Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy

by Janet V Forster

  But still, to think of him as something other than human. I chewed on my cheek.

  And then to take that a step further, to consider the possibility that I might be … what? Half an alien? I shook my head involuntarily. That just would not compute.

  ‘You’re going to tell me about angels, aren’t you?’ I despaired. He smiled.

  ‘I can tell you about angels, but you wouldn’t recognise one if it took you to Barbados in a hot air balloon.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I answered, ‘don’t they all have weird eyes?’

  ‘What, like yours?’

  ‘Mine aren’t that weird.’

  ‘Anyway, there are easy ways to cover them up if necessary.’

  I exhaled heavily, but said nothing.

  ‘For an outsider to really know an angel was an angel, they would actually have to see it vanish in front of them, or perform some sort of miracle.’

  ‘Well that would be amazing, James,’ I replied, nodding enthusiastically. ‘That would definitely do it for me. If you could organise something like that I think I could believe all of this.’

  His smile was indulgent, but then he shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work that way, although if you’re ever in the right place at the right time, who knows?’

  I knew it. Tricks reserved for Christmas. My suspicion immediately returned. ‘Well it should. Otherwise, how will you ever convince anyone?’

  He avoided my gaze. ‘Convincing people that angels exist is not something I do much. Usually we stick to ourselves and lead quiet lives. If there’s something we’re involved in, we try not to be obvious about it.’

  ‘So, you’re an … angel?’ I asked, stumbling over the actual word. I couldn’t see wings and he hadn’t levitated or performed any other miracle, so how was I to tell, definitely? Then again, what were the odds of a pair like James and Ethan existing, and not only that, but existing in my world? Yep, there was a catch. It sure was a big one.

  And I was right about the eye thing. His weren’t green, but they were strangely coloured with interesting striations and they merged and marbled like Nick’s. My heart sank as I came closer to acknowledging the truth of what my mind was trying furiously to reject.

  He smiled, but infuriatingly, did not answer my question. A ‘Yes, and at Easter and Christmas time I glow in the dark,’ would have been nice, or alternatively, ‘No, I was just checking your rating on my gullibility meter,’ would have been annoying, but even better!

  ‘It’s obvious that you think so, anyway,’ I stated petulantly. He didn’t reply and so I was forced to fill the silence. ‘Where did you come from in the first place?’

  He contemplated his response and then took the plunge, ignoring my increasingly incredulous expression. ‘Our kind existed long before human beings.’ I pressed my lips together in a stiff smile and nodded for him to continue.

  ‘Not necessarily here on earth …’ My head flopped back and my eyes rolled alarmingly in their sockets.

  ‘… but ultimately,’ he continued, as I forced my head forward and tried to be polite, which was hard because my eyebrows were packing their bags and migrating to the moon, ‘we were sent here.’ He looked at me meaningfully, like I might have some inkling as to what he was talking about - maybe from Nick - which I didn’t really. I rubbed my forehead and shrugged apologetically. After a moment he spoke again.

  ‘In the beginning, our role was to support and encourage the growth and development of humans by using our powers to intervene for their benefit. It was a symbiotic relationship. Two different vitalities meeting to form one loving stream, like a leaf dancing on the wind, a beautiful partnership, dedicated to growth and stemming from a place of love and purity.’

  I nodded. Good so far.

  ‘There were other angels that had fallen before us and been expelled from heaven, and the world was fallen then. But we were still pure, still heavenly beings, not like those already cast down, or imprisoned.’

  I placed my hand across my forehead and looked at him from under my fingers. He’d jammed his hands into his coat pockets and his leg had started jiggling. He gazed out of the windscreen. ‘But it was only a matter of time before we too became corrupted and lost our sense of whom and what we were.’ He shook his head. ‘It shouldn’t have happened. Not with the type of relationship we shared with our Creator. We lived in His presence unobstructed by the things that keep people from knowing Him fully. We had no excuse to rebel and turn away … but that’s just what happened.’

  A deep breath seemed to fortify him and he stilled his leg. ‘We were made good but we were given free will, just like people. And just like people we chose to follow a path which set in motion a chain of events which separated us from God. Only it was so much worse because of the closeness of the relationship we had shared. Because of what we did our spirits were tainted forever.’

  I dropped my hand from my forehead to my mouth and then rubbed it across my face while exhaling rather deeply.

  ‘Let me help you, Kate with a quick summary of thousands of years,’ he said. I wasn’t convinced that would be a good idea. ‘There are many groupings of fallen angels. Satan was the first and he waged war with his followers against God, in Heaven and through spirit possession and exerting negative influence on earth. Others followed at later stages, including heavenly beings, called Watchers, sent to watch over earth. They rejected God by interbreeding with humans and creating abominations called Nephilim, evil beings, human-angel hybrids. God banished them from heaven and cast them down to earth where they continued to conspire against him, interbreeding with and corrupting humans and spreading darkness across the world. Noah and his direct line were the only family on earth at that time whose genealogy was uncorrupted. He was purely human. God sent the great flood to cleanse the world of the evil that was consuming it. It succeeded in destroying most, but not all of the Nephilim. The Watchers who had caused the corruption and spread of evil were confined to a realm from which there was no physical escape. But they were still very powerful. They remained the rulers of the spiritual darkness of the world and they could still influence world events, especially through their progeny.’

  ‘Progeny?’

  ‘After the flood there was another wave of angels who were sent to watch over the earth. They also fell, but their fall was different in nature to the ones who had come before.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘The imprisoned Watchers tricked them into debauchery with human women using the remaining Nephilim who, being the Watchers’ progeny, were under their influence. But this lot of angels were different to the Watchers who had come before. The Watchers and those they had spawned were never repentant. These were. When they came to their senses they refused to enter into a covenant with the Watchers who wanted to use them as their free agents on the earth to ensure that God’s promises would never be fulfilled. Instead they came together. They agreed to bring a halt to interbreeding with humans and to return to assisting rather than corrupting and debasing. As far as possible anyway.’ He looked at me meaningfully. ‘They took the name Anakim, which had originally referred to their offspring who eventually all died out on earth. They tried to keep themselves separate from purely human souls. They made efforts to do penance and fight their fallen natures. But there was no way back into the light.’

  I swallowed hard, confused by the strange tide of emotion which surged inside me as he spoke. Maybe it was his expression, the way his forehead furrowed and the darkness stole his eyes as he spoke of loss. Maybe it was the gritty edge to his voice, which made me realise that true or not, he believed this to be fact. This was his reality.

  ‘Are you from this Anakim line?’

  He nodded. His fingers swept thick hair off his forehead, grasped it in his fist for a moment and then let it go. It immediately fell chaotically. Whoever said family history was boring and took to needlecraft instead, didn’t know what they were missing.

  ‘We were marked for all time. A cross wh
ere our names had been. Once we were special to God, but we failed him, just like the others, and were exiled for ever.’

  ‘Did all angels fall?’ I asked, drawn in by his tale of despair.

  He shook his head. ‘No. There are those who still enjoy what we once had. Those who are so much stronger than we ever were. They will never fall.’

  ‘But this happened so long ago. I don’t understand how it affects you now. Why you are still marked when you weren’t even there?’

  ‘It’s very hard to explain, Kate.’

  He lapsed into a silence so deep it seemed bottomless. I turned to watch the reflections in the puddles. They flickered and became medleys of light and darkness when the wind blew across the surface. You could get stuck in the parts and lose your sense of the whole. Eventually he spoke.

  ‘We were once purely spirit beings, but when we came to earth our spirits animated a physical body. When we fell our bodies became mortal, even though our lifespan was extended compared to humans. When our body eventually dies our spirit is bounced back to earth from a realm on the other side of the Watchers’ prison. It lives on again and again in subsequent mortal lives on earth because there is no longer anywhere else for it to go. Because of our remorse, our prison is a step up from the place the Watchers inhabit, but it is a prison of separation, regardless. I know it’s hard to understand, but the spirit which fell back then, lives on in me now. It is my nature, the very essence of my being.’

  I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. ‘It seems cruel, James.’

  ‘This wasn’t done to us,’ he said. ‘We always knew the consequences. This is about personal responsibility. We cursed ourselves and we cursed those who came after us, kids like Erik who were infested with darkness.’ A small dark-haired boy stacked blocks in my mind and I felt a wave of sadness. James frowned.

  ‘There are fewer and fewer of us left.’ He found my eyes and held them with his own unfaltering ones.

  ‘Where do the spirits go now then?’ I asked at last.

  ‘They are consumed by an entity created by the Watchers,’ he said, his expression hardening. ‘An entity whose sole purpose is to gather darkness, like a building storm the likes of which has never been seen.’

  I waited, the frown over my eyebrows making my head hurt, but he did not continue. ‘Sounds terrifying.’

  He nodded. ‘It is. Just because we would not agree to a pact with the Watchers in the beginning, didn’t mean they gave up.’ His smile was twisted and grim. He shook his head. ‘They never gave up. At every opportunity they sought out our vulnerabilities, holding up their temptations like a carrot to a donkey which hadn’t been fed in weeks. Sometimes it worked. Spirits corrupted in that way cannot return to this realm. Instead they grow the Watchers’ power on the other side, their ability to influence here. It becomes a vicious cycle.’

  He looked at me, his expression solemn, but strangely not hopeless. Suddenly his voice lifted. ‘Some have seen an angel filled with light, the very antithesis of the darkness-gatherer, who walks on earth. This angel takes us home.’

  ‘That sounds nice,’ I said, not adding that it would also make a good ending to a children’s movie. I worked to assemble my features into a more encouraging expression. ‘So maybe there is some hope, after all.’

  An increasing number of tendrils were escaping from my bun and I began twisting them back up into it and away from my face. His gaze fell to the nape of my neck, just behind my ear. It lingered there and made me wonder whether Sam had actually shown himself, for once. With a flush I brought my hand to my neck, but the coward was hiding. James looked away guiltily.

  ‘What is it?’ He opened his window a fraction. Cool air trickled into the car.

  ‘There are others out there who watch you, Kate. Not just Ethan and I. They wait to see whether you are The One.’

  ‘Me?’ I almost laughed, but his expression stopped me.

  ‘They wait to see whether you have potential. You are the last born of us … and an unknown.’ I sighed, already tired of hearing it, and at the same time anxious about what awaited me because of it.

  ‘The only thing I possess any potential for is making a toasted sandwich and maybe choking on it.’ The words flew out of my mouth, courtesy of Sam, who regarded me impassively with languid eyes. All was quiet again. I counted to ten to stop myself from leaping in with something inappropriate.

  ‘And there are still others out there who watch from deep, dark places.’

  ‘I have it on very good authority that I am unlikely to transition.’ The skin on the back of my neck was creeping up into my skull. ‘I know for certain that my mother is not an angel, and I’m relatively certain that Nick isn’t one either,’ I continued, nearly choking on the ‘a’ word. ‘So everyone can just relax, or alternatively get very depressed because I am not The One after all.’

  A small crooked smile caught one corner of his mouth. ‘You are not marked like the rest of us.’

  ‘Whatever that means, James, remember I am not an angel, so obviously I wouldn’t be.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Those from our families are all marked, angel or not.’

  ‘Marked how?’

  He reached over and touched the spot on my neck just behind and slightly below my right ear. My skin tingled.

  ‘Your skin is clear,’ he said, dropping his hand.

  I placed my fingers to my neck protectively as he swivelled awkwardly in his seat, turning so that the right side of his face and neck were visible. ‘Look carefully,’ he said. I moved nearer, gazing hard at the spot just below his ear. The overhead light cast confusing shadows and for a moment I didn’t see it. But then I did. An ‘X’, grey like an old tattoo, only about a centimetre in diameter.

  ‘A tattoo?’

  ‘I’ve always had it. We all have. But you don’t.’

  ‘No. I don’t,’ I agreed. ‘Does Nick have one?’

  He nodded. ‘Your lack of marking may be enough for many.’

  ‘Well that’s ridiculous,’ I exclaimed. ‘My lack of marking makes me just like the other seven billion people on the planet.’ The words burst out of me as I swivelled my head from side to side, like a measured pendulum. The only advantage was that it made him return his hand to my arm.

  ‘I wish it could all make sense to you Kate. That we could talk and you could leave feeling safe and secure.’

  He looked thoughtful, and I knew I still looked sceptical. I wiggled my nose and eyebrows to try and loosen up my features, but stopped when he raised an eyebrow. ‘But you’re a new variable introduced into the equation,’ he continued, ‘and that might mean a different answer.’

  ‘What if the variable, doesn’t want to be a variable? What if the variable would rather be a constant, like the sun rising in the morning?’

  ‘The variable is the sun in the morning, Kate. Sunlight after such a long night.’

  I rolled my eyes, wishing he would stop talking in riddles. I sat mute, like a mummy, wrapped and ready for burial. Outside the breeze broke up the lights in the puddles.

  ‘Faith …’ I mumbled after a while. ‘You’re asking me to accept something based purely on what you’re saying. Something so far from all I’ve been taught is possible, real …’ I threw my hands at my face and held them there for a moment before dropping them.

  They immediately leapt up again like salmon heading upstream and then fell with a slap onto my legs where they began wringing the life out of each other. A wild, perplexing fluttering filled my mind, like a cornered spirit struggling with the darkness, and then vanished as quickly, dragged back into the unfathomable depths.

  Outside the breeze died abruptly and the moon came out in a ghostly glow which failed to hit the abandoned sidewalk. ‘Of course, it could mean that I just don’t have Edwards’ blood, or genetics, or whatever it is, inside of me. Maybe I was accidentally swapped with another baby at the hospital and that’s why I am not marked in the same way.’ The eyes. The eyes, Kate. I was definitely an Ed
wards.

  ‘Or it could be that you are not marked in the same way, because your spirit is not fallen in the same way,’ he replied.

  I clasped a hand to my forehead hoping to restrain the imminent explosion which was threatening there.

  ‘Maybe the end is coming,’ he said, ‘and darkness will reign here and it will all be over.’ The sound of his acknowledgement sent a shiver down my spine. ‘But there are some of us who will fight against the darkness until there are no more opportunities to do so.’

  The crack of the door handle was loud in the silence. I pushed it open. Today was not going to bring me any closer to understanding. It was only going to build frustration and confusion. Today needed to end, to make room for tomorrow.

  ‘So will you still be hanging around?’ I asked, trying to sound dignified and a little affronted maybe, but in truth conflicted. It was hard to imagine not wanting James around.

  ‘We’ll be around,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not, we only want to keep you safe. Because if you are The One, and the Watchers become aware of that, you will not be safe.’

  He leant in towards me and I swallowed hard. I felt his heat, the flicker of my pulse. My breathing moved into the top of my chest. It was impossible to gather myself to think.

  ‘Ummm …’ He moved nearer, and my heartbeat built to a crescendo. I closed my eyes and his breath was hot on the nape of my neck. But then he was gone, suddenly, like the moment had never happened, sitting upright in his seat staring straight ahead. My heart pounded heavily, refusing to believe that the moment had passed.