by T. E. Joshua
As I crawled closer, I could smell something potent, almost like candles that were sweet in fragrance with a hint of a spice. It became more toxic the closer I crawled. I looked up and saw the name Natalie pinned above me. This was it. A swift beheading should be sufficient, I thought.
I figured she would have locked the door but tried to quietly turn the knob. It squeaked open and I peeked inside. There she was a blondish pale-faced teenager who was sound asleep and possibly dreaming happily. Too bad it all had to come to an end tonight.
I slowly pushed the door open and casually walked inside. The smell was now ravishingly strong. I began to hold my noise and breathe through my mouth. It aggravated my skin and burned my eyes as if I had peeled some wild onions. I recall my elders speaking about the scent of the Awakened ones. The aroma was a defense mechanism that irritated the warriors’ bodies. They believed it came from the tangible presence of the Spirit of the Reborns. To say the least, the scent was uninviting.
There I was, standing next to her bed and seconds away from beheading her. I took out my sword from its sheath and aimed the acute end into her forehead. I breathed in the aroma of sweets and spices steaming from her sleeping body like a white mist. I kneeled next to her, our faces inches apart.
As the acute end touched her forehead and began to sink into her pale skin, her eyes suddenly popped open. There was no shock from her—it was as if she had been expecting me. Her mouth slightly dropped and a few more seconds passed. There we were, both without a word to say as I held my end of the sword.
She had the eyes of an angel, the goddess of all my hunts, and I was bewildered by the antagonistic glare from her terrified expression. The letters KW were stitched into her pajamas. Then I saw one green and one blue iris as expected from my father’s instructions. This was her—the Awakened Reborn girl.
“Natalie Grace Schultz?” I asked darkly.
She remained silent as I held my death stare, but part of me couldn’t help but get lost within her eyes. They seemed to glow a light color I had never seen until now.
“Answer me!” I demanded. I extended the end of my sword deeper against her pale skin, nearly cutting it open. Then the thought hit me—she wasn’t threatened at all. She was just a simple, everyday Reborn girl who happened to be marked for death. If she was a force to be reckoned with then, she fooled me.
“It’s you,” she uttered.
“It’s you”? I mean, what did she mean by that? Could she have been expecting me to sneak into her bedroom and behead her before she had time to process the moment? I should have killed her a minute ago, but I stalled without knowing why. Something withheld me from going all the way and now pointing and penetrating her neck.
I released my grip of the sword and backed away, slowly giving her room to breathe.
“What do you mean ‘it’s you’?” I questioned. I held my demonic rage just in case the Awakened Reborn decided to fight back. I had to be ready for anything.
“He told me—that you would come for me,” she answered confidently. “He told me in my dreams.”
“What? Who is ‘he’?”
She smiled, and more of the scent crawled up my nostrils. For the moment, I resisted the urge to attack.
“God told me. He warned me in my dreams. He has been searching for you.”
The hunt for the Awakened Reborn girl went from a surety to a bombshell of a new direction. I had halted from beheading her and refocused my attention to the validity of her words. I began to grow flustered with wonder. She made me nervous in the little minute of our ghastly encounter, and yet I couldn’t explain why.
“Who is your god?” I asked in anger. I had to keep in mind that she could be playing mind games with me to keep from being murdered.
Before she could answer, I heard the sirens of several police cars nearby. I glanced out of her window and saw four officers rush from their vehicles and knock on the front door. I had no time. I needed to kill her now. I lifted up my sword and took a deep breath. She didn’t attempt to avoid the strike to her neck for a swift beheading.
“I’m sorry, Natalie,” I muttered and prepared to strike her neck.
Suddenly, the room filled with a bright light as I was thrown back into the wall, dropping my sword next to me. I landed on the floor and glanced up to see a whitish energy surrounding me. I shielded my eyes with my hands. I hollered. I was scared. Maybe this was her awakened power. I was helpless to move. The intense beams of mysterious light burned my skin and unleashed a bit more of the demon inside as I began to crawl from the bedside to the door. I needed to escape.
“Tristan,” a voice called out. Natalie vanished from my sight as a glorious beam of light appeared before me. I saw the feet of someone before my eyes—just the feet, nothing else.
“Tristan,” the voice called out again.
“I’m not Tristan. I am Bodaway,” I answered in reverence. I was frightened but felt a welcomed. The weight of the light forced me to keep my head down.
“From now on, you will be known as Tristan.”
“No!” I shrilled loudly as I rolled over and grabbed my sword. Then I heard who I presumed to be the police walking into the mansion as I struggled to summon up energy. The source of the light kept me from using dark energy. I had lost most of my strength and access to my demonic powers. I even tried to light a flame from my lighter, but again nothing. I was completely and utterly useless.
That is when I looked upon the Awakened Reborn girl out of my peripheral vision. She glowed with white lights. She didn’t reflect anything but emanated something from within. The power overwhelmed me. It almost felt like a weight descending upon my body as it forced me to the ground.
Suddenly, the weight of the force vanished. I had to get out. It was the only way to survive. So I grabbed my sword from near the end of the bed and jumped out of the open window. I landed in front of the mansion, creating a small crater on the front lawn.
“Put your hands in the air!”
I was surrounded by police cars. Another officer approached me from behind his vehicle with his pistol drawn. He grabbed a pair of silver shiny handcuffs from his side.
I hissed as my blood boiled to kill. I resisted the urge.
Without thought, I darted as fast as I could due south and vanished into the woods.
3
The House of Eis Lakota
I ESCAPED. THE WOODS BECAME darker the farther I got from the Awakened Reborn girl. I dashed through the trees with scratches from thorn bushes on my face and razor-sharp twigs rubbing against my body. I emerged into a grassy field and fell to the ground. I must have been miles from the Schultz Manor, but I was overly exhausted. Her faith power had overshadowed my own. My energy was low.
I was beaten and defeated.
Surprisingly enough, I should have been dead from the exposure of her light energy. As legend had it, no Naiche warrior, with the exception of my father, had ever survived an encounter with an Awakened Reborn. I was the new exception. I was sure that I should have been obliterated by her white light.
As I lay in the open field with my back to the ground and my eyes to the stars, I began to daze out. I coughed and breathed slowly. There were dark spirits watching me from afar, some trying to give me their dark energy. The shadowy figures lurked in the woods as I called out for them to heal me.
“Help, help me, damn it.”
Perhaps the effects of the Awakened Reborn were still on my body. It was the Spirit of their Lord. He drained me of my dark energy.
“She … she is … too strong. What was I thinking, taking her on my own?”
Minutes later it was silent. I heard nothing but the chirping of the crickets and the rustling of leaves in the night wind. Then I sensed my clan approaching, their dark energy unhindered, unlike my own.
“Bodaway!” I heard James call out from a distance. He emerged from the
woods, and the others soon followed. The dark spirits remained still and continued to watch. I could feel my powers slowly being restored.
“I’m here!” I responded with a loud voice.
My clan swarmed and aided me. Alope placed her hands on my shoulders. She bent down to look me in the face. Judging from her worried reaction, she knew something wasn’t right.
“Well … did you kill her?” Aaron asked. His impatience was annoying.
I didn’t respond. I continued to look downward and wonder about the voice. It was good and pleasant. The weight of the entity had greatly overpowered me. The stories were true. The Awakened Reborns were much more powerful that I had realized. It appeared as if she hadn’t done anything, but the Reborn Spirit took control as the girl remained calm. I wondered if she saw the Spirit too. Not to mention she knew I was coming. Maybe her god spoke to her in her dreams.
“Did you or did you not kill her?” Aaron asked again with force.
“No! No, Aaron I didn’t kill her!” I answered in disgust.
“That’s not a surprise. If it were me, then I would have—”
I interrupted him. “You would have what Aaron? You weren’t there. She overpowered me. She knew we were coming.”
“What? How?” James asked.
“I—don’t—know.” Alope helped me up. “But she knew.”
Faint in the background police sirens wailed and dogs barked. Perhaps they were heading this way. We had to move quickly if we didn’t want to be spotted.
“This isn’t good, the police are coming,” Alope said fiercely. “We better move.”
“What about your father? Doesn’t he live near here?” I asked James, spitting out saliva.
James and Aaron glared at each other, both wondering if they were going to answer for one another. Aaron shook his head no. James then looked back at me and answered, “I believe so. He lives, I think, north of here.”
“I haven’t seen dad since last spring season,” Aaron mentioned.
“Well, you’ll to see him soon. We have to find his location, regroup, and plan. The police are approaching now. Let’s move.”
“Fine. Follow me,” James ordered. He was a bit hesitant about seeing his father. I never understood why. For as long as I could remember, he had been kind and understanding, not cruel and uptight like mine.
By now we could see the beams of light through the trees slowly approaching us. And hear the growls of the canines and the voices of policemen.
“I think he went this way!” an officer shouted as they rushed pass the tree line.
I brushed the grass off of me and looked to my direct north. I tried to sense Uncle Eis’s location. Nothing came into my senses. His dark energy wasn’t there. However, James knew of his whereabouts.
“What about our cars?” Liyah asked.
Then James took the keys to his truck and gave them to Aaron. He ordered Liyah and Aaron to retreat back to Cobblestone Manor and take the vehicles back to their father’s house. Aaron remembered the location. I gave Liyah my keys, not necessarily trusting Aaron with my muscle car. At once, they both ran west. I imagined they were going to circle around to Cobblestone Manor.
The canines then appeared in the field, and the moonlight revealed our whereabouts. Not that they needed to see us—they could easily smell us.
“Which way?” Alope asked James.
“We need to circle around east and then go north. Follow me,” he said.
Then we dashed back into the trees from the open field. James and Alope outran me; I told them to press on and not worry about my well-being.
Before I vanished within the darkness of the woods, I veered back and saw the vicious dogs darting toward me. They barked and revealed their teeth. The police officers trailed behind them, shining their flashlights in my direction.
“I see someone,” one officer yelled to another.
I took my silver-coated lighter out of my pocket and lit a spark. I manipulated the flame to surround my hand. It glowed and revealed my entire body as the fire grew bigger. The dogs seemed to halt in their pursuit. Watching the orange flame wave back and forth, I held out my hand and aimed the blaze toward the dogs with no intention of killing them. I wanted to scare them off.
I commanded the fire to exert from my hands, and the blaze swarmed the dogs. They cried and lowered their heads to the ground. As the fire lit up the field, I noticed there were three dogs. One of them dashed back. The other two stopped in fear and crouched below the layer of fire. The police officers shielded their faces with their hands and began to run back.
As they left, I eased the flames from the other two dogs. They ran back as I commanded the flames to vanish. Then I left the scene. I soon caught up with James and Alope. They were waiting on me near a dark pond a few miles northeast.
“What did you do?” Alope asked.
I snickered. Messing around with the dogs and policemen had been kind of fun in the moment. “I showed them my fire, and they got scared.”
“You would,” James said, amused. “Father’s house is across the pond, about a mile north of here.”
“Good, let’s go,” Alope said.
I glanced around the pond until the moonlight revealed its familiar qualities—Father had told me about this pond, a place of peace; he’d grown up here. There was a stone bridge on the other side, and a light mist hovered over the waters. It was called Covington Hillside and was a pond of hope. He told me that the pond was a sanctuary for those in need of healing. No one outside of the tribe knew about its location or its powers.
“Son, your Uncle’s Eis’s land in Blackfalls is where I grew up,” he’d explained. “There is a pond outside of his land with a bridge connecting it to a small local river. Fog always appears on top of the water like a mist. The pond has healing powers.”
He had told me that description once before, but I never knew why the place was so special. Who would have thought I would actually see the pond for myself?
As the others began to step into the water, James manipulated it to rise above the ground. The water served his will as it divided high in the air. Alope stepped into the muck and I followed.
“We could have just gone around,” Alope pointed out.
“Yeah, but I just wanted to use my element,” James said.
He followed us.
“Isn’t this the pond my father spoke about when we were younger?” I questioned, yet I knew it was. It had to be.
“Looks like it, the pond of hope?” Alope asked.
“Yeah, my father keeps it hidden from the Anglo world. No one should ever drink from it least they want to be healed of some type of sickness,” James said sternly.
Once we crossed the pond, James closed the gap, and the waters rested once more. Then we came upon an opening. We noticed a dark house far off in the distance. It looked abandon and old.
“There is it,” James whispered. There was no sign of Aaron or Liyah.
The house of Eis Lakota, the brother of my father, was a simple home with black shingles, white wooden boards, and a brick foundation. It was two stories high and a large field in the back, and a porch with a picnic table. I warned everyone to not step into a pile of dirt.
“Approach with caution, he is probably asleep. We don’t want to alarm him.”
Then we saw the headlights of James’s truck and my car pulling up to the property. Then the lights were turned off, and the vehicles became as black as the night and parked along the dirt road. We rushed over to them, keeping our dark energy low so that we wouldn’t be detected by anyone from the Covenant.
“Anything yet?” Aaron asked us as he stepped out of James’s truck.
“No, we just got here.”
“Dad must be asleep. It’s almost four o’clock in the morning.”
I was the first to approach the front of the hou
se. The windows had black iron bars nailed over them. There was a black cat prowling the lawn. Yet there was no light from inside.
Boom! I knocked on the front door. James peeked through the front window.
“He has to be home,” he said.
There was a long silence. It was too quiet.
“Should we come back?” Alope asked.
“No, maybe he leaves a window unlocked,” I said as I began to try to lift up the window without breaking it. I peered inside; there were no lights on. Nothing moved, not even the darkness.
“What are you doing? That’s breaking and entering!” Liyah lashed out.
“Since when do you follow the laws of these lands? We belong to the Covenant,” Aaron said as he began to help me.
“We can’t lift up the window without breaking the locks. We have to try another window or the back door,” I said as she leapt from the porch and walked around the corner. Alope dashed after me.
“We’ll stay here,” I heard James say.
“Wait up, Bodaway. I’m coming with you,” Alope said, placing her hand on my shoulder. We entered the backyard. There was an old Chevy pickup parked that I must have missed seeing earlier. I lit a fire with my Zippo. The light revealed that the screen door was open.
“Look,” she whispered. She pointed to the door. It appeared to have been broken into from the outside. The screen wiring was peeled back.
I killed the flame and cautiously walked up the back steps and peeked inside. Only blackness and the sound of nothing greeted me. I didn’t sense any energy but felt the creeps of someone watching me.
I walked a bit farther, disappearing among the shadows. Alope kept her hand on my shoulder. Then I heard a crackling sound coming from the stairs. I pushed her hand off of me and unsheathed my sword. I was preparing for the worst. Someone could have broken in and harmed my uncle. But they couldn’t have. He was the former number two warrior—a man never to be crossed.
