The Battle of Ebulon (26 page)

“Just let me think!” If I
wasn’t a guardian, I would have been a healer. I really liked
helping people. The reason I wanted to be a guardian more than a
healer was because of Rachael. Gabriel had given me the option as a
child. He showed me several pictures of angels I could help if I
used my power to be a healer. However; as soon as he had given me a
picture of Rachael there was no longer a choice. I knew I had to be
with her. Now I was losing her and my baby and there was nothing I
could do.

“Fine! Think all you want
while we all die!” The Orcs were so close that I could hear their
individual roars of bloodlust. I didn’t have much time.

“Don’t let me die!” she
begged, her voice still a whisper. A single tear escaped from her
eyes, the fear all over her features. “Don’t let us
die.”

“I’m not going to let you
die.” I refused to let that even be a possibility. I cradled her in
my arms, knowing my time was running out.

“Hurry, angel boy!” Joshua
stood ready for the Orcs. They were less than twenty yards away
from him. Thirty yards away from me. I only had seconds. I couldn’t
pull it out from her back. The barbs would take pieces of her with
it. I had to help it continue its path through her body.

“I am so, so sorry.” I
kissed her forehead before I pushed it out through her chest. She
gave an agonized cry but I couldn’t stop. As much as her pain hurt
me; her death would be far worse. I pushed the arrow as far as her
body would allow before I switched hands and took the end coming
out of her chest to pull it the rest of the way out.

By now the Orcs had reach
Joshua. He was able to fend them off because only about four or
five could come through the gate at a time. He wouldn’t be able to
keep it up for long. I had to fix Rachael as fast as I could. Her
blood poured out onto my hands, her shock and agony evident. I
pressed my hand to the wound in her chest.

“You are going to be ok,”
I repeated. I pushed as much energy into her as I could with no
regards to my own personal store. My life and my own strength were
not as important as hers. It didn’t take as much energy as I
expected. Her vitals were uninjured and it was mostly just the
repairing of her muscles and skin. “Does anything still
hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head.
I glanced back to see that three of the Orcs had escaped Joshua and
were headed straight towards us.

“Stay back here,” I
ordered. “Don’t go anywhere near the fighting.”

“But, Jesse…”

“No.” I didn’t let her
finish. “You are not endangering your life or hers. Stay here.” I
stood up, making sure she moved away from the fighting, before I
met two of the Orcs with my knives through their throats. I pulled
them out as quickly as I had stabbed them in, sending the third one
to his knees with one in his stomach and then to the ground with
the other straight into his brain.

I stayed behind Joshua,
letting him head them off and catching what he missed. I was more
concerned with keeping Rachael safe than protecting the city.
However with the vast amount of these creatures pouring in through
the destroyed city gates; it was very likely that I was going to be
taking her out of this place.

She could continue to reap
these godforsaken souls once they were all truly dead.

*******

These creatures were even
more grotesque alive than dead. They varied in how deformed their
faces were. Several could be recognizable as having slightly human
faces. Others were so horrific that they couldn’t be
distinguishable as living. If they didn’t have souls I wouldn’t
believe that they were living beings.

I was so distracted I
could barely hear the voice calling to me for help. Even when I did
hear it, the voice almost got lost in the numerous voices screaming
desperately in my head. It wasn’t until I actually saw one of the
bodies move that I realized there was still someone alive among the
dead.

“Hello?” I walked
cautiously up to the body. With all of the snow and mixed blood
around I couldn’t tell if it was a human or an Orc. “Did you say
something to me?”

“I asked why it took you
so long to come.” A distinctively human voice came from the mass of
snow and fur.

“I’m sorry?” Most people
didn’t ask me that. They didn’t want to see the angel of death
coming to them. More often I got asked why I was there so
soon.

“We have been waiting for
hours for our reinforcements to come.” He turned around and I
quickly hid my expression of shock. A huge gash ran from his left
temple to the lower, right side of his jaw. It went through one of
his eyes and sliced his nose completely in half. “There were only
twenty of us down here. We sent out a distress call hours ago and
no one came. Why did you take so long?”

“I’m… we’re not your
reinforcements,” I told him.

“Than what the hell are
you?” he wanted to know.

“I’m the angel of death,”
I reluctantly answered. “I’m here to collect the dead.”

“Good luck with that.” He
laughed bitterly. “You’d have better luck collecting the living.
Why don’t you tell me when there’s good news? Like when my
reinforcements finally show up.”

“I don’t think anyone is
coming,” I stated. “I think that once we come it means that the
battle is over. There’s no one left to come to you.”

“This may be why you’re
the angel of death.” He turned away from me. “You don’t even have
the common courtesy to comfort a dying man with the possibility
that his death might have been worthwhile.”

“I’m sorry… it’s just…
this is my first time doing this.” I winced inwardly. That came out
wrong.

“This is your first time
doing what?” He turned back around. The last thing a man on the
brink of death wanted to know was that the angel of death who
should be taking him to rest was on her first day on the
job.

“Never mind.” I shook my
head.

“This is your first time
being the angel of death,” he guessed.

“Maybe.” I glanced over to
Jesse. He was surrounded by dead Orcs with more rushing towards
him. I really would much rather be helping him keep the Orcs at bay
than talking to a bitter, dying warrior.

“One of my fellow soldiers
came this close to death last year,” he started to explain. “He
said the angel of death was at his bedside for hours before he
pulled through with the help of our most talented healers. He also
said that the angel of death was a man.” I looked away from him. He
didn’t need to prove I wasn’t who he expected. I already
knew.

“I am sorry that I am not
what you wanted,” I started. “But I am not here for you. I’m not
here to help you fight and I am not here to collect your soul
because you are not dying. Count yourself lucky. Not everyone else
was so gifted.”

“I don’t count myself
lucky.” His eyes were filled with a frightening fire that made me
wish I was facing an Orc instead. “I would rather die defending my
city than live knowing it has fallen.”

“We don’t know for sure
that it has fallen.” Now I was starting to feel uneasy. As soon as
I got back to Washington DC I was going to give this title and this
job over to Elizabeth. She had wanted it from the start and I never
wanted it.

“I know it has fallen.”
The fire left his eyes. “This city is in the heart of all who live
in it. We know when it is dying.” Joshua and Jesse were finishing
off the last of the Orcs but I knew he was right. There was nothing
left of this city.

Smoke rose in all
directions from across the mountainous city and the death rippling
through my head was worse than anything I have ever heard in my
entire life. Death was not something I wanted to experience
anymore. I was supposed to be focusing on life but I couldn’t when
all I could think about was that every life ended in
death.

My own life would end in
death as would Jesse’s and our baby’s. Joshua was already dead and
I was the one who had made that happen. Every person and every
creature of every kind was going to die and it was my job to take
their life. This was not the life I wanted. The life of the angel
of death is a lonely and desolate one. The life of an angel of
death is the only one that truly welcomes death when it comes to
them.

This Entry Point features
a character or characters from:

The Rift by
SKN Hammerstone

Now
available.

Entry Point by 12- Jennifer
Priester

The Star Power Puppy was
awoken from his nap by a voice in his head. Due to sleepiness all
he heard was, From what he
understood, someone or someplace called Ebulon was in trouble and
needed help. He was unsure about the last part. Who or what was he
supposed to follow?

Being a superhero, Star
Power knew that it was his duty to help, but how? What was Ebulon?
This is the question he felt needed answering first. Luckily the
young terrier mix was expected at the Fountain City Observatory,
where he and a group of other superheroes called Heroes United, met
weekly and in emergencies.

At the observatory, when
all members of Heroes United had arrived, the team leader, Black
Cat, began the meeting. As usual the cat began by saying, “If there
is anything that needs immediate attention, please bring it up
now.”

“I received a telepathic
message this morning and was alerted by a mysterious voice that
someone or something was in danger and needs help,” Star Power
reported.

“Did it have a name?”
Black Cat asked him.

“I don’t know about the
voice, but someone or something called Ebulon is in danger,” Star
Power replied. When Black Cat didn’t respond right away he said,
“We have to help. We are heroes, it’s our duty.

“I agree,” Black Cat said,
“But does anyone know who or what Ebulon is?”

“It sounds like a world to
me,” a human with the power to shape shift into a Grizzly Bear
called Grizzly girl said, “And I should know, I come from one.” The
Grizzly Girl was from The World of Shape Shifters in the Other
Realm.

“If that’s true then
Asantra should know about it.” Wonder Wolf said. Asantra was a
witch who came from the Other Realm. Her mom, DWW, had been the
Head of the Witches Council, which is the person in charge of all
magic users in both the Other Realm and Mortal Realm, as well as
all the worlds in the Other Realm. Because of this Asantra knew
about all the ones in existence and as a kid, had explored many of
them.

“You mean the original
Wonder Wolf?” Black Cat asked.

“Yes,” Wonder Wolf said.
Before her days as Wonder Wolf began, Wonder Wolf was a girl called
Dillon who had superpowers but hero identity until she met Asantra.
In order to stay out of trouble with DWW, Asantra had asked Dillon
to become Wonder Wolf, after creating the hero and going on an
adventure with Black Cat and Chihuahua, which she wasn’t supposed
to do.

“Do you know where to find
her?” Black Cat asked.

“I’m pretty sure I can
find her at the school,” Wonder Wolf replied
confidently.

“I don’t think we should
waste any time responding to the distress call,” Trixie said.
Trixie was a shape shifter who could turn into any animal and look
however she wanted. She could even become an exact duplicate of any
animal or human in looks. Because she had this ability Trixie
didn’t feel she needed a superhero costume to hide her identity and
so she and her two sidekicks, a Golden Eagle called Miles, and a
magical white Bengal Tiger cub, Cosmo, where the only members of
Heroes United to use their real names full time.

“I agree,” Black Cat said,
“Wonder Wolf, take Wonder Horse and find Asantra as quickly as you
can.”

“Okay,” Wonder Wolf
agreed, quickly mounting her horse. “We will be back
soon!”

Black Cat’s sidekick, the
little brown Chihuahua, Chihuahua, then quickly pushed a button on
the wall, opening up a large hole in the observatory ceiling so
that Wonder Wolf and Wonder Horse could fly out of the building
without any delays.

Asantra was in the middle
of class when Wonder Wolf rushed in with Wonder Horse.

“Dillon! I mean…Wonder
Wolf!” Asantra exclaimed in surprise, “What are you doing
here?”

“We need your help!”
Wonder Wolf said hurriedly, “Have you ever heard of a world called
Ebulon?”

“No,” Asantra replied.
“That isn’t a world in the Other Realm. Why?”

“Star Power got a distress
call saying Ebulon needed help,” Wonder Wolf explained.

“And you think Ebulon is a
world?” Asantra asked.

“We did,” Wonder Wolf said
disappointedly.

“It still could be,”
Asantra replied thoughtfully. “It could be a dimension.”

“A dimension?” Wonder Wolf
asked.

“Dimensions are worlds in
the Mortal Realm,” Asantra explained. “It’s a recent discovery.
Mortals sometimes just call them worlds. Sometimes they are also
known as alternate realities or alternate Earths. Until my
discovery witches didn’t know that they really existed. We always
thought the only worlds in existence were those connected to the
Other Realm. Although we now know of a few, we don’t know all of
the dimensions in existence.”