Birth of Jaiden (40 page)

Everyone gathered at
Alex’s house for the wake part of the funeral. He felt the sadness
which still hung thick in the air while everyone ate snack cakes
and crock pot chili. Suddenly, it occurred to him that if Chris was
attending the party, it would be far from sad.

He found the little box of
Chris’s belongings which he had put on a shelf in the den and found
Chris’s MP3 player. He hooked it up to the stereo system he had
wired throughout the house and pushed play. With a bang, Guns N’
Roses filled the house, demanding to be taken to the Paradise City.
Alex laughed out loud. It was totally appropriate.

He stood back and watched
everyone’s reactions. Most who knew Chris only from work wore
shocked expressions but those who knew him well were smiling
appreciatively. He hoped Chris was smiling too.

Deanna found Alex and
pulled him out into the middle of the floor.

“
Dance with me,” she
ordered him.

“
I can never turn down a
pretty redhead.”

Deanna smiled slyly.
“Sure, but what about pretty blonds?”

She eyed Isabella while
they danced.

“
Yeah, I think you spent
too much time with Chris; now, you know all my secrets.”

“
Oh please, Alex.” She rolled
her eyes. “It’s hardly a secret. You love her and everyone can see
it, except
her,
maybe.”

They were no longer alone
on the makeshift dance floor. Many others had joined them as the
song progressed.

“
Well, if you must know…I
don’t really have a plan on where to go with that. It would only
leave me with two difficult decisions.”

Deanna nodded with
understanding and then changed the subject. “I’m going to study
healing,” she told him. “I’m not sure why but the protection spell
I put on you and Chris didn’t work. I am seeing it as a sign that I
need to study more and focus on something important. If the spell
had worked, Chris would still be here.”

He knew seeing people she
loved die had brought on this sudden urge to study healing. But,
regardless of the reasons, it was a good thing to
pursue.

“
Good.” He spun her around
as the song came to an end. “I think you will be good at whatever
you do.”

She smiled.
“Really?”

“
Yeah, really.” He smiled
back at her and then kissed the top of her head when the song came
to an end.

Michael strode over,
looking terribly uncomfortable in the suit he was wearing for the
occasion, and held his hand out for Deanna’s as the next song
began. She rolled her eyes at Alex and skipped off with
Michael.

Alex watched the gathering
of people who had come to remember Chris and was finally happy with
the goodbye. But, that goodbye seemed more than just goodbye, it
felt like the beginning of something. Isabella had killed Malcolm,
Levine had killed Chris and had threatened her return so it was
most certainly the beginning of more to come.

One of the first things he
had done when they had returned home was go to the church and pray.
He gave his thanks for everyone who was saved and had asked God to
look after Chris. He wanted to believe that Chris’s good soul would
go to heaven. He had no way, of course, to be sure, or perhaps he
would feel differently about the future of his own soul. Funny how
one could consider themselves damned but at the same time find
another of the same cloth not damned.

He wandered off to the
sunroom to be alone. He hadn’t had much time to be alone in the
four days since they had been home. He sat on the same bench where
he had first seen Isabella the day he had fallen in love with
her.

Danielle soon joined him.
As if she had heard him calling her, she suddenly appeared beside
an arbor of white roses. Their vines twined and mingled, growing
around each other so closely they appeared to be one, but still
remained their own entity.

“
Are you OK?” She floated
softly across the gap between them.

He crossed his legs. “I’m
happy,” he told her

“
But?” She sat down beside
him as she questioned.

“
But, I want to know what
happened to you. Why you left me alone in the chamber with
Malcolm.”

She lowered her head, her
dark lashes fluttering down as she closed her eyes. “The reason why
I left you alone was simple, but not easy.”

“
Danielle.” He sighed; he
didn’t want to hear a bunch of her confusing angel talk.

“
Let me finish.” She sighed too.
“You always assume before anyone can finish what they are saying. I
left you alone because I was told to; right then and there, God
spoke to me and told me you must fight it alone. The not easy part
was actually standing back and watching you do it. I
wanted
to help you, Alex.
For heaven’s sake, I killed demons in there; I became a monster
myself and I am not proud of that at all.”

Alex lowered his head.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I ever doubted you; it was
hard, though, knowing you were there and not helping. I felt
betrayed.”

“
Alex, I am your guardian.
I would never betray you.”

“
What about
Damion?”

She sighed once more. “Oh, how
I do love that guy. He is a temptation and a rock. He is probably
more worthy of heaven than any of us for all that he does on the
side of good. But, he is my temptation here on earth. Alex, you
need to understand that I am
stuck
here. Sure, I love what I do and I hope to someday
accomplish my mission but it is
not
easy being an angel and actually being trapped
somewhere. It’s like caging an animal, in a way.”

Alex understood
completely. She needed love, real love, as much as anyone did. He
took her hand to show her his understanding and they sat there in
the quiet of the plants and flowers, soaking up the sunshine he had
so often craved for himself.

The sun didn’t bother him
at all that time. Unlike the first time at Jeremiah’s when he had
stepped into the sunrise, there were no side effects. His skin
showed no signs of burns and his eyes had adjusted adequately that
first day when they had escaped being squashed like pancakes inside
Malcolm’s lair. And he could no longer feel the sunrise when it
approached. It was wonderful.

Later, at sunset, only the
council members remained behind. There was one last thing they
needed to do to keep themselves, and Jaiden, safe.

They all gathered with
Alex in his bedroom. Isabella was excluded; even though she had
been through so much with them, she was still not part of the Great
Council. Corrine, however, did join them. She stood silently, her
long red hair flaming down her back and her pale arms wrapped
around the evil book which housed demons of the past.

Alex removed his key from
his pocket and unlocked the door leading to his secret underground
chamber. It was a solemn walk for they were hiding away the most
dangerous thing to Jaiden in the very home in which she was
living.

He led them through the
dark maze and into the large chamber where his coffin sat alone on
its huge slab. No one had ever seen the inside of his secret place
before, not even Danielle. Well, to his knowledge, she
hadn’t.

“
Help me.” He gripped one
end of his casket with both hands.

Damion took hold of the
other side, and together, they moved the casket aside, setting it
carefully on the stone floor. Underneath the casket, on the raised
portion of the slab formed in a square, were four triangular pieces
of stone which were a bit darker grey than the rest. On each corner
of the square, a circle with a cross was carved into the
stone.

Alex crouched over that
oddity underneath his casket, sifted through his key ring and found
the little silver cross hanging amongst the keys. He fitted the
cross into the first circle on the top left and twisted. The entire
circle turned one quarter turn to the left. He did the same with
each circle, working his way clockwise until each one had been
turned.

When the last one clicked
into place, the dark grey triangles began to slide backward into
the stone slab and left an opening big enough to crawl
into.

Corrine stepped up onto
the slab and handed Alex the book. He carefully set the book into
the hole and then covered it with one of Jaiden’s small pink
blankets.

“
There.”

He turned the crosses back
to their original positions and they watched the stone slide back
over the opening, hiding the book from the world, from those who
wanted it for its evil, and for Jaiden.

“
It is done,” Danielle
whispered and gripped Alex’s hand. “For now.”

###

About the Author

Jennifer Malone Wright resides in the
beautiful mountains of northern Idaho with her husband and five
children. Between the craziness of taking care of her children,
whose ages range from fourteen all the way down to six months, and
being a homemaker, Jennifer has little time left for herself. The
time she does have left, usually leading far into the night, is
spent working on freelance work or her beloved fiction.

When she grew up, Jennifer always had her
nose in a book. She has been writing stories and poems since grade
school. This love of the written word and her strong interest in
the paranormal is what has led to her first novel “The Birth of
Jaiden.”

In addition to being a mother and homemaker,
Jennifer is also a very proud military wife. Moving around the
country for the last ten years has made her a bit of a nomad and
she finds it difficult to be in one place for too long.

“The Birth of Jaiden” is only the beginning
of novel writing for Jennifer; she has many more stories which are
just waiting to be written.