed despite the tired look of the pews. The pews were half full so he slipped into an empty one in the third row from the back.

  As he eased into his seat he smiled because the pastor remained unchanged since the last time he attended. Pastor Anthony Cordell was tall, athletic, and in his late fifties. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and a disarming smile that hid his keen sense of observation. From what John remembered, the pastor was constantly busy, despite having a secretary, and constantly misplacing things. Beneath it all the man had a heart for outreach and missions work despite a limitation of resources.

  After the opening hymn ended, Pastor Cordell encouraged everyone to greet one another and exchange peace. John stood up and turned around. He stood face-to-face with two women in their sixties and another man in his late sixties standing next to them. One woman wore a sea-green dress with bright white buttons while the other wore a pale orange blouse and pants. The man was dressed in a lemon-yellow dress shirt with dark blue dress pants. As John reached out to shake their hands, he noticed a copy of Jared Wyckham’s book, Are Miracles Electric? on the pew next to them. His heart sank and the woman in the sea-green dress picked up on his mood change.

  “What is it?” She asked. She turned to look back at the book. “Is it this?”

  John shook his head. He really did not want to get into an argument this morning since he was still waiting for the caffeine from his morning coffee to fully kick in. If Madeline was here right now she would elbow him in the ribs. “There are a lot of problems with that book,” he said with a straight face.

  “You think so?” She grinned at the others in the group. “We’ve all read it and think it’s a hoot. Isn’t that right, Steve?”

  “That’s right,” Steve said as he shook John’s hand with an iron grip. “Have you read it? If not,
I can loan you my copy.” The man reached back into the pew and extended another copy of the book to John with what appeared to be a genuine smile.

  John put up a hand and nodded politely. “No thanks. You know what happened to him, right? The author?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t that tragic?” The woman in the orange outfit said. “I met him a couple of times. Do you think he was right when he said God wants us to piece together all the religions of the world to create a superior truth?”

  Before John could respond she handed him one of Jared’s old informational brochures. “He signed all our books and even signed one of our brochures. Here, take this.”

  John took the brochure, opened it, and cringed. “I have a couple of friends who would have a field day with this.”

  A woman cleared her throat at the podium in the front of the sanctuary. Several people sat back down in their pews while John handed the brochure back. Before turning around to sit down, a thought struck him. He asked them, “How can everyone have the right answer?”

  The comment drew a sour look from Steve and John knew he was not making any new friends fast here. John sat back down and studied the color of the sky through the stained glass windows. Like a kaleidoscope in a poorly-lit room, the colors shifted and darkened by the minute. The stained glass representation of the Apostle Paul looked stern and ominous. Peter and John stood somber on the Mount of the Transfiguration. Moses seemed to part the sea in anger.

  Just as the woman at the podium dove into a passage from the Book of Job, lightning flashed and the lights in the sanctuary flickered. The two women behind John groaned. As John listened, he counted off five seconds between the flash and the ensuing thunder.

  The reader at the podium paused and then carried on. When she finished, she read a brief passage from the Book of Galatians and then stepped down. Pastor Cordell rose up from a wooden bench behind the podium, came to the front, and then asked the congregation to rise to their feet. He clutched both sides of the podium with steady hands like a captain at the wheel of a ship. He glanced out at the audience a moment as if he were about to steer them all through a rising storm on the seas of philosophy.

  Before he could launch into the weekly Gospel reading, a sharp bolt of lightning snapped at the ground just outside of the building. John glanced at the stained glass windows to the left. The image of Paul’s eyes on the window flashed with indignation. Peter and John were temporarily blinded and Moses’ staff sizzled. Several people jumped in response and the sanctuary lights went dark.

  The congregation murmured. Some questioned if the building got hit. John knew better. Like the last time he visited, the circuit breaker downstairs tripped whenever lightning hit nearby. To him, it was a recurrent problem that should have been fixed long ago.

  He stepped out into the aisle and motioned toward the pastor. “I’ll get it,” he said and walked toward the exit.

  “Thanks, John,” Pastor Cordell said. “It’ll only be a minute folks.”

  “You guys really need to a hire an electrician,” John said quietly to anyone who would listen.

  “If we only had more in the budget,” someone mumbled.

  John exited the sanctuary and turned to the right to go downstairs. Rain began to beat steadily against the windows. As he passed by one of them, he noticed the grass just outside the window glowed bright blue as if thin spikes of energy radiated upward. It reminded him of a picture he once saw that showed a ship whose masts were aglow with St. Elmo’s fire.

  As he reached the top of the basement stairs, he groped his way along the walls until he came to the bottom and found the janitor’s closet. Inside the closet and on a low shelf he found a flashlight. He clicked it on and found his way over to the circuit breaker box. With the back of his hand, he brushed away a tangle of cobwebs from the box and opened the door with a metallic creak. Several of the black circuit breaker switches tripped which only made him shake his head.

  He reset each breaker one by one. As he grasped the last breaker he heard another crash of thunder upstairs. A jolt of electricity hit his hand. He felt his body shudder, heard the flashlight drop, and without warning his vision went full black.

  Chapter Two

  When John came to his senses, he sat up and felt his forehead. He smelled his hands and arms to see if anything was burnt. His ears rang as if he stuck his head into one of the steeple bells. In the darkness he groped for the flashlight until he found it. He tried to click it back on, but it did not work. Remembering where the circuit breaker box ought to be, he stood up, stretched out the flashlight toward the wall, and scraped it around until he hit the breaker box. He held his breath and flipped each breaker on again with the backside of the flashlight.

  When the lights came back on, he took a deep breath. When he felt sure of himself he hobbled his way upstairs. The stench of smoke hung in the air and out of instinct he ran his fingers through his hair.

  To his surprise, only a handful of people were left in the sanctuary and all of them were headed for the nearest exit. Black smoke clung to the ceiling like a rain cloud gone astray and rainwater dripped onto one of the pews. He peered up to see a new fist-sized hole in the roof where the bolt struck the steeple. On his way back out of the sanctuary he set the flashlight on one of the tables in the narthex. He grabbed a monthly denominational newspaper off the table and turned it into a makeshift umbrella for his head.

  Outside, Pastor Cordell and the congregation huddled together under a handful of umbrellas. John walked over and stood next to the pastor. The ringing in his ears was now replaced by the sounds of police sirens. At the same time he felt a headache coming on.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look so well,” Pastor Cordell asked him.

  Even though John’s right hand felt like he just stuck it into a bucketful of needles, he shook off the sensation after a minute. “I took a jolt off the breaker box. But I think I’m okay,” he said.

  The pastor’s eyes widened and just as he was about to comment the three churchgoers from the pew behind John came up to stand in front of the pastor. All three huddled under Steve’s black umbrella and leaned in like a trio of accusers.

  The woman in the sea-green dress put her hands on her hips. “See, we told you God was trying to get your attention,” she said.

  “Did God tell you that?” Pastor Cordell said. There was an impatient edge to his voice as if this was a familiar conversation with the same tired outcome.

  “No, it’s just…”

  The pastor cut her off. “How do you even know what I was going to say today? I didn’t even start in on my sermon.”

  “If it was anything like what you preached last week…”

  Her comments were interrupted by hiss of the airbrakes from a city fire truck. John continued to eavesdrop on the conversation as he wandered around the edge of the building. The steeple smoldered and a tongue of flame shot out of the roof where the bolt punched a hole.

  Pastor Cordell shielded his eyes from the rain and stared up at the steeple. He then watched the firefighters jump out of their truck and uncoil a fire hose. He shook his head and looked at the others gathered on the front lawn.

  Just then, John reached down into the grass and plucked out another silver nosecone. He walked over to the pastor and held it up for him to see. “It wasn’t God.”

  The woman in the sea-green dress, who had her back turned to John, wheeled around and gave John a scathing look. “And how do you know this?”

  “Because of this,” John said as he held the nosecone out to her.

  “What is that?” Pastor Cordell asked him.

  “It’s part of a rocket.”

  “Are you saying it wasn’t lightning? And we were hit with a rocket?” The pastor asked.

  “I don’t know,” John said. In his mind he did know instinctively that this was no ordinary rocket part.

  A squad car pulled up to the curb and parked. A towering police officer stepped out of the vehicle and marched over next to Pastor Co
rdell. He wore a yellow see-through plastic rain poncho and leaned in under the pastor’s umbrella to gain information.

  John rolled the nosecone between his fingertips and studied it. He continued to hold the now-waterlogged newspaper over his head but it was soon of little use. He dumped the newspaper in a nearby garbage can and surveyed the grass again.

  “John, show the officer what you found,” Pastor Cordell said as he waved John over.

  John stepped over next to the officer and opened his hand to reveal the nosecone. He kept the other nosecone in his pocket but did not want to turn that one over.

  “Can I see that?” The officer said as he grabbed the nosecone out of John’s hand. He was a burly officer with pale blue eyes and a copper-colored mustache. He looked tired and almost pale as if he wanted to stay back home in bed or should have picked up some coffee on the way into work.

  “Where did you find this?” The officer asked.

  “On the ground next to the front door. My guess is that it’s from a hobby rocket,” John said.

  “You’re sure of this?”

  John nodded.

  “But it sounded like lightning hit the steeple,” Pastor Cordell said.

  John shrugged his shoulders and turned away. “I’m not sure. Maybe it just blew off the roof or something when the winds came up.” He then gave the pastor a look of “trust me on this” and followed it up with a smile.

  The officer pocketed the nosecone and pulled out a spiral-bound pocket notebook and a pen. “Do you work with these types of rockets?”

  “For fun. Sometimes for research. I’m a storm chaser and…” John scanned around. “…and I think it’s time I get going.” John did not like where the conversation was potentially headed. The last thing he wanted to do was look like a suspect or become tangled up in an investigation.

  “Can I get your name?” The officer pressed.

  “John Sayers.”

  “Address and phone number where I can reach you?”

  “The pastor knows it.”