Prophecy of the Female Warrior

by KA Young

  “Great, now get us in. I’ll do the rest.”

  We walked quietly into the office where everything felt so familiar. I went past what was once Joe’s office. It was thoroughly cleaned out now; there was no evidence that Joe had ever worked here. I hated knowing the last memory I would ever have of Joe was of his murder.

  Shaking that thought away, I made my way to the reception area where Alana, the elderly secretary, stored the keys to everything. I pulled on the drawer. Ha, no magic needed here. It was unlocked. I snatched the keys and hurried to meet Elise outside.

  “Which car is it? They all look the same.” The company had three identical black Mercedes coupes parked in a row. I hit the key fob and the lights flashed on the middle one.

  I smiled. “Let’s ride!”

  Chapter 8

  So where are we going?” Elise was rummaging through the glove box, pulling out whatever she could find, before fiddling with the radio, and finally settling for alternative rock.

  “First, I have to drop a letter off at my sister’s house and then we’ll go to my cabin on the lake. It’s pretty far off the beaten path, so I think we’ll be safe there.”

  I stopped at a red light and turned to face her. “Why did you want to come with me?”

  Elise shrugged, “The prophecy says that I am the one to help you on your path.”

  My mouth dropped, catching flies as my granny used to say.

  She pointed straight ahead. “It’s green.”

  “Yeah, I see that.” I pulled around the corner, killed the lights and parked in someone’s driveway a half mile from Julie’s place. I reached back and found the letter I wrote to her and placed it in the side pocket of my pack.

  “Come on, we’ll go the rest of the way on foot. When we’re finished here, though, I need to know everything about this prophecy and anything else that you've been keeping from me.” I gave her a level eye glare to let her know that I meant it.

  “Anna, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Geez, don’t get all glowy-eyed on me.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Are we going, or what? ‘Cause, it seems like we’re wasting a lot of time here. Eli and his team could be on us any minute.”

  We got out of the car and began jogging. Elise ran behind me and I hoped she had successfully cloaked us. When we reached Julie and Bill’s beautiful, two-story, brick home, I made sure all the lights were out before sneaking up to the back privacy fence. I made a makeshift stirrup with my hands, offering to boost Elise over, but she looked down at my hand and rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not a warrior, but I’m not helpless,” she said as she easily leapt over the eight- foot privacy fence.

  Huh! There was so much I didn’t know about my own people. I followed her over.

  We crept up to the door that led into the kitchen where I peeked through the window and then nodded to Elise. She did her thing and we went in. I walked past Julie’s breakfast table that was covered with crayons and coloring pages; my niece’s and nephew’s toys were strewn everywhere. I pulled the letter from my pocket and attached it to the refrigerator door with a magnet before I sighed and looked at the pictures of us. She took them on the Fourth of July picnic. We were laughing at something she had said. Elise patted my shoulder in sympathy and, as I turned to leave, we heard a crash.

  “Ouch. Dammit! I told them to clean up their Legos.” It was my sister’s voice. She came into the kitchen wearing her pair of our matching cotton pajamas. We had bought them at the beginning of the summer when Macy’s had their Saturday door buster sale. The thought made me smile.

  She flipped on the light making me jump, alarmed, before I remembered she couldn’t see us. Elise pulled me to lean against the island so we would be out of her way as she held her finger to her lips. I guess the spell could keep us from being seen, but not from being heard.

  Julie pulled out a chair from the table and sat while she examined the bottom of her foot. Then she sighed, glancing up toward the refrigerator and blinking. She had seen the note.

  She launched herself toward it, snatching the note and running toward the back door.

  She unlocked the door and swung it open, racing into the backyard. “Anna, are you out there?” Elise and I followed her trying to stay quiet. It was so hard for me not to communicate with her, though.

  Julie ran around to the front of the house, searching for me. After not finding me there, she turned around and went back into the house. However, this time, we didn’t follow. I wiped the tears away that were streaming down my cheeks. I hated seeing her in so much pain, no matter how necessary it may be.

  We sprinted back to the car and climbed inside to head to the cabin. Elise was silent the entire forty-five minute drive, leaving me with my thoughts, and I was grateful. I pulled down the long gravel road that led to our three-bedroom, two-bath log cabin. Reaching back, I grabbed my pack, got out, and closed the door.

  “Wow, this is some place you have. When you said cabin, I was picturing a rustic hut with a wood burning stove in the center of the room, not a four star resort.” She followed me up onto the large, wraparound, screened-in porch.

  She exaggerated considerably, but it was marvelous. . It was always so peaceful and I had been proud to host family fishing trips here. Now all of that seemed a lifetime ago. The more I nurtured the Nephilim within me, the more I lost the ordinary, human part of me.

  I searched the porch for the loosened board and, with my next step; I felt the uneven board where I always hid an extra key “Aha.” I reached down, pried up the board and found the key, nailed to the underside of the board in a Ziploc bag. I turned to unlock the door, but found it wide open. Elise’s voice rang out in the form of an echo from inside.

  “This room is gigantic. How high are these ceilings?”

  Right, don’t need a key. I followed her inside.

  “It’s supposed to feel that way, it’s a great room. It’s twenty-eight feet from the floor to the vaulted ceiling. With the windows, you get a lot of light on both floors. I love an open floor plan.” I shut the door.

  I went into the kitchen, leaving Elise staring at the photos on the mantel of the rock fireplace. I unpacked the food contents from my pack and tossed everything into the refrigerator except for two bottles of water. We had a cleaning lady who regularly came one day out of every month during the off-season, so we never needed to unplug appliances or cover the furniture which would make getting set up here much easier.

  I had enough food and water to last about three days and I found myself wondering how long my newfound strength and endurance would last if we ran out of food from our lands.

  I walked into the living area and sat on the blue-and-white-checkered couch next to Elise, handing her a bottle of water. “Here.”

  “You have certainly led a charmed life, Anna. I’m sorry you couldn’t speak to your sister. I could tell she loves you very much. I’m sure she’ll understand when it’s safe for you to communicate with her again.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. You don’t know Jules, she’ll never understand.” I smiled, thinking of Julie. “You know, I always knew I was different, that I didn’t quite fit, but my sister and I were close. The only other real relationship I ever had was with Joe.” It was strangely easier to talk about Joe now.

  “Um, Anna… I’m sure you and your sister are extremely close, but you are doing the right thing by keeping what you are a secret from her.” She wiped the condensation off her bottle.

  “Our world, the supernatural world is vastly different from the natural world. We keep out of their way, most of the time. The exception was made when our numbers started to dwindle many years ago and we were forced to create alliances with strong, human family bloodlines. The blood vow was made to benefit both the Nephilim and humans. When the children were hidden thirty-five years ago, the families were needed and provided us a great service. They were paid well to aid the recovery of our young and those families still have our protection for as long as their f
amily line survives because of that help.”

  “Other than the yetzer hara, what could they possibly need protection from?”

  “Anna, the yetzer hara are not the only things that go bump in the night.” Elise kicked off her shoes, resting her arm on the back of the sofa as she slowly drew her knees up under her. I mirrored her movements and waited for her to continue.

  “Anything you ever thought was a myth or fairytale probably isn’t. Vampires, werewolves and ghost stories all came from somewhere. The human race doesn’t have the imagination to make all those things up on their own. We feed it to them. As much as we try to stay hidden, sometimes our worlds collide. When they do, it requires damage control. However, it’s a lot easier on our kind; I mean to smooth things over if they don’t believe we exist. The yetzer hara came into existence thousands of years after our race grew in size, but they were once like us.” She paused to drink some water.

  “The vampires and weres have existed for as long as we have. Most of them are all right. Those that have gone rogue are like the yetzer hara of our race. If a vamp comes after you with red eyes, don’t hesitate to stake his ass.”

  Elise was chatting away, going on and on as if it were perfectly normal to see vampires running about.

  “If all those creatures exist, how come I haven’t ever seen one?”

  “You will now and, Anna, as strong as you have become from nourishing your body, it’s nothing compared to how strong you would become if you spent some time in our homeland. You are much more than any of us ever expected you to be. Having visions even before you nurtured that side of yourself is phenomenal and…”

  I held up my hand, to stop her from continuing. I wasn’t looking for praise. It always made me extremely uncomfortable to be complimented.

  “Okay, now tell me what this prophecy is all about and why Eli was so set on keeping me locked away.”

  She shifted on the couch. I could tell she truly didn’t want to tell me, but would anyway. I could always tell when someone was lying to me before all of this, but now I was a walking lie detector. Finally, I had a gift to be grateful for.

  “You’re not going to like what I have to say. It’s going to hurt you. Eli wanted me to keep this from you for just a little while because he wanted to wait until you were ready. He...”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, bracing myself for what she was about to tell me.

  “I’m ready now.” Ready or not, I had to know now.

  “I don’t know all that the prophecy says, just the parts I was told about to prepare me for my role in it. I know that the last female warrior was being hidden for a time.

  “We were supposed to send a human from our trusted family lines to find her so we wouldn’t draw unwanted attention to her location. After she was found, they were supposed to alert us so she, er, I mean, you could be taken to safety as well as nurtured back to your full strength because the last female warrior will end the war between the Nephilim and those who have turned yetzer hara. I was supposed to be summoned when you were found to train and be ready. However, things didn’t exactly go as planned.” Elise paused and pulled her hair out of the ponytail.

  “How did you guys know for sure that I was the one in the prophecy?”

  “We didn’t, until Eli saw you at the cemetery.”

  “How did Eli know?”

  “Eli knew because he’s your mate.”

  “We have chemistry, I’ll give you that, but right now, my body is going crazy, so I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I have no intention of getting married or mated any time soon. I just buried my husband, for God’s sake.” Then it hit me and I leapt to my feet. Oh no! All the blood drained from my face and I felt like I might faint. Elise stood to help me as I swayed on my feet, but I pushed her away.

  She said someone would have been sent to find me. I thought back to when I first met Joe. I was working in a coffee shop as a waitress at the time, while studying psychology at the local community college. He was so persistent, never giving up. For a solid month, he came by every day I worked to ask me out.

  I finally said yes when he showed up outside the room of one of my classes at school. He asked me to marry him six weeks later.

  I had never felt wanted before Joe. He had always said how special I was and how lucky he was to have me. It was too perfect, now that I thought about it. I fell back onto the couch; feeling like the wind had just been knocked out of me. Everything that I thought was real was all a farce. My eyes landed on the pictures of Joe and me on the mantel.

  “Son of a bitch!” Faster than you can blink, I was up and smashing every single framed image I had once loved. I turned around, scanning the walls for more evidence of the deception to destroy. Totally pissed off, I hurled myself through the air, kicking and punching gaping holes in the walls as I obliterated all evidence of my betrayal.

  When I at last stood upright and wiped the sweat from my brow, Elise was staring at me. She didn’t look frightened; no, she looked impressed. I was a little impressed myself.

  “Tell me what Nyoka wants from me.”

  “He wants to mate with you, to create a new breed of Nephilim, but you have to be willing to conceive. He has his enchantress working on some kind of new incantation to break your bond with Eli and tie you to him. That’s what Eli told us, anyway. There isn’t anything about that in the prophecy, as far as I know, so I’m not so sure about the facts.”

  So everyone in the compound knew about me and who I was supposed to be except me. This was ridiculous.

  I howled with laughter until it turned into hysterics. I hunched over, resting my hands on my knees. This was insane. I could hear Elise snickering on the couch. She always seemed to find my reactions to extreme situations funny.

  “Oh… my… God,” I got out between giggles. “Isn’t it ironic? No one ever wanted me before, and now I’m on top of everyone’s list. Shit.” All of this pain and laughter had made me hungry; I needed food. I stood up and walked into the kitchen. “You hungry?”

  “Yeah, what do we have?” Elise followed me and sat on a wooden stool beside the island.

  “Well, we have some food I took from the compound.” I opened the freezer. “Some leftover ice cream from a little over a month ago. Oh, I know…” I went to the pantry. “Yes! Jackpot!” I turned to Elise and presented my findings: a bottle of tequila and a bag of Doritos. “What do you say we get shit-faced?”

  A smirk appeared on her lips. “I’d say hell-to-the-freaking-yeah!”

  Chapter 9

  I woke up suddenly aware of someone coming from outside. I nudged Elise with my foot; she had fallen asleep on the floor with Dorito crumbs all over her face and shirt.

  “What is it?” she grumbled as she rolled onto her side.

  I leaned down so that I could speak more softly. “Someone’s outside.”

  She jumped up, fully awake. I crept to the front door and stood to the side of it, listening. I was amazed how much I could ascertain about the intruder with my new acute hearing. It was an untrained male who was giving away his presence. He wasn’t even trying to be quiet. I unsheathed one of my daggers then motioned for Elise to move into the kitchen and sit behind the island. I didn’t know what this male had in the way of weapons, but I didn’t want to take any chances with a stray bullet or knife striking her.

  I heard the creak of the front steps as they gave under his weight which gave me further information about the man. He had to be about two hundred and fifty pounds and well within my ability to take down easily. I waited, calming my heart rate and seeking my flame. Once I had found the part of myself that was ready, waiting to be summoned, I felt exhilarated. When the door cracked open, I swung around it and snatched the intruder by the neck, flinging him to the floor, and pushing my blade to his throat. It was a move I practiced countless times with Torch until it had become second nature.

  “Anna?” Dan croaked. I released the blade immediately and sat next to him on the floor.


  “Are you hurt? I didn’t know it was you.” I helped him sit up as I examined his neck. I nicked him, but it wasn’t bad.

  “I’m just dandy. Your sister called me when she found your note on her fridge. I checked your house, and then decided to take a chance and see if you were here.” He rubbed his hand across his neck.

  “Dammit, Anna, I was worried sick. It’s been over a month since you left with that freak.”

  I stood up and turned on the lamp next to the sofa, remembering that Elise was in the kitchen, I glanced towards it. She was sitting at the island, eating another bag of Doritos and watching us with interest.

  “I have a severe case of the munchies,” she uttered around a mouthful chips. “I’ll just take this upstairs and give you guys a little privacy.” She hopped off the stool and started up the steps.

  Dan stood behind me. “Who the hell is she?”

  “That’s Elise, she’s my…”

  “Best friend,” Elise interrupted as she tossed a smile over her shoulder. “Pleased to meetcha, Dan.” Then she sauntered up the rest of the stairs. I guess she didn’t think it was a nifty idea to fill Dan in on the specifics of our relationship.

  “Oh, wow! I call dibs on this room.” I heard a door shut.

  “Yeah, she’s my best friend.”

  “Since when did she become your best friend? I know everyone you know and I’ve certainly never met her before.”

  I shrugged and picked up my bottle of water from the floor, gulping it down. He began eyeing me suspiciously. However, just then, he noticed the mess I made by the fireplace and all the smashed up walls. “What happened here?”

  “I’m redecorating. Getting rid of the stuff I don’t need anymore.”

  I watched him walk up to the wall and run his hands over where the pictures had been. He bent over and picked up the broken image of Joe and me then held it up.

  “This was taken on your wedding day. You were so happy in this picture. Why would you do this? You need happy memories to hold onto.”