Star Angel: Prophecy

by David G. McDaniel

  If there was still evidence there in Boise ...

  She looked to all of them. “We go there now.”

  **

  Jess blinked.

  She was in a room.

  Lying on a bed, in a hospital—had to be—though not quite like any hospital she’d seen. The walls were gray, not white, the tables and other items black or silver. Like a noir hospital.

  Osaka.

  Dominion.

  She blinked again, slower this time. Taking stock of her senses; what she could feel, what she could hear.

  “Jessica?” A familiar voice.

  She moved; turned her head to look in the direction of the sound and a shot of pain stabbed through the center of her skull. She winced and her eyes screwed shut, but not before she caught glimpse of …

  Egg.

  It was Egg. Coming for her, as if maybe she’d been sitting there in the room all along.

  “Jessica!” she thrilled with Jessica’s agonized grimace, as if the sight of her pain were the most wonderful thing. Jess cringed harder in anticipation of the hug she saw coming, but Egg, thankfully, held back.

  “You’re awake!” Jess could almost imagine her jumping up and down and the mere thought of it made her dizzy.

  Keeping her eyes squinted tight she took a deep, shuddering breath, holding herself still until the stab of pain subsided to a pulsing throb.

  No more sudden moves, she cautioned herself.

  “Egg,” she half croaked, cleared her voice and said a little more clearly: “Egg.” She felt Egg’s hands on her, unable any longer to resist.

  “She’s awake?” Another voice, and this one Jess recognized at once.

  “Darvon?” she croaked his name too, daring to open her eyes and roll them up in the direction of his voice. For now she kept her head where it was, kept all her limbs as they were, but as her vision sharpened she saw the open door and Darvon rushing in to stand by his daughter, both of them beaming their infectious, plump-cheeked smiles. Jess looked up into their faces.

  “You’re awake!” Darvon enthused, even as Egg said directly to him: “She’s awake!” Then both of them, in concert and directly to her: “You’re awake!”

  She felt a chuckle rise within her, though the gripping pressure in her ribs aborted it almost as soon as it escaped her mouth.

  “I’m awake,” she grunted in the aftermath of the harsh sound. “I’m awake.”

  Egg continued to feel of her. Darvon laid a hand on her too.

  “Nothing broken?” Egg touched here and there painfully. “They said nothing was broken. How do you feel?”

  Jess hissed between her teeth with each exploratory squeeze. “I don’t know,” she said. “Everything kind of hurts right now.”

  Dutifully the Hestron’s took their hands away, holding them tightly, very deliberately, at their sides—unable to conceal the eager urge on their faces to just lean over and hug the shit out of her.

  “You’re fine,” Darvon said. He was smiling that giant, Darvon smile. “Not even a sprained ankle. Amazing! I wasn’t surprised though.”

  And all the troubles, all the real pains facing her came crashing in. What happened to Willet? Had Zac been able to protect him? By taking the Icon she’d left them both high and dry with no hope of escape and the Kel closing in. It was a terrible betrayal, but she’d had no choice. She had to leave when she did, otherwise the whole of Anitra would’ve been in jeopardy.

  It made her sick.

  “How long have I been here?” her worry was taking off and she tried consciously to grab hold and scale it back. Worry wouldn’t help. Not now.

  Egg answered. “Not long.” Then, before Jess could say more: “Someone else is here!” And, filled with excitement, she ran from the room and was gone.

  Darvon spoke when they were alone. “You have a habit of dropping in at just the right time.” Then: “Maybe that’s a bad joke.”

  Jess experimented with moving her head, much slower this time and, twisting a few inches until the pain hit, paused until it was a dull ache, then got herself situated more comfortably and looked into his eyes, finding herself alone with one of the most important people in her life. Darvon, who found her out on the fields of Osaka, on the run, nowhere to go; Darvon, who brought her in from the rain.

  Darvon, who believed. Not just in her, but in all she epitomized. To Darvon, she was infallible. Darvon had always seen who she really was, even when she herself never believed.

  “You were right,” she told him. The last time they’d seen each other she was still simply Jess, leaving him so she could sneak across the ocean in the belly of a freighter, headed for Venatres shores with two Icons and no idea what to do next. So much had changed since then. So much had been revealed. Even then, before any of this, Darvon believed. More than anyone. Even then, when she had no belief in herself.

  Darvon had always believed.

  Remarkably, he’d been right.

  He just kept looking down on her, beaming.

  There were many, incredibly important people on her journey, extraordinary people, but Darvon was and would always be the foundation of any who supported her. Darvon believed in her more than anyone ever had, possibly more than anyone ever would. Zero doubt. None. Such a complete absence of it, his beliefs could have done nothing less than become truth. His convictions, reality.

  And they had.

  She swallowed. “I’m the one the Prophecy predicted.” She didn’t dare tell him more, but that was enough. She didn’t need to say anything else. “Just like you said. You believed, Darvon, and you were right.” She managed a smile, for his sake, giving him the hope he knew to be real, even as she suppressed her own fears. “After everything, through everything … you were right.”

  He was crying. Just a few tears, but they trickled from the corners of his eyes onto the rounded humps of his cheeks, over and down to his chin, framing his smile. Nothing else changed about his awestruck, admiring demeanor, but he was shedding tears.

  Then Egg burst back into the room, another person in tow.

  It was Bianca.

  CHAPTER 12: REUNION

  Bianca rushed in, face exploding into an open-mouthed grin and a shriek when she saw Jess laying there, staring back.

  “You’re awake!” she ran to her side.

  “I’m awake!” Jess laughed, less painfully this time—everyone was so happy she was awake—and it was so good to be there with these people she loved so much, and the pain could be forgotten. Here was her best friend, the one who had been with her from the beginning, through this whole transformation of life and reality, and all at once she felt such happiness to see her it was almost overwhelming.

  Bianca apparently felt the same.

  “Oh Jess!” she leaned all the way over and hugged her, not caring or not thinking of the pain it might cause, eliciting a brief expression of concern from Egg and Darvon, but when Jess suffered the embrace with a grimace and even reached aching arms around to hug her back, father and daughter relaxed and, when Bianca pulled away, it was their turn. Egg leaned in and got the hug she’d been craving, followed by Darvon, who wrapped his arms around them both.

  “We’re so happy you’re back,” Egg said into her ear.

  Jess nodded in their embrace. The aches were subsiding. It was far less painful to just lay still, but she found herself getting caught up in their enthusiasm.

  “It’s good to be back,” she said. “I’m so glad you guys found me. Where are we? Osaka?”

  Egg and Darvon released her and stood. “The Daimyo had you brought here,” said Egg. “This is a top level unit, once reserved for the Dominion elite.”

  Bianca was shaking her head. “What is up with your eyes? Good god, you’re all lean and tan and you look like a tiger. You’re, like, sexy Jessica now. A frickin magazine model. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. Where the hell did you go? If it was some kind of badass spa I want in.”

  Leave it to B to get right to the heart of it. Jess had
changed, and of course that was the most obvious thing about her right then.

  She looked up at Darvon. He was wiping away the remnants of his tears, still admiring her in that reverent way. Egg was nodding along with Bianca. The two teenage girls wanted the dirt. They wanted to know, they were dying to know. Darvon, on the other hand, was his usual accepting self. All he saw, it seemed, from the very beginning, all he ever saw, was her. Nothing else. Not skin not eyes not anything but who she was, looking right through the fog and the trappings and anything else to the real person, and for an instant she wondered if he saw her true identity. The timeless one. Of anyone, she thought, Darvon would be the most ready to hear the truth. The whole story. For him that was the truth. She could sprout horns, grow wings, a tail, extra arms—she was sure Darvon would hardly notice. She was an angel to him, and the form of the angel mattered little, if at all.

  “It’s like you’re different but you’re exactly the same,” Bianca went on, scrutinizing her face and, especially, her eyes, not looking at Jess per se but, rather, looking at the eyes themselves, the edges, the color.

  Jess wished she could see her own eyes right then. She knew how yellow they’d become.

  “I am the same,” she said.

  “Where were you?” Bianca repeated.

  “It’s a long story. I think I should rest more. But the short story is this,” she thought back to the last moments Bianca would’ve had any knowledge of her whereabouts—a long series of happenings ago: “After Zac and I chased Lorenzo from the club we followed him to a castle.” There was, of course, a whole, significant interlude between those events, the time at the farmhouse with Zac which Bianca would be most interested to hear the details of, but that could never be mentioned as part of the short story, and so Jess moved on—realizing, of course, there were even longer gaps in the story for Egg and Darvon, which hopefully Bianca would already have filled in: “The Bok were there and they had an Icon. One of them got to me with the Icon before Zac could stop him and I was teleported to another world.” She noted everyone’s faces, each envisioning the reality of yet another world, wanting to ask questions—so many questions—but they let her continue: “It was a no-tech world, with a history that included the Prophecy.” She looked up at Darvon. “And, of course, they imagined me to be important. Turns out, on that world, there are relics from that past. I met a wise old man who took me on a journey. During that time I learned a lot about myself.” She drifted in introspection. “My eyes changed during that time, though I don’t know why. Maybe the sun, maybe the conditions there … something caused it to happen. That world was part of the ancient Kel empire, lost long ago. Anyway, that’s where I was. The old man took me to a gate, one that connects places like the Icons. I went through and … it actually led to the hills behind my house.”

  Bianca was processing, but this last bit threw her. She gained a new level of inquisitiveness. “Wait. There’s a place behind your house? That connects to another world?”

  Jess nodded.

  “There’s some kind of travel gate behind your neighborhood? That goes from Earth to another planet? It’s been there all along?”

  Jess kept nodding.

  “So,” Bianca put things together, “you popped back there at your house. You found the Icon, which means ...” she realized: “Was Zac still there?! He went there!”

  “He was.”

  Bianca turned excitedly to the others then back to Jess. “How cool is that! So he and Willet were still at your house?” Now some of her concern rose to the fore; this was hitting very close to home, quite literally, and Jessica’s house and that neighborhood was just as near and dear to Bianca. “Did they … How are our parents? What—”

  Jess raised a hand, as much as she could. “When I got there Zac and Willet had taken them to safety.”

  “Wow!” The wonder returned. “I can’t believe you ended up back home, after all that, and with Zac! Incredible. So … how did you get back here? Why did you use the Icon to come here? Is he still back there?”

  Now it was Jessica’s turn to cloud over. Egg looked between she and Bianca, hanging on their every word.

  “The Kel attacked,” Jess said.

  “What? Your house?”

  “We had to run. The Icon was in danger. I grabbed it and used it without thinking. It was all I could do to make sure they didn’t get it. Only after I popped through did I realize what I’d done. Really realized.” She drifted, thinking back to those moments, remembering with a wince the final bit of her descent and the impact—wondering just how she was laying there, not only alive but whole, nothing broken.

  Had her telekinetic efforts actually saved her?

  “What about you?” she asked. She had to move from those thoughts. “How did you get here?”

  Bianca gave an exaggerated smile. “Long story,” she said. “Guess we’ll both have some catching up to do. My short story is this: After we lost you and the Kel invaded, we gathered up who we could—”

  “I know about Satori,” Jess told her. “Zac and Willet told me.”

  Bianca frowned. “After that we came back here and,” she drifted in thought, amazed by whatever she was remembering. “Man! Nani really laid down the law. She’s totally got the big wigs on this world by the short hairs. Both sides. You’re not going to believe this but we’re mounting a counter-attack.”

  “Zac mentioned it.”

  “Cool. Well, it’s big. Forces on both sides of the pond are being prepared. Astake here in the Dominion, Venatres Skull Boys back across the water …

  “Nani is spearheading the preps. We’re getting all units equipped. She has a master plan. We were coming here to coordinate with the Dominion, in fact, when we heard you’d, um, dropped in.” She grinned at her own joke. “Nani will want to see you. She’s been studying that armor you were wearing. Oh, and your camera got smashed. What the hell did you bring that for?”

  “Did the SD card survive?”

  Bianca shrugged. “Probably. I mean, it wasn’t smashed to a million pieces, but you definitely won’t be taking any pictures with it.”

  A doctor walked in. A Dominion doctor. He wore a black coat that was not unlike that of an Earth doctor in form.

  “Ah,” he said as he entered and came over, “you’re awake.”

  Jess thought to say something, to be exasperated or make a joke, but instead simply agreed: “I’m awake.”

  The others moved aside so he could reach her. Just like a doc of Earth he checked her pulse, then felt her limbs and used a stethoscope to listen to her breathing while everyone waited. After that he pushed on her intestines in a few places.

  Jess glanced around at her friends, then back to the doctor. “They say I’m ok.”

  “You’re fine,” he nodded, “which, as you might imagine, has us puzzled.”

  “It’s a miracle,” said Darvon.

  Instead of scoffing, however, the doctor shared his awe.

  “It is,” he said. “Some things you just have to accept, even if there’s no good explanation. You’re alive and unbroken and that’s all that matters.” He went across the room to a few devices. “Now that you’re alert I want to check a few things.” He glanced to the others in the room: “Can you give us a few minutes?”

  They nodded, said Of course and Sure, temporary goodbyes to Jess and left the room.

  The doc came back with what looked to be a blood pressure cuff. “You might have a sprain in your left ankle,” he said. “I’m sure you’re feeling sore. No internal hemorrhaging, no hairline fractures or any other damage from the impact that we can see.” He set the cuff to the side and took a small device from the table and poked around, using it to check various points on her body. “The way the Icon has been explained to me is that it comes out high in the air. From the point described you would’ve been traveling at terminal velocity. Yet,” he put that tool back and wrapped her arm with the cuff. “all signs point to a much lighter impact. As if you’d just jumped from a se
cond-floor balcony or something.

  “Truly a miracle, as your friend said.”

  He turned on the small machine attached to the cuff and waited as it aired up. Jess felt the squeeze building on her bicep. The doc was quiet as it finished and counted down, taking her pressure.

  “There’s something else,” he said as the machine finished and he took off the cuff. Then, with no additional buildup, no warning or change of expression said:

  “Your blood work shows you’re pregnant.”

  The shock of his statement washed through her.

  Only …

  She wasn’t surprised.

  “Did you suspect?” he asked in response to the reaction on her face. Or lack of one.

  And she realized she did suspect.

  How did I know?!

  “I doubt you could have,” he amended, realizing the foolishness of his own question. “You’re just past conception. Probably only days.” Then: “How long have you been sexually active?”

  Somehow she did know. Part of her already knew. Whether from these new, elevated perceptions, simple motherly intuition or … something else.

  She knew.

  Though the actual thought, the actual idea of being pregnant hadn’t crossed her mind, hadn’t even occurred to her, it truly wasn’t a surprise to hear and, as the news settled …

  Came more as a confirmation than a revelation.

  I’m pregnant. Just now, from her time with Zac, back in her room.

  She and Zac had conceived.

  We’re going to have a baby.

  She realized the doctor had asked a question.

  A swallow to clear her voice and she rolled her head side to side. “Not long.”

  “Well congratulations. As I say, we barely detected it but it came up. You’re going to be a mother.”

  She just lay there, gaze vacant.

  “Do you know who the father is?”

  What a weird question.

  “Of course,” she said. Then, more softly: “I do.”

  And her mind began to buzz.