Divine Blood (Vampire Love Story #6) (9 page)

We arrived at the Deity’s
property, and drove our way to the back where the barracks were.
The Deity never knew when I was coming and the only reason why I
knew she still lived here was that Sion kept in touch with the
compound.

I asked Lena to wait in
the rental car with the boys until I checked things out. The
Deity’s new property in Nevada was a lot safer than the one in
Mexico. I told Lena that I wanted to go down and prepare the Deity
for the family and not just spring it on her without a briefing
first.

Lena agreed and stayed
with the boys. She didn’t seem too pleased with the plan, but
didn’t make a fuss either. I could read her, though. Lena did not
like being put on the back burner, not for any reason.

I was immediately
recognized by the staff and welcomed. Once again, I was led down
the maze in the bunker by one of her security staff. In Mexico, her
security had had their guns out in the open, in holsters. That
wouldn’t fly in the United States, nor was it necessary. As a
country, we were done living like the Old West, with hats as tall
as buckets and bravado on our hips. Her security detail had their
guns, to be sure, but they were concealed carries, and each
security detail was carrying multiple guns. It was very
sophisticated and matter-of-fact security, rather than “in your
face” weapons details.

I was once again led to
the very back of the bunker. We could go no farther. This time, the
door was closed and reluctantly, I stood there, not knowing what to
do. Did I knock? Was that polite? I looked at the guard and he
solved my dilemma by knocking for me.

I heard the Deity’s voice
from the inside, “Open the door, I am up.”

I slowly opened the door
and the Deity was once again sitting in her rocking chair. I’m
certain it was the one she had all the way back in Mexico. I
guessed it was still her favorite chair.

“
Josiah Reign, is that
you? I had a dream you would visit and here you are.”

“
You always know, your
Holiness, whenever I’m coming. I’m pretty sure the Triat informs
you any way they can.”

“
It doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes, I can just feel it and others, I see it in a dream. I’ll
tell you this much. I know you’re not alone. You brought your whole
family.”

“
Well, your dream was
pretty accurate. They are waiting above ground to come down and
speak to you.”

“
Your boys are twelve?
Correct?”

“
Yes.”

“
And you don’t feel
talking to me would be too heavy for them?”

“
No. It’s
time.”

“
How much do you want them
to know?” she asked.

“
Jason already knows
things in his weird supernatural way. I want him to hear it from
you.”

“
Can I ask you a question,
Josiah? Is this the real reason? Or is it that you want to hear me
speak to him so you can have a better idea of how to save him from
his prophesied destiny?”

“
It’s everything.
Regardless, we all need to know how to move on from here. We keep
hitting these roadblocks in our relationships with each
other.”

She warned, “I disagree on
informing Jason that he will be martyred. He’s just a
twelve-year-old boy. Even for him, that absolute direct knowledge
would be too much for him to bear.”

“
What do you suggest?” I
asked.

“
We tell both boys that
one of them will someday save his people.”

“
But leave out the
details?” I asked.

“
Yes.”

“
When Jason was five, he
mentioned to me that he was saving mankind.”

“
He just might be. That’s
why this is critical. He can’t run and get scared. He needs to
think he’s in this with his brother and he will be able to handle
it.”

“
What about poor Joshua?
How am I going to tell a kid that he might be martyred when I know
for a fact that it isn’t in his destiny?”

“
Do you? Joshua is going
to become an amazing Mani.”

“
If I allow
it.”

“
You will. When the time
comes you will see the value in it for everybody...especially for
Joshua.”

“
We’ll see about that. I
have to decide what is best for Joshua, Mani or Tandra. But, let me
get this straight. We plan on telling them everything they need to
know, except which one is actually martyred. We leave that a
mystery. That sounds pretty morbid. In fact, it’s cruel and
dishonest at a certain level.”

“
You were the one who
brought the boys to me when they were twelve. Who is the morbid
one?” Oh, a conflict! That was about as feisty as I’ve seen the
Deity get and I liked it.

After a short lull in our
conversation while I gathered my thoughts, she said, “Bring them to
me.”

I wasn’t too sure about
her strategy of only telling the boys part of their destiny, so I
reluctantly agreed to go get Lena and the boys and have them meet
with the Deity. My entire family went down into the bunkers and
walked down the hallway to see the Deity. The door was already open
and the four of us entered her room.

My boys both seemed
nervous and I wanted them both to relax.

“
Boys,” the Deity said.
“You are twelve, correct?”

Both boys nodded. I
motioned for the whole family to sit on the floor next to the
Deity.

The Deity allowed us all
to get settled and then she said, “My first question is for the two
boys.” She continued, “You have known things about yourself, your
parents, and where you live that wasn’t quite right, but in the
beginning, you didn’t question anything because you were
children.”

The boys paid close
attention.

She paused. “But you are
no longer children anymore. You’re growing into two very capable
young men.”

Again, both boys
nodded.

“
You can speak, Jason and
Joshua. This is a safe place,” Lena said.

“
Now, you’re here,” the
Deity said, “because things are happening and you want to explore
more of the things about your family that makes it unique. Why
don’t you tell me some of the things that are so
unexplainable?”

I looked at the Deity. She
needed to hear it in their own words, from their own
lips.

I looked at Joshua, who
was, by far, the more outgoing of the two boys and I nodded my
head. “Tell her every freaky story, if she wants to hear them,” I
said, smiling.

“
What should we tell?”
asked Joshua. “There are so many.”

“
How about the top three,
just to start?” the Deity said.

I said, “Remember that
time when we were at Uncle Tommy’s and it was evening and you boys
were about five? You decided to climb as high as you could in that
eucalyptus tree in Tommy’s backyard?”

The Deity then nodded at
the boys after my cue. Then Joshua began to tell his version of a
couple of bizarre stories, starting with that one.

Joshua continued the
story. “You see, I got to the top of the tree, but there was
nowhere to go.”

“
Where were you?” the
Deity said, angling her head at me, though she was blind. I knew
what she was getting at. She knew full well that I could have just
flown up there and grabbed him before he hit the ground.

“
I was in the yard, but it
happened so fast that by the time I they both fell, it was too
late.”

“
Too late?” the Deity
asked the boys, turning her head toward them.

“
My brother, Jason,
climbed the tree as fast as he could and moved his way toward me.
He reached for my hand, but once our hands touched, we both
fell.”

“
Is that what happened? Is
that how you two fell? I never knew that,” I said.

“
You fell? How far?” the
Deity asked.

“
Thirty feet,” Lena said,
as if she was the one who had lived through it.

The Deity looked at the
boys. “Well, you’re here now, and you obviously lived.”

“
I don’t think one of us
would have lived if it wasn’t for the other.”

The Deity said,
“Josiah?”

I explained, “You see,
Jason didn’t have a scratch on him and Joshua was an absolute mess,
coughing up blood. No one knew the extent of his
injuries.”

“
And...” the Deity
asked.

“
I told Jason to heal his
brother.”

“
Jason, what did you do?”
she asked gently.

“
I placed my hands on his
chest and I concentrated on his body being pure and healed
and...”

“
And what?” the Deity
asked. She wanted to hear it from Jason.

“
I healed him.”

“
How did that make you
feel?” the Deity asked. “You were really young. Do you remember how
you felt?”

“
Scared. I was
scared.”

I looked at Jason and had
no idea that he felt that way. He had never told me.

“
What scared you about
healing your brother?” the Deity asked.

“
That so much power was
coming out of me,” Jason said. “I could feel it and I didn’t
understand it.”

“
Do you understand it, now
that you’re twelve?” the Deity asked.

“
I understand it a lot
better. You see, when I heal, I see things in my head. It doesn’t
matter if they’re humans or animals. I can see their lives. I see
what they will become after I heal them.”

I was stunned.

“
Did that happen when you
healed your brother?” the Deity asked, “that you saw his life from
that point forward?”

“
Yes. That was the first
time it happened.”

“
What did you
see?”

I held my breath. Even I
was afraid to ask my son this question.

Jason paused and said, “He
will do great things.”

What did that mean? I
looked at Lena and she looked at me with the same look of puzzled
curiosity—Jason’s cryptic answers were sometimes worse than the
Deity’s.

I decided to speak up. “I
wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do to ask Jason to heal
his brother at such a young age.” I said to the Deity. “I knew I
was risking a lot giving a five year old the knowledge that he had
that kind of power, but I was out of options. When you are out of
options, the truth will set you free, isn’t that right?”

The Deity looked at me and
said, “It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing you
could do. One son was dying and the other saved him.
Beautiful.”

The Deity then focused
back on the two boys. “When you hit the ground, both of you, what
did it feel like, falling on the ground from so high
up?”

“
I don’t remember,” Jason
said. “My dad was there, making sure we were okay. It happened
really fast.”

Then Joshua spoke up. “I
remember for a split second, it felt like I could fly. I remember
liking that part. I just didn’t like the part where I landed on the
ground. Boom!”

“
When your brother healed
you, what did it feel like?” the Deity asked Joshua.

“
It was a long time ago,”
Joshua said. “What I remember is feeling a lot of pain, then
suddenly it was gone...like magic. I suspected my brother had
something to do with my pain going away.”

“
Why?”

“
Because he was glowing,”
Joshua said. “His face, his body, everything. Glowing.”

The Deity looked at me and
asked. “Do you remember Jason glowing?”

“
No,” I said. “I was
hyperaware of everything that was happening. I would definitely
remember if my son looked like an angel in the process. It was just
him in his five-year-old skin. A little boy.”

“
Then what Joshua
experienced was only a personal experience,” the Deity said. “That
is common in healings, that only the person who is healed can see
the healer at a core level, for who he is. Everyone else will see
what they want to see, which is an ordinary little boy.”

Lena and I exchanged
stunned glances.

The Deity paused. Then
after a moment, she said to my entire family, “So, what is the
reason that all of you are here together?”

Lena spoke up, which
surprised me. “We’re here because this family carries the burden of
the Mani people and it weighs heavy on us. My boys and my husband
and I need guidance, as a family unit.”

“
Well said. What do you
need, sweet child?” the Deity asked Lena.

“
I need guidance, peace of
mind, and a belief that all of this isn’t for nothing.”

“
That is quite a menu,
sweetheart. I’m not sure if you’re going to get all those answers
today. A couple of those questions, I think in the end, only you
can answer. But I assure you, we are all proud of you, raising
these two boys along with Josiah. Please understand that your role
as mother isn’t diminished here. It’s as important as any cog in
your family dynamic. Some would even argue that the role of the
mother is the most important. I tend to agree with that. You are
indispensable in the family unit.”