by Kristie Cook
“We’re sorry for deceiving you,” Michael spoke up. “For making you think we’d deserted you. Since you were not keen on the plan and didn’t want the details, you were unaware of the ruse to fool Jordan. We were always loyal to you, Our Lady.”
She looked at each of their faces and saw their sincerity and their commitment to her. She didn’t need to hear their thoughts to know.
It was her own fault. She didn’t want to be part of their plan, didn’t want to use her powers. She didn’t want them to even have such a plan, even when she knew it was necessary. She should have stepped up to her position of leader so they wouldn’t have had to deceive her. Deception belonged to the Daemoni. They had to be above that, too.
She would need to set rules. Killing had to be a last resort and certainly not for revenge of a broken heart. Deceiving was unacceptable, especially to each other. If she was going to lead this army, they would fight by her rules, those that felt right in her heart. And she knew she would have to lead them. She knew the battles had just begun. The Daemoni didn’t have Jordan, but they had his son … who, according to Inga, was even more powerful.
The Angels had given her their gifts for a reason—not just for one small fight but because humans needed her and her army. Yes, they would have to fight again. They would have to keep fighting. But they would fight justly.
Faiz and the werewolves built a fire and burnt the remains of Jordan’s vampyre and were-creature, the only way to ensure they didn’t regenerate. Faiz had called them Erik and Blasius. They had names. They’d once been human. There were many more out there who’d once been human … who might be able to remember that and come to their side. Many souls out there to save and many others to protect.
She had the beginnings of her army. She had her family. She had love and a purpose.
“We need one thing, though,” Cassandra said the next day after sharing her new rules with the others. She hadn’t been able to sleep, unable to wipe from her mind the image of Andronika’s terrified face when Jordan had held her. She didn’t think she’d ever forget that. “We need a safe place for the innocent, for the weak, for those who cannot fight.”
The others murmured in agreement but no one knew where. Niko, however, was silent, staring at the fire they sat around. When he finally looked up at her, his green eyes shone and he smiled her favorite grin. She couldn’t help her own smile, though her brows pushed together with bewilderment. What could he possibly be thinking?
He came to her and took her hand. “Follow my flash.”
Her eyebrows rose. She didn’t like flashing, the way it sucked the breath out of her lungs or how she felt so dizzy and disoriented when she reappeared. She preferred to run. Niko knew this.
“Trust me,” he said. “It’s the only way.”
She blew out a breath and nodded.
They appeared in the middle of a forest of cypress and pine trees. She could hear the crash of waves on a beach nearby. And not too far in front of her, she could see a line of white marble columns. Niko tugged on her hand as he walked toward it. When they broke through the tree line and into the clearing, Cassandra sucked in a breath. Her hand flew to her mouth.
A structure larger than she’d ever seen in her life loomed in front of them, taller than the trees and at least ten times broader than the houses she’d seen in the village so long ago. Like the columns in front, the walls were of solid marble with narrow windows carved into them. A large wooden door stood ajar in the middle of the front wall. Above the door, strange symbols were carved into the stone. Symbols made of beautiful swirls and lines, just like those that had mysteriously appeared just above her left breast shortly after drinking the potion. And now, she instinctively knew what it said.
“Ah-mah-dees,” she sounded out. She looked up at Niko who stood by her side. “What is this place?”
He looked down at her and shrugged. “You said we needed a safe place and something in my mind told me to come here. Or perhaps it was in my heart. I don’t know. I just felt the need to bring you here.”
Cassandra stared at him, not believing him. Then she turned around, taking the place in, trying to figure out why they were here. With her keen eyesight, she peered through the trees. With her heightened sense of hearing, she listened to everything around them. She realized they were surrounded by water. They were on an island. And somehow, she knew they were on her island, the one she had wished to escape to when she thought all was lost.
“Yes, Cassandra, your island,” Father’s voice whispered in her mind. “We’ve made this place for you and yours. To keep you safe, to provide refuge for those in need. Take care of it, for many generations will need it.”
Yes, Father, I will. I will take care of them all.
Cassandra looked up at Niko and grinned. “This is our place. Our new home.”
He took her into his arms and swung her around, celebrating her happiness. She buried her face into his neck and pressed her lips against his cool skin. He tightened his embrace and she’d never felt so right as she did this very moment.
Epilogue
Andrew and Zoe both inhaled sharply when Cassandra plunged the blade into their son’s side. They already knew it would come to this. Andrew had fashioned the dagger for this very reason. But expecting it didn’t make it any less painful to watch. Andrew bowed his head as his daughter sobbed in the physical realm. Zoe turned and stood in front of him. She lifted her fingers to his face and brushed them across his cheek. They came away with a pearly, golden liquid on her fingertips.
“He did what he was meant to do,” she said, her voice soft, trembling. He looked into her eyes and saw they were wet, too. He nodded.
“Yes. He served his purpose—a good purpose—and now he will harm no more.” He gathered her into his arms and they grieved for their son. And for the challenges their daughter would still have to face. For her purpose had not yet been served.
* * *
Andrew remained close to the veil, always watching, always helping fight the demons for the souls Cassandra tried to save. He watched as she grew the Amadis, the Angels’ army on Earth, pleased each time she persuaded a Daemoni to change his life around. He delivered the Angels’ messages to her when she needed guidance. He gave her strength and courage when she felt depleted.
As time passed, he also watched Andronika grow into a woman, marry and give birth to twins—a boy and a girl. With a heavy heart, he watched as the boy grew into adolescence and started down the wrong path. Jordan’s path. As every son would do. He knew why, but there was nothing he could do about it. God had His plans.
Andrew witnessed Andronika receive her gifts from the Angels. She aged back to the single point in time when her body, soul and mind were strongest and then he and the others strengthened her even more. She gained terrific powers, different from, but complementary to, her mother’s. She helped Cassandra grow the Amadis.
It became large enough, with the many, complex issues of a growing society, that Andrew directed Cassandra to form a Council to give her guidance. Andronika and Niko sat on her Council, along with Michael and Faiz and even Inga, as well as others she’d come to trust dearly. They provided their diverse perspectives on law, control, freedom and war. Cassandra became a great leader and eventually, Andrew and the Angels only interfered when necessary.
In time, the Amadis outgrew the island the Angels had given Cassandra. Andronika established a second village in what became Italy and it grew, as well. Not all of their members stayed in the villages, though. Some traveled the world, helping the Amadis recruit new converts. Some isolated themselves, feeling that living alone, far away from humanity, was the only way to control their innate urges. Others lived in groups in the world’s cities. Mages often grouped together in covens and some were-animals formed packs, dens and flocks, whatever was instinctual to their animal kind. Vampyres formed a new hierarchy among themselves. If sire and child both converted, that bond always remained strongest. Otherwise, hierarchy was based
on what they began calling their third birth—their first as a human, their second as a vampyre and their third as Amadis. Some of the different kinds of unearthly children learned to live together and settled colonies around the world.
Once Andronika’s granddaughter received the Angels’ gifts—what they came to call the Ang’dora—it was time for Andrew to bring Cassandra to the Otherworld.
Cassandra, he whispered in her mind one Earth morning as she lay in bed in Niko’s sleeping arms.
“Yes, Father?” she answered automatically.
It is time.
“Time for what? You have something new for us?”
Just for you. It is time for you to join Mother and me here.
She sat up with a start. “I must leave?”
He could hear the hitch in her mental voice, a hitch of sadness and despair.
It is Andronika’s time to lead. You have served your Earthly purpose. It is time for her to serve hers. Prepare yourself, my daughter. It is time for you to come home.
Andrew and Zoe embraced each other as they watched their daughter say her farewells and prepare her own daughter for her new role. Andrew’s heart grew heavy as Cassandra said good-bye to Niko, who had so faithfully remained by her side.
“When I first chose to stay with you,” she said to Niko with tears streaming down her cheeks, “I feared the day when you would leave me forever because I knew I’d outlive you by decades or longer. I did experience that grief, when I thought you were dead, but here we are. I’m the one leaving you.”
Niko pressed his forehead against hers. “I won’t know how to exist without you.”
“You will focus on Andronika, help her lead. You’ve been with me from the beginning, always there when I needed you. Now our daughter needs you, my love. Take care of her for both of us.”
Andrew turned away, giving them privacy to say their final farewells.
“They will be reunited,” Zoe said quietly. “Just like we were.”
Andrew nodded but said nothing. He knew Cassandra’s pain. He knew Niko’s. He felt it strongly in his own heart and soul. But this was part of the plan. Niko would come to their world soon enough, but not yet.
When Cassandra ascended the Otherworld, Andrew welcomed her with open arms and wings. Then she settled in next to him, always watching the Earthly realm, watching Andronika and Niko and the rest of the Amadis, providing guidance and support when needed. And when it was time, Niko joined her. And later, Andronika.
Generations passed. The Amadis adjusted to the changing world and to the Daemoni, always counter-balancing their actions. At one point, it became apparent that the Amadis daughters—and the few sons—needed to be born and raised in the human world. The sons shared too many Amadis secrets when they were compelled to go to the Daemoni and, having lived their whole lives on the island, the daughters had become too isolated from humanity. It was decided they’d grow up in the human world, completely unaware that the Amadis or Daemoni even existed until they were ready for the Ang’dora.
These daughters married humans, diluting the blood and powers passed on to their own daughters. A few times, Andrew, Cassandra and those who had ascended had to step in, discreetly providing a mage or one of Jordan’s descendants as their soul mate. They only did so when necessary, though.
They watched the Daemoni, too. They watched their many attempts to increase their numbers before they were once again driven back by the Amadis and the Angels. They kept an eye on them as they tried in vain to recreate Jordan’s potion, what Andronika dubbed as Jordan’s Juice. They grieved for the souls of all the failed experiments. Then there was success. With a cup of potion, Lucas, a descendant of Jordan, became their most powerful leader since Deimos. But that wasn’t enough for them. The demons and the Daemoni planned to create their ultimate warrior and the Angels made their own plans.
“He will be born here,” Andrew told Cassandra, pointing at a spot on the timeline in front of them.
“But she won’t be born until here?” Cassandra asked, indicating another point much further down the line.
“Correct.”
“But why?”
“The Higher Angels have their reasons. The demons will be increasing the Daemoni’s powers then. That is when they are needed.”
“She must be stronger than these others,” Cassandra said, running her finger along the names of the daughters still to come.
“Yes. Katerina will have your mind-reading abilities, but that is her only major power. Sophia’s blood will be even weaker, but her heart and soul will be strong. She will mate with Lucas.”
Cassandra’s eyes widened. “There must be another way.”
Andrew shook his head. “The Angels are adamant. They have it all planned. Lucas and Sophia’s daughter must be a powerful warrior. She will face much bigger battles than even you did. She needs to be a match—and a counter-balance—to the one the Daemoni make now.”
“But they will be together?”
“They will have their trials and tribulations, but they will be a perfect team. And the humans will need them. For if they fail, the Daemoni win. The demons win. And Satan will take his throne on Earth.”
Andrew studied his daughter’s face as she looked up at him, hoping she understood the gravity of the situation. Because Alexis Katerina would need everything they could all give her—the support of every Amadis ascendant, every Angel in Heaven. She would fight them at times, sometimes fiercely, but they must always be there for her. The future of humanity was at stake.
Cassandra nodded and then she smiled with understanding. “She will be amazing, won’t she?”
Andrew grinned back. “Magnificent. Our most powerful daughter since … well, since you.”
Cassandra considered this. “No. She will be better than me. Stronger, more powerful, more intelligent and wise. For she will have all of us and nothing can overcome the power of all of us together.”
Andrew wrapped his arms around his daughter and kissed the top of her head. “Let us hope you are right, my daughter. Let us hope you are right.”
They gazed through the veil, watched the Earthly realm as a boy was born to the Daemoni and listened as the Angels celebrated in the Heavens.
About the Author
Kristie Cook is a lifelong, award-winning writer in various genres, from marketing communications to fantasy fiction. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and riding on the back of a motorcycle. She has lived in ten states, but currently calls Southwest Florida home with her husband, three teenage sons, a beagle and a puggle. She can be found at www.KristieCook.com.
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Want More Soul Savers?
Soul Savers Series
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PROMISE (#1) – Available Now! – http://www.soulsaversseries.com/books_promise.html
PURPOSE (#2) – Available Now! – http://www.soulsaversseries.com/books_purpose.html
DEVOTION (#3) – February 2012 – http://www.soulsaversseries.com/books_devotion.html
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