Covenant of the Reborn

by T. E. Joshua

  “We’re almost there,” Alope said.

  Then, in that moment, I sensed him using the element of water. I couldn’t see why—hopefully he wasn’t trying to drown Natalie or use the blood within her veins to make her body explode into hundreds of pieces. He was known for killing Reborns in such ghastly fashions, hence the nickname “Water-Rippling Eis.”

  I saw her—a vision of her dying. I pictured my best friend turning Natalie’s car over by pushing it into a ditch; her scrambling to get away while he grabbed his weapons; her saying, “Please don’t,” as he hissed; one of his blades piercing into her heart; blood dripping down the cold steel as he grinned with some sort of satisfaction; then a swift cut through her neck with his other blade; her head falling to the ground; and, finally, James standing above her dead body and hollering in victory.

  “It’s just a job,” he would say before destroying the rest of her body with a quick blast of dark energy.

  “No!” I yelled out. Alope looked at me with concern as we drew closer to Natalie’s car. I sensed him hiding in the tree line along side of the road. There was no time.

  My eyes shifted. My body boiled. My skin tightened and my veins popped out as I allowed my demon power to be unleashed to 50 percent capacity, the third level of awakening. My energy skyrocketed with raw power. I zoomed ahead of Alope, leaving her behind in a flash. I had to get there before my vision came true.

  Within a minute, I saw a road sign that read Local Traffic Only in the middle of the street. He must have set the sign up to prevent anyone from witnessing the attack. Then I saw her car passing by the sign as she pressed onward to her neighborhood, not knowing what was about to happen.

  A jolt of dark energy entered my body as I sensed James summoning up his power. He blasted a ray of energy from the tree line. Natalie’s car was blown over as it rolled twice onto the other end of the street. A cloud of smoke covered the vehicle. There was precious little time before he would go in for the kill. My vision would soon become reality.

  “Stop!” I hollered. I could be there in five seconds.

  James leapt from the tree line holding his dual blades. Then Aaron and Liyah appeared on the opposite side near Natalie’s car. They both had released a heavy amount of their dema, maybe 30 percent.

  Four seconds.

  Together, they quickly surrounded her car, each of them summoning up energy from their palms.

  Three seconds.

  I unleashed more dema, and the beast within came out as I increased my speed with over 75 percent power, pressing into the fourth level of awakening. My human mind began to slip away as I sacrificed my humanity for additional power and a chance to save her.

  Two seconds.

  James pried open the driver side door and pulled Natalie’s wounded body out of the car. I saw blood on her shoulder and the side of her head.

  I had one second till he killed her. James pushed her against the crumbled fiberglass and began to strike her in the heart with one of his blades.

  Then it actually happened. I charged right into him. He dropped both of his blades as we both smashed into the ground. I recovered first. I lit a ball of fire from my lighter. He tried to run toward Natalie, who was still dazed and bleeding.

  “Back off!” I yelled to Aaron and Liyah, who both stood in preparation to attack me. They haven’t seen a warrior raise more than 30 percent of their demon energy because of the dangerous influence. I had no additional limbs, and my height had barely increased. I could awaken if I didn’t revert back to normality soon. I had to make this quick.

  I then turned to Natalie and said, “Don’t be afraid of my hideous deformity. I will protect you.”

  “Tristan?” she asked. She seemed to be in pain but not frightened.

  “Yes, Natalie. It is I.”

  “What’s going on? Who are these people?” she asked, backing up.

  I didn’t answer her. James stood to his feet. He eyes had turned yellow with snakelike slits for pupils. His face boiled as smoke rose from his jacket. I knew he had never pushed his dema pass 30 percent; he might today.

  “What are you doing?” James roared with great displeasure.

  “Get away from her! Right now!” I ordered my voice was raspy. The demon spoke out.

  “Don’t unleash too much demon energy—you might awaken!” Liyah warned from behind me. I ignored her.

  I stared James down. He had planned to kill Natalie before Alope or I arrived. He knew I wouldn’t have helped, and he was right.

  “Well, I figured you would back out. If you don’t revert back then you could lose yourself, Tristan,” he said as he dabbed at his mouth. He had a cut on his lower lip.

  “What’s this?” he asked, pointing his finger at us. Natalie had backed away several feet by now. I followed.

  I noticed Aaron sneaking around my peripheral to attack her. “I said back off!” I yelled at him. Then I sensed Liyah and Aaron’s dema decreasing. They were powering down. They knew they wouldn’t be able to take me on if they attacked, even in a group. I was the number nine warrior, and no one in the single digits should ever be crossed.

  “Why are you protecting the one we are supposed to kill?” James questioned.

  By that time, Alope had arrived. She stood in the middle of the street.

  “Answer the goddamn question, Bodaway!” he shouted.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You got a thing for this Awakened Reborn?”

  I turned to Natalie and whispered, “Follow me.” We needed to leave before things escalated to four against one, though I knew Alope wouldn’t fight me.

  We walked backward as I held the ball of fire in my right hand and shielded Natalie with my left hand.

  “Tristan, you can’t. She’s not one of us,” Alope pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, Alope. I have to do this.”

  “Where are you going to go to hide? You can’t escape us. Don’t do this, Tristan,” James said. He almost seemed to be begging. “We can figure this out. But get out of the way and let us do our job. You don’t have to do it … but I will.”

  “No! You can’t have her. She doesn’t deserve this—not from me, you, or anyone else,” I said vehemently. My dema had begun to decrease. I could feel my body reverting back to normality. I was down to 50 percent. James had calmed down as well. His skin stopped burning, but his eyes remained the same.

  “Step aside,” he ordered.

  I refused as Natalie and I began to walk backward. Then James put his blades back into the black sheaths. He took three steps toward us and extended his hand out—and then I sensed it. He had summoned up a dose of energy and aimed the ball of light at me. “I’m not going to tell you again, Bodaway.”

  He took several more steps with his hand extended outward.

  “Come on, Bodaway. Don’t protect someone who is going to get you killed.”

  As soon as he finished saying those words, I appeared before him and slugged him in his right cheek. I put enough force into my swing to knock him back into the street. James’s long black hair flowed around his face. He had a gash on the side of his head. My clan ran to assist him. Because of his pride, James immediately leapt to his feet and rushed back at me at full speed, ready to fight back. Once again I sensed his dema increase.

  “Tristan, what the—” Alope said.

  “You stay the hell out of this,” I interrupted harshly. Alope shut up. I could tell her feelings were hurt; she was about to cry.

  James again grabbed one of his dual blades and prepared to attack me. Regardless of my violent tone to shut her up, Alope jumped in between the two of us. He quickly stopped his attack, having nearly struck Alope from the back.

  “Alope, get the hell out of the way,” James hollered as smoke seeped from his undershirt.

  “No, I won’t allow the two of you to fight. We aren’t supposed to use our abilities against each other,” she reminded him, hoping he would listen.

  “This is the exception,” he s
aid. Then he wiped the blood from his mouth and added, “You son of a bitch!”

  “James, leave it alone,” I ordered and whispered back to Natalie, “Keep walking.”

  “There’s no turning back, Tristan,” he uttered as he licked his bloody lip. “You’re choosing her over us. We’re family. We have been friends since we were kids. We played together.”

  “You don’t know her … and we aren’t killing her. I’m not killing her,” I said balefully as my final words to James.

  I then looked at Alope and said sorry, shook my head, and walked away with Natalie next to me. Her car was left turned over and smoking.

  “You’re a making big mistake, Tristan!” James yelled.

  “Not today,” I muttered. He probably heard me.

  The two of us vanished over the hill. My clan didn’t pursue us. I knew everyone was in shock, especially James. He would never forgive me for what I did. The Awakened Reborn—Natalie—didn’t deserve this. Neither did the hundreds of Reborns I had executed over the past three years didn’t deserved the deaths I’d delivered to them. This decision would surely bring about my demise.

  Then a cold hand laid itself upon my shoulder, and the force of it completely kept me from walking any farther. I believed it was James, wanting to finish the argument or possibly fight me for Natalie’s life. I turned. To my astonishment, it was Alope. She held onto me, her face covered in tears. The stream of sadness flowed down her light brown face from both of her beautiful hazel eyes. I sincerely felt horrible as I laid my eyes upon her; I had hurt Alope’s feelings with the tone of my voice and the betrayal of our affection.

  She begged, “Please, Tristan, don’t leave us. I didn’t mean for it to end this way.”

  “I am sorry I yelled at you, Alope, but I can’t live like this anymore. I don’t want this life. I’m finished,” I said softly as I caressed her soft cheeks, wiping the tears away with my right hand.

  Then I let her go. My dema vanished. I was calm. Alope was heartbroken but at least Natalie was still alive. I wrapped my arm around Natalie and walked away, leaving Alope to continue to sob. She watched the two of us disappear down the road.

  As the sun began to fade below the trees, Natalie kept quiet. I had to ask, “Are you okay? Do you have any major injuries?”

  Her light skin sparkled with life. Her blue and green eyes glistened, darkening in the shadows of the evening. She had a bright smile, the ends of her lips raised on each of her white cheeks. She flinched as I tightened my arm around her.

  Then she finally answered, “No. So that was them? The ones you warned me about?”

  “Yeah, you were targeted for execution by our elders, the Spirit Whispers, medicine men who communicate with dark entities to give us orders. We were sent to Blackfalls to hunt and behead you,” I said.

  “To behead me, that’s insane. Why?”

  “We don’t necessarily know or are ever told the reason behind the executions. We simply obey orders from our superiors. For whatever reason, you had become a threat to Lucian, our god. Our god told my father to have you beheaded by us, the Lakota clan.”

  Then Natalie fell to the ground along side of the road. She began to vomit. Puke flowed out of her mouth and landed in a pile near my feet. I imagined she was disgusted by the truth of my words, the horror of the reality once bestowed to all of my victims.

  “I knew it. I learned of such stories from the Spirit of the Reborns, the voice of life. He gave me dreams of discernment and …”

  She stopped speaking and looked up at me. I kneeled down beside her and asked, “Dreams of what?”

  “Discernment and of you and the ones who follow you.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Away from here,” I uttered as we continued to walk back into town.

  I thought about it. I believed now was the time to show her what I was and the demon within. It needed to be secluded, in an area of comfort and serenity. There was one place I had in mind: the old pond on the outskirts of Blackfalls, the place near the house of Eis Lakota, the place called Covington Hillside—a sacred place that Uncle Eis treasured as holy to our people. They wouldn’t find us there, not in our own backyard.

  It was the place where I had envisioned my life after killing Natalie—a life of no end. Every day would continue to be the same until the moment I would have to kill my own father and take his place as our people’s leader, to become the number one warrior of the Covenant, to be the master of all five elements and the leader of the Naiche tribe. I didn’t want that for myself. That life was simpler than normal, but there was no turning back from it.

  “You’ll see—don’t be afraid,” I uttered.

  “Don’t be afraid of what?”

  “Of this,” I muttered and grabbed her by the hand. I yanked her toward me and used my dema to levitate us above the ground. We began to float. Soon our feet were well above the top of the woods.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Oh my god,” Natalie yelled. “Put me down!”

  I tightened my grip around her waist and whispered, “Do you trust me?”

  Natalie hesitantly glared at me and finally muttered, “Yes … yes, I do.”

  “Then close your eyes for the next ten seconds,” I ordered.

  Suddenly, a cloud of black smoked covered us. The dark spirits warped our bodies to another location. Natalie and I ended up at the old pond with a stone bridge covered in green vines. She immediately released herself from me. She shivered and looked around.

  “What just happened?”

  “We were transported here. I commanded the dark spirits to do so.”

  “You mean the demons?

  “They’re demonic in nature, but the Reborns may know them as demons, fallen angels of your god.”

  “Demons don’t listen to humans,” Natalie argued back with suspicion.

  “Reborn or not, they listen to me. I am their master of the Covenant and the element of fire.”

  “The Spirit of the Reborns protects me from evil. The two can’t coexist in a human being.”

  “You possess the Spirit of the Reborns, and I possess the dark angels of the Covenant.”

  Suddenly, it became chilly. The clouds covered the sun’s presence, but it was still humid. The trees had a mildly foggy mist, kind of like in a horror movie but without the suspense in the atmosphere. The mist moved as if it had a mind, covering the riverside and keeping low to the tree trunks. The area was deserted, and no one would be around to hear her scream for help if I decided to kill her. No! I shouldn’t think such repulsive thoughts. I had to keep my mind clear of hate and murder. I began to breathe slowly as I watched her deepen herself in the brush ahead. The green aura of colors lay on each leaf. The barks of the trees were rough; I took gradual steps to keep up with her. She seemed distant and tense.

  As soon as had I gotten close enough, Natalie came to a complete stop before the riverbank. The vibrations of the smooth liquid floated from underneath the nearby bridge. It was tranquil. Crystal clear waters streamed toward us; it was like the river was all around us. Bubbling popping, the water was natural music to my ears. I called it the river of life.

  Then I heard a deep whisper from Natalie, but I couldn’t understand what she was uttering. The Awakened Reborn held on to her silver cross necklace, a bloody crucifix, reciting a prayer of some sort. It was different, almost like she spoke in an abnormal kind of tongue that some of my previous victims had prayed in before I slaughtered them. My father had warned me about such nonsense. I believed she was praying in tongues. To be quite honest, I felt awkward hearing the rambles of her mouth.

  “Father God, please protect me from this evil. I can’t do this. I know you want me to but I can’t.… I can’t.…” Natalie prayed as gibberish spilled out of her mouth.

  I had to ask. “What are you doing?” I kept some distance from her with my guard up. Some Reborns gain power from praying in tongues, at least in my experience. But who knew
what sort of abilities an Awakened Reborn could acquire?

  “Praying that you won’t hurt me,” Natalie responded coldly.

  “I am not going to hurt you. Trust me. If I wanted you dead, then I would have beheaded you last night or allowed James to kill you a few moments ago.”

  Natalie paused and turned to me, her angelic, pale face saddened with horror. “You’re a murderer just like the rest of them.” She paused for a moment and continued, “After last night, I thought about your freak episode in the car and your drastic change whenever you got too close to me. You’re one of them, the group of tribal people that have the snake eyes. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I confessed. I wouldn’t hide my true nature anymore. She knew who I was. She had seen my deformity when I had saved her life from James’s ruthless attack.

  “The fire manipulation, the demon possession, the paranormal abilities and strange rays of light—it all makes sense now,” Natalie said as she wrapped her hands around the silver cross and then said, “I know who you are.”

  “Who am I?” I questioned as I breathed down her pale, fragile neck. Goose bumps formed on her skin, and she shivered from the evil of my presence.

  “Who am I?” I exclaimed. Natalie lightly jumped.

  “Y-you …” she stuttered. “You are Bodaway, the fire maker … the one who kills. I saw you in my dreams. You came to kill me but never did. I always woke up before you tried to cut my neck.”

  “What do we hate?” I asked demonically.

  “Reborns,” Natalie answered coldly.

  “Why do we kill them?”

  Natalie Schultz paused, taking a deep breath. She started praying again in tongues. I waited as my chin touched her pale neck. She continued to shiver and answered, “Because … we are a threat to your people and way of life, and more importantly to the conversion of all mankind and the Covenant.”

  “Your people took the lives of my ancestors. They forced assimilation on us and dared to Christianize and trample our religion. We—hate—you,” I explained in a harsh tone. “You couldn’t get that information from the Internet. How do you know about the Covenant?”