Fledgling: Book 1 (Afterlife) (28 page)

Landing upright on the dirt directly in front of the door, I stick my hand through the entrance. My hand hits something that I cannot see and will not go any further. Cursing under my breath, I try again. It will not go through.
 

The old man’s cackle sounds again. I give it one last try — still no luck. I close the door. I am greeted with the old man’s face right where the door used to be; his mouth spreads in an ugly grin. Startled, I jump and without even thinking about it, my body moves into the ready stance for a fight. My legs are stable, and my arms are up.
 

He doesn’t move forward; he just stands, staring from that one disturbing eye.
 

His mouth moves, and I want to be sick. For the first time, he speaks in Arabic, “You can’t leave, pretty. There is no way out. Not for you, not for your friends.”
 

He reaches for my wings, and I pull back. My eyes catch a glimpse of the mystery tattoo on the inside of his wrist. It is the same one that I have seen on the attackers of the last two missions. An upside-down pentagram finished with the details of a goat’s head, inside a circle.
 

The man steps forward and tilts his dirty dark face toward me and breathes in deeply like he is sniffing me. If I wasn’t already disturbed by this man's behaviour, I am now.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. You are the one he wants.”

“Who?” I am surprised that anyone is looking for me especially in the world of demons.
 

Ignoring my question he continues. “I am the gatekeeper, and I am not going to let you out. I will be rewarded well for finding you. Yes, yes, I will.” He turns to walk away while letting out another loud cackle.
 

“Then perhaps I should kill you,” I call after him.
 

He turns around to face me. His eye holds an evil humour. “Then you will be stuck in here for sure. Kill me and the way out stays sealed until he comes.” He turns his back on me again to walk away.

“Cindy was right, you are annoying.” I want to kick him in the head and fight him, but I am not completely sure if he is telling the truth or not.
 

As I glare at the back of his head, I hear Ben’s voice. “Aurora. Look out.”
 

I turn in his direction to see that several dark-faced people with disturbing dark brown eyes surround me. They are almost upon me.
 

I bend my knees and push off the ground to take flight to the middle of the clearing with Ben, Orange and Cindy.

“What did the old creepy guy want?” Cindy asks.
 

“He wanted to let me know that we cannot escape here and that some guy wants me — I’m assuming from the underworld.” I gaze down at the obsessed crowd below us. They are still jumping trying to grab our ankles to pull us down. “Oh, he also told me that he is the gatekeeper and that if we kill him, we have no way out of here until whoever it is, comes and decides to release us.”

“Do you think that is true?” Cindy asks.
 

“I don’t know. I don’t particularly want to test the theory unless it's our last resort. We cannot leave through the door at the moment, or through the middle.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Cindy says while rubbing her head.
 

“Looks like we are going to have to fight,” Ben says. “There must be another way.” Orange remains in his arms, unmoving.
 

“Well, I know that I am certainly not hanging around just for some underworld weirdo to show up because he has it in for me,” I say. “I certainly don’t want to end up like Orange.” I look below at the clearing filled with angry possessed people then look back at Orange. I move closer to him and Ben. “I am going to have to see if I can heal him. Looking at our welcoming party, we are going to need every bit of help we can get.” I flap my wings a few more times while deep in thought. “Cindy.”

When I see her look in my direction, I continue, “I need you to keep an eye on me. It may take a fair bit of my energy.”
 

“Are you sure about this?” Ben’s voice leaks concern and his eyes study my face. “You are going to need all the energy you have for fighting.”

“I know. Although if this works, we will have an extra fledgling on our side and that should make up for any energy I have lost in the healing process.” I try to reassure him. “It is a risk I should take for everyone’s sake.”

He doesn’t look happy.

I reach out and run my fingers through his dark brown hair. “If it doesn’t work, and it drains me, we can hold off the fighting for a while until I recover enough.” I indicate below. “They can’t get us up here so we can hover while we wait for my strength to return.”

The reluctance remains on his face. Eventually, he nods; his mouth is turned down.
 

“Let’s go up a little before you start. That way it will give us a little dropping space if something doesn’t go right,” he suggests.
 

I put on my best smile. “Good thinking.”

Pushing down with my wings, I rise with the Ben and Cindy to the boundaries of the force field. Now we are at a safer distance from the ruckus below I reach out a hand to Orange’s heart. I do not know what is wrong with him other than he will not wake up. Cindy moves closer to me and is watching me intensely while Ben holds on to Orange just a little firmer. I can see the strain in his muscles, his arms and chest under the constant weight, but I know he will not whine — it is not his way.

Now I am secure as much as possible in the situation, I focus on my hand resting on his heart. I close my eyes for a deeper concentration. Warmth flows down my arm and into my hand as it begins to glow. Through probing his health, my mind searches for an area to heal. It is not a simple external flesh wound and is different to the other healings I have done so far. As my mind wanders through his body, it searches and probes looking for the point or points of injury. After a while, I still cannot find a place of injury. An involuntary frown creases my forehead.
 

Because I do not find the place or places of injury, I follow my instincts and pump healing light into his body and feel it flow. It is only early stages of the healing process, but I can already sense a large amount of energy leaving me. The impression I am getting from Orange’s healing needs is not like the wounds I have healed in the past. I press on, hoping for the best.
 

I can hear the strange sounds from the crowd below. I do my best to block these out, placing full trust in Ben and Cindy to protect me. With the energy leaving my body at a rapid rate, I continue directing my healing energy into Orange. It seems like such a long time has passed, and I do not know if the energy is winning or not. He has not stirred.
 

I am feeling extremely weak when I hear Cindy’s voice. “Aurora, you need to stop.” It sounds so distant.

“Aurora, stop. You need your energy. Your face has turned ghostly white.” This time the concerned voice is Ben’s. It sounds to be at the end of a long tunnel.
 

I press on without responding. I must heal Orange. We need another fighter on our side. I gather some more of my healing energy and give it a forceful push into Orange. As I do this, I hear voices in the background. I cannot hear what they are saying; my head is ringing too loud from the exertion. I vaguely feel arms scooping under my armpits from behind then a jerk backwards. My connection severs from Orange. I labour to open my eyes, managing to open them to tiny slits.
 

Before me, I see Ben’s troubled blue pools studying me. His face relaxes slightly when he realises my eyes have opened.
 

“That’s it. Breathe deeply and gather your energy,” he encourages.
 

I can still feel arms hooked under my armpits. My eyes open a little wider, and I look to the side. Cindy still has me. It is then that I realise that I have not been flapping my wings

“That’s right. I’ve still got you.” I can hear the relief in her voice. “Just relax now. We need you to regain your strength. I’ve got you.” Her golden yellow wings flick through the side of my vision.

Looking back at Ben I gaze down into his arms. Orange is still lying almost lifeless. Disappointment floods over me. I was at least hoping that his eyes would open. I was hoping to not lose all of that effort. As thwarted as I am, I cannot allow myself to worry over that now. I did my best, and now I need my strength.
 

I gaze down below and face the possessed watching us — waiting. I am reminded immediately of the task at hand and the adrenaline starts to kick in.

- Chapter Twenty-Seven -

My eyes open wide. I begin to stroke my wings.
 

“No, conserve your energy,” Cindy speaks softly in my ear. “I have you.”
 

Behind me, I can still feel her body pressing against mine and her arms hooked under my armpits. I know that I am secure. My energy is slowly building, and I follow her advice. Gazing below at the waiting enemy seems to boost my body quicker with energy. After a few minutes, I begin to use my wings again, and Cindy releases me.
 

“Welcome back.” Ben’s voice sounds relieved, almost joyful.
 

I am about to respond when I hear coughing beside me coming from his direction. Curious, I turn to look at Ben. My eyes expand when I see that Orange is moving, and his eyes are open. Ben continues to grasp him firmly under the arms, and I watch as he begins to stroke his wings and hold his own weight. Just the sight of him moving boosts me with encouragement and tops up my energy levels. Whatever I did worked.

“What happened?” Orange’s voice is croaky, and he looks dazed.

“From what we can tell, you were kidnapped by demons while on your last mission. Somehow you ended up unconscious and surrounded by demonic guards,” Ben fills him in.

Orange jerks to life and stiffens. “Oh no. That’s right. It was a trap.” His eyes flicked to each one of us. “It was a trap to get more fledglings here . . . I think they were after a few specific beings.” His eyes landed on me. Is that panic I can see filling his orange-tinged brown eyes? “And to attract one in particular.” He looks away.
 

By his movements, I am not sure if he was referring to me or not.

“We’re trapped here, aren’t we?” he asks.

“It looks that way,” Ben says.
 

“But we are not giving up just by that assumption,” Cindy says, sounding more confident than before.
 

“We are not going down without a fight,” I add.
 

“We were hoping you would wake, so we have added help,” Ben says. “So what do you say? Are you up for a challenge?”

“Do you really think I am going to stand back and watch?” Orange was sounding stronger, and his voice was less croaky.
 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Cindy grunts in relief. “As soon as you two recover, let’s get started. This place is seriously creeping me out.”
 

Orange frowns. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks me.

“It’s no big deal. I used some of my powers excessively, and it drained me.” I brush off the question.
 

Cindy was not going to let it rest there. “What she means, is that she just healed you from whatever had knocked you unconscious.” I squirm. I don’t like to boast about special gifts, and I don’t know Orange that well.
 

“You can heal?” His voice raises half an octave as he looks at me in awe.
 

I remain silent.
 

When I don’t answer he says, “That’s awesome. Can either of you two heal?” he asks Ben and Cindy.

They both shake their heads.
 

“How do you do it?” His questions are making me uncomfortable, but I understand his enthusiasm.

“I honestly don’t know. It just feels natural . . . I follow my instincts.”

He reaches forward, grabs my right hand in his, as though he is about to shake it. Then he painlessly slaps me on my right arm near the shoulder and lets his hand rest there. It felt like a friendly gesture, so I went with the flow.
 

“Thanks,” he says, looking deep into my eyes.
 

I can feel the heat rising in my face. I look away from his stare. “Not a problem.”

He releases my hand and arm then claps his hands together. “So, are we going to kick these smelly butts or what?”

Now he is talking my language. “Absolutely,” I agree.

Ben chimes in, “Let’s do it!”
 

“So, what’s the plan?” Cindy asks.

We all look down assessing the ugly faces gazing up at us. They crowd the middle and the outskirts are almost bare.

“How about we all go to the four corners and hover close to their level to draw them to the outer circle,” I suggest quietly. The possessed below do not look very clever, but I don’t want to take chances. “Then, when the middle is empty, we all fly in quickly and land together in the centre. If we fight facing out and our back facing the centre, we can protect each other’s backs."