Life After: The Complete Series

by Julie Hall

  “Get back in the garage,” I yelled, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me.

  I wanted to wake up from my personal nightmare, but it just got worse as my brother stepped out of the relative safety of the house to meet her. The fog skirted him in a five-foot radius, but I was too concerned with the whole situation to find much comfort in one small victory.

  The garage couldn’t really protect them from the demons, but they’d at least remained out of view. There was no hiding them from the enemy now. I stood in front of them with my eyes on the battle they were unable to see.

  “What?” Mom asked in a shaky voice. I cast a furtive glance in her direction. The fog ran over her body like dark veins of poison. It was repulsive to watch, yet I couldn’t look away.

  “We haven’t prayed, Mom.” James’s voice trembled, as if he sensed the evil surrounding them that he couldn’t possibly see.

  A glimmer of hope blossomed in my chest.

  “I don’t know that I can right now,” Mom said.

  My gaze bounced from the danger in the yard to the drama unfolding behind me. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “Then I will.” Looking like a soldier going to battle, James stepped forward to take my mother’s hands in his own. The darkness clinging to her hands fled on contact. He gave her an assured nod before reverently tipping his head down. I only caught the words “Dear Lord” before my mom’s sobs drowned the rest of his prayer out.

  I looked on in awe as my little brother started to glow. As he spoke, his arms came around my mother in comfort, and the sickening darkness that had clung to her like a parasite ran from the light he was projecting and dripped from her body like blood.

  Within a few short minutes she was free of the evil influence, and a ring of at least five feet around them had been cleared.

  But the hope blossoming in my chest was swept away when my gaze drifted to the battle. Demons suddenly jerked their bodies in my direction, and as one, the horde charged.

  I gripped my sword and crouched into a defensive stance. We’d finally run out of time. They were coming for them.

  They were coming for us all.

  21

  Legions

  BOOM!

  The explosion swept the yard with a deafening roar. When I looked back at that moment, I would always remember the grotesque face of the demon who managed to scrape me with its claws from chin to temple before the lot of them were blasted away from us. The image of its face, void of eyes with two off-center slashes acting as what I assumed were nostrils, burned into my memory forever.

  From behind me, light detonated like a land mine, tossing demons in every direction. It blew the hair escaping my tight braid forward, but otherwise left me unscathed. The demons shook themselves off and ran at us again. I didn’t dare sneak a glance over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what the explosion had been exactly, but it didn’t keep them from coming at us again.

  I braced myself for the attack when the first demon exploded to ash in front of me. I flinched and took a step back when the same thing happened to the second and third. I watched with morbid fascination as demons, one after the other, connected with something invisible and ashed much like they did when I delivered a deathblow with my sword.

  Several dozen had heedlessly run to their own demise before the swarm finally retreated, leaving a diameter of at least fifteen feet clear of my family and myself in every direction. Their anger-filled shrieks left no doubt as to their feelings about their forced withdrawal. I watched a few more minutes to be certain they weren’t getting any closer before I focused on my family again.

  Sometime during the commotion my father had joined his wife and son. But the three of them weren’t alone.

  Hugo?

  My mentor stood with his arms extended around my family, his head bowed and mouth moved with silent words even as James spoke out loud. My brain could not process what he was doing here.

  As if I watched a tennis match—rather than being immersed in a battle with evil—for the umpteenth time that evening my attention was wrenched in another direction when a shock wave nearly knocked me over.

  Lights dropped from the sky like shooting stars. Their impact didn’t physically shake the ground, but each collision sent a tremor of life-giving electricity through the earth and up into my body.

  From all around, demons let out agony-filled shrieks as their limbs seized and convulsed. Scurrying away from the lights their twitchy movements were grotesquely similar to dying spiders.

  Blinking through the tears created by the blinding lights, I began to distinguish forms.

  “Angels,” I whispered.

  Within moments, the angels created a hedge with their bodies around my parents’ home, standing side by side along the property line where the barrier had once been. Any demon dumb enough to try to break through was dispatched immediately, their broken bodies flung out into the street. It didn’t take the creatures long to figure out that wasn’t a good option.

  More angels dropped into the battle zone where the enemy still fought the exhausted hunters. They formed rings around the hunters, finally giving them a cessation from fighting. Angels fell from the sky in a steady stream and fought the demons littered throughout the neighborhood and down the street.

  “A legion.”

  “Huh?” I needed to stop using that word so much. I twisted around and found Kevin—battered, bruised, and covered in both his own and demon blood, but still standing. One of his arms hung at an unnatural angle. His eyes were fixed on the miracle unfolding in front of us.

  “It’s a full legion of angels,” he said. Later I would find out what a legion was, but for now I assumed it was a lot. Like a lot a lot. Their brightness dimmed after they descended to Earth, but their sheer numbers bathed the area in much-needed light.

  My attention snapped to the rooftop Satan had descended upon. There was no sign of him anymore, in dragon form or otherwise.

  At some point he had fled with his followers. I was glad he was gone, yet a knot of trepidation for the future still remained.

  I turned back to my parents and James. Hugo was still with them. The slight glow that had started when James began to pray had turned into a brilliant white light, bright enough I shouldn’t have been able to even look at it.

  But for some reason I could.

  My family was pressed together in a football huddle, each member touching the other in some way. Hugo’s arms embraced both my mother and brother, and his hand extended to my father’s shoulder as well. I startled when looking at my brother. He was covered in ghostlike armor, reflecting the light around him but still transparent enough to reveal his plain clothes underneath. The arms touching him went right through it, settling on his person rather than the bulky encasement. Straps of what might have been leather crisscrossed over his favorite pair of worn converse sneakers, which looked to have grown spikes out of the bottom. The effect was a cross between a sandal and a soccer cleat, if soccer cleats had razor-sharp spikes.

  I took stock of the rest of him. The translucent armor also included a fitted plate across his chest, a belt around his waist with a sword hanging from it, and a helmet that not only covered his head but his cheeks as well. And finally, a large rectangular shield rested on the ground, propped up against his back, reaching almost his full height.

  I stared dumbfounded at the vision in front of me. Perhaps someday the unexpected wouldn’t throw me so much.

  Today was obviously not that day.

  My brother’s voice finally broke through my shock. He thanked the Lord for being with our family, for protecting them, for loving them despite their weaknesses.

  When did my little brother get so wise?

  My eyes shifted to my mother. Her posture had transformed. Her head remained bowed as she quietly soaked in James’s words, but her shoulders were no longer sagged or rolled forward. The arms encircling her husband and son no longer shook in fear, but were solid and resolute. Tear tracks still ran down
her face, but her eyes were dry. And most importantly, the grotesque wisps of demon fog had completely left her. My mother was no longer defeated.

  She stood victorious.

  Without realizing it, I moved closer to them, deeper into the light. When I was close enough to reach out and touch them, I stopped.

  Without looking up, Hugo grasped my wrist and placed it on my brother’s back.

  My hand landed on James’s ghostlike armor rather than passing through like the others. It was warm to the touch. I took in a sharp breath of air. I was used to the strange power Hugo’s touch brought, but being connected to my brother, was a hundred times more intense—as if currents of it flowed between each family member.

  This was truly supernatural. The evidence shown on each of my loved ones’ faces.

  Gone were the terror and panic I’d witnessed earlier. In their place was a deep-seated well of peace.

  My brother finished his prayer with a soft-spoken amen. My parents looked at him with matching smiles on their faces.

  “We needed that, son,” my father said.

  Mom nodded her agreement. She opened her mouth to say something—and right then her phone rang. She answered it immediately, watching Dad’s face as she listened to whoever was on the line. I let my arm drop to my side as I turned my attention to Hugo, whose arm stayed wrapped around my mother.

  “When did you get here?” I asked.

  “I’ve always been here.”

  I lifted my brows. “Where?”

  He smiled at me, and his eyes trained on something over my shoulder. I turned to see the yard—heck the neighborhood—cleared of demons and their manufactured fog.

  Glowing angels were everywhere, all bent on one knee with heads bowed and right arms crossed over their chests. The hunters who were conscious took up a similar posture. Kevin knelt off to my side, but his eyes were large as he glanced back and forth between Hugo and me, silently trying to tell me something.

  “What am I missing this time?” I asked.

  “Something rather big, I’m afraid,” Hugo answered with a chuckle. “But we’ll talk soon so you understand.”

  “He’s at Memorial General. They’ve stabilized him.” Mom’s voice cut off our short conversation. “They said we could come and be with him.”

  “Any news on the family in the other car?”

  Mom shook her head. Sad, but not panicked like before. “We’re not family, so they won’t release any personal information to us. We’ll just have to wait to find out.” She reached out and took my brother’s hand. “And pray for them, too.” The tears glistening in her eyes this time were full of pride.

  “Let’s go now,” Dad said as he rounded the front of their car. Mom and James followed suit and opened the car doors to settle themselves inside. The semitransparent armor my brother wore never faded.

  “Are they going to be all right?” I asked Hugo. With all the angels in the vicinity, my family’s home was now a veritable fortress, but they were about to leave it.

  “They’ll be fine now, Audrey. This battle has been won. I’m leaving this legion of angels to watch over them until Satan moves on.”

  At the reminder, I jerked my gaze in the direction of where I’d last seen the angel of darkness overseeing his forces from a neighbor’s roof. It remained cleared of his presence. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, but I could suddenly breathe again. “Really?”

  “Yes. Watch.” He tilted his chin toward the car slowly backing out of the garage. A group of eight angels formed rank around the vehicle and took flight as it turned and traveled down the street. Occasionally their wings brushed because they flew so close to each other. The car was almost indiscernible in the middle of the warrior cluster.

  Someone whimpered to my left. Romona knelt on one knee like the others, but her attention was focused on the receding car and she had a fist pressed against her mouth to stop sounds from coming out. Silent tears streamed down her face.

  “Go,” Hugo said beside me. At first I didn’t know who he was talking to, but when Romona turned her hope-filled face toward him and answered, it was clear.

  “Truly?”

  “Yes. Go be with him now.”

  She bowed her head in reverence. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” She stood, and an angel swooped down and picked her up. They flew in the direction the car had disappeared.

  “Your Majesty?” I looked wide-eyed at Hugo.

  “Did I not once tell you I went by many names?”

  “Well, yeah, but I thought you just meant nicknames like Hugh, or H-man or something. ‘Your Majesty’ is a little . . . ah . . . loftier than I imagined.” The last sentence came out sounding like a question.

  Hugo chuckled. “Time to get you and your friends home. Then we’ll talk.”

  I gasped. Way too many things had happened to keep track of them all. I ran to Logan and Kaitlin, still unconscious from their wounds. Logan’s face was bruised, but the blow to the head when he’d been knocked backward probably kept him out cold.

  Kaitlin’s wounds were more visible. I hadn’t had the chance to inspect them before, but for her benefit, I was glad she was still unconscious.

  I fortified my stomach as I peeled back the tear in her body armor to survey the damage. It wasn’t pretty. The flesh around her shoulder had been almost completely ripped away. Bone and muscles were easily seen. She’d lost so much blood it practically soaked the ground around us.

  Her face was devoid of color except for her lips, which had a bluish hue rather than their usual red. Only the knowledge we couldn’t die kept me together, but even then, panic clawed at my insides at the extent of the damage to her shoulder and neck.

  These wounds were serious.

  “Is she going to be all right?” a softly accented voice whispered at my right.

  Morgan was down on a knee beside me, doing his own visual survey of Kaitlin’s wounds. The mystery of his appearance and assistance was still that—a mystery.

  I stared at him in confusion. “I think so. They should know how to help her in the healing center, right?” He probably knew more about this than I did.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.” His stony features couldn’t hide the concern written on his face. There had to be a story here somewhere.

  “It’s not too late, my son.”

  At the sound of Hugo’s voice, Morgan leapt to his feet, spun, and pulled his weapons—both of them—a sword in his right hand and a spiked mace at the end of a chain in the other.

  “I want nothing to do with you,” he spat at Hugo.

  Hugo’s face reflected deep sadness but not surprise at Morgan’s reaction. “Perhaps that won’t always be the case. Forsake your unrighteous thoughts and turn to me, and you will have mercy.”

  Morgan’s face reddened. He took in and expelled breath like a provoked bull. “Look at what you allowed today,” he practically growled at Hugo. “Why would I want anything to do with a God who stands idle while such evil attacks?”

  “Like a petulant child, you look to blame others for your poor choices.” Hugo’s voice boomed with authority.

  Oh snap! Morgan was a half second away from a verbal beat down.

  “Who are you to question my actions? My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. It’s only when you choose to surrender that you’ll be set free.”

  Why did his words sound familiar?

  After such wise counsel, I expected a look of disgust from Hugo, but his expression was filled with disappointment peppered with sadness, before he shook it off and turned his back on Morgan.

  “Be gone from this place, and do not return.”

  As if against his will, Morgan’s spine straightened and he sprinted from the property. The line of angels separated to let him through before closing ranks and obscuring him from view. In the back of my mind, I wondered why they let him go.
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br />   “That’s Hugo?” Kevin’s frantic whisper was a few octaves higher than his usual baritone voice.

  I turned to look at him. “Yeah?” Hugo was obviously more than just a part-time trainer.

  A nervous half-laugh burst out from him. “That’s no ordinary hunter you have for a mentor. You’ve been training with—”

  “I’d like to explain myself, if you don’t mind, Kevin.”

  Hugo had turned back around and approached us. Kevin’s eyes snapped up. “Yes, of course. Totally understand.” His head bobbed up and down like a bobble toy.

  Hugo smiled his thanks. “It’s time you all returned to the realm now.” He turned his gaze to the angels around us, and without a spoken command, the ones nearest the fallen hunters scooped them up. It was then I realized Kevin and I were the last ones standing—we were the only hunters still capable of standing.

  Brilliant wings snapped out before one mighty downward motion shot the angels into the air and out of view. When my eyes returned to the ground, they landed on a familiar imposing form.

  Gabriel’s eight-foot frame towered over the other angelic beings. He was dressed in white linen, with a thick belt of polished gold. From it hung his new sword. New, because the one I now carried had once been his. When I used it in an attack and it blazed to life for me and me alone, he had refused to take it back—something I didn’t appreciate at the time but was immensely glad for now.

  Gabriel’s bronze skin glowed as he made his way toward me. “My lady.” A smile spread on his face as he bowed.

  “Gabriel, you know that kind of talk makes me uncomfortable.” My grin was just as big.

  “Which is only part of the reason why I keep using it.”

  I rolled my eyes. When I’d first met him I’d been so intimidated by his stature I’d assumed he was incapable of humor. I’d been wrong.

  “May we?” Gabriel gestured toward the two unconscious bodies I was still unknowingly guarding.

  “Yeah, of course.” I scurried to get out of the way as Gabriel directed two formidable angels to collect Kaitlin and Logan.