Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (50 page)

"After a ruse that he was done, he almost beat me, but my skill and tactics won out.  I felled him.  Then something even bigger tried to come through.  I was unable to close the portal, but it could not get through either.  Whatever it was told me I would pay and then the portal changed into a black hole."

"Here on earth?  How is that possible?" asked Eryn.

"It did not happen here because that place was a dimensional pocket.  The Wiccan's removed their holy place from the Earth for the ritual, but the daemons did not know this so when they sprung the trap and the portal opened, it was not Earth.  The portal would not function properly and essentially got stuck," Celuine said. 

"How do you know that?"  I asked. 

"I studied portals centuries ago.  They do not work properly in dimensional pockets.  They are not stable," she replied.  "You also would not be able to close one in a dimensional pocket because you have not learned that yet." 

I laughed.  I believed I was prepared.  Suddenly my confidence turned to amazement because my training shortened by the attack on our camp, but also my first attempt had failed in training long ago.  It was lucky that we averted disaster. 

"At that point it was about getting out with you.  The gravity pull was immense and we barely made it out.  The Wizard was not dead.  I found him eviscerated on the ground on the way out, holding his insides together by magic.  He said he had it.  Funny he kept using that phrase.  You know the rest." 

Moments passed and Eryn and Celuine sat there looking at each other, eating silently.  One more important question came to mind but not wanting to overload the situation, I waited. 

"Celuine, how do you know about the fight in Heaven since you were here?”  She looked at me, with slight surprise I asked in front of Eryn.  I wanted her to know everything.  She had to realize that as much as I loved her, the planet needed defending.  Celuine sat there.  Her hesitation was unclear.  So we waited.

"I was called back.  The ability to move back and forth is part of being an angel.  Your teleportation works only in the realm in which you are standing.  With training, you can bridge worlds.  My father can speak to me telepathically, so he called me home to help defend."

"You mean God?"

"No.  Mathias, your Master.”  That admittedly caught me by surprise.  I smiled.

“You mean our father?”  Her Jaw dropped.  Slowly her head started to nod and a smile began to spread.  This added to my confusion.  First my father is an Archangel, but not just any angel.  He was the in charge of the defense of the City of Heaven.  He is a General.

Now this!  A sister.  My sister…Unknown to me.  Someone that shared my blood on my father’s side. 
OUR
father’s side.  I looked at her in her male human form and laughed.  “You are going to have to be in your female form for a while until I get used to this.  This is a lot to process…again!”

She shifted back.  Eryn sat there as mystified as I was.  My upside down life finally righted again. 

“So you are the one.  Father refused to speak of it because he felt ashamed that he could not be a part of your life.  It pained him.  He never told me your name or location. I could not come visit you.  He felt it would easier that way.

“That would have changed my life drastically if you had.”

“This explains why Father sent me ahead while you slept.  It was not our time yet.”

“Was it fate for me to be chosen for this?  To replace the Defender?”

“No.  We took a chance.  You showed compassion to a monster that your society has feared because though the years, he had to pull back to the shadows.  The Defender could no longer teach mankind because they had advanced beyond his ability to reason in matters of Heaven.  So from the shadows he watched and waited; answering the pull to find the portal when they opened, dealing with the incursion, and closing the portals.  Then along came a boy, with a heritage hidden from the world.  A boy who was not scared of the creature.  Sasquatch reported that to our father while you were dying that day.”

“Several came before me, I was told.  They died.  The knowledge of dealing with one’s own death was too much for most human minds.”

“It had to be a hybrid.  You just so happened to be one.”

“Wait…So if God is Father’s father…That makes God my grandfather.” 

Celuine nodded.

“Holy shit!”  Celuine frowned at, me most likely because of my language.

Eryn sat in silence, overloaded by everything. She had a smile on her face as she looked at me…at
WHAT
I was…and who I was.  A man whose father was an angel and his grandfather was God. 
THEE
GOD.  Her mind was processing fast. 

Celuine continued to speak.  I tuned her out as I watched my love absorb all she could.  Several more minutes passed before she finally burst out.

"So this means you were there and she was there on Heaven’s walls.  Was this an invasion?  That must have been just as weird knowing that you were in a hospital bed in a coma.  Did you paint those?" she asked, pointing back to the living room.

"Yes.  A few weeks ago.”  Celuine looked at me.  “Your bravery to go after your teacher to save Heaven is legendary now.  Even the souls in Heaven speak of it.  Yet you play it off as if it was nothing.  I saw you from a distance while you recovered.  You had a few conversations with “Our” father before he sent you on your last quest to return home.  Had you not figured it out, you would not have woken up when you did, of course.  Possibly worse."

“Yes, there was hundreds of thousands of the horde coming at me.  Diving through the portal seemed like the only option.  To stay would have meant death.  I can face hundreds to several thousand…not hundreds of thousands…not yet anyway.  I hated running, but when I saw their target was me in my hospital bed, I had to act.”

“It is good you acted, Brother.” 

Eryn got up and moved into the other room to look at the painting.  Silence overflowed the room and pressed itself into the kitchen like a hurricane making land.  With everything in the open, the moments filled with contemplation.  To say, “I felt lied to,” was a gross understatement, yet the understanding of why everything had to be the way it was became clear.  My mind took longer to open and allow the memories to flood in than those that helped draft me anticipated it would take.  I gathered this by Celuine's own account of being the backup catalyst for me.  Had she not done this, there is a good chance nothing would have happened.  It took both her prodding and my seeing the daemon prince to trigger the influx of those astral memories.

Eryn came back in from the other room.  I rose to my feet.  She cried silently.  Tears rolled freely and more so than any other time before when emotion came to bear.  She walked toward me and reached up, touching my cheek.  More silence followed, simply a tender hand upon my cheek melting the wasteland of ice inside of me even further.  I felt something inside of me fall into place.  Completion.  One can only relish the feeling for what it is.

"You saved Heaven from being overrun somehow, didn't you?"  A heavy sigh came from her as she gazed into my eyes.  She always knew the truth when she saw it and was always the first to declare when she knew the answer.  Her honesty was a beacon of morality.  This right here was worth fighting for to me.  A woman's tender touch could turn the tide of wrath back on itself like two waves on the ocean canceling each other out.

I simply nodded.  Words could not come forth at that moment.  Silence deafened the room.  Celuine stood in the doorway, silent and stoic.  I could not look at her the same way.  She was not just an angel in the form of a man, one I had and wanted to hit so many times while dealing with
him
.  She was my sister.  It was her job to push me till I remembered.  I could not express my thanks properly, so I simply nodded when she hugged Eryn.  A squawk of a radio broke the silence.

"Sergeant?"  Celuine walked to a shelf and picked up a hand held radio.  It had not gone off once while we were there.  It kind of surprised me, but then again, nothing really did anymore.  I was sure there must be a good reason for the call.

"Talk to me," she replied, her voice now back to that of the man I knew.

"You know that guy you had us keeping tabs on?"

"Yes, what is the update?"

"Well sir, the locals up in the hills out by Flowing Lake said someone is firing a gun in the woods and chasing something.  A neighborhood watch caught a glimpse of the target you were concerned about running evasively.  The car you had us track is there."

"Well that's good, keep an eye on him.  Run interference if you can till the target gets away."

"We can't sir, the target is hit and there are other players"

Celuine looked at me and I already knew what it meant.  Jason had found the Sasquatch and was trying to kill it.  She looked at me and nodded.  Both of us could get there on our own.  I was about to turn to Eryn when the house shook gently.  My first instinct was to cover her in a doorway, so I pulled her towards the kitchen.

"That is not good,” Celuine shouted as the shaking turned more violent and the entire house protested.  I knew exactly what it was.  A portal was opening close by, which meant some sort of natural disaster of the earth shaking variety would accompany.  Thankfully the closest one was dormant.  I grabbed Eryn's face and with intent, kissed her.

"We have to go now.  Stay here."  I looked to Celuine, who was nodding.

"If Sasquatch is down, that means he will not be able to deal with the portal opening.  You are going to have to do it and stop Jason." 

"I know."  I thought hard about Jason and an image came to mind of where he was.  The lake was about twenty five miles from here.  I knew the area well because we met the girls there the day I died.  The room began to spin and flux.  Energy flowed through me from my core to my hands and feet, and I felt her lips touch mine before everything went black. 

My sight
came to focus on a forest floor.  Pine needles covered the ground like a soft and prickly blanket.  If one was to lay down with a sleeping bag on it, as I had many times in my younger years, it served as a good soft bed.  Sunlight tried to reach down through the canopy to the floor.  Tranquility shattered with the crack of a rifle off to my left.  The ground shook violently.  I took a knee.

I surveyed the area.  Jason was close.  His scent was on the breeze.  He was an accomplished hunter and knew his skill, for the scent was subtle.  A glance quickly in front of me told me it was clear.  Suddenly, a feeling came from behind.

I turned around on my knees and my eyes saw a familiar hairy face, a face that was not doing the traditional peeking from behind a tree.  He stood perfectly still.  Dark fur was matted and saturated with blood in several spots.  His breathing was labored and hard to control.  Using only his eyes and chin, he pointed behind me.  I was about to spin when the head of the Sasquatch exploded followed by a sharp crack of a rifle.  The body did not even fall lifeless.  It turned to opaque dust and fell to the ground on a gentle breeze.

Shock took hold of me and I just stared, feeling tremendous loss.  The tree had one huge hole and one smaller hole in it.  While lost on this, I did not catch the movement to the side from the ground shaking all around still.  Celuine was behind and to my right, trying to stay even on her one bent knee and braced with a tree. 

"The rifle did not kill him.  That shot missed."

"I know, but what di...”  I did not have time to finish my sentence as the area exploded into action.  Several daemons sprung from the forest revealing their position.  Through the trees, there was another familiar sight.  The energy weapons the horde used to assault Heaven were here, only a smaller mobile version.  It walked towards us, firing as it came.  Smaller daemons trailed behind it to feed the creature.  It had just consumed one and was preparing to fire again.  Hands pushed me down.  I hit the dirt hard and rolled in an attempt to gain my feet.

Celuine had knocked me down and took a blast meant for me.  She saved me from serious damage.  A look of intense pain crossed her face and she fell hard not moving.  The ground around me erupted from more bolts of energy.  Rolling to the side behind a large tree, I jumped up trying to assess the situation.  Several of the mobile energy creatures had me pinned.  My shield came on, but I did not know if it could stop that type of weapon. 

To my right, I sensed movement and turned to face it.  Swords were in my hands and powered on as strong as I could make them charge.  Fire ran the length of the blades.  My eyes locked onto one of the creatures flanking me.  It had just finished consuming a daemon.  I had no time to react.  It was about to fire when the part of it that would release the energy when suddenly destroyed and the familiar crack of a shot gun went off.  The energy released, adding to the blast.  Thirty feet of forest around it ignited like napalm.  Running around the area, I caught movement and turned to face the assailant.

A friendly bearded face stood before me.  Covered head to toe in ichor, Jason appeared sporting a shot gun, a rifle, and a machete hanging off his belt, also coated in ichor.  He ran to my tree as the one he just passed exploded into a burst of embers showing the area directly around us again.  The area started to burn. 

"You’re a sight for sore eyes," he laughed.  "Is this what you do for whomever?"