The Lost Trucker (The Trucker Saga) (17 page)

She stopped speaking and scowled at me as she tapped her invisible foot on the floor. I playfully pushed my hands up in the air in a shrug as if to say that the volume control was out of my hands. She mouthed the words,
 
Fuck you
.

Sarre then crossed her arms over her chest as she mouthed very clearly and aggressively,
 
asshole
. I couldn’t help but smile and lock my hands behind my head and nod happily to her.

Yeah, I
 
was
 an asshole; years of practice and I had just about perfected it, especially with 
her
.

With a hideous stare that most children would define as the creature under their bed, Sarre shoved one faded hand through the side of the television set.
  One moment it was Neo grabbing his duffel bag with fading techno music, the next blaring white noise that was so loud my ears ached. I instantly grabbed the remote and muted it.

My look was far from happy, but she was all smiles as she took her hand out of the television letting the picture return to normal a second later.

Good thing I hadn’t upset her too much. Last time she had blown a fuse. It’s pretty expensive to fix a fifty inch flat plasma screen television more than once a year. The girl had a way of proving how angry she was in the worst ways. And it always ended badly for my home appliances.

 
I tend to forget that she had the ability to ruin anything with an electric pulse. Sarre had learned to control it though, so that she could just mess it up for a bit if she was in a good angry mood. Though with how often it happens, I should have learned by now to keep everything off when in a verbal fight with her.         

Then again, it was too much fun to mess with her on that level.

“There, that’s better don’t you think? If you don’t want to talk about it fine. We won’t talk about it, but don’t ignore me.” She growled to me.

I had a tendency of pushing her to her limits, just as she had that magic touch in her voice that was not only unwanted but sent me to the brinks of madness at times.

Once, I lived to hear her voice. On the battle field her voice would ring out like a forgotten beautiful song before I would swing my blade out in search of that crimson tide, to let it roll out of its fleshy home and bind my silvery starving blade in a flush and vibrant scarlet. That was a 
long
 time ago though.

 
I was sixteen when Sarre first came to me. Alone and in the streets of whatever city I had come to after my mother had been killed by raiders from the north.  As for the man who partially raised me... the only times he was around to acknowledge my existence was when he was beating me down with both word and fist.

Other than that our relationship stops at being an outlet for his failed and miserable life. This side, my mother never saw. I don't blame her for what he did to me; I don't blind myself with a need to lay blame on others mindlessly.

A few years before my mother had passed; he was killed in a back alley when he drunkenly bit off more than he could chew by picking a fight with someone that had cold steel and a steady hand to fight back with.

Funny how the bad memories in your life are what you remember best. Somehow all the good things that happen in your life are always the things that got away from you because you were too stupid to see it.

My mother was normal, sweet, loving and kind, everything that the greatest mothers of the world should be to their children. My 
real
 father on the other hand was 
not
 of this world.

I thought her mad when she told me of this winged man that came to her. He left when I was three and never returned. Hated him for that, not because he wasn’t there for me, but because I saw that day how much it hurt my mother to tell me this, how much it hurt for her to remember the love of her life that just up and disappeared into Heaven leaving her behind.

 I couldn’t bring myself to think of her as a liar. My mother never lied to me, but that night, I 
did
 question her sanity.

Who wouldn’t, she was trying to tell me that I was the bastard son of an Angel. I guess my name suites me well though in that respect. Angel, a half-breed angel named Angel. Truth be known, my full first name is Angelique but I prefer to be called Angel. Upon the time that I had entered my second battle, I stopped calling myself Angelique, and referred to myself as Angel.

The Angel of death.

 
I knew that there were things different about me… but… 
man
… that was a bit much to swallow.

About five years after she had explained my biological father’s origins, our village was invaded.
            

 
While I was out hunting, my mother fell prey to the ruthless northern invaders. When I returned, my mother lay lifeless outside the front of our small hovel. Those that were responsible were splitting the spoils while my home burned, casting an orange light over my mother's lifeless corpse giving it some kind of sick fake warmth.

 
I realized then, I would forever be alone, that her death was my fault. That was the day I knew that I couldn't save anyone. I was too late when I got back to save her life. However not too late to make them pay for what they had done to her in blood and slow agonizing pain.

 
I was a beast to the men that had killed the last piece that held me together in my life, once the wreckage was finished, I screamed in horror at the blood that covered me and ran as if I could escape the blood on my hands, the sin on my soul.

Killing comes natural to some, others it breaks them, and then there are people like me; the type that learn to accept it, to have it part of their lives. That night though, those deaths were vengeance kills, once the vengeance was carried out, I was still alone…left with what I had done.

With a fractured mind and a broken heart I fled the horror and wandered for days. The scorching sun searing my flesh, lips cracked and dry as I traveled. Occasionally I would pass out from lack of food, water and rest. Body screaming for nourishment, but too far gone to figure out how to obtain it.

By the third day I was delusional, somehow I had made my way to another village, only to huddle in between vacant houses and cry uncontrollably.

That
 is when Sarre found me, broken and in the pit of my despair.

“Hush now darling, I am here for you. I will protect you. Stop your tears now; this is not your destiny.”

 There she was, kneeling next to me with the saddest look in her large gray doe eyes. The moment that I sniffled and looked deep into her eyes as she looked me over, a soft smile formed on her face.

It was the first sweet face that I had seen in days. My body still growing was something any female would marvel at.

The shade of my skin was as dark as fine cherry-wood with deep, crescent hazel eyes and red plump lips. I was tall and lean, but the defined look of muscles traced over my chest, abs and arms like a skinny version of a Ken doll. In later years to come I had developed well-toned forearms from years of battle, and swinging two long swords.

Nowadays my massive hands feel empty without my blades. Years of having them on me made it like a security blanket to my soul, an extension to my twisted being.

Her hand slowly extended to me.

“Do you wish to be owned little one, to finally come into your birthright, to finally
 
belong
?”

 
Her words touched the core of me, though I had many questions, I said nothing in return, my voice was lost. I shook my head yes and wiped my face. I must have looked so 
weak
, so 
pitiful
.

Sarre’s hand reached out, and though she seemed to be solid in form, her hand vanished into the flesh of my chest. I felt like I was being shocked over and over. My body wanting to convulse and contort viciously yet I remained stiff and wide eyed.

I knew, in a flash of a moment that seemed like an eternity, I knew everything that was going on. I was a half-breed. My father 
was
 an Angel. Because I was born a half breed, I had some sort of link with this spirit.

I cried out in pain and anguish, guilt racking my soul because I doubted my mother for the smallest moment, because I was finding my purpose, because I wasn’t alone anymore. In a very painful and slow process I was finding my way to be complete and I had Sarre to thank for that.

Sarre was no normal dead woman however, but a war spirit. War spirits were those that were birthed in the realm of Purgatory. Before the death of Christ, spirits lingered in this parallel universe.

There are strong and weak souls. She was a strong soul, though they are few and far between. The strong souls that died could collect the weaker souls. Not like they fed on one another, but the extremely weaker souls would be drawn to the stronger souls, over many years they would bond, and then be consumed by them from the never ending bond that they had with the stronger souls.

There is only a handful of these war spirits. They are called such, because in older times, they were the only ones strong enough to manifest in front of the human eye.

They would warn men before battle as well as prepare them with a vigorous speech. The many men that have seen the war spirits deemed them as Gods of war. The war spirits would do this in search of the only creature that they could bond with and not consume, the half-breed demons and angels. Because they were part human they could bond with them, but because of the otherworldly blood the war spirits could never completely consume them.

This is where the term ‘soul mate’ came from. They searched for half-breeds. For by birth right these half-breeds were drawn to battle, whether it was to protect or to destroy mankind. And therefore were often on the battlefields attempting to right the wrong or vice versa.

Of course there were those that were the opposite. The half breeds demons which did the same only on the opposite side, attempting to tear the world apart in blood and war. And yes, there were war spirits that would seek them out as well.

Due to the culmination of many souls, the war spirits were not able to go to Heaven or Hell, no matter their evil or good nature. For the war spirits were not one soul that could be judged, but many souls in one. So they found their own purpose in the half-breeds of the mortal realm.

By bonding with us half-breeds, the war spirits are linked with us. Every thought and emotion they know. Every pain and pleasure they feel. It’s almost a way for the war spirits to feel alive in their bleak existence.

From the moment that Sarre bonded with me I was Sarre’s and she was mine, eternally.

I grew into my wings on my twenty-sixth birthday. I can lock them away now. It’s known as feather un-birthing. It’s when you can make the skin overlap and ultimately consume the wings into your flesh. It's painful to do, I remember crying for days until I could manage to block out the pain that it causes to do it.

Sometimes I even forget that they are there, hidden beneath the surface of my scared flesh. It hurts worse when you release them. It took me over two hundred years to learn 
that
 trick and make it feel like no more than someone slashing your back with a knife when releasing them, instead of your skin bursting at the seams, even though that is precisely what is happening.

Because I’m not a full angel, my wings are white and gray. I wish that they could be one full color, but that is next to impossible for my breed. Half-breed demons work the same way, though I have heard of the ones that choose to be in mortal shells, hide their spirits away in a human's body, have what looks like bat wings, but their coloring is as white as snow.
  The half-breeds have gray wings. The full blooded have black bat like wings, and the princes and generals have blood red bat wings.

Angels show status with numbers and coloration of the wings. Outside of the messenger Angels, I was on the lowest part of the totem pole in the Angelic hierarchy.

Due to my human blood I was permitted to interfere with the problems of man, and because of my Angelic blood I was permitted to know of the otherworldly issues that I could tend to. In short I was a defender but I wasn’t allowed to be treated with respect or as a 
true
 angel.

Messed up, but I didn’t make the rules, outside of God, that was the Angelic Orders job and don’t get me started on
 
them
.       

Nowadays my body is covered in scars and burns from all my fighting days. But that is to be expected when you fight for the mass majority of your life. I couldn’t walk away from every battle without at least a mark or two. A way for the battle to live on, written by blade and blood silently telling its story on my flesh of a battle no one would truly ever know about. No one would really know what was truly being fought for.

 
I was born long ago, and then it was filled with dark superstitions, wars and battles. Sarre always knew when and where, and she always took me to them. Her voice rung like a lovely melody that tugged at my blades, my foes were quickly cut down.