Echoes in Eternity (The Pella Series Book 1) (10 page)

“Alexander! Help!” I find myself crying out between coughs. Agony is growing in me as I hear my twins’ fearful cries. All I can think is to save my babies. They have to live! I’ll gladly burn alive as long as they survive. “Please God! Help me to get them out! Please!” I beg as I inch my way up the stairs. I manage to take my robe off and wrap it around my head to ease my breathing. All I can think
of is how to get to the nursery, and it feels miles away. The house is built of stone mostly. It should hold and slow the fire, but this is little consolation, because it seems to be all consuming and it’s spreading like the five rivers of Hades!

I can’t move further in the hallway. I’m blocked.

“Elissa!” I hear Alexander’s agonized voice calling my name, giving me relief. The only voice I’ve longed to hear all evening. My love is here!

“Alexander! I’m here!”

Agnes and Jill’s cries are now louder, fearful, and choked in fact. “Mommy’s coming!” I shout determined, but I’m unable to inch forward, blocked by something I can’t see.

“Alexander! I can’t move! Get the girls! Please!” I beg in a shaky voice, fear gripping me. I should feel hot in this heat, but I feel
a chill rising from my fingertips, spreading through my body. I have to rub my hands to warm them up; my breath comes out foggy like a snowy winter day. My body is shaking and shivering; I barely notice the faint blue aura that is surrounding my body, making me think of the blue of the near dawn sky. I have an ominous feeling that I will never see that color, or any other color of sky again. Something is ending tonight and I feel terribly cold.

“Get moving Elissa! I’m coming to get you!” I hear his commanding voice like a lifeline preserving me, giving me a boost of adrenaline, a will to hold onto life. I feel focused immediately.

“Alexander! I can’t make it. I’m blocked out!” I cry. I have no idea what’s blocking my way. It’s invisible!

“You have to! Run, Elissa! Run! Listen to my voice, angel!” he orders determined
, sounding much closer to me. Then I see him. My eyes search for the twins. He reaches down and grabs my hand, pulling me up firmly commanding me, “let’s go!” My body rises up on my feet with his strength and as I lurch forward with his pull, I slam into that ethereal wall, and fall backwards feeling worse than being punched by his full strength. We look at each other in horror. But Alexander collects himself, and looks for a solution. I hear bells tolling faintly in the distance, calling for all help which I know will be of little use. No one can get into the 
Four Winds
. Not unless they work on the ranch. I have to make Alexander take the girls out, and save my family. I have to force him. He won’t leave if I don’t and I’ll lose everyone I love. I will have to break the heart of the only man I ever loved tonight.

“You’ve got to get the kids out! I have to…
find another way
” I manage to say but a booming voice reverberates, interrupting me:

“
Nephilim!
”

What? My face falls, and my cold fingers reach up to my hair in despair, knotting. I let out a shaky breath before I face my husband again. I have to be strong, for him, for us. But, I know in my heart that this is the end for me. I close my eyes with the acceptance of the inevitability of what’s to come. I turn around to look at the face of my husband, my only love, unable to speak.

“For the love of everything holy, what is it Elissa?” he begs after seeing my face, fear gripping his tone.

“I don’t know. Something is coming. For me... For us! Alexander, call out to Zephyr! He’ll take all of you out,” I say with a clear certainty.

“What? No!! Not without you!” He reaches in finally able to touch my hand, and tugs at my arm resolutely but we are slowly being pulled apart by the gradually thickening ethereal wall. It separates our hands with ease as if pulling a knife out of butter. Horror is written all over Alexander’s face. He kicks the invisible wall but nothing budges. He looks for a place to grasp, something to get him through to reach me, his eyes scanning rapidly for a way to get him to my side of the wall. There is nothing! Frustration, anger coupled with the cries from our twins bundled on the floor asking for mommy rips into my soul, and finally breaks my control driven husband.

Alexander fists his hand and he punches and punches and punches at the invisible wall, his eyes wild like a mad man, lost in anger, desperation, until blood starts oozing from his split knuckles marking the invisible wall with his seeping and splattered blood where his fists had landed as if staining a see through glass window. I scream and put my hands on the wall, trying to stop my husband from hurting himself beyond repair, trying to stop his seeping blood but I am neither able to touch nor capture the blood or his hands to heal him, and my desperate efforts to stop him are completely fruitless.

“No Alexander! No! Please!” I beg falling onto my knees, my hands splayed on the barrier, my gaze hopeless. “I’ll have to find another way. The girls need you. 
I
 need you! Please!” Streams of tears begin flowing and rushing down in a flood on my cheeks; tears I could no longer keep contained.

That deep voice is getting closer, though it sounds as if it is behind a waterfall. And Alexander won’t stop punching relentlessly in a vain effort to get to me. He has to stop! He has to go, go before they get here! I know something, someone is looking for me! The knowledge of it is engrained in me. I just don’t know what is after me. I have to calm myself, make him go. If I break down, so will he! But he won’t stop punching, and as I shake like a leaf on the other side of the thickening wall, I hear his knuckles crack, finally breaking, and his anger slowly giving way to a soul ripping agony which kills me inside for what I have to do to him... to us!

“
Seek the Nephilims!
” the voice booms again. It’s my cue to get him going. My eyes are cloudy with the flood of tears, my long dark hair disheveled; my sapphire eyes match the horror in his blue eyes.

“It has to be this way love…” I say choking back the words. “Find me in another time, in another place. Nieto would know what to do. This is not a barrier; it’s a…” I try to steady my shaking voice, “it’s a wall of protection. The fire is seeking
 
me 
out. 
For now
. If this wall comes down, we all die.”

“How do you know? How can you be sure? There has to be a way! Please! Let’s find it, or let’s die together!” he begs me with darkening eyes. No! He can’t die! My eyes get wide in protest and I shake my head violently.

“No! I can’t let you die! Listen to me baby! I don’t know how I know this, but I’m quite sure. This wall can only hold until I’m gone. I can’t go until you go... I’m begging you Alexander! Do it for the girls... Do it for me... I love you! I’ll always love you. 
Always!
 Now please, go! You will find me in another time... in another place.” The voice gets a lot closer.

“
The adult Nephilim’s blood is to be kept alive until sacrifice. Find her!
”

I look behind me with fear, and then turn to him. He is seeking me out!

“I’m begging you Alex, please! Go! Don’t let me watch your death and the death of my children! Because I will have to volunteer to be sacrificed! Please!” I beg shuddering like a leaf caught in the freezing weather, and his heart is unable to endure any of my laments, tears pooling in his eyes. Alexander’s entire body is shaking; he puts his battered hands over the barrier leaving bloody hand-prints, and shouts at me angrily, “I can’t go! I can’t leave you for someone else to take and harm you! No! It’s better that we all die together. Because if you...” his chin quivers on his last word, “if you die,” he says through gritted teeth, his words choking him like poison, “what do 
I                                                                                                                          
live for?”

“There are worse things than death, love,” I try to convince him, “and this would definitely be one of them. I’m sorry that responsibility of our girls’ falls on you,” I say taking a breath and add quickly “for now, only...” and look into his eyes with unspoken words of my indelible love for him. I finally whisper fervently as if someone else could hear our secret, “but you’re the one who must preserve our family intact!” I look at him with a pleading urgency. “If you all die,
 
I
 
have nothing to live and fight for. You 
will 
find me at another time. Nieto is your key. Remember the silly poem my father taught me and required me to recite it every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to sleep which drove you crazy?” I look at him expectantly. “It wasn’t just any old poem Alexander! It had a purpose. My father knew this day was coming.”

He shakes his head, and giving me a smile which doesn’t reach his eyes, and repeats the poem with me:
 

“
When the sun rises on the rings of fire,

Eagles’ wings will set afire,

That’s the time to abandon the nest,

Fly on the winds of west
.”

“The rings of fire are surrounding us, seeking us out. The time is now!” I show him my birth marks on both my arms which were oddly shaped before, but the mark on my right wrist looks like an eagle taking flight with two stars under its wings and my left wrist has an eagle diving head down before a burning sunset. “It’s time to leave the nest, my love!” I say, and whisper painfully, “
in different directions
. You know Zephyr is named after the western winds. He is the one to carry you away! Please, could you go now?”

He looks at me as if he met me for the first time. The invisible barrier is thickening as the impending danger is getting closer. Hurt, anger, pain, and anguish wrenches his face as if someone just ripped his heart out, and stuck it
into the
Lake of Fire
 in Hades. I’m hurting him, and it’s killing me inside!

I look at him with a pleading desperation and mouth the words, “Please, go! Save our family!”

“I love you! I am yours heart, body and soul! How could I leave you?” he whispers like the broken man he became. I broke him apart! Unspoken words pass between us as we both finally understand that love means to make the impossible choices sometimes. He finally holds his head up, takes a breath, and that relentless, steel determination locks in his eyes, “
you better not give up on us! Promise me that you’ll seek us out!
” he asks his voice hoarse with anguish.

I look at him. How can I make such a promise when death is at my doorsteps?

“I won’t leave if you don’t make that promise Elissa! Promise me, please!” he pleads with me, his eyes unblinking, reddened with tears, and wide.

A determination courses over my entire demeanor, and I swallow between my sobs unable to watch his agony.

“I promise. I will seek you out no matter where or when! Please go now! Tell Agnes and Jill that mommy loves them…” I say choking on my words, “very, very much. More than life itself! Death cannot conquer my love for you! I will love you beyond life, beyond death... My heart, my body, my soul loves you Alexander!” Alexander wipes his tears with the back of his smoky sleeve forcefully, and shouts without looking backwards, “Zephyr!” then he leans down to pick up our crying daughters off the floor.

Zephyr’s shade appears in the haze, trotting towards them and Alexander grabs onto his mane, as his dark blonde curls are moving as if a spring breeze is playing with them. Zephyr walks in as if he
is on the pasture taking a leisurely walk, completely at ease in fire and smoke. His mother was bred in this fire. This is nothing for him. As Zephyr speeds through the barriers with his precious cargo, my heart and soul breaks apart. I hear a sizzling sound like the spilled water on camp fire saying “
she’s here master!
”

The booming voice responds and sounds a lot closer “
do not harm her
. 
Yet
” says the voice amused. “
Not until I get what I need from her
.
”

Death is now welcome since all I ever loved is gone and safe. Fire sizzles around me inching its way and yet unable to reach me. Lava meeting the ocean, its fire put out.

“The half-breed is here master! She’s protected!” sizzles the fiery voice.

“My key to heaven...” says a positively gloating thunderous voice. “Her father’s and husband’s Achilles heel... Elissa Cassandra. I am so pleased to meet you at last. Unfortunately it will not be a happy circumstance for you,” he says taunting me. I can’t see his face. The aura surrounding me is getting to be a duller shade of light blue, thickening.

He opens up his wings and the gust of wind coming from his wings tries to push the smoke into the aura, my fragile protection. “We can’t get to her master. Either a sinless hand must capture her, or she must willingly surrender herself to us...” sizzles the voice.

“Where is her Achilles heel?” booms the voice, his wrath evident.

“Gone, master...” sizzles the fiery voice meekly.

“Aaaaargh!” booms the dark winged angel, and slams his fist on to my aura as if to break my shell; vibrations
created by his punch runs in large waves around me. The end is near. I close my eyes, trying to find my happy place. “This is for my love...” I whisper, and dark wings furls around and turn back at me, “Love, is an overestimated emotion! You are fated to suffer the anguish of love, and your ultimate fate, death by sacrifice to open the doors for your betters! You will not achieve 
immortality! 
I will no longer be Fallen once your blood is spilled or smeared
!
” he bellows ferociously as his size grows five times bigger and his foot is on its way to crush me under its enormous size, his intent clear.