Embers (The Wings of War Book 1) (2 page)

Bobby Dean saw past the pretty face too and said, “I don’t know how you did it or who you are, but you’re going to pay.”

Musical laughter sprang from the woman’s mouth as her chin dipped and her eyes widened.  Those eyes weren’t laughing though—they were shining with hatred.  Even though the breath caught in Ronnie’s throat, and his legs wobbled beneath him, he couldn’t help but stare at the woman.  Her skin was milky white as if she had avoided the daylight her entire life.  The blue dress she wore was short and clean, and completely out of place in the woods on the mountain.  Ronnie had only a second to ponder at her slender, bare feet when the other blur materialized. 

Ronnie first thought, man, but then changed his mind and decided that the newcomer was a teenager—a teenager who was as beautiful to look upon as the woman in the blue dress. 

Ronnie stopped breathing when the young man came striding straight towards him, but he quickly relaxed.  He somehow sensed that the teenager didn’t have the same evil intention that the woman had.  Seeing that his skin was brown from the sunshine gave Ronnie a little more hope.

The teen flung his shoulder length black hair away from his face with a flip of his head when he reached Bobby Dean, whose fighting spirit wasn’t ready to give up yet.  Bobby Dean’s rifle struck out suddenly and the dark haired youth batted the gun away with his hand as if it was a fly.  The weapon sailed through the air and into the side of a tree.  Bobby Dean’s face was between the youth’s fingers in a breath and Ronnie cringed, preparing himself to see another cousin’s head flying.   

But that didn’t happen.  Instead, the young man stared into Bobby Dean’s eyes and mumbled some words before he released him and stepped up to Ronnie.

Ronnie met the dark gaze of the stranger bravely, absorbing the hawkish features on a face that hinted of some Native American ancestor.  The mountain man reckoned the kid was about twenty years younger than himself, although it was difficult to tell for sure. 

As the teen moved in closer, a jolt of agitation rolled off of him, touching Ronnie and immediately causing his heart to race uncontrollably.               

The whisper of words flowed into Ronnie as the blackness of the young man’s eyes swirled before him.  Ronnie’s limbs went rigid and the beating of his heart slowed, right along with the breaths passing between his cracked lips.

“You are not afraid.  You are calm.  You will not move.  You will not speak.  You do not fear.” The words were repeated a few times until Ronnie believed them with his whole mind, heart and body.  

              Ronnie watched the young man leave him to join the woman who was tapping her fingers against her thigh.  He wondered briefly if Bobby Dean was feeling the same peacefulness that he was experiencing, but he couldn’t have turned his head to see even if he’d wanted to.  His only desire was to stand there and passively watch what happened next.

“What are you doing, Kimberly?”

Kimberly smiled up at the young man coyly, sending an invisible shiver through Ronnie’s mind.  Innocently, she purred, “You know, Sawyer, it’s our nature to hunt.” She shrugged and as an afterthought, added, “Besides, these men are trespassers onto our land.  Who knows what they heard—or saw already?  They can’t leave.”

Sweat dripped down Ronnie’s forehead, stinging his eyes.  Kimberly’s words registered in his mind, but the strange calmness still had a hold of him. Sawyer took a step closer to the woman, his face suddenly looking much older.

Sawyer growled, “You must not do this.  I forbid it.”

Kimberly smiled sickly, her head tilting to the side as if she were listening for something that Ronnie couldn’t hear. 

After several long seconds, Kimberly said softly, “I do believe that you’re out numbered.”

Two more blurs streaked into the clearing, materializing with a gust of wind that caught up the loose leaves on the ground and scattered them up into the air in a vibrant swirl of red, gold and brown. 

The man was huge and bald-headed.  He had a tattoo of a hand reaching up his naked torso and coiling around his neck.  He took up a position beside Kimberly and grinned like a mad dog at the scene before him.  A long, pink scar on his cheek trembled with unrestrained excitement. 

The other was a tall woman, wearing military type tan cargo pants and a black tank.  Her skin was as dark as the shirt she wore and the muscles of her lithe arms were well defined.  Ronnie knew he was no match for either of the new arrivals, even if he wasn’t in some kind of trance.  As if reading his thoughts, the warrior woman suddenly snarled, flashing a perfect row of snow white teeth in his direction.  

Ronnie shifted his gaze away quickly, just as Sawyer stepped in front of the others, temporarily blocking them from Ronnie’s view.

“Stop this now.  Garrett will not be pleased if you feed upon the local people.”

Ronnie heard the pleading sound in Sawyer’s voice, but knew it wasn’t enough when the giant cat padded in closer, pausing directly in front of him.  The cat’s tail flicked back and forth, and its golden eyes were hungry pools of amber.  Those eyes were also nearly level with his own, shocking him once again at the enormous size of the creature.   

When Ronnie glanced back up, Sawyer was looking over his shoulder at him.  That second of connection was enough for Sawyer to reach his mind once again.

Ronnie’s vision suddenly clouded, darkness sweeping his thoughts away just as the people became blurs again, speeding towards him.  The touch of the thick fur on his skin should have filled him with terror, but it didn’t.

The last thing that Ronnie saw before the blackness was complete, were Sawyer’s dark, sad eyes. 

And in that final moment, his soul thanked God for them.

2 Peter 2:4

For God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.

M
y parents died in a fiery crash. I was in the car with them when the driver of an oil rig lost control and jack-knifed on the highway into our lane.  I was fully conscious when our car crumpled into the side of the giant shiny cylinder, and the ripping of steel had vibrated in my ears when we instantly exploded.   I had
seen
Mom and Dad burning in the flames.

Even now, years later, the acidic smell of the melting metal and rubber will occasionally jolt my memories, making me feel sick to my stomach.      

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m not dead. 

Highway patrolmen, first responders, reporters from every news outlet imaginable—and their grandmothers—have asked me the same question. 

When it was all said and done, I had a couple weeks more than my fifteen minutes of fame before the paparazzi finally left Oleander, the tiny southern Ohio town that I used to call home.   

That was about the time when it all really began, or ended, however you choose to look at it. 

I have something important to tell you and I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t like it.  But soon enough you’ll find out for yourself anyway.  If it were me, I’d want to know.   

The end of the world is coming.  There, I said it. 

And I’m not talking about a thousand or even a hundred years from now.

It’s going to happen soon, as in only a few years at most, kind of soon.

You think I’m crazy, right?  Yeah, I would think the same if I were in your shoes.   But don’t close this book just yet.  Please, hear me out first.

How did I get the news flash that life-as-we-know-it was about to go up in a puff of smoke?  An angel told me. 

Okay, he didn’t actually tell me directly.  He told a priest who filled me in. 

It happened at my parent’s burial.  I had wanted to cry, but couldn’t.  I was still in shock, and really too bitter at the time for any tears.  After all, there wasn’t any need for a fake burial, there wasn’t anything left of Mom and Dad to put in the ground.  There weren’t even ashes.  Their flesh and bones had turned to hot air in seconds.  No long term rotting in a coffin or powdered dust to be tossed into the wind for them. 

My brother, Timmy, had wanted a place to visit them, but how could you visit someone who wasn’t even there?

That’s what I had asked the priest.  He’d appeared out of nowhere and motioned for me to join him under the thick branches of an ancient maple tree after the crowd had dispersed.  I had felt very strange when I approached the old man, dressed completely in black, except for a small square patch of white on his collar. There was a dream-like quality to the rainy scene that still haunts me to this day. 

I can vividly remember watching the drops fall from the priest’s hat, one by one, while he spoke to me.

“When their bodies became nothing, their souls were released,” Father Palano answered.  His voice was soft, yet strong and his eyes were a bright blue that looked much younger than the wrinkled skin around them.

“So Mom and Dad are floating around in the air?”

For a moment, his brow scrunched.  He was either incredibly irritated or in some kind of pain.  The look made me shiver. 

“You’re not a believer?”

“In what, heaven?” I scoffed.

The Father sighed, gazing off into the drizzle for a few seconds before speaking again.

“You’re very angry, child.  But you must lose those feelings.  It’s not your fault they’re dead.”

I gulped, swallowing the knot that formed in my throat.  This black cloaked stranger, with his bushy white eyebrows, had just hit the nail on the head. 

How did he know?

“Father, do you believe in miracles?”

Quickly he replied, “Of course.”

“And, you think that miracles are holy…something from God?”

He bent his head thoughtfully and frowned.  I got him.

Taking a deep breath, he chose his words carefully.  “A miracle is a wondrous event.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be good in nature or sanctioned by God.  A miracle can grow into something evil.”

“Everyone thinks it’s a miracle from God that I walked away from a fire that was hot enough to melt steel…but I don’t think it was God who saved me,” I whispered.

Father Palano said, “Have faith that God was with you.” He shuddered and went on, “Last night I was visited by someone.  I knew it for what it was immediately, even though it’s the first time I was gifted with such an event.” He paused staring at me intensely for a few seconds before taking a measured breath.  “I was told to come to you, to give you a message.”

“From who?”

“An angel.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I replied rudely. 

Now I’m really in trouble.  Even the priest is insane.

His body shook a little with a chuckle and then he quickly sobered.  “I’ve waited my entire seventy-four years for such a meeting, but now, when I think back on it and the vision becomes less distinct, I wonder if perhaps I dreamed it all.”

“Then why come here and bother me about it? You probably read my story in the paper or saw it on TV.  Maybe a late night snack turned into a hallucination,” I chided.  I felt a little bad about being mean to an old religious man, but I couldn’t stop myself. The anger he’d told me to lose was growing by the second.

Shaking his head, he said, “Wonder wasn’t the right word to use.  Hope—I had hoped it was just a dream.”

Confused and growing nervous at the direction the conversation had taken, I asked, “Why?  What did this angel say to you?”

His eyes became suspiciously shiny and my stomach suddenly clenched. 

“The end of times, the rapture, Armageddon, whatever you want to call it, approaches.”

The thought that the priest was completely mad was still an option, but my own nightmares and crazy thoughts since the accident weren’t that far off from what he was saying.  What were the chances that we were both crazy?

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Eae told me many fantastical things about the world, quite unbelievable, actually.”

“Eae?” I interrupted. “The angel had a name?”

Nodding, he said, “Why yes.  He’s a warrior, a soldier against the demons that plague the earth.”  Seeing my wide eyes, he smiled awkwardly and continued, “Creatures that the Bible speaks of, and that I’d imagined figuratively are very real, and they walk among us. The mating of God’s sons and man’s daughters in the beginning of time created all manner of half humans, some good and most evil.  They’ve been here forever and we never even realized it.”

What he was saying both mesmerized me and chilled me to the bone at the same time. 

I held my breath at his unblinking stare, and when he reached out to touch my face with his finger, I stepped back.

“Looking at you now, I never would have guessed.  You look just like us.”