Guardian Of Fate
By L.J. Kentowski
Copyright 2011 L.J. Kentowski
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-13: 978-0615581514
Prologue
. . . I knew I should try to free myself, but he drew me closer with an uncanny magnetism. His beauty enticed me like no other man ever tempted me before. While his body was perfect masculinity, with broad shoulders, lean muscular arms, and a taut stomach, his face possessed a mesmerizing softness. Dimples outlined his lush lips, making the hard lines of his jaw seem less intimidating, and promising a smile to warm even the iciest of hearts.
Every feature seemed created for perfection, but it was his eyes that locked me in. The lightest shade of blue, they seemed to glow in the darkness of the night. Unable to break away, I gazed into those eyes with tears in my own, as he brought his lips to mine. The kiss was gentle, but held a power that seemed to possess my very soul with its caress. He held me close, and I could feel the hard muscles of his chest press against me.
A cool wind brushed across my wet lips as he ended the kiss, and an emptiness came over me. Keeping his face only inches away, his fingers caressed my cheeks.
"Tell me you love me."
CHAPTER ONE
I was crouched on the hood of a car, unaffected by its steady speed down the road. Peering through the windshield, I looked into the faces of the men in the front seat. I should have been blocking their view, but they were oblivious to me on the other side of the windshield. The driver sang along with the radio as if it were just another day. But I knew better; if I were here, someone was going to die. I just needed to figure out who it was, and how it would happen.
Searching for a shadow, my clue of who the next victim would be, I strained my eyes, seeking it out around the men in the car. While I could find no shadows near either of them, my attention was drawn to the passenger. Clean-cut and strong looking, he was an exceptionally handsome man, more attractive than any I'd ever met. But there was also something hauntingly evil about him. His eyes, an intense, light shade of blue, held a compelling power, as if they could reel me into their depths. I was so drawn into them that I had to remind myself he couldn't see me.
He leaned over and whispered into the driver's ear. Whatever he said, transformed the man behind the wheel. His eyes glazed over, lips pressed shut, jaw clenched, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel.
The wind whipped the hair from my face as the car rocketed forward. I turned to see where we were going and immediately spotted the signal ahead as it turned red. The driver made no effort to slow down. In fact, he seemed hell-bent on racing straight through it. Driving at a devastatingly fast speed into traffic, we were clearly going to crash.
A woman stepped off the curb to cross the street ahead of us, and then I truly knew who the victim would be. I screamed at her to run back, but she couldn't hear me. No one could. I turned my head back to the windshield and tried to get the driver's attention, but it was useless; he continued to stare right through me. I closed my eyes, dreading the sound of the woman's screams before I felt the horrible thump of her body colliding with the car, then crashing into the concrete several feet away. When the car finally came to a stop, the sound of the passenger's laughter sent chills through my body.
***
Having a vision about someone dying wasn't new to me. I'd been having them since I was sixteen. As a Guardian of Fate, it was my job to prevent the innocent deaths of people whose souls Hell had targeted. My visions showed me who needed to be saved; at least, they did until now. Needless to say, I've seen various modes of death, some much more gruesome than this, but I never got used to it. Death was still death; it was never pretty.
I learned long ago that, after a vision, time was of the essence. My first failed assignment, before I knew anything about the Guardians, was my best friend, Tiffany. I knew it wasn't my fault that she died, but that hasn't stopped me from feeling guilty about her soul spending eternity in Hell.
I'll never forget that day. I think of it now almost as if it were the day I was really born. Before then, my visions meant nothing to me. They had never been about tragedy, but hindsight being twenty/twenty stopped being a cliché the minute my mom sat me down at the kitchen table to relay the dreaded news from Tiffany's father. It was then that I learned my visions could come true; and Tiffany was dead.
That night, my mom taught me who I really was and my purpose in this world. From then on, my visions would hold meaning. More importantly, they would hold the fate of people's lives, and ultimately, their souls.
"We are called Guardians of Fate, Cassie," she told me. "We are few, but we are very powerful, and very important. You will need to pay special attention to your visions now. Every one of them will lead to the fate of someone's soul."
I learned about Shadows, the Underworld, and demons that night. It didn't matter that my reality was more like a bad horror movie, or that it scared the hell out of me. I knew my mom was telling me the awful truth. These things did exist and I was going to have to play the heroine.
Shadows were immortal demons from a place called the Underworld. They were sent to this earth to collect people's souls, forcing them into an eternal life in some hellish world. The victims were never meant to die and never suspected a thing out of the ordinary, because the demons were devious entities that made their deaths appear as natural, accidental events.
While the Shadows were invisible to the human eye, they couldn't hide from our Guardian visions. They would appear so near the victim, as if a mere shadow, but blatantly inappropriate to the setting.Once we knew exactly how the person's death would take place, we could create an alternate ending. As far as Mom knew, the Shadows could not sense us; therefore we could step in without fear of personally being attacked. Once the victim's fate was diverted from its destructive path, our job was done. Fortunately, in most cases, the Shadows did not stick around and try again. Once their fatal attempts were thwarted, they disappeared, and the person went along their merry way to live their merry life.
When I first found out I was a Guardian, I felt like Cassie, the Demon Slayer, only without the slaying part. I had these special powers that would help me save the world; so in a way, I felt like a superhero. But I also knew the burden I would bear if I missed just one step; if I wasted just one minute. I didn't like how heavy that weight felt on my shoulders. I vowed, from the day Tiffany died, to master my calling and never lose another victim to the Underworld.
***
I drove to the scene while mulling over the vision in my head. Twenty minutes later, I pulled up near State Street and spotted the woman from my vision walking down the sidewalk toward the intersection. I parked in the nearest lot, which turned out to be some corner bar's dimly lit parking area. Deciding to go with my "bump and dump" method, the rescue technique I'd come up with after realizing the shadows were quite predictable, I grabbed my purse to use as my prop and ran towards the woman.
As I got closer to the intersection, I glanced down the road, looking for the speeding car I knew was coming. Just as I spotted it, I accidentally ran into the woman, knocking her off the curb and into the street. So much for the bump and dump method.
I barely heard the woman swearing at me as she picked herself up. While I half-heartedly offered to help her, I watched the car down the street pitching forward and gaining speed. Her rants stopped abruptly as we both watched the speeding car careen into traffic, swerve to avoid another car driving through the intersection, and slam head-on into a telephone pole.
An eerie silence followed the deafening crash of crunching metal. It was as if a storm appeared on the horizon and everyone stopped to look at it before reac
ting. When everyone realized what happened, there was panic. People from every direction raced towards the car. Others stood nearby on their cell phones, most likely calling 9-1-1. Lights turned on in the upstairs apartment windows, their occupants sticking their heads out to glimpse the event. Businesses came to a standstill as their customers and employees rushed to the windows, some venturing out to become witnesses, others jumping right in, offering help.
A hand lightly touched my arm and I turned to see the woman with whom I had collided. She stared at me with wide eyes, shock apparent on her face. I started to leave, but her grip tightened. I looked back and was about to force her hand away, when she stuttered, "You... you saved my life! If you hadn't knocked me down I would have..." Her hand flew up and covered her trembling lips.
"It wasn't your time," was all I could say. I took off towards the car, leaving the woman to deal with the emotions that came along with a near death experience.
I felt a compulsion to see the condition of the men in the car. I had to know if I'd made the right choice. Would the woman have saved herself from being hit by the speeding car? Should I have stopped the car somehow, saving all of them? Was that even possible?
As I neared the wreck, my heart fell, and I feared the worst. Smoke and steam poured out of the hood, the steel concavely wrapped around the wooden pole that sat at its center. Glass, from the back and side windows, was scattered all over the street surrounding the car. As I walked closer, it crunched beneath my shoes, and the smell of burning antifreeze overpowered my senses.
There were so many people around the car that I couldn't get close enough to see the condition of the men inside. A sense of hopelessness set in as I realized that the people closest to the car were not frantically attempting a rescue at all. Instead, most of them stood around with sad, downcast eyes and pursed lips, discussing the occupants' fatal demise.
Wanting to get closer to see for myself, I pushed my way through the crowd. I had just caught a glimpse of the driver's arm, hanging lifelessly from his body, when a man blocked my view. He grabbed my shoulders, "Honey, you don't want to see this. It's not pretty."
"I have to!" I cried out as I squirmed away from his hold and cut around him. He was right, it wasn't pretty. It looked like the entire front of the car had been pushed forward, causing the dashboard to pin the driver between it and the seat. There was no way he could have survived the crushing weight. His face lay against the partially inflated airbag. Blood, drained from his mouth and stained the dirty, white material with streaks of red. Shards of plastic and glass had lacerated his face, neck, and arms. The blood from his wounds had already started to clot.
Sirens blared in the distance, and I knew help was on its way, but they were too late. The man from my vision was dead. Thoughts of guilt slammed into my mind and reached my heart, where they met with the ones I had stored away so long ago when Tiffany died. What had I done wrong? I grabbed at my chest, my body suddenly too heavy for my legs to keep up. I must have staggered, because the same man that tried blocking me from the wreck wrapped his arms me.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked. "Did you know this guy?"
I looked at him, wondering how in the world to answer what seemed like such a simple question. Yes, I knew him. He was the guy that blew through the red light and killed the woman walking across the street.
Wait! I thought, as I ran the vision through my head once more. What happened to the passenger?
My focus quickly returned. I twisted out of the man's arms and ran towards the passenger's side of the car. The window had also been shattered, but the door remained closed. I peered inside, but saw no one and no evidence to hint that someone had been injured, or even been sitting there.
I ran back to the man who seemed to be the civilian in charge. Grabbing him, I asked breathlessly, "Where is the passenger?"
"Who?"
"The passenger!" I screamed. "The other man in the car! There were two men in this car! Where did he go?"
"There was nobody else in that car," he said shaking his head.
CHAPTER TWO
"But there had to be! I saw him!" I cried, gripping the man's arm hard.
His eyes softened, as he peeled my hands from his arm and held them in his own. "I think you should hang tight here," he said, "It's obvious you're in shock. The person you thought was in this car just isn't here. Let's have the medical unit check you out when they get here. Just stay with me."
How could this be? My visions had never been wrong before. I remember looking directly into the eyes of that passenger. No... I was drawn to the eyes of that passenger. I heard his laughter. He was there, damn it!
It was obvious to this man, as well as everyone else, that the driver was the only one in the car when it crashed. I knew there was no way I could convince him of what I'd seen happen. If I pushed further, I stood the chance of being forced to talk to a medical unit and I wasn't prepared for that. I had so many thoughts in my head that I didn't trust myself to speak. So I decided to play along.
Looking up at him, I pretended to bring myself into focus. "I need to call my mom." I tried to step away from him, but he stopped me. "Please," I cried, "I have to know if she's okay."
"Aren't you going to talk to the police? You have to identify the driver. You might be the only one here who knows him," he said.
"I'll come back, I promise. I just need to call my mom and see that she's safe. I can't hear anything with all these people around, so I'm just going to run down the street to my car."
His attention jumped to something over my shoulder. I turned my head and saw that the police and firemen were now walking through the crowd towards the car. I turned back and he was looking at me again. "All right," he said, "you go ahead and get a hold of your mom, but come right back. I'll let the police know that you have information for them."
He finally released me after I agreed, and I quickly walked away. It felt better knowing that the lie I just told him had some truth to it. I was going to call my mom, but it was not to find out if she were okay; I needed her to help me sort through everything, just like she did when I first found out I was a Guardian.
My legs shook with every step I took as I ran to my car. As soon as I got in, I called her, and her voicemail picked up. "Mom, please call me back right away. Something's happened. My visions... they... they've changed." I felt the dam of tears break and flow down my cheeks. "I didn't know what to do, Mom, and I lost one. I lost another one. Please call..." My voice broke and I hung up.
My mom would call me back as soon as she got the message. I knew she would. I just prayed that she'd have answers for me, because I was completely lost. She was the only one I could turn to about these things; the only one who knew about them. My dad was a Guardian too, but he wasn't around anymore to help.
Troy Cosgrove, my dad, died when I was four years old. Everything that I knew about him came from pictures and stories that my mom told me. She described him as a brilliant psychologist who helped many people with all kinds of problems. Mom never mentioned the extent to which he helped them. The devil is in the details, I've since learned. Details were something I never overlooked anymore.
She told me that I looked just like him, which explained my long, wavy, auburn hair and blue-green eyes. My features are quite a contrast to my mom's blond hair and green eyes. She tried telling me that my tall, athletic figure came from my dad too, but I had nothing to really compare it with. It was hard to see my father's physique in a photo, and my mom was a bit on the shorter side, but still lean.
I felt proud knowing I looked like my dad. It sounds silly, I know, but sometimes it made me feel like I carried a piece of him around with me. I often wondered if I would have felt the same if he hadn't died. Would I have cherished being so much like him? Or would I have rebelled to be completely opposite, like some of my friends did with their fathers?
The only tangible thing I had from my dad was a family heirloom. It was a jeweled ring, supposedly passed down through g
enerations of his family. Mom said he planned to give it to me when I was older. I assumed it was passed on through the males in the family from the size of it, but I wore it every day hanging on a necklace, proud to carry on a tradition, even though I never really understood it.
With my head heavy, I fingered the ring, thinking of my father and how much I wished he could tell me more about its significance. I wanted him to help me understand everything that was happening to me. Knowing that we all shared something so important, so unlike any other family, made me wish we were all together now. As it was, my mom would be the one to help me through this. Somehow I knew, though, he was there for me too.
All I wanted to do was go home, curl up in bed, and shut the world out. But I knew my roommate, Nora, would be home, and she would ruthlessly pry until she found out what was wrong with me. When it came to seeing me hurt, she never gave up until I came clean. She was a great friend that way, but I knew I couldn't go home right now because of it.
I gazed out my windshield, thinking I would just hang out in my car until Mom called back, when I noticed the neon sign for the bar. The more I thought about it, Luke's Pub and Grill seemed like the next best thing to home right now. Instead of drowning myself in a pillow, knowing I couldn't sleep anyway, I could drown myself in a beer.
As I walked up the few steps leading up to the door of Luke's, I jumped when I noticed a man's face peering out the window to my right. It was difficult to see what he was looking at, because of the dirty film on the glass, but as he stood to the far right of the window, it looked as if he were trying to see what was happening down the street. I didn't imagine he could see much from that angle, since the accident was well down the road.
When I walked in, I got the feeling that Luke's Pub and Grill hadn't changed much from when it was originally established. There were about eight or nine red vinyl stools lined up at the small bar and four matching dining benches along the opposite wall. Dark carpeting and dim lighting completed the retro fifties-style atmosphere. There was even an old style jukebox in the far corner, centered between the men's and women's bathrooms. I had a feeling the décor wasn't purposely designed to portray the ambience of that era, as so many newer bars and diners strove to do lately. I'm pretty sure Luke's just never changed.
Guardian Of Fate (Fate Series) Page 1
