Fire Prophet (Son of Angels) (9 page)
Camilla let them take in the room for a few minutes.
“Okay, enough gazing at the walls, students,” she finally said, standing in the center of the room. “You can come have a seat at these tables.”
After they had been seated, she continued, “We thought this would be the ideal setting to begin our studies together. Here we will hone our skills. Your minds will be sharpened, your gifts will be stretched and encouraged, and if you give yourself fully to the process of learning, you will become a better quarterling and a better servant of Elohim.”
She paced around the tables as she spoke, hands behind her back.
“Angel School has begun,” she announced. “And for our first order of business, I would like to introduce you to your instructors.”
I
mmediately, three people walked through a doorway across the room and marched toward the students. They quietly stood in front of them in a line.
“Marcus and Taryn!” Eliza whispered to Jonah, pointing to the large, muscular angel standing on the end and the angel beside him with the brilliant shock of red hair.
Jonah nodded. Next to them stood another angel, holding a large, dusty book at his side. He didn’t appear to Jonah to be a warrior angel. He was a couple of heads shorter than Marcus, and slight and thin. He had dark brown skin and a rather skinny neck, which made his gray robe appear to be too large on him.
Camilla stood beside the three angels. “Our classes will be divided into three categories—Angelic Combat, Scriptural Studies, and the Spiritual Arts. Marcus and Taryn will be teaching Angelic Combat.” Some of the boys nudged one another and smiled. “They are warrior class angels of the highest caliber.
You will learn how to use the gifts you’ve been given to fight and defend yourself. You will find none better than they to provide you with this instruction.” The angels bowed their heads slightly as she walked in front of them.
“Your Scriptural Studies instructor will be Samuel.” The third angel nodded thoughtfully at the students. “There is no finer scholar of the Scriptures than he. From him your knowledge of the Bible will be sharpened, and he will help you discover its endless treasures, as well as its uses in the battle against the dark forces.”
Some of the quarterlings, including Frederick, looked less excited about this. But Jonah was curious. His knowledge of the Bible was not the best, and he wondered how he would fare in this class. Eliza nodded along enthusiastically, of course.
“And there is one more instructor who will be joining us,” Camilla said. “I should let you know that he is human.”
Jonah and Eliza glanced at one another. How was that supposed to work?
“You will meet him before the night is over. We didn’t feel it prudent or safe for him to be here right now, considering his inability to enter the hidden realm. Plus”—she laughed—“he wouldn’t be able to see you right now, would he? You will have to emerge from the realm for his class. His name is Reverend Bashir, and he is deeply gifted in this subject. He will be teaching the Spiritual Arts.”
Jeremiah looked at the others and slowly raised his hand. “I had language arts in school last year. Is it kind of like that?”
“Actually, Jeremiah, spiritual arts do involve language arts in a way. They are the often-overlooked weapons in the battle,” Camilla replied. “It is another realm of knowledge and practice. More subtle, yes, but just as effective. Prayer, scriptural
meditation, fasting, to name a few. There are many ways humans can enter the battle. And since you are mostly human,” she said, looking each quarterling in the eye, “it is important you learn the spiritual arts.
“Now,” Camilla continued, clasping her hands together. “On to the task of grouping you.”
She pulled out a huge leather-bound book with a golden clasp and placed it on the table in the center of the room. In her hand she held a key, which she inserted into a small hole, then turned. The book opened itself.
“Ladies first,” she announced. “Eliza, step forward.”
Eliza adjusted her glasses and moved toward the table, watching Camilla for further instruction.
The angel pointed her finger to a passage. Jonah saw Eliza smile slightly, as if she recognized it, and she began to read.
“‘Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’”
Then Camilla pointed her to a passage from the book of Romans about spiritual gifts.
When Eliza looked up, Jonah could see Camilla lock eyes with his sister. The angel was looking for something, and Jonah couldn’t help but think that she was actually searching behind Eliza’s eyes.
Then the angel began to pray, but in a foreign language. Jonah somehow knew immediately that she was speaking in the angelic tongue. The beautiful, mysterious words rolled from her mouth as she continued to search.
When she was finally finished, she nodded, smiled at Eliza, said, “Very interesting,” and made notes in another smaller book made of the same worn leather.
Eliza seemed to shake herself from the daze she was in, and then turned to rejoin the others, rubbing her eye with the palm of her hand.
One by one Camilla called the girls up and had them read the passages, and then she prayed, again peering at each one closely. The boys followed. Jonah read the same words aloud and tried to peek at her notebook, but all he saw were scribbles on the page.
She stared at him longer than the others, with a mysterious gaze that Jonah couldn’t decipher. A flash of darkness came across the deep blue orbs gazing at him, and a chill shuddered along his spine.
She said nothing, but finally began to scribble furiously in her notebook.
“What did you see?” he asked, eyeing her book. But she didn’t speak to him, or even look up, as she continued to write. Instead, she addressed all of the quarterlings.
“You have all just participated in a gift grouping: a way for Elohim to reveal to me the gifts He has given to you. That way, we can place you in the appropriate group.”
Rupert waved his hand in the air. “Well, what are the gifts, then? I for one would like to know.” Some of the other kids nodded their heads as well.
“Patience, dear Rupert.” She smiled. “Elohim reveals your
gifts to you when He deems necessary. It is not for the angels to reveal all of His purposes.”
Camilla looked at her notes and began splitting the kids up according to what she’d written. The first group went with Samuel down to the other side of the reading room. They sat at a table in the corner. It was so far away that Jonah couldn’t have heard them if he’d wanted to.
The second group went with Camilla out of the room and into a hallway. Apparently there was another classroom where the Spiritual Arts would be taught.
Jonah, Eliza, and Jeremiah were all in different groups. Frederick was selected to join Jonah’s group.
Just my luck
, Jonah thought. Also joining Jonah was his roommate, David, Lania from Australia, and Hai Ling, the Chinese quarterling who still looked less than thrilled to be there. Jonah tried to quickly analyze the groups. They must be grouped together by gifts . . . but what were those gifts, exactly?
Marcus and Taryn began pushing tables against the walls of the reading room. A rectangular space was cleared out in the middle. Jonah figured it was as wide—and almost as long—as the basketball court in their school gym back in Peacefield. At one end, they positioned two tables up on their sides. Marcus pulled two pieces of paper out from his belt. He unfolded two bull’s-eye images and tacked them onto each of the table bottoms.
“This is no ordinary paper,” he said as the quarterlings watched him. “When your arrow hits this, it will stick, not just dissolve away.”
Taryn nodded. “This will be our combat practice area every time we are together. Elohim has made it clear to us that you need to be able to protect yourself, so the first gift many of you will
discover is a weapon to be used in combat. One of the gifts you all share is angelic archery. Some of you have experience with this.” She gave Jonah a knowing smile. Frederick noticed this and rolled his eyes. “Have any of the rest of you had any archery practice?”
Frederick and Lania raised their hands.
“Marcus, why don’t you take those three? I’ll work with our beginners, David and Hai Ling.”
She took David and Hai Ling over to the side and began to instruct them on how to pull out an arrow. David was eager, but Hai Ling stood listening with her arms folded. At Taryn’s insistence, she finally reached back over her shoulder and pulled out a white flaming arrow. She looked at it, seeming almost surprised that she could actually pull an angel arrow out of thin air and hold it in her hand. Before she knew it, a bow had appeared in her left hand.
Marcus stood with Jonah and Frederick. “All right, let’s see what you boys have.”
Frederick stepped up. “Let me go first,” he said, and abruptly pulled an arrow off his back. He grinned as his bow appeared in his other hand. “Cool!”
“Very well,” Marcus said, motioning him forward with his arm. “We will start here.” He pointed down to a line in the floor formed by a crack.
Frederick stood at the mark, pulled his arrow back, and fired.
The arrow pierced the red center of the bull’s-eye on the paper and stuck there. He smiled smugly, glancing back at Jonah.
“Excellent!” Marcus said, clearly impressed. “You’ve had some practice.”
Frederick nodded. “It’s no big deal. We bow hunt at my parents’ compound all the time. ”
“Jonah?” said Marcus. “Why don’t you give it a go?”
Jonah doubted Frederick had more experience, at least at shooting angel arrows, than he did. Confidently, he pulled an arrow off his back and put his toe up beside the mark. The bow appeared in his left hand, and he took aim and fired.
The arrow flew wildly off to the left, careening into a bookshelf and disintegrating.
“Hmm,” said Marcus. “Try to focus a little more on the target, Jonah.”
Jonah didn’t turn around, but he could hear Frederick snickering behind him. He quickly pulled another arrow and fired. It only ended up a little better this time, hitting the top right corner of the target.
“Better,” said the angel. “But you clearly need more practice.” And he began to instruct Jonah in the finer points of holding a bow, how to aim, and releasing it at the proper time. He was full of advice and instruction, and while Jonah tried to listen and take it in, he could feel Frederick behind him.
Probably still laughing
, he thought. He had more experience fighting fallen angels than all of the other quarterlings combined—except Eliza, of course—yet here he was, getting a basic lesson on how to hold a bow and shoot an arrow.
What made it worse was that when it was Lania’s turn, she strode up and fired her arrow right into the red center of the bull’s-eye too. She shrugged and said nothing.
“Nice work, Lania,” said Marcus. “Looks like you’re a natural.”
She blushed, looking down at her sneakers. “Thanks.”
For the next hour, they practiced. Frederick continued to either hit or come close to the bull’s-eye at every turn, earning the admiration of Marcus. Lania was not quite as accurate, but almost. Jonah was turning out to be the worst. He wondered
where the touch he seemed to have last year, in the real battle, had gone. He struggled to even hit the target, finding the wall three more times.
Exasperated, he was glad when, mercifully, Camilla announced that it was time to switch classes.
“I’m sure you’ll do better next time, Stone,” Frederick said, patting him hard on the shoulder. Jonah quickly pushed his arm off and sighed loudly. Maybe this was not going to be as easy as he thought.
Staring at this big book in front of him in Samuel’s class, Jonah couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated.
This class might not be so easy either.