Embers (The Wings of War Book 1) (9 page)

The further from the cabin I got, the more my heart raced, until I finally saw it; and then my heart stopped beating all together.   The air became cold and heavy.  I tried to turn around and go back, but I couldn’t move my legs. 

The wall loomed over me as I drifted into a fitful sleep full of nightmares. 

Jude 1:9 

Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the

body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation,

but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Ember ~ Ten

T
he leaves crunched beneath my bare feet and I cringed at the sound of it.  My heart pounded frantically at the noise that seemed to echo loudly through the dark, misty forest.  The edges of my vision were faded and everything I saw had the hollow feel of an illusion.

I was in the dream world.

I had visited here before.  Sometimes it had been an open field and tall grass tickled my arms.  Other times, I had lounged with the cats in the barn loft where I’d gaze through the window at Cricket while she ran through the pasture with a wild herd in a game known only to equines.  Most times though, I was here, in the forest.

But this wasn’t an exact duplicate of my other dreams.  This forest was different.  In the past, the sun had shone through the breaks in the branches to warm me.  Butterflies had fluttered around and all kinds of animals greeted me with the touch of their soft noses.  Sometimes the deer would stay with me on my wanders, quietly shadowing me through the trees.

The forest that surrounded me now was swallowed in the kind of darkness you only found in the deepest part of night.  There was a damp chill in the air that had me shivering in only a t-shirt. As my bare feet squished into the damp earth, I inwardly wished that I had fallen asleep wearing warm socks and tennis shoes. 

I paused, listening.  Coyotes yapped in the distance and a whip-poor-will whistled its night song.  The air was heavy with tension that raised goose bumps along my arms.  I took a breath, trying to calm my nerves.  A low growl erupted from the blackness.  The sound was guttural and deep.  I froze in place hoping that the creature didn’t notice me. 

Closing my eyes, I cleared my mind and attempted to change the scenery.  I thought of the bright sunlight and the smell of pine needles.  When I slit my eyes to take a peek, the light was moving toward me, pushing the darkness away.  I’d altered my dreams before, so I wasn’t surprised.

The wailing scream of a woman snapped my eyes wide open.  The shrill noise began on my right, but shifted to the left and moved closer.  Blazing red eyes stared out through the shadows of the naked branches and the growl returned, only it quickly turned into a hiss.

The vision of a sun-filled happy forest disappeared completely.  This dream was not the same as the ones that had entertained me in the past.  Fear suddenly gripped my insides. 

I had no control here, and the forest was full of terrible things. 

I began to run, dodging limbs and jumping over stumps and rocks.  I had to reach Aunt Ila’s valley.  Even in a dream, I was sure I’d be safe there. 

An exposed root grabbed at my foot causing me to stumble.  I frantically brought my leg out to brace myself, but I wasn’t quick enough.  The ground caught me hard as I fell into the slimy, rotten leaves. 

The woman’s voice was joined by a crying child.  The sounds reached out from behind me, almost touching my back with solidity.  When I glanced into the trees, I saw distorted faces forming around the crimson eyes.  They were a horrible blend of animal and human features, with tails of flashing scales.   

My heart raced out of control and I held my breath.  Thick darkness blinded me and I reached out frantically with my hands, trying to see with them.  I snatched them back when my fingertips brushed the rough scrape of solid boards.   

I raised my head slowly, not wanting to see it, but knowing it was there.  The wooden wall towered over me, shooting into the sky.  I could barely make out the top of it.  A spray of moonlight landed on the wall, leaving me in its black shadow.    I tried to crawl away from the structure, but the trees pressed in closer.  They moved on their own accord against me. 

As I cowered in the darkness, my stomach tightened with queasiness. I could barely catch a breath.  The voices grew louder.  Their wails encased my body in a cold touch that passed through my skin and straight into my soul.

I placed my hands to my ears to try to block out the sounds, but it didn’t help. 

“Please, stop, stop the pain,” a woman cried.

“No, don’t do it.  Leave me alone,” the child yelled.

“Go away…you’re hurting me,” another woman wept. 

“Damn you to hell,” came the whisper of a man.

The growls and hisses of the monsters in the shadows were pounding inside my head.  The trees crowded me, their trunks bent grotesquely and their branches scratching at me as if they were fingers of skeletons.

I screamed, my own voice joining the pain and suffering of the apparitions that I couldn’t see while I swatted at the tree limbs helplessly.  I felt the sting of tearing flesh and the wetness of blood on my hands.   

Suddenly, a bright light appeared beside one of the trees.  I stopped fighting and dropped my arms to my sides. The glimpse of a dark haired young man within the glow stilled my heart.  I blinked.  The forest quieted and the evil faces drifted away.  The trees straightened and they were no longer monsters clawing at me.  Everything else faded as I stared at the stranger. 

At first I was captured by his eyes, black as charcoal and shimmering with sadness.  But as my heart began beating rhythmically again, his features became clearer.

His face was beautiful—what I’d imagine an angel to look like, if it was a dark, mysterious one.  His hair was longish and jet black.  The eyes that at first had gazed at me with a deep sense of loss and hurt changed to curiosity.  He arched his brow when I continued to boldly stare back at him. 

He had plump lips and high cheekbones.  His nose was slightly curved making me think that he resembled a Native American, but the rest of his features were all-American for sure.   

The shaking of my body subsided to be replaced by the strange ripples of something unfamiliar in the pit of my stomach.  As the stranger gazed at me, the sensations spread out, following the nerve endings straight to my fingertips. 

The feelings terrified me almost as much as the scary things in the dark shadows had.

But I didn’t look away.  I couldn’t.

Somehow I knew that the beautiful stranger wouldn’t hurt me, and I welcomed him into my dream.

Luke 15:10

“Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over

one sinner who repents.”

Ember ~ Eleven

W
hen I opened my eyes, sun streamed into the room from the window above my head.  Birds were chirping and the little room was already warm. I wondered what time it was, but I was too sleepy to move a muscle to glance at the clock. 

After a few minutes, the presence of the cheerful morning began erasing the dark dreams that had tormented me throughout the night.  Images of the towering wooden fence, monstrous trees, glowing blood red eyes and bloodcurdling screams began fading from my conscious.  But they weren’t entirely gone.  Even now, in the stuffy little room, a chill swept through me as I recalled them.   

I knew that the cries of people begging for their lives and the growling, ripping and tearing noises of animals were created from my over-active imagination.  But even as I pushed the terrifying thoughts away, I couldn’t shake the feeling of real danger weighing me down. 

My salvation from the nightmares had been the dark haired young man.  At first he had shyly watched me from a distance.  As my dream progressed and I ran through the woods, trying to get back to Aunt Ila’s cabin, with only the moonlight as my guide, the stranger would peek out from behind trees or clusters of rocks more and more often.  There was an unearthly golden glow that spread out for several feet around him.  And when he came close enough, I could actually feel the warmth of the light. 

Even though horrible things pursued me, a blanket of protection seemed to have been placed over my shoulders when the young man had appeared.  The awful noises became distant and the angry red eyes no longer had faces. 

At some point during the night, my mind had called him
guardian.
  The thought had stuck in my head, and now when I remembered his face, that’s what I accepted him as—my guardian angel.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be pestered by unwanted dreams.  Growing up, many of my nights had been filled with fire and other strangeness that felt so real that I would have bet my eyeballs that they were actually happening.  The images would always drift from memory once I had left my bed the following morning.  And by the end of the day, only vague impressions remained of the dreams. 

I’d never been normal.  And now I knew why. 

I replayed the scene with Aunt Ila from the night before several times in my head and then groaned and pulled the pillow over my face.
I was a descendant of angels.
  Somehow, it all seemed more acceptable in the nighttime.  Now that the sun was up and the sparrows were singing their morning songs, it became insane again. 

But it had to be true.  The flame had exploded, nearly reaching the ceiling when it touched my fingers.  And I’d seen how Aunt Ila’s hands were destroyed one minute, only to be perfectly healed the next. 

I pushed the pillow aside and studied my hands again, turning them over and rubbing them together.  They were completely unscathed.

Still, maybe I had dreamed it all.  Or, could I already be dead?  Perhaps I did die in the highway fire and this was some kind of weird purgatory. 

The scents of eggs and onions frying in the other room told me that I wasn’t dead though.  Surely, people didn’t make yummy breakfasts in a world of the dead.  The sweat trickling between my breasts certainly didn’t feel dreamlike and the cramp in my leg where I’d been squeezed tightly against the wall by Angus was not my imagination.  I was definitely awake, and alive.   

Sitting up and stretching, I had one last impression of the face from my dream before it vaporized.  Piper might be on to something.  Maybe I needed to find myself a
real
boyfriend.  Crawling out of the bed, I grinned and shook my head at the thought.   

When I reached the bathroom, I took some time examining myself in the mirror, turning my face in different angles.  Thankfully, my skin wasn’t sparkling.  The same old Ember with blue eyes, tangled chestnut hair and lightly tanned skin stared back at me.  Hastily, I attempted to brush my hair, giving up after a few strokes and the sharp pains to my scalp.  I resorted to tying the mess into the usual pony tail. 

My stomach growling got me moving.  Quickly, I made the bed and followed my nose to the source of the cooking smells.  Angus and Riley greeted me when I entered the kitchen.  As expected, Aunt Ila was at the stove, stirring eggs in a large skillet.  There were steamy biscuits in a basket on the table.  A pitcher of grape colored juice was sitting next to a vase that was overflowing with cheerful yellow flowers in the center of the table. 

“That smells wonderful, Aunt Ila,” I said, sitting down on the nearest chair.  I plucked a biscuit from the basket and took a bite.       

“I don’t think you really need to call me
Aunt
Ila any longer.  I’m not your aunt. You can call me Ila from now on.”  She handed me a dish of scrambled eggs.

“Okay. Ila it is then.” 

After a couple of minutes of shoveling eggs into my mouth, the hunger pains lessened and I looked up to see that Ila was nearly finished with her own breakfast. 

Since she was trapped at the table with me, I began my bombardment.  “Does Timmy know anything about this Watcher stuff?” 

“No, he knows nothing—the same as your father.”  Ila said, spreading some jelly on her biscuit before she continued. 

“You see, the old rules say that we must keep our heritage a secret at all costs.  Even husbands, brothers and sons should never know what we are.  There’s a distraction aura around all of us that keeps others from delving too deep when their suspicions are aroused.  But, there are occasionally exceptions, sometimes.”