Embers (The Wings of War Book 1) (38 page)

“Preston, this is my Aunt Ila.” 

Ila crossed the kitchen and gave him a friendly hug, which he returned in earnest.

“Nice to meet you Aunt Ila.  I’ve heard a lot about you from Ember. I just wish…it were under different circumstances.” 

I stared.  “What’s going on—why did you come all the way up here?”

It was so quiet that I could hear my own heart drumming hard and fast in my chest. 

“Why don’t we sit on the porch kids?  We’ll talk out there.” Ila put a hand on each of us and guided us out the front door.

Angus greeted Preston by licking his hand. 

Preston said, “Hey buddy, you’re a big guy, aren’t you?” while he rubbed the dog’s head and chest. 

I knew Angus would like him, but it still irked me the way he hated Sawyer.  Dogs were supposed to have natural instincts about people.  Could I be so wrong about Sawyer?

I sat down in the closest rocker and Preston took the one next to me.  He casually reached over and grasped my hand, which raised Ila’s eyebrows for an instant before her face went blank again.

He was obviously disturbed.  It would be mean to chew him out for his forwardness, so I didn’t pull away.  A flashback of Sawyer’s extended hand appeared before me.  I sighed, wishing I could turn back the time.   

Preston faced me and said, “Where’d you go last night?  My mind is all fuzzy about it.  I remember that dark haired guy being with you and you left with him.  But for some reason…I don’t know, I wasn’t feeling right.  I just let you leave.” 

His eyes were troubled and I glanced away to see Ila’s face tight with annoyance.  I was spent from using the power the night before and I had quietly crept to my bed after Sawyer had left.  I hadn’t had the opportunity to speak with her about what had happened.  Ila was now making her own assumptions.

I thought quickly.  “Sawyer was hiking in the woods yesterday and he started feeling sick.  He saw me at the lake and asked if I’d give him a ride home.   I told you about it, but you weren’t feeling well either.  Don’t you remember?”

I hated to lie, but I had too. I couldn’t explain what really happened.  He’d think I was crazy.  Ila knew I wasn’t being honest, though, and her eyes turned to slits as she looked at me. 

“No, I don’t remember!  That’s what scared the shh…,” he smiled at Ila and corrected himself, “scared me so badly.  I thought you were dead too,” he said in an anguished voice.

I glanced at Ila again.  Her usually bright green eyes suddenly turned darker.  Her mouth tightened into a grim line.  My heart stopped beating altogether.

“What do you mean dead too?  What are you talking about, Preston?” I demanded.

He began tapping his foot on the porch floor in distress.  Panic overwhelmed me. 

When he finally spoke, it was with a rasp. “It was about midnight when I heard the screaming.  Everyone was running around and the puppy started yelping.  I didn’t know what to think. I got out of the truck and felt dizzy.  Somehow I stumbled over to where the screams were coming from,” he took a deep breath, “Oh God, Ember, it was awful.  Maddie and Randy had gone out into the woods to—well you know, and they tripped over something.”

His eyes were wild as they stared at nothing.  “It was Hannah.”  He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.  “But that wasn’t the worst of it.  Her body was…dried out, completely empty of anything.  Only her skin was there.”

“Ethan was a few feet away.  He was impaled on the branches of a tree, what was left of him anyway.  There was more yelling.  Wailing calls that sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” He placed his hands over his ears as if to block out the noise that only existed in his memories now.  He continued to talk with no emotion. “I left Maddie and Randy and stumbled out of the trees.  Cars were peeling away from the parking lot and a few people were walking around like they were in shock, I don’t know.  But CJ and Brianna were attacked, too.  Their bodies were found on the other side of the clearing.  The cops think it was some animal, a bear maybe…but I don’t know how an animal could have done that to them…”

His gaze searched mine.  “Now, do you understand why I came up here?  We all totally freaked out when we couldn’t find you. Maddie and Lindsey were in hysterics, but since your truck was gone, the cops figured you had left in the chaos.  Then I remembered that strange guy with you.  I wanted to come up here myself to check on you.”

Everything he had said was a jumble in my brain. 

Hannah, dead, her body empty.  Only skin… 

I couldn’t recall who Ethan was—maybe he was the guy that she was laughing with during the ball game, the one who’d finally pulled her out of her depression.  But CJ was in my English class…and Brianna sat beside me in Spanish.

Oh my God…
oh my God. 

My fingers dug into my face and I wanted to scream out. 
What had I done?
  I’d left them by the lake unprotected, knowing there were Demons in the woods. Evil, bloodthirsty monsters and I did nothing to warn them.

It was too much.  I fell to the floor, the tears coming in a fit of gulps.  Preston knelt beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” over and over. 

But it wasn’t okay. Hannah and three others were dead!  They must have been so scared. I remembered the icy fear that had gripped my heart when I’d peeked around Sawyer’s back at the Demons and I knew the creatures existed.  I had powers and I was still terrified. 

I failed Hannah.
  I failed them all.

At some point, Preston was pushed aside and Ila was holding me.  She murmured things in my ear that began to soothe me.  Slowly I came back to my senses. 

She brought cups of tea for me and Preston and we drank in silence.  The tea smelled sharp, but I didn’t taste it.  I could vaguely feel it working into my body, taking the emotion away, numbing me.

When I could finally speak, I asked Preston, “What are the police going to do?”

“They’ve already organized a group of hunters to go out and search for an aggressive bear. Don’t worry about it.  They’ll get the bear, even if they have to kill every single one on the mountain to find the right one.”

Anger washed over me.  I saw it in Ila’s eyes too. 
It was the Demons,
I wanted to scream out.  But I couldn’t say such a thing, and now a bunch of innocent bears were going to pay the price. 

Ila had said the Demons wouldn’t hunt around here, but they had.  They might start doing it all the time and then no one would be safe.  A vision appeared in my mind, clear as the night before, of the blonde Demon, her face twisted in fury and her gaze focused on me.  This was it—the beginning of the end.  Just like the priest had said, the apocalypse approaches.  I vaguely remembered reading something when I was younger about the dead rising and monsters walking the earth before the final judgment happened.  Back then, it was just the fanatical ravings of a lunatic to me.  But now I knew better. 

Maybe the message from the angel Eae was really meant to prepare me for a battle with the Demons.  I couldn’t know for sure, but it certainly looked like something was happening.  And what other good reason was there for me to have these crazy powers?

Suddenly, a strange calmness filled me.  I knew what Eae wanted me to do. 

I walked Preston silently to his truck, just as the rising sun began drying the dew from the grass.  I hardly noticed him though.  My mind was too busy making plans. 

Mark 13:27

And then shall He send His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven.

Ember ~ Thirty-Six

E
xcept for the day my parents died, the one after the bonfire was the worst of my life.  When Preston left, I went back to bed and stayed there until the next morning.  Ila had not pressed me to talk and I didn’t initiate any conversation with her either.  I didn’t want to give myself away.  If Ila knew what I planned, she would most certainly stop me. 

I went through the events of the entire fateful night over and over in my head.  I came to the conclusion that when I was frightened, I lost touch with the fire, making me as weak and helpless as a kitten.  When I was confident or even angry, the power came easily to me.  I couldn’t let fear take hold of me.  Somehow I had to learn how to fight it.  The best way I could think of was to take control of the situation.  I had to be the hunter rather than the hunted. 

If the world really was ending as Eae had said, life was likely to become very chaotic and dangerous for everyone.  I wasn’t going to stand around and ignore the fact that there were real monsters already living here who’d be thrilled with the downfall of humanity.  They’d surely take advantage of the situation and suck down as many souls as they could before it was all over. And now that the compound’s resident Demons were out of the closet, I was sure that more people would die.   

I certainly wasn’t going to watch it happen without a fight.   

Ila had expected me to want to stay home from school on Monday—she almost begged me to do so, saying that since I was rested, we needed to talk about what had happened.  It made perfect sense, but I told her that I needed to support my friends during the tragedy.  I promised that I’d sit down with her when I got home. 

In the end, with a shake of her head and a twitch to her frowning lips, she’d allowed me into my truck.  Now, as I bounced over the gravel and out of the valley, I worried that my wise mentor would know that I was up to something.  I hoped that whatever shielding Ila thought I possessed would somehow protect me from her own sharp senses.

I parked my truck on the Raven Branch Falls trail, careful to make sure that it was completely hidden in the dense brush.  I sat for a few minutes gathering the courage to begin by forcing the gruesome images of Hannah’s and the other kids’ mangled bodies into my mind.  It was the only way that I could step out of the truck and go through with my plan. 

The flames were still at bay, far enough away that if I stretched my senses I could feel the warmth, but not actually touch it.  As my heart raced, I let out a breath of frustration.  I closed my eyes again and searched my memories.

I pictured Hannah’s round, sad face.   Most of the time I’d known the pretty girl, it seemed that a misty cloud had surrounded her.  Her emotions had run so deep that it was difficult not to absorb some of her melancholy when she was near.  That’s probably why I’d avoided her most of the time. 

As a shard of light came through the leaves to land on my cheek, another memory came trickling in.  Hannah running through the green grass, her auburn curls bouncing on her shoulders as she laughed at the boy’s attempt to catch her.  It was the last time that I’d seen her. 

The flames came shooting into me and my insides surged to life.   That picture was what I’d needed.  Grabbing my backpack, I silently slid from the truck.  I ignored the pokes of the branches cutting into my arms and exhaled.  My heart quieted somewhat as I listened to the forest around me.  Happy whistles and bird chirps filled the morning air, but otherwise the forest was still. 

I crossed the road at a run and entered the woods on the other side.

With each step I took toward the compound, the forest sounds lessened until not a single bird whistled.  Even the breeze seemed afraid to stir, and there were no animals scurrying beneath the fallen leaves that I lightly jogged over. 

When I finally saw my destination, I stopped, ducking behind a tree trunk.  I moved just enough to clear one eye from its bark to gaze up at the weathered gray boards that jutted out of the earth. 

Seeing the wall up close sent a spasm through me and a rush of bile flooded up into my throat.  I bent down, clenching my arms around my midsection.  My stomach rolled and before I could stop it from happening, I threw up.   

I swallowed down the remnants of acidy liquid and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.  I felt a little better, but the fire was hiding from me again.  Stretching my mind, I tried to grasp the flames.  They danced away at my clumsy attempts.   The shaking of my body affected the steadiness of my thoughts.  The fire was waiting for me to get my act together.

Taking a deep breath, I once again pictured Hannah’s joyous face and sparkling eyes.  Then I shifted the image to her mutilated body lying in the leaves.  My closed eyes traveled over her torn, dried-out flesh.  They’d taken her soul—and everything else.   

The vision was enough.  Fire exploded within me.  My breathing was normal again and the beaded sweat on my skin evaporated.  My heart beats slowed.  I stood up and peeked around the tree. 

This time, nothing happened.   With the fire filling me, the wall that stretched through the trees was nothing but a bunch of boards and nails. 

Quickly I focused on the job ahead.  Using everything that Ila had taught me, I searched the forest with my mind to see what was out there. After I’d exhausted the search from the ground, I entered a crow.  His eyes showed me that the area outside the compound was clear.  That particular crow was now staying close by, swooping between nearby branches, waiting for me to enter it again.