Seraphina: Initiation (16 page)

“Are you okay Sera?”

“Yea…” I mumble shaking my head. I’m
mentally debating whether to tell Nate my dream or not.

“You didn’t toss or turn once… you looked
actually peaceful, happy for once.” He tells me kissing my
shoulder.

I blush, but not from his kiss, from the
fact that it was probably my dream about Jack. Guilt plagues me, he
thinks I’m getting better, but I know it’s only about to get worse.
Maybe it’s better if I don’t tell him about my dreams.

“Did I sleepwalk?”

“No, you mumbled and giggled a little, but
you never left the bed.”

My blush deepens, I wonder what I was saying
in my sleep. Did Nate hear me? So many questions plague me but all
I respond is, “Oh.”

“Are you ready to do this?” he asks me
climbing out of bed. I nod.

“Never been more ready in my life!” truer
words have never been spoken, all I want to do is never dream
again. Evil has turned something that used to be a happy escape
into something even more dark and twisted. I climb out of bed and
head for the closet as Nate seems to be checking something on his
phone.

I draw a bath as I slowly begin to take my
clothes from yesterday off. Staring out the window out onto the
cliff, I sigh before slipping into the steaming water. I allow
myself to slip under the surface and emerge once again. Maybe
Grandpa was right, I can choose my own destiny. Lucifer seems
almost like he is afraid of me. The way he looked surprised when I
said he underestimates my abilities, apparently it was something he
had never thought about. I don’t think anyone knows exactly what I
can do and maybe that’s my edge. Maybe I can turn things to work in
my favor.

I walk out of the closet fully dressed once
again in cargo pants, sneakers and a tank top. Mentally making a
note to clean up that closet later. Nate is no longer on the bed,
he must be downstairs getting things in order. I hop down the
stairs two at a time finally ready to be rid of these pesky dreams.
Nate is in his office, as I suspected, tapping away on his computer
when I come into the dining room. I fake cough once before he hits
a button on the computer and the screen turns black. Coming around
the chair he closes the door behind him and walks up to me.

“You sure you’re ready?” he asks, I don’t
even have to respond my sarcastic face is enough for him to
continue, “Okay,” he walks me to the newly repaired glass wall
overlooking the setting sun over the cliff. I sigh at the beauty of
it all before glancing over at Nate and knowing it’s time for me to
try. I nod in acknowledgement before placing my hands on the cool
hard glass and closing my eyes. “Protect me,” I whisper out loud. I
feel my emotions surge within me at the words. Maybe it’s Nate’s
blood inside me being called into Guardian-mode, but I don’t seem
to need to strain myself before I feel the power surging through my
hands. I must be going too slow or maybe he senses it isn’t going
to be enough, because I start to hear Nate in my ear.

“Protect us, protect your dreams, you
deserve to sleep again, you deserve to be safe,” his words enter my
insides and give me the push I need to extend my power up and
around the house in a huge surge I wasn’t expecting. I collapse to
my knees, “Hold it!” he commands. I hold it as my nails scrape
across the glass because my mind can no longer control my body. I
vaguely feel Nate beside me muttering some chant before I feel
released. My hands fall at my sides and my eyes open to the back of
the house once more only now I notice a shimmering liquid-like semi
circle extending up and over the house. My mind somehow knows
things are different. Almost as though it’s relieved and quieted
from voices I never knew I had. I look up to Nate leaning his
forehead against the glass as if thankful before his head twists to
lock eyes with me.

“We did it?” I ask as our eyes meet.

“We did it,” he confirms flashing me a
reassuring smile.

“What was that chant?” I inquire
curiously.

“I was researching how to make the shield
self sufficient so it didn’t need to draw from your powers.”

“How do you know where to research such a
thing? Is there some Angel manual I didn’t get?”

He smiles at either my ignorance or sarcasm,
“Different Bibles, old texts and scrolls, witchcraft books… stuff
like that.”

“Witchcraft? But I …”

“Every religion or super natural practices
carry with it some kind of validity.”

“Really?” Just when I think I have the hang
of all this, I realize there is so much more I don’t know.

“Well, I got this chant from an old book
about Demon worship, but I twisted the words to work through God
instead.”

“Hmm,” I sit processing for a few minutes
before climbing to my feet with a smile on my face. “I’m going to
take a nap!” I practically squeal with excitement. Nate breaks into
laughter, which I can hear behind me even as I climb the stairs, so
ready to close my eyes in peace.

My eyes don’t open again until the sun is
rising high in the sky the next day. I sigh and lean back against
my pillows. Ah, good night sleep never felt so good. I can’t help
but feel the shield around me. I no longer hear the sound of birds
in the distance, the wind against the house, all is silent. It’s
actually kind of eerie. I’m tempted to take another nap when I
reluctantly decide it’s too silent. I think maybe I’ve gotten used
to the chaos that is my life now. I roll out of bed and stumble
barefoot out into the upstairs hallway.

Nate is once again locked away in his
office. I can hear his fingers tapping across the keys of the
computer even up here. I don’t mind. I’ve always preferred my
solitude. I walk around the house, trying to locate another secret
door he might have hidden somewhere. I think I’m secretly hoping to
find a library like in the story of Beauty and the Beast. Walking
across the wooden hallway floor as I eye the shield through the
window out back, I can’t help the pride that I feel when I
remember—I created that. I shake my head as I make it to the door
across the hall from mine. I twist the handle and walk inside. This
must be Nate’s bedroom, I think because it’s very simple,
minimalistic, and modern. The complete opposite from my cluttered,
cozy room and I can’t help but notice it’s a whole lot smaller. He
has a Queen sized bed against the far wall, two nightstands and a
lonely desk by the window. The furniture is made of plain
unfinished wood and the sheets on the bed are boring black. No
muss, no fuss and to the point—very much like Nate. I blush when I
think that maybe he didn’t plan on sleeping here long, maybe he
thought… I shake my head again at the turn my thoughts have taken
before closing the door behind me and heading downstairs.

After an hour or so later I have run my
fingers across every wall before I come to the conclusion that
there isn’t anything more to find. Ending my little tour in the
dining room again, staring out towards the gorgeous cliff. I wonder
what it will look like in the summer, picnicking outside on the
grass above the flowing stream. I hold onto that dream as a hope,
that one day I can go outside safely again. I mindlessly walk up to
the glass and place my palms against it, craving to be outside, to
smell fresh air again. I’m suddenly woken out of my daydream when I
hear a thunk against the glass wall. I open my eyes to find a
little black bird has mistakenly hit against the glass. It hit so
hard it’s beak is still stuck in the glass. It’s little feet perch
against the window fighting to get itself out. Walking over to it,
I place my finger on the tip of the beak sticking through to my
side and poke him back out again. Only he falls to the floor
outside with a screech so loud I have to cover my ears. That’s when
I see a swarming cloud of black approaching. I watch in horror as
it swirls around the house a few times like smoke spiraling around
me.
What have I done?
Until I hear it again—a thunk, then
another, and another until they are pounding the glass so often I
lose count. Hundreds of birds are hitting my window, splintering my
glass—trying to attack me. Their eyes red are penetrating into my
soul, their claws drawn reaching for me, their screeching echoing
through my eardrums. I watch in terror as they squawk in pain
before hitting the ground and dying right in front of my very
eyes.

Nate finally bursts out of the office to see
what all the commotion is. The grass before me is covered in dead
black ravens, like a strange Halloween display. He finds me on my
knees in front of the glass with my finger circling a splintering
hole where a dark beak once was. I don’t notice I’m swaying back
and forth until he places his hand on my back. He seems to be
speechless, but I am not, “He wants me to know he can reach me
anywhere.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he states
reassuringly.

I turn to look at him, one day I hope to
have faith in myself the way Nate does. Turning back to the glass I
numbly state, “I don’t think you have a choice in the matter, he’s
coming for me.”

“Who is coming for you?” Nate asks bracing
one hand against the cracked glass.

“Lucifer,” I numbly state keeping my stare
straight ahead.

Nate paces back and forth apparently mad,
“When did you come to this decision?”

“Nate... I should have told you before, but
I wasn’t sure—”

“Tell me what?” he interrupts, trying to
hide a mixture of anger and panic from his voice.

“He contacted me the night in front of my
house when I killed that… lady, gave me an ultimatum, and I
refused. Yesterday, during my dream, he tried to contact me again
and again, I turned him down—he’s trying to kill me.”

Nate stops pacing, “Of course,” he whispers
carefully processing my words.

“What?” That’s definitely not the response I
was expecting. He’s staring at the floor so deep in thought, I have
to jump to my feet before he turns to me, apparently just now
remembering I was still there.

“This goes deeper than I thought, but it’s
finally starting to make sense,” he states still deep into his
pacing.

“Make sense?” I finally reach out to grab an
arm because his pacing is driving me insane.

“Only a Greater Demon could have invaded
your dreams, Lucifer is the highest ranking Demon there is. Waking
up trying to kill me, of course that would be him trying to get me
out of the picture. Possessing you to the point where you can’t
remember anything that’s got pure evil written all over it. The
question is,
why?
What does he want? … And what was he
having you do?”

I have no words. Why didn’t I tell Nate
about this earlier? How could that have slipped my mind? We could
have been figuring out a way to fix this instead of continually
being surprised over and over. Maybe we are just from two different
worlds, maybe this isn’t meant to work. Then a thought hits me,
maybe we are playing for two different sides. Maybe I’m more like
Jack than I care to admit.

Finding myself on the floor of my closet a
little while later, folding clothes. I had to escape to a quiet
place to think and cleaning my closet seemed like the only logical
conclusion. I think I could probably just imagine my clothes away
like I did with the dinner plates, but I feel like I need to be
doing something productive. Sitting around the house is driving me
insane. Throwing another pile of clothes in front of me I begin to
fold them into piles. I sigh in the silence as the monotony of
folding begins to relax me. Picking up my soot-covered clothes my
eyes tear with not confusion anymore, but anger. How could Lucifer
be using me in my sleep, what the hell was he having me do? My fist
clench around it so tight it bursts into flames and disappears from
my hands. Blinking a few times to make sure I envisioned that
correctly, I pick up a dirty shirt and attempt it again. Just like
before it bursts into flames at my anger and evaporates to ash that
falls to the floor. Maybe I am a little like Nate too, the Fire
Angel. Maybe I can be a mixture of both, good and evil.

Shaking my head, I turn back to the lump of
dirty clothes piled against my crossed legs in front of me. I pull
the dirty striped dress into my hands and I shiver remembering
waking up with no memory, covered in dirt like I had walked for
miles. Where did this come from? This would have been in the boxes
with my old stuff. Black and white striped dress… the last time I
wore this dress was… OH MY GOD! I don’t seem to believe it. I’m on
my feet in seconds, throwing the dress into the trash and zipping
into a hoodie. I’m going to punch that little coffee house twerp in
the face if he did this to me again! I can’t believe it! Lacing up
my black combat boots I carefully open my door softly and sneak
down the steps. Craning my neck, I hear music coming from Nate’s
office and I know I have about ten minutes before he realizes I’m
gone, maybe less. I sneak out of the front door and surprisingly
walk over the gravel silently before softly closing the car door.
Taking in a deep breath before I start up the car and start heading
down the driveway. Once I’m out of sight of the house I step on the
gas and zoom off towards town. I know I have only a few minutes and
I want that first shot at Jack. I’m sniffling back tears as I round
another corner. I think what hurts the most is the betrayal, I
thought Jack was my friend. I thought he had my best interests at
heart, I thought he promised me he’d never let them harm me again!
What kills me the most is I’m really going there expecting an
explanation, maybe a denial –I’m hoping I’m mistaken.

I swerve into Jack’s parking lot, tires
screeching in protest as I zip into a spot and I’m out of the car
heading for the door. I ignore the feelings twisting inside me, the
cold, and the feeling of eyes on my back. Storming into the shop I
lock the door behind me and flip the sign to ‘Closed.’ The girl
behind the counter with the blonde hair and hot pink streaks looks
over at me curiously.