by J. C. Diem
“If you’re not a psychic, how did you know that I’d be in that tunnel?”
“My power lies in areas other than telepathy,” she explained. “I am what is known as a clairvoyant.”
My brow furrowed as I searched through my mental files for the meaning of that word. “You mean you can see the future?” I was pretty sure that was what it meant. I’d read a few books along those lines.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “I received a vision that someone important had entered the city and that he or she would be found beneath the tunnel. I sent Brie and Leo to retrieve you before you were discovered by…other interested parties.”
“I’m not important,” I scoffed. “I’m just a normal kid.” Maybe if I kept telling myself that, it might eventually become true. Right now, I felt very far from normal.
Tilting her head to the side, she regarded me serenely. “Tell me, did you feel anything strange when you entered Manhattan?”
I jerked in surprise at her question and came close to spilling my tea. I’d almost forgotten about being abruptly woken from my sleep. Shrugging one shoulder, I tried to avoid the question. “Not really. I was asleep at the time.” I risked a look at her face to see she hadn’t bought my lie. Her brow arched and I knew she wouldn’t let it go until I told her the truth. “Fine,” I huffed. “I woke up from a dream with the sensation that I was wrapped up in chains.”
At that admission, the door to the back of the store burst open and the twins spilled into the room. “So, it is true,” Leo said excitedly. “She really is the one from your vision.”
Brie studied me clinically with an expression that was far older than her years. “If you sensed her arrival, then our enemies will know she is here as well. They will be hunting for her.”
I held my hand up to stop them. “Wait just a minute.” They moved to stand behind Sophia and all three watched me expectantly. “Do you realize how crazy you all sound? I have no idea what the hell you’re even talking about.”
The teens exchanged a glance while Sophia’s face became even more serious. “I am afraid that you are closer to the mark than you realize. ‘Hell’ is exactly what we are referring to.”
“Wow,” I said with profound sarcasm. “That really clears it up.”
Leo’s lips quirked up in a smile, but Brie shot him a quelling look. It was good to see that at least one of them had a sense of humor.
“I shall endeavor to enlighten you then,” Sophia said. “I believe that you have been chosen to thwart an army of demons who are attempting to break free from hell.” Before I could take that in, she had one more disturbing piece of information for me. “They have known about you since long before your birth. They will take steps to try to stop you from fulfilling your destiny.”
“They even have a title for you,” Leo told me solemnly.
“I can’t wait to hear this,” I said, hoping they didn’t realize that I was on the verge of making a run for it.
“They call you Hellscourge,” he said and grinned.
There was only one response I could conjure up for that disturbing piece of news. “Awesome.”
₪₪₪
Chapter Seven
“She is taking this better than I had expected,” Brie said to her friends, as if I wasn’t sitting just a few feet away from them.
Sophia noted my tense posture and surly expression and knew better. “This must have been a shock to hear, yet I sense you are not completely surprised.”
Picking up my teacup, I vainly tried to warm my hands with it, but I felt chilled all the way through to my bones. “What does Hellscourge even mean?”
“A scourge is like a curse,” Leo said helpfully.
“So, I’m supposed to be some kind of curse against hell itself?”
“That is what the demons believe,” Brie confirmed, but she sounded as if she doubted it. At least we had something in common.
Switching my gaze between the three strangers, I couldn’t see any signs of suppressed laughter. They seemed to be completely serious. “You really expect me to believe that demons are real and that they are my enemies?”
“You know they are real,” Sophia said. “I suspect you have already encountered at least one of them.”
The memory of the two men who had broken into my home flashed into my mind. Once again, I saw them change into hideous monsters. Then I pictured Bob being speared by two branches, yet coming back to life. Some part of me had wondered if I was going crazy. Now that I’d met Sophia, Leo and Brie, it seemed that this was all real. I wasn’t particularly relieved to learn that I was sane. Finding out that demons existed wasn’t much comfort. Frankly, I’d rather be crazy than to have to live through this nightmare.
“Have you met a demon?” Brie asked me almost sharply. She was pushy for a kid who was fourteen at the most.
“I might have,” I said grudgingly. I hated to admit even that much, as if talking about it would be crossing a line that I couldn’t come back from.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Sophia asked.
The twins sat down as I took another sip of tea. Maybe it would be a relief to talk to someone about the crazy things that I’d seen. “It all started eight days ago,” I began. “I came home late to find two men in my Mom’s bedroom. They were asking about me and she wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. Then one of them conjured a glowing crimson dagger out of thin air.”
Leo’s eyes were wide and he sat on the edge of his seat. He was transfixed by my tale. Brie’s arms were crossed and her expression was cool and assessing. Sophia kept her face carefully neutral and gestured for me to continue.
“I barged into the room and knocked him to the ground. He dropped his dagger and my Mom picked it up and slashed him across the throat.”
“Did the dagger continue to glow when your mother held it?” Sophia asked.
I shook my head. “No. It stopped when he dropped it. Then the second man grabbed me. My Mom attacked him and he stabbed her.” My lips quivered, but I kept tight control of myself this time. “When I knelt down next to her, she handed me the dagger. The second man hauled me to my feet. I stabbed him in the stomach and he went down.”
“Did the dagger glow crimson when you touched it?” Sophia asked me shrewdly.
I cut my eyes to the side and shook my head. “No.”
“You are lying,” Brie said accusingly.
Her attitude was starting to annoy me and I glowered at her. “It wasn’t crimson. It was a weak orange color.”
Sophia sat back with a strange look that I couldn’t quite interpret. She seemed to be awed and afraid at the same time. “The stories are true,” she said almost in a whisper. “You are the only one who will be able to stop the demons from escaping from their prison and overrunning the Earth.”
“Why me?” I asked plaintively. “What’s so special about me that I’m the one who was lumped with this job?” The dream I’d had about Fate floated to the surface and I squashed it back down. Bringing her into the mix would just make them believe this absurdity even more.
“I do not know why you were chosen,” Sophia replied. “But from what I have heard so far, there can be no doubt of who you are.”
I looked at her with growing unease. I knew very little about them and it was time to get some answers. “Who are you people?”
“You know our names,” Brie said. “We have yet to hear yours.”
“I’m Violet Harper, but I’m not talking about your names. Maybe I should change my question from who are you to what are you?”
“Briathos and Leo are angels,” Sophia replied. “I was once an angel as well, but I am lesser now.”
“You’re angels?” I said blankly. “Where are your wings and halos and who the heck is Briathos?”
“Our vessels do not have the capacity to sprout wings or halos,” Brie said. “I have shortened my name to Brie, because it is more common in this day and age.”
My mind was reeling that these people we
ren’t people at all and were honest to God angels. Well, two of them were anyway. “What do you mean, you were an angel?” I said to Sophia. “How can you become lesser?” If I hadn’t already seen demons, I would have run screaming from the room by now.
“My grace was stolen from me,” she said. “Without my holy essence, I have become permanently trapped in this vessel.” She pointed at her body. “I am no longer a celestial being, but I am also not completely human. I can eat and drink if I choose, but I do not require sustenance, or sleep for that matter.”
At first, I didn’t understand what she meant. Then light dawned. “Are you saying that angels can possess humans?”
She nodded and calmly took a sip of tea. “Angels and demons are made of pure spirit,” she explained. “Although they have solid forms while in heaven and hell, that isn’t the case when they are here. They must possess vessels in order to interact with this world.”
“This is surreal,” I said. My head was spinning from all that I’d learned so far. “If angels can possess humans, what happens to the human’s body if the angel is killed?”
“Angels cannot die,” she replied. “They can heal almost any damage that is done to their vessels, but it can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours to do so. If they are expelled from their host, they either find a new vessel, or their spirits return to heaven, or to hell in the case of demons.”
“So, that’s why all three of the demons wouldn’t die,” I said almost to myself.
“Three?” Leo said. “Who was the third demon?”
“He said his name was Bob.” His license had told me otherwise, but he’d always be Bob to me. “He gave me a ride yesterday. He was going to kill me, or worse, but I managed to stop him.”
“How did you stop him from harming you?” Sophia asked.
“I mashed my foot on the accelerator and crashed his car into a tree. He was speared by a branch and I was thrown through the windshield.”
“You were very lucky not to have died in the crash,” Brie said.
“I almost did,” I admitted. “I landed about thirty yards away and rolled down a hill. If the windscreen hadn’t been smashed by the branch first, my brains would have been splattered all over the place.”
Leo looked impressed. “Even without smashing through the glass, you should have sustained some injuries.” His gaze flicked to the bruise on my cheek where I’d been elbowed and the scratches on my arm that had been made by Bob’s fingernails. “Worse than you appear to have suffered, anyway.”
“I’ve always been pretty lucky when it comes to life and death situations,” I shrugged with as much nonchalance as I could muster.
“Is that so?” Sophia said. “How many near death experiences have you had?”
Thinking back, my hand went to the scar on my chest. It was eerie that my mother and I had shared such similar injuries and she’d never told me about hers. I’d been too young to remember the accident that had caused mine, but it had been the first and only serious wound that I’d ever received. Since that day, I’d had many near misses. “I’m not sure exactly,” I hedged. “More than thirty, I think.” That was how many times I remembered seeing the hauntingly handsome face afterwards. He’d been with me forever, even if it was just in my mind.
It was obvious this meant something to Sophia. Her eyes went to the hand that was still resting over my heart and I dropped it to my lap. “You must be hungry,” she said. The abrupt change of topic surprised me and I nodded in agreement. “I will prepare some breakfast for you.” She placed our empty cups on the tray, stood and flicked a glance at Brie. Picking up the unspoken hint, the teen followed her from the room, leaving Leo behind to babysit me.
“I guess they’re going to talk about me behind my back now,” I said to him.
Leo smiled uncertainly and shrugged. “Probably.” He seemed younger than Brie and more innocent somehow. “It is not every day that a legend appears from out of nowhere.”
“Tell me honestly,” I said and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Do I look like a legend to you?”
His expression turned doubtful as he took in my appearance. “Well, not right now. Maybe after you have had a shower, washed your hair and found clothes that are not so filthy then you might look more impressive.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said morosely. “What you see is what you get, kid.”
That made him grin. “This vessel is deceptively young. Everyone thinks that Briathos and I are children, which makes them underestimate us.”
“How old are you?”
“We were created when God made this world.”
“I suspected as much,” I said with a sigh. No wonder Brie acted so snotty and superior. Even knowing they were tens of millions of years old, it was difficult not to think of them as teenagers. “How did Sophia lose her grace?” I asked.
Leo hesitated and checked the door to make sure we were still alone. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “She was ambushed by demons around eighteen years ago. Instead of expelling her from her vessel, they harvested her essence. Brie and I arrived in time to rescue her before they could finish their plan. She was very lucky that we just happened to visit her that day.”
Putting my elbows on the table, I leaned towards him and lowered my voice as well. “What were they going to do to her?”
Averting his eyes, he shrugged. “I do not know and she does not like to talk about it.”
He was a terrible liar, but I didn’t challenge him. They didn’t know me well enough to divulge all of their secrets. I felt the same way and my trust only went so far. They might be angels and whatever Sophia was now, but that didn’t mean they had my best interests at heart. From the sounds of it, they expected me to risk my life to become this Hellscourge that the demons feared so much. I didn’t know what their agenda was, but I was willing to bet that they would try to use me to further their cause.
₪₪₪
Chapter Eight
Sophia and Brie returned a few minutes later. The clairvoyant carried a tray again. This time, it was laden with cereal and toast as well as more tea. It was awkward to have them all staring at me while I ate, but I was too hungry to feel self-conscious. Polishing off the entire meal, I started on a second cup of tea. My companions remained silent while I ate. They didn’t feel the need for mindless chatter.
Placing my empty cup down on the table, I looked at Sophia. “Now that I know demons are real and that they’re apparently searching for me, where can I go to escape from them?”
“You cannot escape from your destiny, child,” she said. She echoed Fate so eerily that for a moment I thought they were the same person. Then I shook off the notion. Fate had looked nothing like Sophia. Fate had been far more frightening.
“It is doubtful that you can even leave Manhattan,” Leo informed me.
“What do you mean?”
“Like Leo and me, you are apparently now trapped here,” Brie said. “You are just a human, but you appear to be bound just as surely as we are.”
“The sensation of being chained was not just in your mind,” Sophia said a little more gently. “Once you set foot on this island, you became barred from leaving.”
“Why? What’s keeping us here?”
“The demons erected a barrier seventeen years ago that prevents any celestial being from leaving. It also forces them to remain in their vessels, unless they are forcibly expelled. The only flaw in their plan is that they are also bound by the spell.” From the way she was talking, she wasn’t included in the trap. Without her grace, she was just a glorified human now.
The timing of when the barrier had been created didn’t escape me. It had been erected around the time of my birth. “If this trap is only for angels and demons, then why have I been caught up in it?”
“For the same reason the demon’s weapon glowed when you used it,” she replied. “Although you appear to be an ordinary mortal, there must be something supernatural about you.”
&nb
sp; “Maybe my father was a warlock,” I muttered.
“You do not know who your father is?” Brie asked with a raised brow.
“No,” I replied coldly. I didn’t appreciate her unspoken judgement of my mother. “My Mom never told me who he was.”
“I am sure she had her reasons for keeping her silence,” Sophia said and sent a warning look at Brie. I had the distinct impression that the teen didn’t like me. That was nothing new and it was something I was long used to. Until Zach had come into my life, my mom had been my only friend. Even in my head, that sounded pathetic and I wasn’t about to say it out loud.
“If I can’t leave Manhattan, how am I going to hide from the demons? Where am I going to stay? The money I stole from Bob when I thought he was dead isn’t going to last for much longer.”
“You looted the vessel of a wounded demon?” Leo asked. He was apparently impressed by my courage.
“I didn’t know he was a demon at the time,” I reminded him.
“You can stay with us,” Sophia offered. “I have a spare bedroom upstairs.”
“We need to prepare a spell to keep her hidden from our enemies,” Brie said as if the matter had been decided. “Leo and I will search for the ingredients.”
Sophia nodded and they all stood. She gestured for me to follow her. “I will show you to your room.”
“You should show her the bathroom as well,” Leo suggested slyly. “I am sure she would like to take a shower.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, which made him grin. Brie sniffed to show her disdain for our childish behavior. Rolling my eyes at her, I picked up my backpack and followed Sophia through the doorway into a kitchen. It was clean and modern, with stainless steel appliances. The walls were white and matching tiles covered the floor. Most of the appliances looked as if they were seldom used.
A door at the far end of the room had an exit sign over it and probably led to an alley. Sophia turned to a doorway to our left. It led to a short hallway with a set of stairs to the left and a door to the right. We headed upstairs to the second floor.