“Ah,” Damien raised his eyebrows, looking interested.
“Hey, Damien! Why didn’t you think of that?” Said Nicholas, spitting his gum on the ground before Cain could pass by.
Cain flinched and stopped in his tracks. I met his gaze with an exasperated look. Why was that nerd following me around?
Cain widened his eyes at the sight of my egg. “Zach! You must return it! It’s sacred!”
“Shut up, ya wimp,” one of the spirits punched Cain in the shoulder and another one pushed him to the side. Cain’s SoulBird, Pete, squawked at the spirits and managed to peck one of their eyes.
“He’s not takin’ that thing anywhere,” said Damien, suddenly snatching the egg from my hands. “You’ve got a good plan, Zach.” He looked at the egg with a devious grin. “But I’ve got something better in mind.”
“Ooh, remember what the High One said about that thing?” Said one of his friends. “Maybe you can control the world with that.”
“Exactly,” said Damien, studying the egg. “It’s close to hatching.”
I frowned. “No way,” I muttered. “Give it back.”
Damien looked at me with a raised eyebrow and laughed. “Aha! Why don’t you make me, punk?”
I kicked the guy in the crotch. Damien cringed and dropped the egg. He spat out a vulgar insult, but I snatched the egg and dashed away. Damien’s fire SoulBird screeched and zoomed through the air to chase me. It squawked in my ears and started pecking at my head. I cursed at the bird as I held the egg to my chest, keeping it out from its reach.
“You!” Damien shot up to his feet and brushed dust off his long black coat. I turned to glare at him, holding the egg in my hands. I always found it stupid that Damien would wear a black coat when it was a thousand degrees out here.
Cain was staring at me with awe, and Pete was perched on his shoulder with the same look of shock.
Behind me, Nicholas grabbed a hold of my neck and started choking me. The rest of his friends crowded around and punched me in the face and chest, spitting at me and then pushing me to the ground. I fell with a grunt and the egg rolled out of my hands. I raised my head to glare through a blackened eye. Damien stepped forward to stare down at me. His face looked dangerous as it shone in front of the hot bright sky. “Just like every loser in this academy. You don’t belong here anymore than a snake belongs in Heaven.”
I saw the egg, a distance behind Damien, and I dashed between his legs. He fell to the ground with confusion. With a loud yell, Damien cursed and got up, punching at his friends with fury.
While they fought, I was just about to grab at the egg, until a beam of light shot out from the top. I froze and took a step back. Cain and Pete came to my side. The egg was fully golden bright now, and there was no trace of the pink. All around it, the light was bright and brimming, obviously a real source from Heaven.
Two hands grabbed both my shoulders and I turned around with a start. It was Ebenezer. “It’s hatching, boy.” He was watching meticulously.
I turned to watch the egg. Slowly, it began to turn, and made one full round. Then it stopped and a crack started to form at the top. Light shone from the crack, and the entire egg split in half, revealing a tiny hand-sized bird made of pure gold. The creature had its tiny eyes shut, and it was sitting quietly with its wings folded back. The egg shells around it disappeared into the air with a twinkle, and the light brimmed from around its tiny little body.
We all stared in awe. The bird had a long vertically shaped head with a sharp point at the top, and it had a golden gem at its forehead. A bronze cross shone at the center of the forehead, just below the gem.
“Leave it alone,” Ebenezer arched out his long arm in front of Cain and me. “It’s barely waking up.”
But someone was approaching us from behind. Damien. The guy was staring at the bird with wonder in his eyes. He instantly pushed between me and Ebenezer.
“No! It’s mine, move it!” He lunged toward the bird.
Ebenezer flinched. “Hey, hey--”
But it was too late. Damien fell toward the bird. Immediately, the golden hatchling raised its wings and cast blinding shine of light that overwhelmed Damien before he landed. His fire SoulBird came out of nowhere, charging at the golden hatchling with jealousy. But before it could even touch the shining spirit, the beam of light instantly caught the fire SoulBird in flames that were much brighter and shinier than the flames on its feathers. The fire SoulBird squawked and its devilish horns started to bleed. Then the bird exploded. The heavenly flames disappeared.
“No!” Damien was on his stomach with his arms reaching toward the hatchling. The light was blinding his eyes, and tears streamed down his face.
The hatchling’s eyes were still closed. But the little golden bird started to levitate, and it spread its small golden wings. The light grew more powerful as it surrounded both the hatchling and Damien.
Then the light went out. Damien and the bird were gone without a trace.
I blinked with confusion. “What….”
“Nawwww!” Ebenzer grabbed his head and yelled at the sky. “Oh, dammit to Hell! You idiots! All of you!” He stomped and looked ready to throw a fit for a moment. He whipped around to face the rest of Damien’s friends, who were staring at us with fear. “Shoo! Off with you all! May the curse of Lucien kill you all!”
Damien’s friends all fled with cowardly yowls. Ebenezer’s face was blazing and twisted with fury.
He turned to Cain and Pete. “You too! Both of you! Outta my sight! May the curse of the apocalypse be brought down on you all!”
Cain flinched and ran away at his words. Pete dashed away, clutching his shoulder.
I looked at the creepy janitor with horror. I turned to run from the guy before he could start yelling curses at me.
But Ebenezer grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me back until I fell against him. He grabbed my shoulder and gripped me tightly. I felt the flames burst on my head. The tall, fragile man was stronger than he looked.
“Not you, boy,” he now spoke in a low voice. “You’re not going anywhere. Not just yet.”
I gasped as he tightened his grip on my shoulder. Ebenezer had big hands, and I felt like he was going to crush my shoulder in one grasp. He kept an arm wrapped around my chest and kicked off the lid of a manhole.
“Get in, boy!” He hissed.
Frowning, I immediately climbed down the manhole. I was too scared to force myself to disobey.
Ebenezer climbed down after me. The both of us faced each other as we reached the ground. It smelled horrible down here, and the light was shining dimly through the manhole. We were in the fire sewers. It was extremely hot down here, and lava flowed forwards behind us.
I was just about to turn and flee down the sewer, but Ebenezer grabbed my shirt and pulled me backwards again.
“Are you trying to rape me, or what?!” My scream echoed through the sewer.
The man spoke behind me, in my ears, as he held me with my back against his.
“Now pay close attention,” he spoke calmly. “That was an important spirit in the egg. It was one of the Three. It was supposed to hatch in the Higher One’s hands. But now you’ve lost it. You are in serious trouble, boy. It’s time you realize something…before you suffer the most grievous punishment.”
Chapter Four-
I felt an instant rush of adrenaline, and I yanked myself away from Ebenezer’s grip.
“Shut up!” I yelled, feeling the flames burn on my head. “I bet you’re just angry now that the egg is gone. You wanted it for yourself, didn’t you?! I saw you hiding it with you in the hallways! You stole it from my room! Now it’s gone, and you’re going to burn my spirit for not having kept it safe for you to steal again.”
“Ahem!” Ebenezer coughed. “If you would please let me explain!” I could see the red cracks in his widened eyes. “There’s a reason why I wanted that egg, boy. And it has to do with you too.”
“Me?” I raised my eyebrows. “
What? Were you going to use that egg to send my spirit directly to Hell so that you could stop cleaning up after all my graffiti?”
Ebenezer snickered and clasped his hands together. “Oh, you don’t know how much I wish I could have made that choice! But no.” His expression darkened. “As a matter of fact, I need to do the exact opposite with you, for da good Lord in Heaven has been so nice to have given me a little compromise.”
“What are you talking about?” I scoffed. “Just please get to the point! I’m melting in here.” I felt like I was spending another night in the Lava Dungeons. It was like sitting in an oven.
“Ech! Patience, boy! Sheesh! This was always a problem when you were alive…”
“Aha! So you did know me when I was alive!” I grabbed the old man’s bony shoulders and pressed my nose against his long, pointy nose. “And you never wanted to tell me anything about my mortal life. You wouldn’t even tell me the exact place I had lived.”
“Ech!” Ebenezer shoved me away from his face. “Cut it out, boy! You wanna hear my story or not?!”
“I’d like to hear my story—and why you wanted to steal that egg from my room.”
“Well! Listen carefully, please,” he spoke in a sarcastically pleasant tone and held his hands behind his back. He sauntered around me as he spoke.
“You see, back on Earth, when I was living a simple old life in the city of Jerusalem, I was a farmer. Now keep in mind that we lived very close to the End Times. So we were way in the modern era. The type of farming that I was doing was a under the supervision of a private organization run by the prince. To put it simply, I worked in a farm that cultivated nano-crops and robo-cells. I was responsible for the growth of the organs of live computers. Yes, boy, computers were very much alive. They were born on my very field—at least, parts of their organs were.”
I winced and decided not to ask anything. It was my fault I never paid attention to the history lectures in class.
Uncle E went on, “My brother was in a much higher, wealthier position than I was. As a matter of fact, he was the prince of Jerusalem! I was growing robo-cells for the prince, which put me at such a hateful relationship between me and my brother. The prince was terribly spoiled, and ever since we were young-uns, the High King, our father, had always given that ass what he wanted. I was always the runty, good-for-nothing weakling. My father even treated me like I would never become a worthy king.”
I frowned. “That’s very fair.” I spoke sarcastically. “Don’t tell me I had anything to do with this ‘prince.’”
Uncle E chuckled and clenched his teeth. “You bet yer soul! When we were in our early twenties, our mother, the High Queen, was killed by an invasion from the western nano-bots. The High King immediately sought to grow our own army of rough and tough nano-bots to counter the attack, so he and my brother were extremely reliant on me. My brother even started to overwork me.
“Yech! Life was hard and dirty, much like the one I lead now. But that all changed when I met your mother.”
“You knew my mother?” I felt my heart rise.
Ebenezer smiled greedily. “Boy, your mother was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Oh, those eyes! Those beautiful blue eyes. Like the clear blue sky of the heavens!”
I suddenly stood still without moving a muscle. It was all slowly coming back to me now. I was recalling the vision I had had of my family! Somehow, Uncle E was doing it! He was helping me remember! That blurry vision of the woman at the table was starting to clear up as Ebenezer continued to speak.
“Your mother was exotic. She had skin pale as the snow, and hair dark as midnight. But her eyes drew the most of my attention. You never saw a pair of eyes more piercing and intriguing as hers.”
“What was my mother’s name?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Her name….” Uncle E was gazing up at the sky with awe, seeming to be lost in a daze. “Her name was Sarah Madonne. Lord, she was as tall as I was—no! Even taller.”
I gave him a wry look. “Really?”
“Yes….” His face was dazed. “Yes, she was almost seven feet tall, actually. She was 6’10”, believe it or not. The lady was a tall, fine, sexy young creature. I praised the Lord for letting me have found such a woman. She was a lady tending to the marketplaces, selling memory chips for people who owned iHouses. She had these chips distributed from the farms of Jerusalem. She looked very unhappy and rather rash, for she was poor and just didn’t seem to fit in with the position she was in.
“I didn’t have much to offer, for I was poor myself. But I had to take a chance, especially if I was so desperate to seek someone to medicate me while I was working tirelessly for my spoiled brother. I came up to her and introduced myself. But Sarah was a stern, hard-talking young lady. She wasn’t just feisty—she was demanding and hotheaded. She turned me down and I could not blame her. Such a delicate creature did not deserve to be married to a poor farmer like me. But I didn’t stop trying. I distributed as many cultivated nano-materials as I could toward the lady’s market. Pretty soon, the both of us were earning high profits. It wasn’t long before she took interest in what a hard worker I was, and pretty soon, she got more acquainted with me. The two of us were even going on dates every so often. We even took a vacation to the Floating Cities, up in the Exosphere. It was an amazing moment. I had never appreciated the modern era as much as I did when I visited that city with your mother! I was delighted and overjoyed that I was expecting our wedding to be coming soon.”
“Ahhh!” My scream echoed through the sewer and my fiery headband enlightened our surroundings. “Please don’t tell me you are my father!”
“Faugh!” Uncle E spit from the corner of his mouth. “Far from it, ya little bastard!”
“Ugh…thank God,” I breathed.
“Your mother came across a new man. And I was stunned…for this new mortal that had captured her eye…was the prince of Jerusalem—my own brother.”
My eyes grew round.
Ebenezer’s gaze hardened. “By this time, he looked like he had been living a life of extensive luxury.”
I felt another strange rush of adrenaline in my hollow bones, and my head started to spin. Now the man at the table in my dream was starting to clear up.
“He had dazzling dark eyes that were hardened like stones. Ugh! The blasted fool! He was even taller than your mother!”
I tried not to flinch as the old spirit whipped his head around to glare at me.
“Boy, your father looked just like you—except he was much nicer-looking in the hair, the eyes, the body, everything.”
I winced. “So he didn’t look just like me?”
“Argh! Your father—he had dark hair hanging slightly above his shoulders, just like you. He kept it neat, shiny, and clean. He also had eyes just like yours. So sharp…so piercing. I tell you….you won’t count the number of times I’ve looked at you and saw your blasted father.”
I frowned and then gave a grimace. “Well, I’m glad I looked more like my father instead of you.” Boy, I felt lucky for once. My father was the prince of Jerusalem!
“Achh!” Ebenezer grabbed his head and fiercely glared at me. “Well, your father was very conceited. He was so self-absorbed that I always expected his heart to explode with such pride. That was the only part about him that made him different from you.
“It all started when your mother was sneaking into a marketplace to steal a piece of jewelry I wasn’t able to buy.”
I raised my eyebrows. “My mother tried to steal?”
“Oh, boy, Sarah was the cleverest thief I’d ever met. Of course…..I knew what a wrongdoing it was to steal. This piece of jewelry was obtained from the Northern Galactic Agents. They retrieved it from the neighboring galaxy of Andromeda. They had it manufactured into millions of products, and sold around the world. It was also in the form of a ring when it caught your mother’s eye, and she insisted that I buy it for her on her wedding. But I couldn’t, for I didn’t have the money.
“
So she told me to wait by a nearby fountain, and she went to steal some wedding rings for the both of us. Of course, that’s when the prince of Jerusalem caught her and swore to put her to death for trying to steal a specimen founded by the Galactic Agents. But all she had to do was turn around and look him in the eye. She managed to strike him with her drop-dead gorgeousness. The prince fell in love with her and forgot about his threat. I don’t know what kind of mushiness passed between the two of them, but when I came over to the store to check on them, my fool of a brother was already proposing to her!”
I chuckled with humor.
Ebenezer was sweating. “The fool of a prince had already bought her a ring! With his own filthy money, he bought that wretched accessory she wanted, and already, she looked like she had fallen in love with the man! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The prince was flattering her and promising her a life of luxury.”
The janitor started to sniffle, and I almost felt sorry for the old man. But it was too hot to feel sorry about anything.
Ebenezer stomped his foot. “She and the prince married, and there was nothing I could do about it. Sarah did not forget about me though—she forced me to become their housekeeper.”
I stifled a snicker and said, “You should’ve gone with them. At least you’d still be with my hot mom.”
“Boy, that’s exactly what I did,” said the janitor with a wicked smile. “Therefore, it wasn’t long until I overheard a scheme that the two of them were discussing in the prince’s room. Sarah was talking about overthrowing the King so that the both of them could ascend to the throne in the land of Jerusalem. Now at the time, the city was engaged with a battle against the Neon Arabians from the south. It was at the night of their siege that the prince decided he would kill his father. Ugh….well, good for them, for they succeeded. Sarah and her ever so perfect husband killed the king and took over the throne. They passed on the lie that the Neon Arabians had poisoned him during the siege. No one ever found out about the real murderers of the king. Only I knew.”
“So!” I crossed my arms. “Did you tattle on them?”
The Purgatory Saga #1: People of the Fire Page 3