Rising (36 page)

“What are you doing!” I screamed.
 
“We have to go help him!”

“It’s too late for him, Clara.
 
We’ve got to save Jessie if we can.”

My mind was spinning from the brutality
of what I’d just seen.
 
A man was pulled
from his house and murdered in his backyard.
 
What about Jessie?
 
My aunt and
uncle? What about my little cousin Hunter who was only five?

“Hurry,” I said gravely to Gabe.

There was no need.
 
Gabe jumped the curb, knocking a trashcan
into the street, then tore across the front lawn directly up to the house.
 
The four of us leapt out, launching ourselves
up the steps through the gaping front door.
 
It was too quiet.
 
Then there was
a scream coming from outside.

“The back door is through there!” I
yelled, pointing to the kitchen.

Jeremy was closest, speeding like a
demon through the house.
 
We were right
behind him.
 
As we poured out the back
door, we saw them on the lawn, near a pile of what looked like a broken statue,
but I knew it wasn’t.
 
My Aunt Vanessa
didn’t own garden statues.
 
Four shadow
scouts turned their gleaming yellow eyes on us and hissed in unison, having
their hands on Jessie to keep her still.
 
She wasn’t making it easy, struggling with captors she couldn’t
see.
 
I wondered what this must look like
from the others’ eyes.

“Shadow scouts!
 
Jeremy, now!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jeremy
yelled in one long drawn-out scream, sounding eerily similar to Axel Rose’s
jungle yell.
 
That familiar humming
sensation rapidly increased into waves of vibration, stirring my own power to
life.
 
It was like mine was responding
positively to his.
 
It was
instinctual.
 
I closed my eyes for just
an instant to focus my thoughts.
 
I
needed to protect Jessie and my friends.
 
My rage subsided into righteous anger, wanting only to shield us from
this evil.
 
When I opened my eyes, I
wasn’t surprised to see my golden halo shimmering like a fiery dome over the
four of us.
 
Jeremy’s sound waves lapped
in the air, shaking me where I stood.
 
Then, I heard a sputtering crackle and the four shadow scouts seemed
more vivid than before.

Jessie’s face had gone pale, but she
still struggled against the arms clamping around her.
 
Her eyes went wide seeing the grotesque black
figures holding her.
 
That’s when I saw
the two reapers emerge from the shadow of an old, fat oak tree near the
driveway.
 
My heart nearly stopped.
 
My light shield dimmed.
 
Seeing them so close in the flesh was
surreal, like watching a waking nightmare walk right up to you.
 
They were ten to twelve feet tall, seemingly
too big to be agile.
 
But, their bodies
were lithe, moving in a strangely fluid way, like they held some secret of our
environment that helped them move without any obstruction from gravity or the
earth’s pull.
 
While their bodies had the
appearance of a man’s, their skin was black with a dark green sheen, similar to
how some dinosaurs are depicted in science books.
 
The skin didn’t look soft like a
human’s.
 
It appeared to be a thick,
tough layer overlapping a lean muscular frame.
 
The most frightening part was that there was movement underneath it,
like an invisible force rolling under the surface of the skin.
 
The only clothing these beasts wore were
tunics around the waist and long cloaks made of a black, rustic leather that
shined with an unnatural luster.
 
I
shivered, wondering what animals on their home-world had been the victim for
their pelts.
 
Their appearance was
terrible, but their eyes were horrifying.
 
If I ever cringed at the sight of the shadow scouts, I wanted to cower
like a small child away from the sight of those eyes on me.
 
They were glowing yellow with black slits for
pupils like a serpent’s, set in deep-set hollows of their massive skulls.
 
They had no hair at all on their bodies, only
that putrid greenish-black skin, rolling with the energy underneath it.
 

The tallest of the two stepped
aggressively forward. It flared out a pair of massive dragon-like wings—bony
frames webbed with taut, leathery skin between.
 
It shocked me, because I’d never seen this in my nightmares of the
creatures.
 
After an instant, the beast
folded the wings close to its back.
 
It
was trying to intimidate us.
 
It was
working. I tried with all my might to keep my shield up, but it wasn’t as
strong as before.
 
We were all frozen,
taking in the reality of what stood before us.
 
Then, the creature spoke to us, and in our own language.

“Little
Setti
.
 
You are no match for us.
 
Go hide while you can.
 
Your turn will come soon enough.”

Its voice was deep, throaty, and
fierce.
 
There were tendrils of something
black and wet between its lipless mouth when it spoke.
 
I felt my shield dim to almost nothing, then
Gabe snapped me out of that trance.

“Clara!
 
Your shield!”

My eyes met his, giving me the strength
I needed.
 
Pulling the power from deep
inside, I pushed it farther out in a shower of light.
 
I hadn’t even realized it, but while I was
gaping at the reapers, Ben was to my right, moving closer to the shadow
scouts.
 
I glanced in his direction.
 
He was beaming white, having drawn energy
from them.
 
One of them had even let go
of Jessie’s arm and had crumpled to its knees.
 
Ben was draining them dry.

“Jeremy,” said Gabe grimly, “again.”

I knew he wanted Jeremy to break the
energy fields of the reapers, having successfully done it with the shadow
scouts.
 
Jeremy’s voice came out in a
deeper tenor this time, low and steady.
 
There was a hollow echo in his voice.
 
It was like his power intuitively knew just what to do.
 
I couldn’t help but notice how his aura leapt
around him in vibrations of fuchsia and orange.
 
Had it not been for our current situation, I would’ve remarked at how
beautiful it was.

The tallest reaper stepped toward
Jessie, seeming no more worried about us than bugs buzzing around his
head.
 
Oh, God.
 
My cousin’s pale face went entirely white.
 
All I could see were her bright blue eyes
shimmering with tears as she looked up at the horrifying creature above
her.
 
A jarring pressure to my left made
me stumble sideways as Gabe sent out his power.
 
It didn’t penetrate the creature’s shield, but exploded the top half of
a shadow scout holding Jessie’s right arm.
 
The lower half of the scout slumped to the ground in a pile of crumbling
embers.
 
I forced myself to remain calm
and focused, knowing they needed my protection.
 
The other reaper stepped forward to stand in front of me, glaring into
my eyes.
 
I was transfixed.
 
Up close, I could see its face was nothing
close to human.
 
There were two tiny
slits where a nose should be on a flattened face.
 
It lifted its long arm that looked more like
black steel sharpening to a point and slammed it directly over me.
 
Green electric sparks spit up into the
air.
 
Then, it grinned.
 
It had no teeth, but a row of slick, black
slime where teeth should have been.
 
It
opened its mouth very wide.
 
Tendrils of
black ooze threaded across the gaping hole; bright green streaks of electricity
licked inside the orifice.
 
I knew my
face showed my disgust.
 
It gurgled and
grinned at me again.
 
It was like a lion
who yawns to show its row of canine teeth just for the shock effect on its
prey.

This must have gotten Gabe’s attention,
because I felt wave after wave of his power from the left, pummeling the reaper
that was glowering at me.
 
It let out a
frightening growl, stumbling backward and turning its attention on him.
 
Jeremy and Gabe had both moved in front of
me, working on the reaper at the same time.
 
The sound waves were slowly shattering the creature’s shield.
 
Gabe relentlessly pounded it with his own
force.
 
It lifted its sword-like arm as
if to attack them, though they were still inside my shield.
 
Gabe had his arms in front of him, making a
huge pushing motion then the reaper exploded into fragments of black bone,
dust, and its own echoing shriek.

Jessie screamed.
 
The other reaper reached one arm out toward
her.
 
Its sharpened tip splintered into
seven, bony fingers that encapsulated Jessie’s tiny head.
 
Ben was glowing brightly next to me.
 
The shadow scouts had let her go and had
fallen to the side, but it didn’t matter.
 
The great reaper held its protective shield in place, while Jeremy and
Gabe continued to pound against its hulking back.
 
Its other sharpened arm went up.
 
I saw the sheer terror in Jessie’s round blue
eyes as it penetrated through her green t-shirt, singing the fabric then the
skin.
 
The reaper moved slowly, as if on
purpose to torture us all even more.
 
This wasn’t happening.
 
This
couldn’t be happening.

“NO!” I screamed, my heart sinking with
the slow movement of the reaper’s arm.

With violent finality, it plunged the
arm swiftly into her chest, sucking the life from my cousin.
 
Jeremy and Gabe did not relent.
 
I could hear a splintering crack—the sound of
the beast’s shield faltering.
 
There was
a greenish glow flowing up the reaper’s arm and rippling through his body.
 
That crawling current crept under its
skin.
 
Jessie’s pale skin slowly darkened
to tan then brown then black.
 
Her hair
fell away.
 
Her clothes singed to almost
nothing.

“No,” I heard myself whisper hoarsely.

My poor cousin.
 
She couldn’t be gone.
 
I was waiting to see her freeze into a statue
of ash.
 
My heart had gone numb.
 
I could feel my head shaking back and forth
in disbelief.
 
The reaper made a strange,
gurgling sound before it withdrew its arm from her chest and its spiny fingers
from around her skull.
 
Jessie’s eyes
were closed.
 
Her skin was not ash, but a
shiny, sleek black, like scales.
 
I was
waiting to see her crumble into nothing.
 
Instead, her arms twitched, her head tilted up and her eyes opened.
 
They were a gleaming, ominous yellow.
 
Horror made me tremble, sending a tremor
through my shield and a pain in my heart.
 
Jessie was a shadow scout.

14

CLARA

My power drained away with each passing
second that I stared at my cousin Jessie.
 
No, the shadow scout who once was Jessie.
 
There was nothing left of her, but a smallish
frame slouched in a posture that looked familiar.
 
In a daze, I didn’t notice at first the quick
movement to my left.
 
Jeremy had grabbed
a metal trash can against the garage and was launching it at the reaper.
 
He released a deafening yell that carried
with the metal, reverberating outward like a giant tuning fork as it struck
through the reaper’s energy field then spiraled sideways.
 
The reaper spun around, but instead of going
for Jeremy, it turned on Ben who was doing his best to steal its life energy.
 
Ben was glowing brighter than ever before,
and had edged too close to the creature, which would’ve been fine if my shield
had still been in place.
 
I couldn’t do
anything but stand there stupidly, overwhelmed by my own grief.

“Clara!” yelled Gabe.

I snapped out of my misery and tried to
focus on rebuilding the shield.
 
My mind
spun erratically into many thoughts jumbled together—light, hope, protection,
safety—but it kept wavering back to Jessie.
 
I was breathless, and I hadn’t moved from this spot since we had come
out the back door.
 
Gabe sent out an
onslaught of his power which missed the reaper but shattered the remaining
shadow scouts, except for the small one, into a cloud of sooty smoke.
 
That last scout crouched on the ground,
seemingly confused and lost.
 
The
fearsome reaper lunged out at Ben, who was too fast for the beast.
 
Ben twisted away, running for the small
circle of light I had been able to rebuild.
 
Before he could cross the halo’s threshold, the reaper spat out a ball
of black ooze which webbed out, wrapping over Ben’s shoulder.
 
He stumbled, but Gabe was there, jerking him
fiercely into my light shield.
 
When Gabe
tried to use his power against the reaper a second time, its own energy shield
was back up.
 
The creature glanced at all
four of us with a glimmer of something flashing in its serpentine eyes.
 
Was it anger?
 
Frustration?
 
In a matter of
seconds, it glided back across the yard, yanked the small shadow scout to her
feet, and with two beats of its massive wings, it was airborne and gone.
 
Jeremy tore off after them, stopping at the
spot where they lifted off, staring into the sky as they vanished into distant
clouds.