Covenant of the Reborn

by T. E. Joshua

  “Tristan, stop it! You’re hurting me,” Natalie hollered. I heard her sobbing, her face turned toward my shoes.

  I held the blade on her neck. There was a small line of blood flowing downward from the wound. All I needed was a little more pressure to slice completely through her neck.

  “You can do this,” I uttered darkly.

  Two seconds passed.

  “Please stop!” she cried.

  Three more seconds passed. She should have been dead by now.

  “Tristan, why are you doing this? I thought we were friends,” Natalie wailed.

  What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I kill her? The Awakened Reborn was within my grasp to behead. This hesitation should never have occurred. The same feeling of pity I’d had for the small boy in Woodland swarmed my heart. Then his face entered my mind—his innocent expression and the burning of his flesh. I killed him! I murdered a child!

  I dropped my sword of fire. It fell near her head, her blood on the edge of the blade.

  “I can’t do this,” I said lowly, thinking that my clan would come for me or finish the job. The demon within was at bay. My dark energy had decreased. I had failed.

  She stood. For a second, I thought she would run away in terror. But she didn’t. Natalie grabbed her neck and a small drop of blood covered her fingers. She seemed to gaze upon it in wonder.

  “You should go. I’m sorry for what I have done to you. I’m … not a good person. Leave, now,” I said as I began to walk backward. I didn’t sense my clan coming, but I wanted her to escape before they discovered my betrayal in letting her go.

  “It was you,” she said.

  “Just leave!” I shouted. I didn’t understand. If she had been any other Reborn—or human, for that matter—she would have run for her life. It was only logical that she leave before I would change my mind. “Natalie, go before its too late.”

  She shook her head. “After all this time, I knew it was you. You’re the boy with fire, the one from my bedroom. You were sent to kill me, weren’t you?”

  Then an energy signal, dark, zapped through my body. I could feel James’s dema approaching from the woods. He wasn’t running, but he paced his steps. I twisted back to see him. There he was, wielding his dual blades. His dark figure walked from across the field toward Leroy’s Place.

  There were only a few seconds before he would be close enough to see us. Natalie needed to leave now, or else he would do what I couldn’t.

  “Tristan, I—”

  “There is no time. You have to leave at once.”

  My instincts knew she wasn’t going to leave soon. I didn’t know why. Any normal person with a little sense would have already fled and called the police. She wasn’t scared of me, nor did she seem to care much about the wound on the back of her neck.

  “Tristan!” James hollered from afar, his voice echoing across the field.

  I saw three more figures come out of the woods. Liyah, Aaron, and Alope walked side by side, not far behind James.

  I had no choice. If Natalie was going to walk away from this night, then I would have to lead her away.

  Without warning, I quickly picked up my sword and put it back into its sheath. Then I laid the weapon down for James to pick up. I couldn’t risk slaying her with it. There was no turning back. I grabbed Natalie’s arm and rushed her around the corner and into the parking lot. She willingly came along without much resistance. The two security guards saw us vanish in between the parked cars. They called out to us. I ignored them and kept moving.

  “What—where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “Away from here before you get killed,” I explained gruesomely. “Did you ride alone?”

  “No, I rode with my sisters,” she said.

  “Good, call or text message them that you are leaving. Don’t explain why. Just let them know.” Then I spotted my car parked behind James’s truck. Luckily for us, I had parked close to the exit.

  “Wait—what’s going on?”

  “No time to explain. Get in the car and shut up.”

  We got in and drove out of the parking lot. Before I exited Leroy’s Place, James and I made eye contact. He stood near the entrance of the building, near the two security guards. His expression was ghastly. He had seen Natalie with me. I didn’t want to think about what was going through his mind now. Yet he didn’t pursue us. I imagined he was more flabbergasted than worried about the beheading.

  Natalie and I drove off into the night, shielded by the tall trees and darkness.

  “The boy from that night—I knew you looked familiar,” she said. She must have figured out that I was the mysterious boy who had broken into her home and tried to kill her.

  “What boy?” I asked, pretending I knew nothing of that night.

  “You’re him. The Spirit of God told me that you would come back into my life. He warned me about you.”

  “Maybe you should have listened. Maybe you should have stayed away from me,” I said devilishly.

  “No, he never told me to stay away from you. He has been searching for you,” she said. What did that mean, searching for me? Why was the Spirit of the Reborns looking for me? I wanted nothing to do with him. My only concern now was to get Natalie to safety before my clan decided to chase after us.

  “Why is the Spirit looking for—” I halted from speaking. I felt it: the cold and dark existence of the Covenant, the awakening of a warrior, the curse and morbid existence of having dema powers. My eyes began to blacken as I desperately looked for a light source. The moonlight was the closest brightness besides my headlights. “No, no not now!”

  “Tristan, what is it?”

  “Natalie, it is … it is …” I stuttered. Something was wrong with my vocal cords. I couldn’t say anything more without uttering strange noises. The sudden impulse of dark rage entered my mind. Then it happened—the uncontrollable shaking and jerking of my arms tightening. I felt as if I had lost all of my energy from within, as if an internal illness was rising from my stomach. At that moment, I knew that the dark spirit desired to enter my body, to come into the physical world and execute the Awakened Reborn on my behalf. I should have known this would happen sooner or later. This only occurred during our refusal to kill a Reborn; unfortunately Natalie was within arm’s reach. The dark fever of being too close to her overwhelmed my sense of logic; the natural desire to dismember her stirred me up like a boiling pot of water.

  I rejected the dark spirit by holding my breath and concentrating on the road. Natalie, now frightened, spat out, “Your eyes are transforming into something demonic-like. They’re bloody red with snakelike slit pupils.” Possession was painful and unpleasant, and I began to scream for my life as a voice came out of me that was not my own. I had entered phrase one, the first pillar of awakening.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said back in anger. The rage from my blood started to settle inside as I drove deeper into the woods away from any witnesses. I had to keep my dema under control, lest I burn the entire woods of Blackfalls into ashes with the element of fire. If the demon took control then he would use the element of fire to burn everything to the ground. I kept Natalie’s gift, the black lighter with the white cross, in my pocket. Even without the lighter, the demon would have found a way to create and manipulate the fire. The flame could come from any object or matter that could generate friction and cause a spark to appear.

  I started to hit my dashboard in fury. Natalie distanced herself from the console as I made a dent next to my steering wheel. The rage to kill was so intense; I feared I wouldn’t be able to stop it. My skin burned—the second phase of awakening. Then I could feel my teeth sharpening into fine points. My muscles bulked as pain and anger dominated my mind.

  This was the third level of awakening.

  “No, no,” I muttered, trying to revert the possession. “I need to control my dema.”

  Finally we came upon civilization; there was a gas station just off of the road.

  I ordered
Natalie, “Get out of the car!” She unbuckled her seat belt and leaped out as soon as I parked next to the gas station. My voice was of demonic origin; it wanted death from my burning hands. I started to scream and panic, and I was surprised Natalie didn’t run away. She stood there, next to my car, watching my rage build up as the demon possessed this vessel of darkness.

  Then the smell of sweets and spices crawled inside me and irritated my nostrils, the ancient scent of the Reborn’s Spirit. It was ravishing and yet disturbing to my flesh. I wanted to vomit and burn her alive. No! I had to control my dema!

  I could feel additional limbs sprouting out below my arms. I seemed to be growing in size, maybe a few inches. Then my vision was blurred. Everything looked reddish, like I was looking through a piece of colored glass. I had entered the fourth pillar of awakening. Oh no! No! No! This can’t be happening!

  “Revert back! Revert back!” I exclaimed. But nothing happened. I looked her direction and she remained near my car. I yelled in a raspy voice, “Get away from me now!” She refused to listen as I stepped out. “I can’t kill her!”

  Instantly, the dark energy within gave up. I fell to the ground, my hands covering my ears, my face in the dirt. I yelled, “Leave me alone!” I realized it wasn’t just one dark spirit who desired to slaughter Natalie Schultz. Possession was evident as I struggled to fight them off as they whispered, “Kill. Kill. Kill.”

  In my vision of the night, I saw five of them: one was a hooded figure with yellowish eyes; another figure seemed to wear a hat; and the others were only vaguely visible. All of the dark spirits had ghostly, hollow bodies. The three shapeless entities looked like raging black beasts that gradually crawled toward me. I turned away, closing my eyes from imprinting their image into my mind.

  They spoke to me in an unknown language. I could only make out a few words: “Kill the Awakened Reborn. Natalie must die tonight. The Great Spirit and our lord god, Lucian, command you, Bodaway.”

  I pushed my face into the dirt to avoid eye contact with them; I lifted up my hand toward the woods. I had to let some dark energy go in order to escape from their spiritual hold. I shot out an energy wave. A ray of blue light exploded in the distance, destroying two trees. The ray of light lit up the night for a second and vanished. Nothing remained but the tree trunks and fallen logs. No more voices, no more rage, and no one was hurt. My blood temperature grew calm as my skin began to cool. Exhausted and sweaty were only the words to describe my body. I began to look around. For a moment, my vision was black and empty. Only my car remained near me. Natalie wasn’t in sight. It was over.

  “I almost awakened. I would have been a demon for sure. That was … painful,” I said, thinking no one was around.

  “What are you? Some kind of demonic humanoid?” a voice muttered, and Natalie appeared from the back of the gas station, scared stiff. Her skin was even paler than before.

  “I am fine now,” I muttered as I stood to my feet. My teeth felt normal. I looked at my arms. The boiling of my skin had vanished. No new limbs sprouted out. Then my vision refocused; the blurriness had diminished and I know longer saw as though through red lenses. I could no longer see the demons, nor did I want to.

  “I almost lost it. I almost awakened,” I repeated.

  “Awakened? You mean transformed? Into what?” she questioned. She began to approach me with caution as I rested on the ground for a moment, catching my breath.

  The clerk who worked at the gas station walked around the corner. He had a shotgun with him, and he was prepared to use it.

  “What’s going on here?” he questioned as he pumped the barrel.

  “Everything is fine, sir,” Natalie answered.

  He kept his pose and said, “Good. I want you two to leave now.”

  “We will, sir,” Natalie answered respectfully.

  She placed her arm around my shoulder. He turned back around and went about his business. From my peripheral, I saw the clerk watch as Natalie helped me walk back to the driver’s seat.

  The sweat consumed my entire body, almost like I had run through a sprinkler.

  Possession by a multitude of dark spirits was quite painful, about as much as transforming into an animal or a massive beast. Only a few of the warriors had such abilities. I didn’t. But all first-class and elite warriors had the ability to awaken into a demon-like creature that transcended Naiche warriors. They were called Awakened Warriors and were quite impossible to kill, much like the Awakened Reborns.

  Naiche spies, shape-shifters, roamed Red Valley to keep tourists and government officials from lurking around the valley and discovering the village. They also assisted other clans on hunts.

  I sat down in the driver’s seat. My body continued to ache as I tried to pull on my seat belt; she rushed around to the other side and got in through my passenger side door. I attempted to start my ignition as she began to ask questions.

  “Now that you’re feeling better, what just happened?” Natalie asked. As soon as she finished her sentence, I started the car. “I trust you can drive, right?”

  “Yeah, I can drive.”

  “Tristan, are you ill?”

  “It almost happened. I … I … couldn’t control myself for a moment. I could have killed you earlier, but I didn’t. Then—”

  “You held a sword to my neck, and then you dragged me away from Leroy’s Place. Next you seemed like something was trying to possess your body,” she said.

  “Yes, it was the dark spirits.”

  “Dark spirits?”

  “The Reborn religion may call them demons, but to us, they are spirits who reside in darkness. They are our source of power. It’s a long story. We have to get you to safety before the others find and kill you.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me earlier?”

  “I couldn’t say. I’m confused. We have to get you away from here.”

  “No, tell me?”

  “They want to kill you. You’re marked for beheading! It’s not safe here,” I said gruesomely. I pulled out of the gas station and accelerated down the road.

  “Why? What did I do to them? I don’t even know who they are.”

  “You don’t have to. Our god, Lucian, wants you dead.” suddenly my throat became dry. “I need water,” I demanded.

  Natalie pulled a water bottle from her purse and handed it to me. I immediately consumed every last drop as I entered the city limits of Blackfalls from the countryside. The liquid calmed me down even more and kept my nerves stable. It was the only way I could keep from hurting her. Water or anything cold calmed us warriors down from a possession. The Spirit Whispers never explained why.

  “I am rushing you home,” I said.

  Suddenly, small doses of dark energy roared from within again. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and I felt my eyes flared with fire. The car swerved from one lane to another as I fought to control my dema.

  “Tristan, let me help you,” Natalie pleaded. She leaned over to help me steer, placing her hands on mine. Another dose of rage erupted from my being as I yelled at her, “No, don’t do that!” My tone was evil and wicked. She grew frightened and pressed herself against the other side of the car, glaring at me in fear.

  Luckily, Natalie’s neighborhood wasn’t too far away from the city limits. I recalled the exact neighborhood as I charged my car down the service road.

  “There is my neighborhood, Cobblestone Manor,” Natalie said as I veered into the compound. The security offices were empty, but the gate happened to be halfway opened. I dashed through the gate and accelerated toward Wisteria Drive.

  “Are you insane? You could get us both killed if you don’t slow down.”

  “Shut up.”

  Seconds later we arrived in front of Schultz Manor. I parked my car on the road and began to breathe slowly. My dark energy eased; I had control over it at last. Sweat poured down my nose and dripped from my hair. The nightmare was over, for now.

  “By the way, you can’t help me. Now get out and le
ave. Pack your bags and get out of town. I’ll try to convince my people not to pursue you,” I said.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “What was your first clue?”

  “Tell me why you didn’t kill me back at Leroy’s Place. Was that what our friendship was based upon … a lie.”

  “Kind of,” I said, not paying much attention to the subject matter.

  “What are you?” Natalie demanded, locking the passenger side door. She crossed her pale arms and had a serious expression. This girl was determined to find out before she left.

  “Something you never want to cross. You don’t want to know. Just leave before I change my mind about you.”

  Yet she pondered as her stare seemed to last forever. Her different-colored eyes were ravishing, like those of an angel. We locked eyes. With each passing second, I seemed to care for her more. “Why aren’t you leaving? You’ve seen what I might become if you stay with me a bit longer.”

  She remained quiet, continuing to glare into my devilish eyes of deceit. “Because the Spirit of the Lord told me to befriend you so I obeyed. Yet I don’t understand why. Hopefully I will soon.” Then she slowly opened the passenger side door, stepped out, and closed it. The window was down. “Good-bye, Tristan Lakota. And thank you for saving my life tonight.” Then there was a small pause. “Will I see you again?”

  “Don’t count on it. Get away from Blackfalls,” I warned and then stepped on the gas pedal. I watched her grow smaller by the second in my rearview mirror. The Awakened Reborn stood at the end of her driveway, watching as I disappeared from the neighborhood.

  Once I was in the clear, I tried to pick up James’s dema signal. I felt the dark energy of the others, but not his. They were heading back to the house of Eis Lakota. I darted back there, thinking of an explanation. Should I lie? They couldn’t bear to know the truth of the matter—that I actually liked her, but as a person. I don’t believe it’s anything romantic.

  Story one: I could tell my clan that Natalie played a mind trick on me using her Awakened powers. They wouldn’t know the difference. We still didn’t know what they were fully capable of doing, so making up a story couldn’t hurt. Or I could say she forced me take her away or else she would kill me with her light energy. Wait, that didn’t make much sense. If she could kill me, then she would have been able to easily kill the others. I’d go with the first story. It sounded more plausible.