by Alton Gansky
The stranger stood over the body like a heavy-weight boxer over an opponent. Impressive. Then his mood changed. “Ow, ow, ow.” He jumped around shaking his hand. “I didn’t know punching someone could hurt so much.”
“Professor!” Daniel raced from his protected spot behind me and threw his arms around the stranger. “Professor. I miss you so much.”
The stranger embraced him like Daniel was his grandson. Brought a tear to my eye. Then he pulled away and retrieved the remote. “I hope this isn’t broken. I hadn’t thought about it being dropped. Stupid of me, really.”
I looked at Andi, then Brenda, then Chad. Each shrugged. “Familiar?”
“Very,” Andi said.
“Friendly good.”
“Daniel thinks so,” Brenda said.
The professor walked our way. He held his boxing hand a few inches from his side. It was swelling. No doubt there was a broken bone or two in that hand. Still, his mitt worked well enough to hold the remote.
“Who are you?” I asked. “I mean Daniel knows, but I don’t have a clue.”
“I’m a friend.”
“He’s the professor,” Daniel said.
“Not now, son,” the professor said to Daniel. “Our time is limited. You will all remember soon enough.”
The snowflake with the swarm of toothy fairy things began to shake. Whatever they were, they wanted out.
He turned to Brenda. “Barnick, you are a royal pain.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Don’t ever change.” He set his good hand on Daniel’s head. “Protect him. He’s the key.”
“Of course. I will.”
The professor looked like a proud father.
The buzzing of wings and a hundred tiny screams came from the human-like bugs in the snowflake.
The professor turned to me. “Tank, you were right about everything. I was wrong. Thank you. Whatever you do, stay the course.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He gave me a sad lookin’ smile. His eyes were extra moist. “I need you to remember something.”
“I ain’t been so good at remembering lately.”
“You can remember this.” He spoke loudly, no doubt hoping one of the others could recall what he said if I failed to remember. “Revelation 9:14–15.” He paused, then, “Say it, Tank.”
“Revelation 9:14–15.”
“Good. Very good.” The professor took a deep breath.
Chad stood in silence. I think it was the longest span of silence he had ever endured.
The professor held out the undamaged hand. Chad shook it. “I wish we could have worked together.” He motioned to us. “These are your friends. Believe that. They will annoy you and try what little patience you have, but don’t turn on them. They need you as much as you need them. You are not alone, son. You never have been.”
Chad just nodded.
“Something else, young man. This will make no sense now, but it will soon. Losing something we have doesn’t mean we’re lost.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
The professor didn’t respond to that. He looked at the vibrating snowflake thing. It was bulging.
“We’re almost out of time.” The professor took a few steps back before speaking. “All you’ve been through, all the missions you’ve been on, all the dangers you’ve faced, have been for a reason. In a way, it’s been training. Every battle, every skirmish, every threat has been a prelude to the war that must come. The war you must win.”
Puddles formed in his eyes. I had puddles in my own.
“Have a good life; stay true to the mission. Your journey is not done. Heaven and Earth need you.” He looked at Red Robe. “Trenton is not the one you’re looking for. He’s a flunky and nothing more. There is someone else you must find.” Then he said a name: “Ambrosi Giacomo.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Come with us, Professor.” Daniel was in tears. “Don’t leave again. Please don’t.”
“I can’t, son. Too much to do. Too much to learn. Too much to discover. I’ll do my part wherever I am.” He moved between us and the flying stingers. He lifted the remote. “I love you all. I always have.”
The snowflake contraption gave way and the swarm emerged.
“Professor, look out!” I started for him.
Everything was gone.
ROCKING.
Like an infant in a cradle.
Gentle. Smooth. Even. Familiar.
I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of my room. I sat up and hung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet were clad in dress shoes (scuffed up pretty good) and I still wore my tux. I hate tuxes.
I rubbed my face for a few moments and let the memories settle in. I’m not a drinker (made a few mistakes in the past) but I felt a little hung over or maybe drugged. I searched for my latest memory and it came to me easily. I was on a 1950s cruise ship sailing around the Gulf of Mexico on its last voyage. We had received invitations in the mail and it sounded like fun. And boy, did we need some fun together. We were getting on each other’s nerves just hanging around our Dallas Hotel.
Someone knocked on my door. I could hear people talking in the hallway and outside. A bright sun poured light into the room.
“Just a sec.”
I stepped in front of the mirror and took a good look at myself. My tux was worse for wear. It musta been a hard night.
I opened the door. Andi and Brenda stood before me, both in evening gowns which seemed entirely wrong for the time of day. But then again, I was in a tux. Daniel stood between them. Behind them moved a stream of passengers. For some reason, it struck me as a good thing to see. One of those passengers was Chad. Yep. He was in a tuxedo too, but no coat. He always was smarter than me.
“Hi, guys.”
“We need to talk.” Andi said.
“Did you have a dream, Big Guy?” Chad asked.
“Yeah. It was a doozy. The best part is I dreamed about the professor.” It all came back to me in a tsunami of memory. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
I stepped aside to let my friends enter. It was too many people in the small room but we could, at least, talk in private.
Andi sat on the edge of the bed, Brenda stood next to Daniel like they were tethered to each other. Chad leaned against the small desk.
“So it was all real,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chad said. “Every stinking minute of it.” He hung his head like a scolded dog. “I’m a little embarrassed.”
“Don’t be.” I stood in the middle of the room. “I wasn’t at my best, either.”
“You did great, Big Guy. Your big heart stayed true even when your memories abandoned you. I guess a psychologist would conclude that we are not the sum of our memories.”
“As a man thinks in his heart so is he,” I said. “It’s a Bible verse.”
Chad smirked. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.”
Andi crossed her arms. She didn’t have to say she was heartbroken. We had all seen the professor and now felt like we had lost him all over again.
“Speaking of Bible verses,” Andi said, “what was that the professor gave you?”
“Revelation 9:14–15. You’re right, it is a coupla verses from the last book in the New Testament.” I stepped to a backpack I used for luggage and removed a Bible. I never travel without one. The others have teased me about it. There was no teasing now. I read the verses:
“‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.”
Brenda sighed. “I don’t get it. What’s that supposed to mean, Cowboy?”
“I think it means things are about to get serious. Real serious.”
Preview of Harbingers 17
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
Bill Myers
“We will be arriving at Baghdad International Airport in approximately tw
enty minutes. Please return to your seats, stow your tray tables and put away any articles you may have removed during flight. Electronic devices must be turned off at this time.”
I glanced up from my sketchpad and looked out the window. Nothing but brown. Brown hills, brown mountains, brown deserts. Same brown I’d seen the last two hours. I shook my head and went back to sketching.
The rest of the team, Cowboy, Andi, and Pretty Boy sat up in the other compartment, which was fine with me. We’d been on the outs since we got word of our little trip a couple nights back. I suppose you could blame me, but you gotta admit I had a pretty good argument.
It’s not that I got somethin’ against where we’re heading ...‘cept for the fact somebody’s always blowing somebody up Iraq, Iran, or wherever we’re goin’. I’m no geography major and don’t care ‘bout the details, but it’s like every day you hear bad stuff happening here.
Not exactly the place to be dragging a kid, no matter how important our assignment. Then there’s the stuff the professor told us when he dropped in for a guest appearance from that other universe or dimension or wherever he is:
“Every battle has been a prelude to the war
that must come. The war you must win.”
Nope. Not with my boy. I don’t care how much they guilt me. Daniel’s my responsibility and I’m calling the shots.
My “discussion” with the others began two nights ago in that Dallas hotel, the one Chad scored for us as headquarters. I got no complaints about the place. But it don’t give him the right to give orders, a fact that still hasn’t registered in that egotistical brain of his.
It had been about 7:00 PM when our cell phones all lit up, all with the same instructions.
Attached find e-ticket for your trip
to Iraq the day after tomorrow. Please
bring bathing suits.
That’s it. No name. No ID. Not that there had to be. We all knew it was from the Watchers, the little group of people, or whatever they are, who’ve been running us all over the place. Again, no complaints. Truth is, things were pretty boring ‘til they came along. But this assignment, and with Daniel, well it was way over the top. And as we sat around Chad’s living room, I couldn’t of made it clearer.
And their response?
“You worry too much,” Chad said, putting away another brew. “Ask me, you’re smothering the kid.”
“Smothering?” I felt my jaw tighten.
He nodded and belched. “Definitely time to cut the apron strings.”
“Cut the apron—”
“If you ask me—”
“No one’s asking you, Pretty Boy. Fact is, you’re the last one I’d be asking.”
“Which is your whole problem.” He motioned to Andi, sitting at the computer and Cowboy who sat beside Daniel who was playing one of them cell phone games. “Before you guys met me, you were nothing– no plans, no organization, just stumbling around in the dark chasing your tails.”
“Listen, you arrogant piece of—”
Andi coughed loudly. I glanced to her and swallowed back the words. I been doin’ pretty good in the language department; tryin’ real hard with Daniel around. But this jerk, he made it so–let’s just say he knew how to push my vocab buttons. Particularly the blue ones.
“Guys, guys—” Cowboy (aka Tank) raised a meaty hand. As usual he was trying to be the peace maker.
“Not now,” I said. “He may have you all fooled, getting this hotel and playin’ his mind tricks.” I turned back to Chad, “but you and me, we know different, don’t we?”
He tried to hold my gaze but knew what I meant— the stuff I saw when we crossed through the portal together, when we entered that snow flake thing and I saw all those ugly pieces of his past life. Yeah, I knew the real Chad Thorton, top to bottom, and he knew I knew.
I continued. “Daniel, he’s my responsibility and I’m done putting him in danger.”
“Smother, smother, smother.”
I swallowed, fighting back the impulse to rearrange his face. I’d done it before and he knew I could do it again.
“Your kid looks in pretty good shape to me,” he said.
“And the scar in his back?” I said. “That fairy thing practically killed him.”
Andi stepped in, nice and gentle. “But it didn’t.”
“This time.”
Pretty Boy didn’t let up. “The kid’s got powers and gifts just like the rest of us. Not as developed as mine, no one’s is, but the potential’s there. And he was the only one who kept his head and didn’t freak when we were on that Mexican dream ship.”
“He’s got a point, Miss Brenda,” Cowboy said. “The Watchers put him on the team for some reason.”
I motioned to the message on Andi’s computer and on our cells. “There ain’t no way in heaven or hell I’m letting him go to Iraq.
“Miss Bren—”
“People die over there, Cowboy. Every day.”
“People die everywhere,” Pretty Boy sighed.
“And the professor’s words?” Cowboy said. “About Heaven and Earth needing us? And those angels chained under the Euphrates River?”
“Which, I might point out runs directly through the heart of Iraq,” Chad added.
Time to go. I got to my feet. “Be sure to send me some selfies.”
“Hold it,” Chad said. “You’re staying behind, too?”
“A boy needs his mother.”
That’s when everything got real quiet. No one ever turned down the Watchers before. And now that things were heatin’ up . . .
“Maybe,” Cowboy cleared his throat. “Maybe we should chew on it for the night. I mean it does sound kinda dangerous.”
Chad snickered. “So Bible Boy is chickening out, too?”
“I didn’t say—”
“You can sleep all you want,” I said, “but there ain’t no way I’m taking this child to Iraq. Come on, Daniel.”
He got up and joined me, head still in his cell phone.
The plane lurched, pulling me from my thoughts. I focused on the sketchpad. I was drawin’ butterflies. I had them flyin’ over a cool park with flowers and trees and a stream. Each one of them had an eye on each of their wings with all sorts of designs around them.
I shook my head over our recent conversation. It was true, I’d made up my mind about me and Daniel. There was no human way I would change it. Then again, with these little trips, we weren’t always talking about human...
About the Author
Alton L. Gansky (Al) is the author of fifty works of book length fiction and none fiction. He has been a Christy Award finalist (A Ship Possessed) and an Angel Award winner (Terminal Justice) and recently received the ACFW award for best suspense/thriller for his work on Fallen Angel. He holds a BA and MA in biblical studies and was granted a Litt.D. He lives in central California with his wife.
www.altongansky.com