Authors: Karice Bolton
I tried to focus on the
task at hand, but my mind couldn’t stop drifting to the images of
Athen in the last weeks. His green eyes glimmering with hope as I
remembered our past, the kindness in his touch as he would brush my
cheek, the warmth of his body lying against mine. I tried to shake
myself from going down that path. I needed to remain strong and
focused. I glanced at one of the beautiful paintings near the sofa
table. The vibrant reds splashed throughout made me focus on my
fury that was beginning to build. Going down memory lane would only
make it that much more difficult on me.
I heard Cyril’s voice from
the living room trying to gather everyone together. I felt the
shift in movement as people began making their way towards me.
Since I had been the last person to re-phase from such a long time
away from my family, I knew everyone was counting on my memories
from the other side. They were hopeful that I’d somehow hold the
key to how they would get their loved ones back as quickly as
possible. Obviously, they didn’t put two and two together that if
it was that easy, Athen would be by my side right now.
I pushed my snide thoughts
aside and concentrated on the good intent of everyone here. I felt
a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see a stranger with
tears in her eyes looking at me with the same level of desperation
that I felt. I realized at that moment I had to get out of myself
and look at the bigger picture. It wasn’t just Athen I was going to
be fighting for any longer. I held her hand briefly, and I stood up
and went in front of the fireplace to speak to the group. I finally
felt the warmth of the flames on the back of my legs soaking
through the jeans that I was wearing. I looked around at everyone,
all so welcoming and filled with anticipation. I was ashamed of
myself for envying any of them. They were here to help. We were all
in this together.
“Hi, everyone. I know many
of you from my previous existence. At least, that’s what I’m told.
You’ll have to forgive me for not being as quick as I should be
with my memories.” I said trying to force a smile. Arie came up
next to me to stand, grabbing my hand for support.
“As we all are coming to
find out, there is change beginning to occur from the evil ones. We
need to be vigilant in protecting the family members that remain
while still attempting to get our loved ones back as soon possible.
Don’t be foolish and neglect the ones who are still with us. I have
a feeling there will be evil creatures waiting for that very
moment. We must not let our guard down. They’re counting on us to
be distracted, and since there are so many of us with those
distractions we must ensure the safety of each other. We can’t
create any larger openings for them. I get the feeling they are
lurking where we might least expect them.”
I had no idea where this
confidence was coming from, but I felt empowered. I had the
knowledge of my staged life and the experience of the rephasing
still a part of me all within a breath away from each other. I felt
very in tune with the feelings that were washing over me from
fellow Fallen Angels in this room. I also realized I was able to
sense most of their thoughts. I was thankful for these
newly-developed skills. Quickly pausing on individuals, I was able
to see where and how their family members were taken and the
thoughts and worries of the families as well as the darkness that
was attempting to cloud over the room. It wasn’t just me who had to
squash the feelings of envy and jealousy. My heart began beating
swiftly as I began to sense a change in the room. A sense of hope
and unity began stirring in the room; the thick sense of loss and
despair was beginning to dissipate. I wondered if it was the words
I spoke.
“We’ve divided everyone
here into groups so that we can obtain as much information as
possible as quickly possible. We need to uncover where, and how you
lost your family member. Explain any abnormalities that might have
occurred prior to them being taken away and any human anomalies
that you may have noticed prior to the event or even after.
Obviously, after the hikers and snowboarder incidents in Whistler,
we know that the demons aren’t afraid to pull from the human world
to complete their tasks. That being said, the hikers are still on
the loose, so to speak. Unfortunately, now they’re on the demon’s
side. My guess is since they were willing participants, they will
be a crucial part of one of the Legions - so be on guard. I think
we have about six groups carved out here, and Arie will give an
iPad to each of your groups to start writing whatever you can
outline for us. Write anything down no matter how small you think
it may be. We are going to take all of the iPads and compile
everything. We’ll be looking for any patterns or similarities that
we can find. They aren’t as smart as they think they are. After
this exercise, we’ll be able compile some good information and send
it out to everyone.”
“
We’ll get our loved ones
back. If there is one piece of advice I can give, it’s to remember
that it’s harder on us than for them. They don’t know that anything
is out of the ordinary. As of now, they don’t know we exist.” The
words that escaped my lips made me choke up. I paused to regain my
composure.
“They don’t know what
they’re missing, only we do. Their memories of us are gone. But
remember the moment the process is ready to begin, the feelings
will be rushing back to them like a wave crashing down on their
soul. Make sure to be there for them the entire time and don’t give
up. The process is a long one. I’m still going through it.” I was
feeling stronger than I had in a long time. The thought that I
could help the others gave me purpose.
“After tonight, we won’t be
able to meet here again,” Cyril began, “We need to ensure that the
demons can’t detect our plans or any of our contact with each
other. We must keep them thinking that we’re all behaving as
separate entities. When we do meet up, it’ll need to be in smaller
groups, always at someone’s home, never in public, and we’ll then
have to figure out a system to spread the findings.”
Arie had handed out the
iPads to everyone, and the groups began working hard deconstructing
the last few weeks of their lives. I was thankful Arie, Cyril, and
I had already performed this act. I was able to sit in front of the
fire, listening in on others, hoping I’d hear something that would
piece everything together immediately. I waited earnestly for some
such outcome as the thoughts and words came pouring over me, but my
mind continued to drift to Athen, and I was unable to piece
anything together. I excused myself and went up to our bedroom. As
of now, I was an empty shell of a being. I was no longer
whole.
Chapter 3
Everyone had left from the
meeting. I had made sure of it before I made my way down to greet
Arie and Cyril. I slowly puttered down the stairs hoping there was
something that had miraculously changed from the day before. I was
sure they were feeling the same as I was - exhausted. It was a long
night, and I never really felt like I got much sleep, if any. We
had a few families who stayed the night working on the project we
had given them. I think they hoped that every second they stayed to
help would bring them that much closer to finding their loved one.
I hoped that was the case for us all.
The fire was reflecting off
the glass coffee table in the family room as I made my way to the
sectional in front of it. Grabbing the red chenille throw, I
covered myself as Cyril brought me a cup of coffee. Arie jumped on
the cushion next to me almost spilling the beautiful brown liquid
all over the couch.
“Well since none of us can
sleep, I say we get started. Does that work?” She asked already
handing us the iPads from the previous day’s activities.
“Absolutely. Anything to
get the show on the road.” Cyril muttered as he pulled up the
ottoman.
“Alright, so I say we scan
over all of the notes manually. Each of us can take a few, and then
once we do that, we can compile them onto one iPad. I want to make
sure that we all read enough to have things fresh in our memory.”
Arie instructed.
“Yeah, sounds good.” Cyril
and I spoke in unison.
I began scanning the first
document. I noticed some similarities right off the bat between
their situation and ours. I realized I needed to start taking notes
on my findings immediately, so I opened up a new task list and
began typing my observations. It looked like we were off to a good
start.
The family who I was
reviewing lived in Portland, Oregon. The Bullons started noticing
suspicious activity among the locals who they knew. They had lived
in Portland for about five years and had grown very fond of some of
the humans in their little community, Arbor Lodge. There were quite
a few independent boutiques, coffee shops, and bakeries where they
got to know the locals very well. Because of this, they were able
to quickly determine the changes that they were seeing as an
unnatural progression.
Couples who had shown no
outward signs of distress were suddenly dealing with infidelity.
Drugs and alcohol had started entering conversations, and small
thefts had been reported. The community was a tight knit one, but
everyone started to become suspicious of one another creating a
tense environment that never existed before. Carson, their loved
one, had been taken at the park when he was walking a dog for a
neighbor who was on vacation. In hindsight, the family was able to
pinpoint oddities that had occurred at their home that they
dismissed as nothing.
“Hey, guys,” Arie said
looking up at us with a very concerned look, “This one is pretty
horrible.”
“Where’s the family from?”
Cyril asked, moving over to look at Arie’s iPad.
“The Romanos are from Coeur
d'Alene, Idaho,” She took a deep breath in, “There were 4 suicides
in 3 weeks.”
I could feel the color
drain from my face. I knew demons meddled in all aspects of life,
but I didn’t fully grasp until this moment how they played with the
lives of humans in such startling terms. It was as if humans were
chess pieces being picked up and carelessly moved by either the
good side or the bad side – just that easy. It was actually a lot
simpler when I was a naïve girl who thought she was a mere mortal,
dealing with average nineteen year old type problems.
“That’s not all,” She
continued, disrupting my thoughts,” There were two arsons, one
murder, and a fight, which left the victim in a coma. This town
hasn’t seen even one of these events in years, let alone all of
them in that short of a time frame. They think that these were all
planned for quite some time, but the creatures must have gotten the
go ahead to condense all of the events to create the distraction
needed.”
“Wow, how horrifying. I had
no idea the havoc that could be created in an instance like this.
Have you ever seen this before? I know my memory isn’t up to par
yet, but I don’t recall anything like this, especially pocketed in
so many areas. We haven’t even gotten to all of the groups.” I was
in complete shock.
“Well, considering these
are only the families who we have a relationship with makes me
think that this is far bigger than we first realized. I only hope
we can accomplish everything that we need to,” Arie spoke softly,
laying the iPad on the coffee table and walked over to Cyril, “This
is building pretty fast, whatever it is.”
“I know, but we’ll figure
it out.” Cyril moved Arie’s hair back from her face and a twinge of
sadness entered me quickly as I yearned for such affection
again.
We had spent a few hours
compiling all of the data and were able to come up with some pretty
significant findings. My nerves were about fried, and I really
wanted to get to Athen even if that meant just living in the same
city with him. I was told I couldn’t contact him until the time was
right. I was okay with that, but I needed to be near him. That I
was certain of.
It turned out that Athen
was the first one to be attacked. His attack seemed to set off a
chain reaction. The demons had been stalking our family first,
probably because I had barely been reintroduced. We were an easy
target - plain and simple. After turning the snowboarder into a
demon and introducing the hikers into the underworld, the demons
left our area humans alone. It was pure luck that they found such
eager participants with the hikers up in Whistler. There was the
chance of infidelity with Karen, which was interrupted by me. Then
there was an attempted kidnapping that was preempted by Cyril,
unknowingly. Lastly, an arson was started at a boutique hotel. It
was thwarted before it caused any real damage. It seemed that the
demons got tired of failing and decided to take out Athen first to
begin the process. The other families then began being picked off
one at a time.
The timing of everything
seemed to indicate that there were many factions being constructed.
The Legions were dispersing and had no intent of stopping until
they achieved their goal. We had to figure out what that was. That
and, of course, get Athen back. From what we could gather, the
demons had been traveling somewhat together as a group. The Masters
had been teaching their followers and spinning off minions when
needed to stir up a little trouble in between the events. We needed
to figure out who was orchestrating it and why. Azazel was
definitely involved, but to what degree, we didn’t know. The events
and human tampering seemed too large scale to only be him unless
there was something I didn’t know. I had to get out of myself. I
could sit and stew all day.