Wardens Series
Inside The Fire
Smoke And Ash
Wildfire
Fizzle
Heather D. Glidewell
Copyright © 2017 by Heather D. Glidewell.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Book 1: Inside The Fire
Book 2: Smoke And Ash
Book 3: Wild Fire
Book 4: Fizzle
BOOK 1
INSIDE THE FIRE
Prologue
My name is Dawn Weathers, and I am eighteen years old.
I inhabit a body harboring both darkness and light. It has become harder over the years to fight the darkness in me. My mother tries to keep my emotions balanced and my brain focused, but even she fails from time to time. Things changed when we moved. They changed in a way neither of us expected.
I have always been gifted, but lately my gifts have been becoming more erratic. They’re causing more damage and pulling me into a whirlpool of darkness I never experienced till this last year.
First let me explain my heritage. My blood is a mixture of Heaven and Hell, celibacy and sin, ebony and ivory, angelic and demonic. I am not immortal, though. I am not completely mortal either, so it’s safe to assume I have an excellent life expectancy.
My parents’ love was repudiated immediately by Heaven and Hell. When it was discovered, the councils declared that they be excommunicated. Once immortal entities, all that remained of these living and breathing creatures was to be their memory. As punishment for their wrongdoing they were stripped of their wings and obligations. But there was one thing God would not do, that was strip my mother of me.
They went into hiding after I was born, predominantly in small towns and the countryside, maintaining homes away from cities. I was a risk the moment I was born. Those that sought to end my life would have a harder time finding me in a rural area. My parents wanted to protect my identity just as much as they wanted to protect their own. They figured that if I remained hidden I would live. If I lived I would ascend and if I ascended then I would claim my birthright.
They soon learned they could not be together. My father’s constant need for power and glory did not complement my mother’s good nature. So they split, my father taking root in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the big city, and my mother in the serenity of the country.
Part One:
Before the Fire
Chapter One: Little Girl Lost
My father waited till I was fourteen to tell me what I was. I had been living with him for seven years. My mother believed that my father could provide for me better than she could. Therefore, at the age of seven, with tears in her eyes, she had handed me over to him. I know now it was hard on her, having to say goodbye. At the time, I did not understand why my mother did not want me anymore. Had I done something so terrible that she felt compelled to hand me over to a man I didn’t know?
“I have to stay in hiding, Damien. I can’t take care of her the way she needs to be,” my mother said to him as he looked at her through narrow eyes.
“So you think I can care for her the way she needs to be?” my father asked her sternly.
“You can offer her far more protection than I can.” My mother’s eyes were glistening with fresh tears.
I looked just like her, from the blonde hair to the full pouty lips. The only trait I had inherited from my father was his cold brown eyes.
“It’s him, isn’t it? He doesn’t want her.”
My father was angry with her. Was it possible my mother’s new husband was forcing her to give me away?
“He’s in the military, Damien. I can’t expect him to move both of us around the country.” She looked at me and tried to smile.
I just stood there stupidly, listening to my parents’ odd conversation and not knowing how it affected me.
“You don’t need him, Angie. You are strong enough to take care of yourself.” There was a slight give in my father’s voice. For just one second it seemed as if he still cared for her.
“I do need him. There is no way to keep a proper eye out for things. I cannot afford a companion. Moreover, I have no clue where I will wind up. Something is after me. Just protect our daughter.” She pushed me toward him.
My father looked down at me and gave me a little smile. My eyes widened at the cruelty of it and I took two steps back. He got down on one knee and took me by my waist.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked me softly.
“No,” I whispered, wringing my hands together nervously.
“I am your daddy,” he said, smiling that creepy smile again.
“Daddy?”
I looked up at my mother and she nodded at me. I had never met the man. She had told me he left us when I was two and had yet to come home. Then my mother had remarried and I knew Daddy was never coming back.
“Daddy!” I squealed and threw myself into his arms.
***
That was the day I met Mona, my father’s wife. She was young, with beautiful blonde hair and green eyes. She looked a lot like my mother, but I never said anything to let him know I saw the connection. For years I would live within Mona’s constant praising. I was her princess after all.
My father and his new wife had found out shortly after getting married that they could not conceive any children. In desperation, they had tried several methods, but each one had failed. The only child Mona would ever have was me. She did not care where I came from; all she wanted was to treat me as if I was hers.
I missed my mother every day. I just couldn’t exactly see her. They figured any reunion would “confuse me,” so in those seven years I only saw her three times. Each time was through a window when my parents met to talk about my living arrangements. She would never look at me. The few hidden glances she couldn’t prevent showed the pain in her eyes. She never changed. She looked the same as she did the day she handed me over to my father.
I wouldn’t say I was happy, but I wasn’t miserable either. I had everything any little rich girl could want. I had the pony, a swimming pool, and a butler named Mitch who would chase me around trying to get my muddy shoes off the carpet. The only problem I ever faced had to do with me competing against my father’s job.
It always seemed my father’s job was more important to him than spending time with me. He was always working, and there were always weird people in our house. Parties and galas were thrown in the lower levels while I was forced to stay upstairs and out of sight. I was rather polite, but my father always told me these were not people I needed to be associated with. But if I should be leery of them why were they even in our house to begin with?
Mona, on the other hand, was always thrilled to spend time with me. So, when my father was away on business (which was all the time), she would plan all these extravagant outings for us. We would fly to New York on a whim and catch a show on Broadway. Better yet, we would fly to Florida and California to take in the Disney attractions. She spoiled me rotten.
I suppose it was her way of making sure I knew I was loved. I never questioned if my father loved me, however. I knew he did, even if the words would not come off his lips. I enjoyed myself. Mona was a fantastic stand-in for my mother. I could never quite pull myself to calling he
r Mom, nonetheless. I was still holding out that one day my real mother would come back for me.
***
Things changed when I was thirteen. I was having dreams that would consume me. I would wake up screaming, not knowing the cause of my fear. I would remember nothing, not a single second of the dream before my screaming. I came to the assumption they were just nightmares like everyone had. After I woke up I would notice that my room smelled strongly of burnt fabric. A few times I even found scorch marks on my sheets in the shapes of my fingers.
I never told anyone about the dreams or the scorched sheets, instead taking everything off my bed and throwing it away to hide the evidence. I didn’t know what my father would think of it. He would probably find it “illogical” that a young lady could literally smolder in her bed. Even if I screamed “Daddy, I don’t know what’s happening!” he would probably look the other way.
I hated dealing with the fear that I would never make my father proud of me. He walked with such presence, holding his back straight in the most unnatural way. He was dignified, yet a spark in his eyes always sent a shiver up my spine.
I remember the day that changed my life forever. I could tell you every last detail of that conversation. Well, at least what I remember hearing. I was sitting on the couch, watching a movie, when my father came into the room and turned the TV off. He looked at me with his hard brown eyes and slowly an awkward smile crossed his face.
“Dawn, I need to speak with you.”
He always had a way of sounding like he was in control of everything, and I suppose in a way he was. No matter what my father asked of anyone they always seemed to do it. There was no arguing, no hesitation; just a nod and they were out the door doing his bidding. I always figured it was just a sign of their respect for him. Little did I know it had more to do with fear than respect.
“What is it, Daddy?” I asked him.
My father rarely smiled, yet that was what he was doing as I looked up at him.
“Come with me,” he said, holding his hand out.
I took his hand firmly in mine and allowed him to help me up from the couch. He took me into his office, sat me down on the brown suede love seat and stood in front of me. He was fidgeting, something my father never did.
“I want to tell you a story, honey. I want you to pay close attention to it now, okay?”
I nodded.
My father talked about God and Lucifer and the separation of Heaven and Hell, the Great War between angels and those who were thrown out of the Kingdom of Heaven. He went on for what seemed like hours, telling me stories about mortals, angels, and demons. He kept telling me the universe was intertwined, that each story he told had a shard of truth. After about thirty minutes my mind wandered off into my own fantasy world.
“Dawn, are you listening? This is important!”
His voice called me back to earth, but my mind was still only partially there.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a religious person. At fourteen, I found theology to be a waste of breath. No religion had yet swayed me to believe their way was the only way. Until that day came I would be my own religion. The Church of Dawn, if you will.
“Sorry, Daddy,” I apologized. I glanced toward the mirror on the other side of the room and brushed a stray piece of blonde hair behind my ears.
My father was a Dallas County prosecutor; he was under a large amount of stress day in and day out. Imagine my surprise when he finally got to the point of this whole conversation. He looked almost overwhelmed by the whole thing. Let me emphasize that my father was not a weak man, so this moment of weakness was astonishing.
“Now pay attention, Dawn,” he demanded of me again.
His eyes looked dark and mysterious as he stood up in front of me. Shrugging off his pin-striped jacket, he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and let out an impatient sigh. Then he put his hands together and rolled them slowly. White sparks flew from his fingertips and a blue orb appeared. When he looked at me again his eyes were black. Now here’s the thing, when I say they were black I mean there were no whites to his eyes, not a single hint of the dark brown color I had inherited from him. I was frozen still, in both amazement and fear.
What did this mean for me?
“Daddy?” A small squeak came from my throat as my pulse increased.
Every child wants to believe there is magic in the world, that a force greater than anything they can even imagine is possible. Unless they learn that magic really exists and that it has different levels of power. Finally, the realization hit me that, not standing six feet in front of me, my own father was proving that it exists. Chills crept up my spine as the orb danced around his palms. The blue flame was mesmerizing and I had the urge to touch it. I sat on my fingers, trying to stifle my curiosity.
My father let his hands drop to his sides and his eyes returned to normal as he braced himself to tell me what I was. I wasn’t expecting the impact of the blow to be so large, but then again I was only fourteen. My father crouched in front of me and placed his hands on either side of my hips. His eyes bore into mine and I looked away.
“Dawn, I have something I need to tell you. Something very important. I need you to listen. Things will become peculiar for you soon. You will notice changes in your body, even in the way you think. Your dreams will become more convincing. You may even feel that your body has traveled to other places.” He paused.
I stared at him in awe.
Mona had had a conversation with me about the changes women go through several years earlier, but I had a distinct feeling the changes he was talking about had to do with my charred bed sheets.
“Honey, you are a very special child. Some beings would say otherwise. In your veins run two types of blood, rival blood. When your mother and I met we were from two different sides of the spectrum. You are something that should never have been. Yet here you are.” He sighed.
I wasn’t getting it. How could my blood be rivaling itself? The last I checked, the human body didn’t face such an issue.
“Daddy, I don’t understand.”
He looked me in the eyes.
“Dawn, your mother comes from Heaven.” He glanced around, becoming increasingly nervous.
I smiled at him.
“So you’re telling me Mom’s an angel?” I asked quietly, thinking this all had to be some sort of joke. “So what are you?”
He hesitated for a moment then let it come out in a rush of words.
“I am from Hell.” His voice was low, but I still heard the words hissing past his lips.
I looked at him in amazement as the whole conversation unfolded before me. I suddenly understood everything. It was as clear as day. “Rival blood” didn’t mean I had two blood types; it meant that I had two types of blood.
“You’re a demon?” I whispered.
My father nodded his head and I stared at him in disbelief. He pulled me to him and ran his hands down the back of my head, rocking me back and forth. This was an affection I had never received from him before. I liked it. At the same time I was scared to death.
***
Now just think about it for a moment: I was fourteen and realizing that I was becoming a woman. I noticed boys were not “gross” and I liked the summer. My favorite color was pink, for crying out loud. I listened to bubble-gum pop and painted my nails girly colors. I even had sleepovers with my giggly girlfriends. Within the last year I had received my first kiss from my first crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at my best friend’s fourteenth birthday party. I had a normal life for a girl my age, aside from all the money and the preppy private school my father had put me in.
I had developed a chest and my waist was curving. Mona was allowing me to wear more stylish clothes. I had grown out of the fluffy sleeves and Mary Jane shoes and into cocktail dresses and three-quarter inch heels. I thought that being a teenager would be the most amazing part of my life. Then my dad came in to share his little secret and
shattered all my dreams. I would never have the same life as my friends. I would not grow up, get married, and have children.
On a whim, I decided it best to run away. There was no other choice in my eyes. I couldn’t grow up knowing that my father was a demon. That was just uncalled for. My dad was a respectable man, but knowing where he came from scared me.
I decided I would find my mother. She had to answer some questions for me. If I found that she wasn’t able to answer them, I would keep running until I found someone who could.
I was angry with my father for telling me I wasn’t normal, that I would never have a normal family. I realized that I had been dealt an unfair hand and that I was destined to fight a constant internal battle. That was something I would just have to accept. Over time I might, but right at that moment all I wanted to do was get away from my father and get the answers I deserved.
Chapter Two: One-Way Ticket
The bus station was bustling by the time I got there. I had never been in the city without either my stepmother or Mitch. I admit I was scared to death of what could happen to me. At the same time the stubborn feeling that I would be okay kept my head high.
I was able to buy my ticket with little fuss. The lady behind the counter handed me the ticket and raised her glasses as she asked if I was over sixteen. I nodded yes, though I knew it was wrong.
The last place I knew my mother had been was El Paso. Her husband had been stationed at Fort Bliss right before she brought me to my father in Dallas. Years earlier I had found an old letter with an address in the trash. I was sitting on a bench waiting for my bus to come, watching the people come and go, when a woman sat down next to me.
“That’s a beautiful bracelet you have there,” she said, pointing at the charm bracelet that my father had given me on my birthday.
“Thank you. It was a gift,” I said uneasily. I knew not to talk to strangers, but I also knew the only way I would get anywhere was if I did.
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