The Earth’s dizzying power coursed through my body and returned back to its source. I was channeling that arc of energy, the Mana, and I became part of the energy of the world. I was one with it. I laughed the laugh of the content, feeling more powerful than I had ever felt before. My exhaustion disappeared entirely. I was more alive than I had ever been in my life.
I looked down, and vigor coursed through my arms like a living thing, energizing me and giving me strength. My pendant flared brilliantly on my chest and I channeled the power into my legs and jumped heavenward, fifty feet up in the air, the power still humming within me but no longer being fed from the Earth now that I was not connected to it. I roared and when I landed, the connection to the Earth returned, charging me, and I flipped and twisted through the air.
It was magnificent, and I was jubilant in the morning sun, jumping and twisting faster and higher than any gymnast on the Olympic stage. I exulted in this newfound ability and leapt from the brown stone below me a hundred feet in the air.
I had put too much power into the leap, as the arc took me beyond the edge of the stone circle. I was about to cross the edge of the circle, helpless to stop. But Rene’s golden rod caught my leg and pulled me down to the brown stone. I landed with a thud.
Although the Earth gave me power—and apparently some protection from injury—the hard ground still hurt like you wouldn’t believe. I grunted from the pain.
“Good,” Rene said as I slowly attempted to access the power in increments, my Loci showing me how to ease away the soreness and fatigue.
“Now we will continue,” Rene said. I grinned, still drunk on the power of the Earth as it coursed through my body. Rene’s eyes turned into arcs of bluish light, and the stones beneath my feet lurched up and flew aside like a tornado had whipped them away. I leapt upward, clearing the stones as soon as I felt them buckle beneath my feet.
Although I was still in the circle, its floor was now hard-packed dirt. The power of the earth was still there, but it was much farther away, harder to access. I realized I had always felt it, I just had not recognized it for what it was. I also realized the principles to access the power were the same, and I reached out to it.
But this time, it was like reaching through a layer of insulation. I worked at it and it flowed, slowly at first and then faster as I learned to more efficiently channel it. Rene’s presence was in my mind the entire time, observing and silently instructing. I felt his gentle mental push in certain directions, showing me easier ways or things he wanted me to try. Then his presence receded and I opened my eyes.
I hadn’t realized how long we were at it, but the sun was now falling below the peaks of the Twin Sisters in the western sky and I realized the entire day had passed.
By some unspoken command, the brown-stoned circle beneath my feet firmed and became whole.
“Good,” Rene said with a slight grin. “That will end today’s training. I have business with the Council, so you will have few days to rest; you picked it up quickly, Initiate Rising, much quicker than I anticipated. I suggest you practice your newly learned skills and we will continue on Monday at first light. Initiate Rising, you may leave the First Circle.”
I remembered to turn and bow just before stepping off the brown-stoned enclosure and I ran toward the house, still reaching out to the energy of the earth beneath my feet, giddy with my newly learned ability.
Chapter 15 – The Mashiach
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtahni…
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Matthew 15:34
I entered the kitchen, and on the table was a huge bowl of stew with my name written on a sticky note. It quickly disappeared. I put the dish away and instead of going up to my room, I decided to take a look around the house.
Beyond the front foyer was a formal sitting room with white carpet and a large fireplace. On the other side of the foyer, clear glass revealed an interior courtyard with a large fountain, sputtering with water.
I continued down a hallway to a set of doors partially ajar. I pushed through to an office with large windows and a view of the garden outside. Heavy leather chairs and a huge, oak wood desk piled with folders sat in the middle of the room. Neatly framed pictures and painted portraits took up every available space.
On one wall was a large glass frame with a yellowing parchment inside. At the very top of the parchment was the name Claire written in an ornate script. Below that, a stylized tree was painted with two serpents weaving their way up its trunk. Names were written in the same script at the end of each branch.
Across from that, an older couple stared out from a large, painted portrait on the opposite wall. The man was rather severe looking, the woman pretty, in a good-natured, motherly way. The same couple was in a framed photograph on another wall, but this time with two girls. Old pictures—snapshots—of the girls were everywhere. They both looked like a much younger Aunt Emily.
One of them wore eyeglasses, somber and morose. The other was vibrant and full of life; she had a dazzling smile and seemed so exuberant.
I picked up the frame and stared at the picture. She looked a few years older than me and was beautiful, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. There was something about her nose that seemed familiar. It was the same nose I looked at in the mirror every morning. I realized, with a sudden pang, that this was my mother.
I put the picture back on the desk and noticed a folder with Matthew written across the top of it. The folder was filled with clipped articles, most of them faded and yellowed with the passing of time.
At the very top of the pile was an article from the front page of a newspaper called the The Daily Reporter, the headline in bold print:
Daughter and grandchild of prominent local founder perish in furnace blast.
In what was described as a tragic accident, daughter of noted Suisun Valley founder and business magnate Robert Claire perished during a Waterman Hotel explosion in North Lake Tahoe last Tuesday. Investigators stated a gas line may have been the cause of the blast but have found no further evidence to support this claim. Christine Claire and three-year-old Matthew perished with eight others. The nature of the explosion has left identification of victims difficult, but jewelry and other personal items left no question as to their identity. Robert, Elaine, and sibling Emily Claire survive them. Memorial services will be held later next week.
The brittle newspaper crinkled and cracked as I read the article over and over again. I couldn’t believe it. The article said I was dead.
“It was the only way we could protect you.”
I spun around. Aunt Emily stood in the doorway. Her bright blue eyes peering at me through her glasses had lost their youth, but there was no question she was one of the girls from the pictures.
“It was the only way to keep you safe,” she said again.
“Keep me safe? Keep me safe from who?”
“Any of the Fallen would have been a danger,” she said as she stepped into the office. “Feigning your death was the only way that they would stop looking for you.”
I frowned and put the article back in the folder. “Why would anyone be looking for me?”
“Because you are a Claire.”
My teeth clenched as I thought of the family I’d never known. All those years alone while the people in the pictures lived their lives, not even caring if I was alive. It stung, thinking that I had a family out there, someone who could have taken me in when my father was off doing whatever the hell he was doing. But whatever happened, he was still my father and for better or worse, he had been all I had. If anything, I was my father’s son, and that did still mean something to me.
“I am a Rising,” I said.
“That too,” she added. “You are both, Matthew, and that is important to remember.”
“Why? Who cares if I’m a Rising or a Claire?” I asked, waving at the paintings and photographs around the office.
“I don’t even know these people.”
“If they knew you were the last surviving male descendent of Robert Claire, they would not stop until you were either dead or under their control. Now, there is still uncertainty. We must wait just a little longer.” Aunt Emily drifted over to the large portrait of the stern-looking man and lady.
More secrets, and I suspected more lies. But this was more information than I’d ever gotten about my mother and my mother’s side of the family, so I bit back the resentment and the anger that was bubbling up inside me.
I pointed at the portrait. “Are they my grandparents?”
“Yes, Matthew. Your grandfather was a great man and his lineage inviolate.”
“Lineage? You mean that?” I pointed at the faded family tree.
“Yes.” She fingered the glass protecting the parchment. “Many in our world consider a person’s lineage to be of the utmost importance.”
I looked over the careful calligraphy. Each letter looked painstakingly placed, and I wondered at the people long gone. This was my family, my heritage?
“Why would a bunch of dead people matter?” I asked. It was difficult to bite down on the resentment and I knew I was being childish, but I really didn’t care.
“Because they believe it is how we justify our return to the stars. After this war is over, many will look to return to the worlds their lines originated from. Tracing your lineage to the very first of the Malakhim is proof required for passport back to the heavens when it is time. We call those with no roots to the stars Earthbound because they are stuck here and have nowhere else to go. It is a right of the line of the Starborn to return,” she answered. “They said the line was perfect in your mother.”
“You keep saying they. Who are they?”
“Our parents.” I looked up at the stern man in the painting. “She was so afraid that they would breed her off like the family cow.” She repositioned the picture I had picked up earlier and stared at the photograph.
Feeling my face flush with this new insight into my mother, I asked, “Is my father of the line?”
“No.” She took a deep breath, scanning the ceiling as she did. There was pain in her eyes. Tears swelled but did not quite fall. “They punished your mother for doing a terrible thing. She fell in love with a man, someone not considered viable stock.” The tears finally fell from her eyes. “She ran away with him, and they cast her out. Disowned, as if money and power ever mattered to her,” Aunt Emily said, her eyes narrowing. “They tried to take away her family. They tried to take her son.”
“Is that why they don’t have my mother’s last name as Rising in the article? They say her last name is Claire.”
“Yes, Matthew. Your grandfather never gave permission for your mother to marry your father.”
I thought about that. My mother ran off with my dad, leaving all of this behind. I wondered if she had stayed, would she still be alive. Was I the reason she died?
“Dean Alena told me my family is very powerful,” I said.
“Yes, Matthew. The Claire family can be traced back to beyond the time of David, to the very first of the Malakhim. You are a descendent of that line, a line they have protected fiercely. If it weren’t for what they considered your mother’s transgression, you would have been treated like a prince. Now, because of their near-sighted bigotry, the world will see what suffering truly is.”
“Huh?” I was confused.
Aunt Emily sat behind her desk and straightened a few of the papers, staring at them before she spoke again.
“We are still slaves, Matthew,” Aunt Emily said. “We have only been given the taste of freedom. But that freedom is coming to an end. We are at the end of times and Judgment is here. There are Sentients, right now, deciding whether or not we are to be destroyed.”
“Why?”
“Because they are afraid of us. Afraid of what we might become.”
I tried to make sense of it all. “What are you trying to tell me? That the world is about to end?”
“I am saying that you may be the one to bring us together.”
“What? Why me?”
“Because it has been prophesied that a male child from the line of my father will come in the last of days, one of the Davidic line, and will defeat the al-Masih-ad-Dajjal.”
“The what?”
“It’s a word in Arabic. The al-Masih-ad-Dajjal translated means the Antichrist. It is said that in the end of days, the Antichrist will rise up and throw the entire human race into bondage we will never escape. Only the Mashiach may free us.”
“You’re talking about Revelations, End of Days, Apocalypse-type stuff. You think I am going to defeat the Antichrist?” I asked.
“No, Matthew,” Aunt Emily said. “I said it’s been prophesied that you may be. You are the only male child born of my father’s line, the firstborn Claire male child of the third millennium. I cannot have children, and there will be no one else. You are the last of the line of Robert Claire. You are the one prophesied to be the Last Mashiach.” Her voice was soft and faltering.
I knew I should say something, but there was nothing I could think of to say.
“Matthew,” Aunt Emily said, “I know that this is all so hard to understand, but there is so much history that you are not aware of. The Malakhim have fought in the shadows for so many years that it is incredible we are near the end of it.”
I looked at Aunt Emily with skepticism. “I just want to go home.”
“I know. I wish you could, but you don’t know how important you are.
“But I haven’t done anything to deserve any of this. How can anyone be so dumb as to think I’m anything more than a kid still going to high school? I don’t even have a girlfriend yet!”
She hesitated before saying anything. “Belief is an incredible thing, Matthew. If one believes that they can make change, they will move heaven and earth to make that happen. If they believe that there is absolutely no chance of changing anything, they will put just as much effort into making sure things stay exactly the same. It is the way of our race. The prophecy of the Mashiach has been passed down from generation to generation of Malakhim, and for right or wrong, there are those who believe you are the one to free us,” she said, frowning. “The power of true believers can be truly terrifying or truly wonderful. It depends on the leadership of the one they believe in.”
“What do you believe, Aunt Emily?”
She studied me with bright, blue eyes, the eyes of my mother, and nodded after a minute. “I believe that to have a talent is one thing, but to have the will and the perseverance to use it is another. All you need right now is the courage to use it.”
I stared at her, not believing what she was saying. She placed her hand on my head, running her fingers through my hair.
“Matthew, there is so much I wish I could take off your shoulders. But for now, know that I will always be there for you. I must get some work done. Go get some rest.”
I left the office with so many questions.
Tomorrow would be another day.
Chapter 17 – The Shed’im
The next morning, I woke up with George leering over me like a mosquito. His hair was wet and he smelled like soap.
“Matthew, just the man I wanted to see. I leave tonight and you are not going to waste my last day sleeping. Let’s see what’s going on around here,” he suggested. After everything he’d been through, how could I say no?
After I got ready, we ran down the stairs and out the front door
“Okay, let’s check this out,” George said.
I nodded, but George was already running to the far side of the house.
“Here we go!” He pulled out an old, blue banana seat bicycle that looked like it had seen better days. It even had one of those old-fashioned bicycle bells. “Tires are good, and look, there’s one for you.” George smiled as he got on and rode around the driveway.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. That is so not cool,” I muttered as I pulled
out the other bike. Pink was just not my color. I turned up the driveway, toward the gates.
“No, Matt!”
“C’mon, George. If, I’m going to be stuck here, I have to check out the town,” I yelled as I rode out the gate. “Besides, how much trouble can we get into?” Little did I know just how wrong I would be.
We rode until we passed a sign that said Suisun Waterfront District. The town itself was small. Small shops lined the street and a hotel sat on the edge of a harbor with docks that housed everything from tour boats to commercial fishing vessels.
An older couple glanced in our direction, perhaps nervous at having someone there they didn’t recognize.
“Guess we’re here,” George said. “Oh crap.”
“What?”
“That’s a Watcher,” he said, pointing at an elderly woman coming toward us. She looked like an old spider: her grey, wispy hair was tied into a bun and her chocolate skin was speckled with dark spots.
“What’s a Watcher?” I asked.
“Watchers are Sentients that make sure the rules of the Accords are kept.”
“Huh?”
“We’re not allowed to show ourselves or do anything that would raise questions about our kind. If that happens… well, let’s just say, it’s not a good thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to know.”
The Watcher passed us and gave George a nod. I smiled but only received a level stare. She sniffed and continued on.
“What’s her problem?” I asked.
“Yeah, they don’t have much personality,” George answered. “They wouldn’t want to make friends with someone they may have to put down one day.”
“Put down?” I asked, but he just shrugged.
I wanted to ask him more about it but was distracted by the totally familiar beep-boop sound of an Arcade from the shops on the far side of the park.
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