Sticks & Stones Read online

  “Wait, weren’t you in gymnastics with the Rainn girls when you were little?”

  Monique’s jaw clenched and she said, “Yeah, that was before they started hanging out with that ho-bag Archer. I can’t stand that bitch. Gawd, Daddy!” she whined, effecting a Southern Belle lilt she didn’t have. “I can’t believe I missed all the excitement! Leave it to you and the were-bitch to come home from vacation a day late and a dollar short!”

  Monique’s father turned a barely tolerant frown at his daughter, then said, “Anything else, Moni?”

  The girl clenched her jaw at his use of her life-long pet name. As a child, she loved pretending that it actually sounded like the word “money”, but once she’d hit her teens, it began to grate on her. A fact her parents were well aware of, now they only used it to irritate her.

  Without responding, Monique turned and headed back upstairs.

  “Shut the stairs door behind you!” Mr. Morris yelled as she disappeared up the stairway.

  Her only response was the resounding slam! that rattled the pristine family photos in their heavy frames.

  After two hours of experimenting with an assortment of hair styles, trying to pair specific colors of clothing to her red hair to achieve a conservative look, Jean sat alone in her attic bedroom. Rena had been called away to help with a family matter, leaving Jean to struggle on alone.

  She now sat on a footstool beside her bed. With her back to the bedroom’s only window, the breeze it let in sent a mild chill up and down her back. But she couldn’t honestly say that the shivers were from the breeze. On her bed, laid out on the rough blanket she wrapped it in to protect it when hidden at the back of her large closet, lay a sword. Polished steel made up the blade, burnished steel the hand guard. The leather wrapping the hilt had a dark patina, stained a rich brown from many years of use.

  She had certainly seen flashier, gaudier examples of the sword crafter’s art, but this blade’s beautiful simplicity belied its recent history. Several days ago, the polished silver had glowed a bright red, surging brighter each time it cut down a Hellion obstructing the path to rescuing her family and friends.

  “It’s a captivating blade,” a woman’s voice said from off to Jean’s right, near the back corner of the room.

  A smile quirked Jean’s lips and she made a point of not glancing over.

  “Sometimes, it all feels like a dream,” she said, “well, more like a nightmare.”

  “Is that why I find you as you are, now?” the woman asked.

  “Yeah, I take it out sometimes to remind myself that I didn’t dream it all up,” Jean replied, then looked over her shoulder at the tall woman behind her. “Hello, Guardian.”

  A woman stood in the corner shadow, one hand resting on the pommel of her own sheathed sword, dressed in battle leathers, augmented with polished armor.

  “Hello, Chosen,” she said, returning Jean’s smile.

  Jean turned her attention back to the sword laying on the bed before her.

  “Sometimes, I wonder if I’m even worthy to carry it,” she said. “If being a Chosen is even what I want.”

  The Guardian Angel stepped out of the shadows to flank Jean. “That’s not a choice you can make, Jean,” she said, her voice a touch softer than usual.

  Jean looked up at her. “I know, Valera. It’s just nerves, I guess.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “What brings you to the mortal realm, today?” Jean asked, a teasing glint in her eye.

  Valera glanced skyward, an obvious attempt at tolerance, before replying, “As your Guardian, I can be made aware of your circumstances at any time.”

  Without meaning to, Jean suddenly blushed a bright crimson.

  “Within reason,” Valera added dryly, shaking her head a touch. “I know that your friend is being laid to rest tomorrow and when I sensed the sword had been uncovered, I decided to see how you are doing.”

  Jean scowled. It still felt weird to have a Guardian Angel, let alone one as attentive as Valera. This wasn’t the first time the woman had appeared in the last few days. Typically, it had happened when Jean felt distraught, or lost, either emotionally or mentally.

  The death of Toff had hit everyone hard, of that Jean held no doubt. She suspected Valera knew the depth of their group’s loss, even without knowing the young man very well. At times, Jean had found herself nearly overcome with grief, particularly as she slept. Twice, she’d awakened to find Valera standing vigil at the foot of her bed, prepared to act if anything from the Abyss or Great Void made an attempt to reach her. Nothing had, yet, but Jean knew it wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and would she be alone when it did.

  Nightmares plagued her sleeping hours again, despite the medication her doctor had given her that were meant to let her rest without dreaming. On those nights when it did work, she still woke with such a feeling of loss inside it physically made her chest hurt. She had come to the conclusion, going through what she was experiencing now, that the phrase “die of a broken heart” could be taken literally, not just figuratively.

  “Jean?” Valera’s voice woke her from her reverie.

  Forcing a smile, Jean wrapped the sword in the heavy cloth, saying, “I’m ok. Good days and bad.” Tucking the top and bottom of the blanket carefully, she then carried it to her closet and returned it to the spot concealing it in the far back corner. When she stood and turned, she found the taller woman’s piercing gaze on her. “Mostly good,” she added.

  Valera watched her for a moment, then nodded.

  After several seconds of silence passed, Jean blinked and Valera had gone. Empty space where she stood moments before – no parting words necessary. Jean knew that if a dire situation cropped up in which she needed the Guardian’s protection, Valera would be there. They shared a bond stronger than mere words could express.

  Monique sat at the small table in her hobby room. Though not large, it still felt steeped in shadow with the only illumination coming from two white candles in front of her. Between the candles sat the family’s twenty-gallon fish tank. With several small fish and one rainbow-colored Beta fish hiding in the tank’s fake greenery, the fish were one of the few things that both of Monique’s parents shared an enthusiasm for. Not so, Monique. She had liked the fish, until her mother decided to add her daughter’s goldfish to the tank, claiming that having two tanks on the same great room shelf was an inefficient use of space. Monique’s golden fish didn’t last a day before only the bones remained, with the Beta looking slightly fatter.

  Leaning in to glare at the rainbow fish, Monique said, “Your time has come.”

  Sitting back allowed her to see the grimoire open on the table between herself and the tank. Written in unusual symbols and glyphs, it had taken her a while to work out this simplest of incantations. Even now, she felt she wouldn’t have made it this far without the book wanting her to use it.

  Closing her eyes to center herself, Monique then opened them, glanced down at the lined page by her right hand, and began chanting the words she’d transcribed onto the paper. They weren’t words she understood and in some cases, she found them difficult to pronounce, but as she repeatedly chanted the foreign words, they began to feel more natural on her tongue.

  With no accurate idea of how long it would take to see any results from her efforts, Monique was surprised that after only a few times through the chant, the fish in the tank began to swim frantically. The frequency of the bubbles from the aeration tube increased, as well. With her pulse quickening, she added more sincerity behind the mantra and within a couple of minutes, first one, then another, then soon all of the fish were floating at the top of the tank. She watched in satisfaction as the Beta took its last breath, then went still among the churning water.

  Leaning in to get a closer look at
the dead fish, she whispered, “Gotcha!”, a glint of success in her eyes.

  Elise Archer climbed the last few stairs to the large third floor attic. The fully-finished space only contained three things: storage, a full bathroom and Jean’s bedroom. When her husband, Devon, had designed the sprawling home, he had only a few requisites, one being that there not be any unfinished space. Even their multi-car garage walls and ceiling looked pristine.

  At the top of the staircase, Elise silently stepped into Jean’s doorway. Her daughter sat before her antique vanity, ten soft-white bulbs providing an abundance of illumination...enough that even where Elise stood, she could clearly see the tear streaks on Jean’s porcelain skin. She resisted the immediate urge to rush in and throw her arms around her daughter, deciding instead to remain leaning against the door frame.

  “Did you and Rena decide on how you’re going to wear your hair, tomorrow?” Elise asked.

  Startled, Jean glanced up, then quickly wiped the tears off with the back of her hands.

  Still, Elise resisted her nurturing urges.

  “I think we decided I should wear it down,” Jean replied. She took a cleansing breath then made contact with her mother’s gaze in the mirror and forced a smile.

  Elise’s thoughts caused a moment of hesitation. She stood there, looking at her adopted daughter, a girl she knew to be Chosen, destined to be a General in the escalating Eternity War. But never, in the years since she and Devon took in the fire-red haired little girl, did Jean ever feel like anyone other than her own daughter.

  Shrugging the hesitation from her shoulders, Elise walked into Jean’s room and over to stand behind her. She put her hands gently on the girl’s shoulders and immediately felt a bit of tension drain from Jean at her touch.

  “I’m sure that whatever you decide to do, Toff would approve.” Even as she said it, Elise wished she could take it back. It sounded like nothing more than empty platitudes.

  The appreciation in Jean’s smile touched her eyes this time, warming away Elise’s remaining edginess.

  “Have all the kids gone home?”

  Elise nodded.

  “I only had Tammy and Tony, today, which is odd. It was the quietest day we’ve had since everything happened.”

  A mischievous glint tickled the corners of Jean’s smile.

  “Those two are more than enough for anyone.”

  Mrs. Archer couldn’t help smiling, herself.

  “Good point.”

  Elise ran a small daycare in their home, more to keep herself busy than for the income. The family didn’t need the small amount of money it generated, and she usually put what she did bring in back into the business. A large, well furnished playroom took up a sizeable section of the house’s vast basement. Since the tragedy of the last several days, she had waived her daily fee and watched the children so that their parents could take the time to rebuild their lives; for most this was no small financial burden, without the added stress of having to worry about paying for daycare. Over the last few days, the house had echoed with the cacophony that always underscored a large group of children.

  Elise found it exhausting, but with her only daughter - and youngest of two children - in high school, and Britt deployed overseas, it filled an emptiness in Elise’s daily life.

  “Dinner is going to be ready, soon,” she said, habitually arranging some of her daughter’s silky red locks around her neck. “Wash up and come on down.”

  Jean nodded at her mother’s reflection.

  Elise made it to the bedroom door before pausing. She glanced back and said, “You may consider taking your nighttime meds early today. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow and you’re going to need your rest.”

  She almost missed the subtle flick of Jean’s gaze over to the amber and white pill-box on her bedside table. The meds helped keep her daughter from dreaming, sparing her the vivid nightmares she’d suffered for many years.

  With a final knowing smile, Elise headed back downstairs.

  She stands in the middle of a large, empty slab of asphalt. The fierce wind tosses her hair wildly, making it a challenge to see through, as well as keep her balance.

  The sky above roils in blackness, contrary to her certainty it’s mid-day. After a closer look, she can tell the blackness is the deepest, darkest storm clouds she’s ever seen. They churn and move like a ceiling of monstrous black snakes, looming over Shadow Valley. From somewhere above echoes a rumbling...a heavy sound like boulders crashing down a mountain range.

  Despite the rumbling from above, Jean can suddenly feel a massive vibration through the soles of her sneakers. Without warning, the asphalt around her cracks into large slabs and the piece she’s on begins to tilt, rising at her end. Struggling to keep her footing, Jean is filled with awe and terror as the quaking earth lifts her high above the ground below, allowing her a bird’s eye view of her town.

  Below her stretches out a community in distress. Dozens of small fires–and four large ones–burn out of control throughout the valley. Thick, gray smoke crawls through the air like a living creature seeking out a victim to feed upon.

  Shadows darker than black, sensed more than seen, lurk in the shadows, preying on unsuspecting citizens fleeing through the debris-ridden streets, panicked and searching for a safe place to hide.

  On the far end of the valley from Jean, the local airport is in flames. Even so, she can still see a small airliner, filled with passengers, trying to taxi over to the runway.

  To the east of the airport are the remains of the old amusement park. From its center, a murky yellowish/green pillar of light stretches up into the blackened clouds. It pulses with a rhythm that matches Jean’s heartbeat, causing a sickly feeling to clench in the pit of her stomach.

  Each pulse of light from the ugly column sends a blast of hot air through the valley, nearly pushing Jean off balance with each burst. The light also sends her stomach into a roller-coaster of threatening bile each time it touches her.

  Above, the darkness becomes pock-marked with orange spots and moments later fist-sized lumps of burning stone begin hailing down. Their impact echoes with a drumming rhythm that shakes everything around each spot they hit.

  Now she can barely hear the sound of the airliner’s engines winding up, carried to her on the tumultuous wind.

  Her heart is conflicted, hoping that the aircraft will remain stationary, so its passengers can retreat for cover, and the desire for it to climb aloft and escape the Hell that Shadow Valley has become.

  More tremors beneath her feet decide for her as wider, longer cracks begin to form in the ground’s tortured surface...cracks viewable even from Jean’s vantage point on the tall, asphalt outcrop.

  A disturbing, shrieking sound, far louder than any normal airliner engine, echoes across the valley; Jean watches with held breath as the aircraft successfully climbs into the sky, heading her way.

  She throws her hands in the air and cries out in elation as the airliner gets closer, beginning to bank to the right. Her enthusiasm drops through her feet as, mid-bank, the stones of flame still hurling from above begin bombarding the flying silver cylinder.

  “No!” Jean screams into the howling wind as the airliner pitches far too hard, seeming to hover to her right; then the tip if the right wing impacts and drags a trench through the fractured earth.

  As if seen as a snapshot, Jean sees the expressions of terror on the aircraft passengers through the reinforced windows. Of all of them, the one that will haunt her dreams is the expression on a young boy, his bright face looking out one of the last windows on the aircraft.

  The airliner bursts into a giant pinwheel of flames as it tumbles along the edge of the valley, adding its share to the look of Armageddon around her.

  Another sickly pulse of dark energ
y draws Jean’s attention back to the greenish-yellow pillar, this time noticeably brighter. The frequent pulses are only a second apart now, leaping up the column from the ground into the ugly, muddy clouds above.

  Instinctively, Jean can feel an apex approaching, but before she can even throw up her hands to protect her face, one final, massive energy pulse shoots for the sky, sending out a blast wave of energy not unlike ground zero at a nuclear detonation.

  Her scream is swallowed up before it can begin–

  –and her forehead smacked against the short end-table beside her bed as she tumbled to her floor.

  “Ow!” she cried, her hand going immediately to the bump forming just above her right eye.

  Frustrated, she reached up and tapped the small button on the shaded lamp on the same table. It glowed to life and a hissing sound from beneath her bed startled her. A moment later, she regained her breath and leaned down to retrieve the family cat, Scatters, from the nighttime shadows.

  She set the cat on her tousled bedspread, then leaned down and peered into her vanity mirror. In the moonlight, she could barely make out a red welt forming right above her eyebrow.

  “Great,” she muttered and shook her head.

  The cat vacated the warm area Jean had just fallen from, in favor of not being laid on as the teenage girl returned to her comfy bed and retreated between the covers.

  Monique stood silent, watching from beside her parent’s silver/gray Mercedes sedan as mourners crossed the parking lot, entering into the funeral home’s main double-doors.

  As the only son of one of the historic town’s founding families, Cristoff Rainn’s funeral had drawn a massive crowd. Monique doubted that the rambling lodge-turned-mortuary would be able to handle the influx of mourners without efficiency from the staff, and courtesy of the visitors, as well.