Spirit Fighter (Son of Angels, Jonah Stone)

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Spirit Fighter (Son of Angels, Jonah Stone) Page 4

by Jerel Law


  He watched her whip back and forth around the kitchen, pouring tall glasses of milk, fixing plates. He had never noticed it before, but she was moving fast, almost in a blur. He had never thought this was out of the ordinary—at least, not before yesterday. Now, though . . .

  She glanced up at him and smiled. Maybe she can read minds too, he suddenly thought.

  Mom, can you hear me? He concentrated really hard, squinting and trying to push the thought in her direction. Mom, are you listening? Can you hear what I’m thinking?

  “Jonah, what are you doing?” said Jeremiah, giggling. “Your eyes are all scrunched up on your face!” And he started copying Jonah, which made Eliza burst out laughing and his dad chuckle.

  “Nothing!” Jonah said quickly, looking away from his mom. “There was just . . . something in my eye.”

  “The spaghetti’s delicious, dear,” Benjamin said. Eleanor smiled, leaning over to give him a kiss, which made Jonah roll his eyes and Jeremiah hold his nose.

  “Gross!” Eliza said, frowning. “Not at the table, Mom and Dad! It’s embarrassing.”

  Benjamin grinned at Eleanor, ignoring her comment. “How was school for everyone today?”

  “Great!” Jeremiah said, in between huge bites of meatball.

  Eliza’s eyes sparkled, and a devious smile curved on her lips. “Why don’t you ask Jonah? I heard he had a very eventful day today.”

  Benjamin raised his eyebrow toward his oldest son as he served himself another helping of noodles.

  Jonah glared at his sister. If only Eliza could read my mind right now . . .

  “What happened today, Jonah?” his mom asked as she sat down, tousling his hair.

  “Well, math class was okay; we have a lot of homework. I had a vocabulary test today, but it was easy,” he said carefully. “And, oh yeah, I almost forgot. After school there was this thing that happened with Zack and some guys, it was no big deal.”

  Eleanor sat up straighter. “Did they bother you, son? Were they picking on you again?”

  He wanted so badly to tell them how he rescued Freddie and laid the bullies out on the ground. But he knew his mom, and he knew it would only lead to her making a phone call to Zack’s mom, or worse, coming down to the school to talk to the principal.

  “Like I said, it was no big deal.” He tried to smile, gulping down his last bite of spaghetti at the same time. He wanted to change the subject. “Isn’t it my turn to take out the trash?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he hopped up from the table.

  “Jonah!” his mother said. “Plate, please!”

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said, spinning around and snagging his dish. He put it in the sink, grabbed the full garbage bag, and bolted out the door.

  FIVE

  IN THE SHADOWS

  Jonah carried the garbage bag outside, glad to escape any more conversation about his run-in earlier today. He might tell his dad later, when they were alone. But when his mom felt like her kids were threatened, she could get crazy. Which was the last thing he needed at school right now.

  He trudged around the corner of the house. The shadows had grown long and were about to fade away into night. Everything was that grayish color that happens just after sunset.

  He smelled it before he saw it. A pungent odor that was similar to the smell of rotting garbage, only much stronger.

  Jonah grabbed his nose. What is that smell?

  His eyes caught movement. There was something creeping along the side of the house, just behind the plastic garbage cans. In spite of the odor, he breathed in sharply.

  He could barely make out the outline of a person. Except he could tell that it wasn’t exactly a person. It was hunched over, with what looked like two humps on its back, crusty and shriveled. As if it had been thrust into a pit of flames, then yanked out just in time. Blacker than night, it moved along the side of the house, away from him.

  Jonah suddenly found it hard to breathe. He backed up and bumped against the side of the house, hitting a rake that was leaning up on the wall. It clattered to the ground.

  Jonah froze, pressing himself against the wall, hoping he could somehow make himself blend into the bricks. His heartbeat was as loud as a drum in his ears.

  The creature whipped around toward the noise. Its body was scaly and hard, as if it were covered by some cold, steel armor. Its face was twisted and angry. Sharp teeth protruded from its mouth. But its eyes were the scariest part.

  Yellow eyes.

  Yellow, and filled with hate.

  Jonah felt glued to the pavement as he sensed the dark creature probe the depths of his soul with one glance. Their eyes locked onto each other’s, neither of them looking away—Jonah in total fear, the creature with pure hatred.

  Suddenly, before Jonah’s eyes, the creature turned into a dusty black cloud, like a swarm of gnats.

  And then it slowly began to move toward him.

  It’s coming at me! What is this thing?

  Jonah didn’t want to wait to find out. He pushed himself off the wall and began to run. He didn’t have time to think of what to do next, or where to go. It didn’t matter. He just had to get away from here.

  His mountain bike was leaned up against the basketball goal in the driveway. Without looking back, he grabbed the bike, ran with it for a few steps, and then jumped on.

  Frantically, Jonah began to pedal. Turning left out of his driveway, he pressed down as hard as he could, not daring to look behind him. The bike shot forward along the neighborhood street. He passed by Mr. Johnson a few houses down, just getting home from work, but he was too focused on the road to notice him wave.

  Jonah felt it pursuing him. Whatever it was. He took rights and lefts through the tree-lined streets, and still he felt its dark presence. He pedaled faster.

  Glancing down at his feet, he saw a blur of motion. A car was moving down the road ahead of him, but he realized he was gaining on it. Soon he was up on its bumper. He swung the bike around and zoomed by, not seeing the kid in the backseat pointing at him excitedly.

  He’d never gone this fast before. The wind pressed against his face, and he knew that if his bike had wings, he’d be airborne by now. His angel powers were kicking in again, and he held on to the handlebars as tightly as he could.

  And still, he felt the creature behind him. Gaining ground. He looked back. It was picking up speed as fast as he was.

  Jonah willed his legs to move even faster. He tried to ignore the growing wobble in the tires. Every few seconds he looked over his shoulder, but as dusk deepened, he couldn’t see anything.

  He found himself on a long stretch of road scattered with mostly run-down, older homes. He zoomed by a few rusting trailers as he began to head down a hill. In the absence of streetlights, he was in almost complete darkness.

  Jonah’s breathing was heavy, and he knew he couldn’t keep up this pace much longer. He felt an icy touch on his shoulder, like frozen fingers scraping his skin. Whatever was chasing him was still there. He pulled his shoulder away and ducked his head.

  Just then, ahead in the distance, Jonah saw a figure, waving at him.

  “Jonah!” a voice called out. “Slow down, dear.”

  As soon as he heard the voice, which sounded like it was coming from right beside his ear, he felt whatever it was behind him vanish. He looked back again and saw nothing but a few twinkling stars in the night sky.

  He slammed on his brakes, leaving a long, black mark on the pavement.

  An old woman stood in front of him, smiling kindly. She was leaning against a shovel and wearing gardening gloves and a wide-brimmed hat. Her face held deep wrinkles, but her kind, blue eyes sparkled behind her large glasses.

  Jonah took in deep gasps of air, trying to catch his breath. “Hi, Mrs. Aldridge,” he said, with much effort. “I didn’t realize I was on your street.”

  Camilla Aldridge was the oldest woman in his dad’s church, All Souls United Methodist. Not everyone in the congregation seemed to enjoy her co
mpany, but his parents were especially fond of her for some reason. His dad always said she was the wisest person he knew. She lived by herself in a small cottage with a beautiful garden.

  “I didn’t think you were going to see me, pedaling as fast as you were,” she said, smiling at him. “I was just out here tidying up the garden. Always have to watch out for weeds, you know. You never know when you might spot one.”

  Jonah mumbled something and nodded, but his eyes darted around as she spoke.

  She eyed him. “What’s the matter, Jonah dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She laughed softly and pulled off her gloves. “Well, I guess I’m done for the evening out here. How about coming inside for a Coke before you go home?”

  Under normal circumstances, Jonah would have politely said no. Hanging out with ninety-year-old women was not his idea of a good time. But there was nothing he wanted more right now than to be inside, somewhere safe, and her house seemed as good as any.

  “That sounds great, Mrs. Aldridge,” he said quickly. “I mean . . . uh . . . if it’s not too much trouble for you.”

  “No, child, not at all.” He followed her as she shuffled slowly down her driveway, turning around every few seconds to scan the sky.

  She placed a glass full of the ice-cold soft drink in front of him on the table and began to fix herself some tea. She hummed a song as she moved around the kitchen.

  Jonah’s mind swirled as he finally had a chance to catch his breath. What was that thing? Why was it sneaking around my house? He shivered violently.

  “Cold, Jonah?”

  She eyed him as she placed her tea bag in the steaming mug and joined him at the table.

  “Just a chill, I guess,” he said uncertainly. Mrs. Aldridge was an elder in his father’s church, very wise in the ways of Elohim. Even so, what would she think if he told her what he had just seen?

  “Ah, just a chill?” she said as she took a sip. Her eyes searched him. “These old eyes play tricks on me sometimes, Jonah, but it seemed to me you were pedaling awfully fast down my street. Almost like you were running away from something.”

  “Well . . .” He tried to think. If he said out loud what was going through his mind, she was going to think he had lost it. If he told her what he had seen. . . . He shivered again, thinking about the black figure with those yellow eyes. She waited patiently for him to respond, slowly sipping her tea. He swallowed. “I . . . thought I . . . saw something. In the shadows at our house. It was probably nothing.”

  He tried to laugh, but it came out like a weak moan.

  “Your eyes playing tricks on you too, hm?” she joked, but her smile faded just slightly, and she took another long sip of tea. “Sometimes our human eyes do deceive us, Jonah. A shadow can easily become a monster to a young, creative mind like yours. I’ve found that it is more important to develop your spiritual eyesight.”

  Jonah cocked his head, not sure he followed. “Spiritual eyesight?”

  Mrs. Aldridge leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “For followers of Elohim, we must develop our inner vision, the ability to see into the spiritual realm. To hear what Elohim is saying. To be sensitive to the movements of His Spirit.”

  She said it like it was as easy as breathing, but this was all new for Jonah. He thought about the last day’s events and nodded slowly. “I think I am starting to understand what you mean.”

  “Close your eyes,” she said. He blinked at her for a minute, and then did as she said. “Now, when you were pedaling so fast down that hill just a few short minutes ago, think back. Not to what you were seeing with your eyes. What were you sensing? What were you feeling in your heart?”

  Suddenly, the black creature swooped through his mind, yellow eyes glaring at him. He popped his startled eyes open.

  “I was being chased,” he blurted out. “By a black thing with . . . yellow eyes! It felt like being chased by . . . hate.”

  She swirled her tea bag around, staring into her mug in silence. What she was feeling—surprise, concern, something else—he couldn’t tell. But her silence bothered him. For some reason he found himself wanting to tell her about his conversation with his parents, and about his new abilities.

  “Mrs. Aldridge,” he finally said, “do you think what I saw was real? Or am I going crazy? Seeing things, feeling things that aren’t there?”

  “I think,” she said, glancing at the clock on the wall, “that it’s time to get you home. Your parents are bound to be wondering where you are.”

  “But—”

  “And no,” she continued, “I don’t think you’re crazy. Keep your eyes open, Jonah. There’s another world out there. Frightening, beautiful. And dangerous.”

  With that, she stood up and offered to drive Jonah home. And suddenly, all she wanted to talk about in the car was the best type of soil needed to grow rosebushes and how much sunlight an orchid plant needed.

  Jonah sat beside her, nodding politely as he watched the darkened neighborhood streets carefully.

  SIX

  HENRY

  The next day, Jonah went for a walk after he got home from school. He wanted to try out his powers a little more and he didn’t want Eliza or Jeremiah snooping. Once he got far enough out into the woods behind his house, he practiced lifting fallen branches, some of them triple his size. After a while, he ran out of things to pick up, but the path was a lot clearer. As he moved the last few branches off to the side, he saw a flash of silver light out of the corner of his eye. But when he turned around there was nothing there.

  It must have been a trick of the light, he thought, but he could have sworn—

  There it was again. A flash of light, a blur of silver energy, zoomed from a perch high up in the trees down to the ground, behind some bushes.

  He stared at the clump of bushes in the distance for another minute, but saw no more movement, no more blurs of light.

  He approached cautiously. He knew he had seen something, and from the way things had been going lately, it could have been anything.

  Suddenly, a figure came out from behind the bushes and onto the path.

  “He-hello?” Jonah said, stepping backward as the image of the black creature flashed across his mind. He prepared to run again, but the form remained motionless, like a statue in the middle of the trail.

  “How long have you been able to see me?”

  The voice that asked the question sounded like it was coming from a teenage boy. Jonah took a few steps closer, and the figure came into full view.

  The boy looked like a regular teenager, in every way except one. He was lanky, but looked strong, and was wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. Dark, closely cropped hair matched his deep brown eyes. But behind the boy, above his head and across his shoulders, attached to his back, was a set of sparkling silver wings. The wind blew softly through the trees, and the wings fluttered, glistening, glorious, looking metallic and razor-sharp along the edges, and somehow at the same time feather-soft.

  The boy glanced over his shoulder at them, then smiled at him. “What do you think about my wings, Jonah?”

  Jonah blinked, moving a step closer. His mind was racing. The blur of light he had seen in the forest. Silver wings glinting in the sunlight. It was him.

  “You’re an . . . an . . .”

  “I’m an angel,” the boy said, matter-of-factly, like a kid might say, I’m an American, or I’m a Miami Heat fan.

  “And that was you just now, in the trees?” Jonah asked. So I’m not going crazy.

  “Yep, that was me,” the angel said. “Was that the first time you’ve seen me?”

  Jonah nodded as he stared. “I think so.”

  “Well,” said the boy-angel, shoving his hands in his pockets, “it was bound to happen sometime. I mean, after Elohim revealed to you who you really are, I wondered if you’d start to see me soon. You surprised me back there, though.”

  Jonah was standing face-to-face with an angel. Three days ago he was not even sure tha
t they existed. Now, not only was he staring at one, he practically was one. Questions began to flood Jonah’s mind. “You’re saying that somehow with my new . . . abilities, that I can see . . . angels?”

  “Well, obviously,” the boy-angel said, spreading his arms wide. “You can see me, at least.”

  He immediately thought of the creature he had seen, and run from, yesterday.

  “Are there others like you?” Jonah asked.

  The angel chuckled. “Well, of course there are, Jonah. Millions of them,” he said, and then extended his hand. “Call me Henry.”

  Jonah looked at his hand. It looked real enough. Slowly he took it in his own. It felt like real skin, and he shook it.

  “Henry, huh?” Jonah said. “An angel named Henry?”

  Henry smiled. “Well, actually, Henry is a shorter version of my real name.”

  “Oh,” Jonah replied, “okay.” He paused again as he tried to get his mouth to catch up to his quickly spinning brain. “So are you my . . . guardian angel, or something?”

  “I have been with you since the beginning of your life,” replied Henry. “Every human family has a protector, or guardian, angel. An angel who is there to help accomplish the will of Elohim in their lives. We exist to serve Elohim and Him alone, and He assigns angels like me to be with His most prized creations.” He smiled. “You.”

  “Am I the only one who can see you?” Jonah asked.

  “This is a very rare situation, Jonah,” Henry said, stroking his chin. “Very rare. For one thing, you are unique, your mom being a nephilim, as you now know. But then, to be able to see an angel without the angel choosing to reveal himself. . . . It’s quite unexpected, I must admit. Elohim is up to something with you; that’s for sure.”

  “So you are surprised that I can see you?” Jonah asked. “Excuse me for asking, but if you’re an angel, aren’t you and Elohim kind of on the same page? Don’t you know His plans?”

  Henry threw his head back and laughed. “I’m just a guardian angel. And His plans are often mysterious. Even to some angels.”

 

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