Mark of the Seer (17 page)

Amazement infused my nerves as I digested everything he was saying, and I tried really hard to keep an open mind. Just sixty some-odd days ago my life had presumably been normal, but now I was sitting in my room having a conversation with my guardian angel about me being a Seer who not only could see into the spiritual world, but also could receive visions from God.

My life was so far from normal it was pathetic.

“So,” I began, clearing my throat in the process, “let's go back to my hands.” I held my hands up, palms out. “Crosses, wings, crowns—what's all that about?”

He took one of my hands in his.

“The Father,” he stated, pointing out the crown. “The Savior.” He pointed to the cross. “The Holy Ones.” He traced the wings with his thumb.

I narrowed my brows. “OK, I understand the Father and the Savior, but the Holy Ones?” I was wholly confused.

He ran his hand through his dark hair. “The Holy Ones represent the Heavenly Hosts—angels.”

The marks were starting to make sense but one thing was unclear.

“Why do my hands burn and glow?”

“The light you witnessed tonight, you felt the power of it, right?” He paused as I nodded my answer. “Well, the same celestial essence we angels have is the same essence you Seers have.” He stroked my palm with delicate fingers.

Bowled over by his admission I said, “Ya mean—”

“I mean you have the same power as I, only yours is more condensed.”

“Wow,” I remarked, not attempting to hide my heavy-coated shock. Laughing nervously I said, “Guess that's why they burn like crazy, huh?”

“You'll get use to that,” he told me reassuringly. “In the meantime think of them as your own personal alarm clocks. Weapons, so to speak.”

“Can you teach me how to use them?”

His expression wavered before he responded.

“Yes and no. I can explain how you are to use them but ultimately it's up to you.” He sighed, viewing me through sympathetic eyes. “Until you're on board with God you won't have any understanding of just how powerful and important your gift is.”

“On board?”

His eyes closed for a tick, then flicked back open. “By complying with the Father.” His very straightforward words made me flinch.

“You mean,” I started, rubbing at the chill bumps that crawled up and down my arms, “that I need to start talking to Him again.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”
Yeah, that I'll have to think about.

A grimace darted across his face. “Don't wait too long.”

Surprised I asked, “On what?”

He grinned. “You know.”

I gawked at him. “You can read my mind?”

“I'm your guardian,” he replied with a shrug. “All guardians can read human minds. You humans can hide thoughts and secrets from each other, but not from celestial beings, and definitely not from God.”

Most people would feel violated by the invasion of someone getting inside their heads, but not me. Well, at least with Sam I wasn't offended, because in some peculiar way I knew without a doubt that he and I were connected, both mentally and emotionally. Also there was the fact they he was my guardian angel.

To some all this would sound like mashed-up gibberish, but to me it was beginning to be the story of my life. In a twisted, disturbed sort of way it was starting to make sense.

Sort of.

“You said my hands are weapons,” I noted, “so whenever or if I comply, what will I be able to accomplish?”

“It's not really about what you can accomplish, but what you can accomplish for mankind. God's greatest creation is mankind, and that's why Satan wants to destroy all of humanity. He and his evil angels roam the earth, searching, sniffing out the weak………their main goal to bring down the human race.” He stood to his feet, walking over to my desk and sitting on its edge. His blue eyes never left me.

“Tonight my angel essence swallowed the darkness, weakening them, putting them through unbearable pain.” He paused, nodding in my direction. “You will be able to carry out that assignment, and by doing that you will help those who are the chosen targets for the demons.

“Once you learn how to use your gift properly, you will be able to drive a demon away with just one touch of your hand, or drive them out of the possessed.”

“The possessed?”

“Possessed humans.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he reacted swiftly. “You see, for Satan to destroy mankind he has to recruit humans to do his work. It all starts with one bad thought, and you can have demons clutching onto you, whispering in your ear, bringing you down to where having one bad thought turns into a bad day; A bad day turns into a bad week; A bad week turns into a bad month—you see where this is going?”

“I guess so.”

“How about this—demons have us humans to do their dirty work against other humans— sometimes possessing humans, and sometimes recruiting humans.”

Astonished I responded, “Ya mean they can talk humans into harming other humans. Not just possessing, but conversing with humans?” He nodded. “What kind of people would...agree to do what demons tell them to?”

His eyes filled with sadness. “There are many that don't believe in God. Instead they choose to believe in dark powers, thinking if they sell their soul to the devil they will be rewarded with whatever their hearts desire. They may at first receive everything the world possesses, but remember that Satan is a sly one, not to be trusted. Unfortunately for the ones who sell their souls, in the end they pay the ultimate price—a one-way ticket to hell.”

I shook my head in disgust. “Unbelievable.”

“Believe it,” he exclaimed, “but you must also remember that God gave humanity free will, the freedom to choose which path they take, whether it be good or bad. It all boils down to what's right or wrong, holy or evil, good or bad.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Holy crap.”

He sat back down on the bed next to me, a speculative look covering his face.

“You said something about your hands glowing—what color did they appear tonight?”

Pondering a moment I answered, “Red.”

“Ah, red,” he said with a grin. “The color of sin, immorality, and bloodshed. Also the color of warfare.” He laced his hands behind his head, lying back down on my bed. “Congratulations—your marks are working in our favor.”

“What do ya mean by that?”

“What I mean to say is,” he clarified, “that your gift did not give you a false reading.”

I sat on my bed cross-legged, staring at him questioningly. “You're tellin' me that my hands are like radars, but instead of little blips on a screen I see pulsating colors on my hands.”

“That's one way of putting it.”

“What does green signify?”

“That heavenly beings are near.”

“You.”

He smiled. “Yes. I am one of them.”

I laid back on my pillows, staring up at my speckled ceiling. My head was hurting so badly that I thought at any moment it was going to crack open from the inside out. There was too much information roaming freely in my skull. I tensed slightly when he laid down next to me, but my tension released when he pulled me into him. I rested my head on his chest, his warm touch soothing my pounding headache and his lavender scent tickling my nose. I melted into him, breathing him in. Though I was clinging hungrily to him and thought he was the most gorgeous creature in the universe, I did not feel any sexual attraction toward him.

Sam was an angel—pretty sure falling in love with him was a big no-no. I loved him with a type of love that could not be described on earth. A loving bond that could never be broken.

“This is a lot to take in,” he murmured into my hair. “There's so much to learn and it will take awhile for it all to sink in. I'm always going to be with you—I'll help you get through this.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, leaning up to gaze into his eyes. My eyelids felt heavy, weighed down from the lack of sleep. “I don't know if I want this life. I don't think I can handle it.”

“You're stronger than you think,” he whispered, pulling me back to him.

I yawned loudly, feeling totally exhausted.

“I wished I believed you.”

“I believe in you, Clarity,” he declared softly. “So does God.”

That night my thoughts didn't keep me awake. No nightmares hindered me; no sweat-soaked sheets woke me. No. I slept like I had never slept before.

In the arms of my devoted angel.

Chapter Thirteen

Life had always seemed like a game to me, a never-ending game full of anticipation, hopelessness, extreme happiness, and devastating sadness. You win some, you lose some, and at the end of the day you either feel impressed with yourself, or you feel the utmost humiliation on what you've become.

For as long as I could remember my, life had been a roller coaster ride, having the highest ups, the most twisted turns, and heavy stomach-dropping lows. In a way most people could analyze their lives as an enormous free fall containing a big climb of promise, only to end with a great fall of failure.

My life had taken such a wide surreal turn the past couple of months that I was unsure of what category I could place my life in. My world had been wrenched inside-out, put in a blender mixed with a huge pile of wrongness, only to be cruelly thrown back into a world brimming over with normalcy. However, being normal was not easy to come by in an imperfect world. Still, I did not know where I belonged anymore.

Did I still fit in with my friends? With my boyfriend?

Did I still fit in the world full of carefree partying?

Would I be able to go to college, have a career, get married, have kids, and die at an old age?

Or...

Was I destined to live in the spirit realm, watching as angels and demons battled over unclaimed souls.

Did I belong in the Seer world?

I may have been uncertain on where I belonged in the world, but I had learned a lot since meeting Sam. The knowledge I held inside my skull made me see the world in a whole new light. I also knew that life as I knew it before was forever changed, and though I had crucial information that most people would never know on earth, I could not tell anyone about it.

Not normal people, anyway.

Instead I would have to act as perfect and typical as possible around my peers. No matter how I felt, I still had to get up every morning and put on a mask of impeccable conformity. I had to act as if the world I was living in was the only world that existed, like the supernatural realm was a mythical and magical place. I had to act like I'd never wakened to my hands burning and covered with Seer marks. Like I had never met my guardian angel, like I had never learned that demons lusted after the souls of humans.

I had to act
ordinary.

A perfect example of acting ordinary would be spending the last twenty minutes of break at school, having a very mundane conversation with my boyfriend, an
ordinary
conversation.

We were sitting in one of the empty classrooms in the abandoned part of the school, gazing out the window at the turbulent storm brewing in the outside world. Dark rumbling clouds had covered the high school as flooding rain transformed the town of Garlandton into one massive puddle. The wind was howling ferociously and the thunder rattled the windows of the ancient school—that was the reason we were inside on our break, because if we were outside we would have been flushed out of town by the rushing rain water, which might have been a good thing, unless the new town sucked worse than the one we were already stuck in.

Other students could be heard next door, probably busy smoking weed or making out. As for me I was sitting down, leaning my forehead against the cool glass of the window. My mind was going in circles, like a nonstop cake walk had infiltrated my head. The future I had imagined before I learned I was a different appeared to slip through my fingers as I began to imagine my future as a Seer.

If I chose to be a Seer, would I have to fight demons on a daily basis? What about other Seers? Would they fight alongside me, or would I be forced to fight alone?

Who was going to actually teach me how to fight?

Questions. Questions. Questions.

My brain was ready to explode out my ears!

“What's up with you?” Brenton asked, squeezing my hand.

“Hmm,” I responded, tearing my gaze away from the window and turning off my line of thinking that had my brain contracting with tremors.

His dimples grounded deeply in his cheeks as he smiled.

“Knock, knock, anyone home?” he teased, playfully tapping my head.

I giggled. “Sorry. I was just thinkin' is all.”

“About what?”

I shrugged lazily. “Just...stuff.”

“Ya know,” he stated, arching an eyebrow, “the best thing you can do with stuff is to share your stuff with someone else.”

I shook my head. “It's nothing—really!” There was absolutely no way I was going to tell Brenton anything—at least, not yet.