Chapters 01-05

Chapter 1

The fall leaves were falling around the old dilapidated church. Red and yellow adorned the churchyard, giving it a cozy feeling that the modern megachurches would be hard pressed to match. It stood timeless on an old street, and the old hardwood door was open as churchgoers left the building with good tidings on their lips.
Off in the distance, the sun was lazily starting to set as the day came to its abrupt end. The pastor was glad-handing people and speaking gentle words of encouragement to children and widows who came up to him in search of support. It had been a bad year for many of them. They lost loved ones to war. Many children lost their fathers in battles they would probably never understand.
Families walked down the cobblestone path that lead down the street to the parking lot where they loaded their children up and went home. The pastor heaved a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him and rested up against it for a moment. It wasn't a rich congregation which meant that he had to shoulder many burdens that his contemporaries didn't, and he was getting on in years.
At the age of sixty five, he was young enough to lead the congregation, but there weren't many that seemed eager to step up and replace him. Most were content with the status quo, and sometimes it troubled him to think about where things might end up going. He pulled a simple, white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead with it, and then he walked over to the pulpit and began cleaning up.
The pew was at least as old as he was. The old hardwood was still as strong and sturdy as ever. His Bible was open to the Book of Ecclesiastes, and he had hand-written notes strewn across the pages on post-it notes and notebook paper. The sermon was about the vanities of life, such as seeking wealth to the near exclusion of happiness.
Some of the people in his congregation struggled with things like that, and he was finishing up a three week long series on what matters in life. God, family, country. In that order. He didn't want to include "yourself" in there lest some of the weaker members of the congregation even think about pitying themselves. There were a few people, mostly women, who had lost a lot in their lives and might be given to self-pity if they felt that permission from God was beaming down from the pulpit.
He started to close the Bible, but stopped and looked up at the stained glass in front of him. It was casting a beautiful series of hues on the floor behind the pew as the setting sun poured in through it. Timeless like the church, he thought and it humbled him. Beauty for God's sake was its own sake. Each time he got the chance to stand here alone in contemplation he felt like he was renewed in his conviction that his life had not been wasted in leading the church.
As he closed the Bible, he accidentally caught a glimpse of the family section at the beginning, where he saw his late wife's name listed next to his. It brought a tear to his eye as he glimpsed, "Shannon Collins." She had been dead for only a few years, and his life had felt mostly empty since she departed from this world.
He closed the Bible and hung his head low for a moment in contemplation. Jack Collins felt alive and dead at the same time. The world moved on around him, but to him time seemed to slow down to a crawl. His heart ached a little and the light coming through the window haunted him a little as he gazed upon it.
For the next few hours, he cleaned up the church. He walked from pew to pew and cleaned them slowly, making each little job almost its own zen moment. There wasn't much in the world that he allowed himself, but he enjoyed working on the church, maintaining it faithfully. Behind him, the light from the setting sun began to fade and shadows crept up throughout the church.
There wasn't much left to do now. The sanctuary was about as clean as he could expect it to be, so he meandered over to the light switches and flipped them on. The artificial light was not very strong, but it lended a peaceful glow to the room that made it feel cheerful instead of sleepy, which is what it had started to become when the natural light was exhausted.
Outside the wind was starting to pick up a little. The howl was quiet, but sharp, and sent a little chill down his spine. The room was cooling off a little, and soon it would be time for the Lees to bring their kids over for the private Bible study that they did with Jack every Sunday evening.
He walked over to the fireplace, over on the wall to the left of the doorway and started a small fire. It would be enough to heat up at least the area around it just enough for them to be comfortable. The fire crackled pleasantly as he looked out the window next to the fireplace.
Storm clouds were gathering in the night sky. There was supposed to be a blizzard tonight that would get particularly nasty in the early hours of the morning, but for now it didn't seem to be a problem. He thought to himself that he would give their parents a call soon and cancel if it got out of control. There was no sense in just canceling it now since they only lived a few blocks away.
Jack sat down in his chair and put his feet up. There was a room temperature beer that he had left there from before the sermon. He took a sip of it and it wasn't so bad that he couldn't bring himself to partake. A little beer every now and then soothed his old Irish bones. Still, tonight, he would have rather had an Irish coffee or some whiskey.
His eyes started to grow heavy, so he put the beer bottle down and closed his eyes. He figured that he could afford to doze off until they arrived. The sandman came and offered his wares to him soon enough.
A light, whimsical knock on the front door of the church woke him up a while later. Jack looked at the clock and it had only been about thirty minutes, but he felt very refreshed nonetheless. It was about seven o'clock now, time for him to teach the little ones about God.
The chair creaked lazily as he got out of it, and walked over to the door. Once he was there, he looked through the peephole and said, "why, I don't see no one there!" It always worked on little Sara. She shrieked in happiness at the sound of his voice and giggled loudly. Her older brother Rick, was too much of a big boy to allow himself to make such a fuss over anything like that.
John unbolted the door and bid them enter. Their clothes were covered in a light dusting, and when he looked outside, sure enough it was snowing. Their parents were halfway down the path, just watching them and smiling. Jack waved to them, and they waved back to him and promptly walked back to their car. They weren't very active in the congregation, but they were fairly generous with their money for the church.
Rick was cooly holding his Bible. He was only ten years old, but was trying to be a man like his father. Life had been tough for him growing up, and so he wasn't much of a child anymore. Sara, on the other hand, was as silly and giddy as any little girl he'd ever seen, but she was only six years old. She clutched her illustrated Bible eagerly. Jack knew that she was here more to be with her big brother and to see him, than to study.
Jack asked Rick politely, "how are your parents doing, Rick?"
He responded calmly, "they're ok. Dad's gonna get a new job soon, he thinks. Mom's been busy cleaning up after grandma. That's about it, I guess." Jack just nodded in affirmation.
Sara was practically bouncing up and down trying to get Jack's attention. He squatted down to give her his attention and she flipper her hair back and pointed to her recently pierced ears. She was wearing little stud earings and she was very proud of them. "I got my ears pierced, Mr. Collins! When I get older, my mommy said she might get me some pearls for my birthday."
Jack smiled and picked her up and carried her on his shoulder over to the fireplace where they usually studied during the winter. Her brother followed them over and sat down across from Jack. He opened his Bible to the Book of Acts. They were going to review some of the parts where Paul and Stephen had suffered greatly at the hands of their own people for their faith. It was very important to Jack that they realize that being good Christians meant a more cosmopolitan view of the faith, and to understand what might be required of them someday.
They were now starting to talk about Paul's quiet, peaceful reproach of the Jewish authorities who tried to eliminate him, and Rick didn't quite understand why he was essentially a pacifist. He semi-angrily asked, "why didn't he ever fight back against the Pharisees? They tried to kill him. He should have gotten the Romans to punish them because they were doing evil things to him." He was a little indignant.
Jack leaned forward in his chair and looked at him patiently. He started to explain the situation to Rick. "Do you remember when your Dad was attacked by your Grandpa?" Rick nodded in affirmation. He couldn't forget that time. "Do you know why he didn't fight back, and just rebuked him calmly?" Rick muttered "no" under his breath and shook his head. "It's because people like that are looking for excuses, Rick."
That confused him, and he looked up at Jack inquisitively. Jack calmly continued, seeing the interest in the boy's eyes. "Evil people are often proud people, Rick. Paul had every right to ask the Romans for help and to even defend himself, but that wouldn't have done what needed to be done on the spiritual level. You see, son, Paul wanted to leave them without excuse and if he really fought back, they could still blame him and try to ignore the fact that they started all of it."
Rick said, "but God would have known that Paul was right for fighting back."
Jack responded, calmly again, "son, it takes more strength to rebuke violence with peace than with more violence. Paul knew that if he did this, that one day God would get even with those people for him if they didn't come around. He was trying to give them a second chance because he knew that he was secure, and that if he lost his life for God's sake, that he would be richly rewarded for that."
Rick settled back in his chair and stewed on those points for a moment. It kinda made sense to him. "So Paul wasn't really giving in?"
Jack shook his head and said, "not at all. He was just picking and choosing his battles, and he knew that if the people attacking him didn't change, that God could get even for him much better than he ever could. How can you lose when you can make good people out of some of your enemies like that, and the ones that stay evil, you know God's going to make things right for you?"
The evening started to pass without much fanfare. They studied lightly, and Jack got up to make some hot chocolate for the kids. He walked into the church kitchen, which was a small room with not much more than a microwave, an oven and a pantry. Inside, there were some packets of hot cocoa and he grabbed a few of them.
The lighting from the ceiling cast a pale glow on the linoleum floor of the kitchen, making the room feel a little dull and dreary at night. Jack poured some milk into a pot and set it on the stove to cook. To save time, he put the heat on high and the flame quickly went to work.
The milk started to boil and bubble a little, and Jack put some of the cocoa mix in to get the concoction started. He stirred it gingerly and gave it the reliable taste test to see if it could pass muster. Not quite rich enough. A little more was going to be needed. Slowly, he stirred it and a few minutes later it was starting to show promise.
Jack looked out the window and saw that it was already very dark outside. The snow was coming down lightly and had left a firm dusting all over the landscape and church. He could vaguely see it glimmer through the street lights along the ally that was adjacent to the church. It was a nice taste of the holidays ahead of time.
From where he was standing, he could hear what sounded like footsteps coming up to the church. The door started to creak open, and that was enough to cause him to drop what he was doing. He started to rush to the door, but the lights went out in the entire church. Everything else that relied on electricity went dead as well.
The air started to grow heavier around them, and Bob could feel the hair on his neck raising. The room was definitely not right. He grabbed a formidible steak knife from the knife holder next to the stove and stepped lightly up to the doorway. At first he didn't see anything, but then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could see a lone figure standing halfway between the kids and the church door.
The man wasn't moving. Instead, he just stood there ominously. Jack couldn't even see his face because most of it was covered in a scarf. He stood a little stronger, a little taller than an ordinary man could, and it scared Jack tremendously.
Jack stepped forward through the doorway, into the room and glared at the stranger. "Who are you?" he shouted at him, but the man's only response was to turn his head sharply and abruptly to face Jack. There was a tangibly predatory characteristic to his body language.
The children were visibly frightened, as Sara was huddled next to her older brother who was standing, trembling at the confrontation. Jack could hear Sara's frightened whimpering, and it enraged him. Jack started to close the distance between the children and the kitchen, and as he walked over to them, he saw them start to edge over toward him.
The stranger reached up and pulled down his scarf, revealing a face that was vaguely inhuman. It was too perfect for any man. He started walking over toward them, and each step of his boots on the old hardwood floors creaked eerily. The children were now close to Jack, but the man kept walking toward them. He seemed to grow a little more imposing with each step he took toward them.
Jack shouted at him, partly out of fear, and partly out of anger, "stop where you are!" He waived the knife menacingly at the man, but he didn't seem even remotely intimidated. In fact, after a few waves, he arrogantly smiled at Jack. His perfect red lips curved into a menacing smile and his eyes glimmered in the darkness.
The three of them were terrified, when he got close enough for them to see his eyes. They were as black as the night time sky and as empty as they were deep. Jack could have sworn that as he looked into the stranger's eyes that he was staring into the abyss, and that it in turn was staring right back into his very soul, reminding him of his own mortality.
Without warning the man stopped in front of them and raised his right arm. Several moments passed before he did anything else. Jack and the children were breathing heavily and the man could distinctly hear it. Suddenly, he jerked his right hand and then clenched it into a fist.
Jack felt a sudden pressure around his entire torso and neck that felt like he was being held in a giant, ephemeral fist. Another quick jerk sent Jack halfway across the room back toward the kitchen. He landed and flopped on the ground like a rag doll and knew that he had at least broken his left leg, and possibly fractured a few of his ribs from the way he landed and how bad those areas hurt.
He was too stunned from the sudden attack and the injuries he had just sustained to be able to even cry out in pain at the moment. The man hadn't moved since he had attacked him, which only made Jack feel even weirder about the situation. He started to stand up, but the man reached his right arm out, aimed at him and without even looking at Jack, exerted some sort of force that pushed him back down on the floor.
Rick stepped forward to protect his sister. His fist was clenched, and a tear was streaming down his cheek as he tried to put himself between the stranger and Sara. He screamed "Sara, run!" Before she could even move, the man had reached out with his arm and grabbed Rick. He started to life Rick off the ground, and everyone could hear Rick gurgle as he was choked by the stranger.
With a leisurely flick of his wrist, the stranger flung Rick out the window and the sound of the glass shattering pierced the silence of the room. The only other sound they heard was the sound of a light thump as his body crashed onto the churchyard beyond the window. Jack didn't know what to make of any of this because the man did not seem to be demon-possessed. He seemed to be something else entirely.
With both of her champions out of commission, Sara just stood where she was trembling in fear. The man started to walk over to her, and she nearly peed herself out of sheer terror. A few confident strides had him standing over her and several moments passed before he made any other motions.
He gazed down on her, and it was then that she saw that he had neither pupil nor iris nor even white in his eyes. His eyes were now a pure black, as rich as the vastness of space. The stranger started to reach for her, but was interrupted at the sound of footsteps at the other end of the church.
In the shadows at the far end of the church, another mysterious figure stood in the darkness. He was gaunt and disciplined, and carried himself like a soldier. The man was wearing a long cloak that vaguely resembled a trench coat, and from where he was laying, Jack could see what appeared to be armor underneath his cover.

The newcomer started walking toward the man who attacked Rick and Jack. Each step was executed with a confident, military precision. The attacker was now facing him and held out his hand, ready to attack him the way that he had attacked Rick and Jack.
Everyone in the room could feel the air starting to get heavier, and Jack no longer felt any pressure on him forcing him down on the floor. He slowly got up so as to not to divert the attention of his attacker. Jack watched as the newcomer kept marching toward his target, slowly placing his hand on what appeared to be the hilt of a sword. Their assailant flicked his wrist and unleashed an attack on the newcomer.
The man did not even flinch and kept walking until he had closed about half of the distance between them. Jack and Sara could see both men now, if you could call them men. Both of them seemed to be a little too physically perfect to be human. The two just stood there, without saying anything. It was almost a minute before either of them spoke. When they did, it became readily apparent to both Sara and Jack that they were communicating telepathically.
The newcomer coldly commented, "I see, so that is why you have attacked these humans. She is nephilim, how very interesting." Their assailant nodded in affirmation and grinned malevolently. He dropped his jacket onto the floor and he was wearing what looked like a sophisticated system of armor and chainmail. The newcomer flicked his cloak back and placed his hand firmly on the hilt of his sword.
The two dashed toward another and Jack saw the newcomer unsheath a terrible sword that burst into a black and blue flame. His opponent unsheathed a short sword and the two momentarily exchanged blows, but it was obvious that the assailant was outclassed as a swordsman for only a few moments later he was impaled on the newcomer's flaming sword.
Sara could see the man slide off the blade and then he burst into a black and blue flame. Before he hit the ground, he had been completely incinerated, leaving only a pile of sulfurous ash on the floor. A gust of wind from the shattered window blew through the room and scattered the ashes, and the newcomer coldly, surgically sheathed his sword. He whispered, "Lord General, the target has been silenced."
Sara stood there paralyzed as she saw small swirls of ash flittering across the church floor. The man looked at her and smiled lighty, and his eyes shifted from pure jet black to normal human eyes. His eyes were an emerald green as radiant as the fields of Ireland were reputed to be. He looked over at Jack and waved his hand in a semi-circle over him and Jack felt his aches go away.
The man said to Sara quietly, "he can't hurt you anymore." He turned to face Jack and said to him solemnly, "take care of her and keep her safe. Do everything you can to make sure that she knows God by the time she is ready to become an adult. The enemy may yet be interested in her and his influence may oppress and destroy her."
He turned around and started to walk away, but Sara burst into tears and cried, "I want my brother!" The man turned around and saw the broken window and he realized what had happened. He focused his mind for a moment and all three of them found themselves standing in the snow around Rick's badly broken body.
The snow around Rick was stained with blood, and everyone there could see that he was dying from the wounds that he had sustained in his brief confrontation. The mysterious stranger reached down and picked him up, and Rick cried out as his wounds were touched by the stranger's glove-covered hands.
The man closed his eyes and Rick started to whimper again for the first time after having been injured. It gradually built up into a scream as the glass was ejected from his body and the wounds closed up behind the shards. He was placed feet first on the ground and he was able to stand without any support from anyone around him.
He looked startled and just a little bit scared, and said with lips quivering, "thank you..." He started crying from the trauma and Jack put his hand on Rick's shoulder.
Sara reached out and hugged her brother tightly, and Jack got the man's attention while the two children were distracted. He had to look up at the man because he was a good deal taller than he was.
"Who are you, really?" He asked quietly.
The stranger responded calmly, "my name is Mithra." He didn't volunteer any information beyond that.
Jack absorbed the information, then asked him another question discretely. "What did you mean about Sara being 'of interest' to the 'the enemy?'" He thought he had an idea of what to expect, but needed some verification.
Mithra coldly, calmly responded, "the child is nephilim." He looked for acknowledgement in Jack's eyes, but didn't find any, so he explained. "She is not pure nephilim, but one of her grandparents was an angel, and a very powerful one at that. The enemy may come for her and try to corrupt her. That must not be allowed to happen."
Sara started to tug at Jack's leg, and he turned around and talked to her gently, "Sara, can you and Rick give me a minute? I won't be long." She nodded weakly and walked away to tell her brother.
Jack said to Mithra pointedly now, "who are you, who is this enemy, what the hell is this all about and why did that man come here."
Mithra narrowed his eyes at the presumptiousness of Jack's attitude and the directness of his language, but he found it in him to condescend to him. "I am a soldier, and you know who your enemy is, priest. The 'man' who attacked you tonight was one of his soldiers, and we believe that it was nothing more than a target of opportunity. I had been hunting him for ages and tonight, I finally caught him."
The blood in Jack's body started to go cold as Mithra turned away from him and started to walk off. "You mean to tell me that he was an angel?"
Mithra looked over his right shoulder casually and responded, "yes." Mithra continued to walk off, and Jack looked away to see where the kids were. When he glanced back, Mithra had vanished and there weren't even steps left in the snow...


Chapter 2

Jack whirled around, looking for Mithra, but he couldn't find any trace that he had been there. It seemed to be the way that he wanted it to be. He stopped his search after a moment, and returned his attention to the children who were now huddling by the street as a new wave of snow started to pour down on them.
When Jack walked over to them, neither of them said anything at first, but Sara chirped through frozen teeth, "the man just disappeared!"
Rick nodded. Both of them had seen Mithra just vanish into thin air, and Jack only said "I know." He put his arm around Rick and guided them down the street back to the churchyard. The snow was starting to come down heavily, and much of the ground was already covered by the light, virgin snow.
They walked quietly up to the door, and Jack unlocked it with his key discretely. The door creaked open and that combined with the other events of the night to sent a shiver down Rick's spine and to make Sara whimper. Jack reassured them, as they walked back into the building.
Jack tried the light switches close to the door, but they didn't work, so he lit a few candles close to the door. They provided some much needed illumination around the children. He told Rick that he was going to go try the circuitbreaker and that if they needed anymore light, that he could light a few more candles.
The floor creaked under Jack's feet and even he was a little bit unnerved by the sound. He found himself looking into the shadows as he passed through the sanctuary to his office where the circuitbreaker was located. His step quickened when his nose caught a wiff of the smell of sulfur still eminating from the room.
He could barely see the circuitbreaker that was on the wall next to the door. When the church had its electrical wiring repaired several years prior, he had insisted that they put the circuitbreaker in his office so that he or one of the volunteers could get to it more safely at night. The old one was outside, near the alley and he didn't want any of the women around there at night.
When Jack walked in, he nearly tripped on the rug that was underneath his desk. Apparently someone had bunched it up and his foot got caught under part of it. He cursed his luck, but walked over to the circuitbreaker. The door popped open easily enough, and he flipped the main circuit to reset the whole system and start over.
Before he flipped the light switch, he said a little prayer, and then almost lunged for the light. All three of them needed light right now after what had happened. His prayers were answered and the light turned on without any hesitation.
Confidently, he strode out of his office, down through the sanctuary to where the children were standing. They were getting a little hopeful now that they saw the light go on in his office, and he turned on the main lights in the sanctuary without incident.
Jack stood there beside them and started putting the candles out so as to not use them up anymore. Just to be safe, though, he gave two matches and two candles to Rick to put in his pocket in case the lights went out again. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for his cell phone, and pulled it out. It was time to call their parents and get them home where hopefully they would be safe for at least the rest of the night.
Jack hit the speed-dial option on his cell phone to call their parents. Their father picked up.
"Hello... oh hi Mr. Collins," he said as he looked at the information on his caller ID.
Jack couldn't really bring himself to say much at the moment. "Alex, there has been an incident down at the church. A man attacked us and tried to rob us. You need to get down here right away and get your children."
Alex started to ask what was going on, but Jack just said to him, "no one is hurt, but it's bad. I need you to come down here right away." Their father swalloped audibly and said that he would be over immediately.
Jack spent the next several minutes straightening the kids up to make them presentable for their parents. Sara hung close to him, and Rick was trying to comport himself like a grown up. Everyone wanted to just forget about what had happened, especially Rick.
Outside, they heard the sound of breaks squealing, and doors slamming shut. Jack lead his two wards outside of the church and he was met by their parents on the cobblestone pathway just a few meters away from the door. Their mother was beside herself with concern, and the father was quite clearly trying to suppress feelings of concern.
"Hi, Mr. Collins. How are they doing? Is everything alright?" the father was full of questions, as was his right given the circumstances. Jack just hurried the children over to their mother, and pulled their father aside to talk to him quietly where the others couldn't hear them.
"Alex, your kids are alright, but the church was messed up on the inside. I want to take you inside and show you the damage before we call the police." Jack grabbed him and tried to hurry him inside, but Alex shrugged off his grip and challenged him.
Indignantly, he demanded to know what was going on. "Jack, please tell me that you have called the police!" He was nearly shouting now, and Jack tried to shush him up, but it wasn't working so well.
Jack pulled him close and said, "when you go inside, you will understand why were too busy to call the cops. You need to see some things and come to understand them before we get the police involved." He pulled Alex closer and whispered into his ear, "I wasn't entirely honest when I told you over the phone that it was a robber. He wasn't the sort of robber that you were probably thinking of."
That got Alex's attention really quickly. Now it was his turn to insist that they go inside. The two men started walking up the stairs, but the mother was getting worried because she saw them trying to keep her from overhearing what they were talking about. She stopped them with a plaintive whine, "Alex, Jack, what is going on?"
Alex looked back at his wife and said to her soothingly, "we don't really know right now. Jack said that there's somethin' that he wants me to see inside. I'll be right back. I think he just wants me to get a good look before the cops show up."
She looked even more distressed, but Jack gently said to her, "Emily, we'll be back in a few minutes. The damage that was done inside is bad enough that I need someone like your husband to take a good look at it before we get the elders involved."
After hearing that, she just gave up and hussled her children over to the family car and tucked them into the back seat. Once they were safely secured, she locked the doors and grabbed the pepper spray that she carried in her purse and got it ready to use. There was just something about this part of town right now that didn't set well with her, but she just couldn't put her finger on it.
*******
The door creaked open in front of Jack and Alex, and they were greeted with a hint of sulphur. Alex was taken aback by the stench, but Jack was largely unphased by it at this point. He had grown accustomed to it, after having spent so much time inside. Jack looked over at Alex and saw that he was visibly disturbed by the sulphurous stench, and his eyes widened when he scanned the room and saw the destroyed window next to the fireplace.
Alex's mouth was ajar, and he could only muster a few humble words. "What in the hell..."
Jack sighed and said, "hell, is about right." That got an almost attavistic response out of Alex.
The two men faced each other and Alex demanded to know now what really happened tonight. "Jack, I'm tired of the bullshit, what happened here tonight. Why does it stink like the damn pit of hell in here, and what the hell happened to the window?"
Such hard answers. Jack sucked in and contemplated his response for a moment. "We were studying the Book of Acts for a while, then I stopped to make some hot chocolate for the three of us. When I was in the kitchen, I heard the door open, which should have been impossible because the door was locked, and the guy who walked in couldn't possibly have had a copy of the key on him."
He looked hard at Alex's face to see if he was grasping what he was being told. Jack continued, "I grabbed a steak knife and went in to see what was going on, and this guy..." Jack stopped again and shook his head. Alex was disturbed by the look on his face which was a genuine mix of terror and rage. "This guy... wasn't human."
It sounded like a load of crap to Alex at first, but then he remembered the smell of sulphur in the room. Jack added, "I challenged him and he just reached out and flung me across the room without even touching me. It was like he was psychic or something. Rick jumped in front of his sister and got thrown out the window the same way I was thrown like a rag doll across the room."
Alex was having a hard time believing these things, but he wanted to humor Jack just to at least hear his part of the story. He couldn't tell whether the old man was genuinely telling him the truth or just covering his butt. "So, some sort of evil being just comes in and has his way with all of you... then what?"
Jack didn't appreciate the skepticism in his voice, but he continued his story. "Then he just stood over Sara and gloated like he found what he was looking for. A minute later, another one came into the room out of nowhere, challenged him and killed him. When he died... he left some sulphurous ash on the floor."
Alex just shrugged and tried to not look concerned. He didn't see any blood or damage on his son, so he wasn't totally convinced by any means at this point. The two of them walked over to the chairs by the fireplace to look at the damage done to the window.
The window was almost totally destroyed. Alex scanned it with his eyes and realized that an object about his son's size would be big enough to cause that much damage. He walked over and peered out the window to see how much debris was left in the yard. It was then that he saw the blood all over the fresh snow.
The sight of his son's blood pooled in the blood sent a terrifying chill down his spine, and Jack just put his hand on his shoulder. Alex looked over at him and asked, "is this... my son's blood?" He was shaking now.
Jack nodded solemnly and the two of them broke their gaze and looked out the window some more. "The man who saved your son's life, if you can call him a man, called himself Mithra. I think he was an angel of death sent by God to stop the attacker. When he realized that your son was dying, he brought us out here and healed his wounds back like nothing ever happened to him."
Alex was more than a little incredulous at all of this. It was almost causing an information overload in his mind. He didn't speak for a while, just looking out the window. The moon cast an eerie pale look on the landscape, and Alex now just wanted to get home.
Jack pulled out his cell phone, and then called the police. The dispatcher told him that a cruiser would be there shortly. When he looked back at Alex, he saw him starting to light some incense to cover up the smell in the room. Both of them just wanted to forget that this night ever happened.
******
Sandra reached back behind her and stroked her daughter's cheek to comfort her. As the night progressed, Sara was growing more and more concerned and wary of everything. At first she flinched out of surprise at her mother's touch, but then she mustered a feeble smile. Her mother spoke softly, "baby, it's going to be alright. Daddy's going to be out here any minute with Mr. Collins and the police will take care of everything."
Her daughter started to look away and pout. "What's the matter, baby?"
"Mr. Mithra said that more bad men are coming for me."
Rick looked over at her and said pointedly, trying to shut her up, "Sara! Shut up!"
Sandra snapped at her son, "Rick, be quiet!" She was growing very concerned about what her daughter just said. "Sara, honey, tell mommy what happened." Rick reached over and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and shook his head.
Sandra didn't know what to think about what was going on around her. The whole night was becoming nothing less than surreal to her. Her kids were hiding something from her, and she wanted to know what it was. It was even weirder since her son was normally so open with her and her husband, but tonight he was acting like they were party to some grave secret that would cost them dearly if revealed.
Before she could say anything else, her husband and Mr. Collins walked out of the church and slammed the door shut behind them. She switched her attention to their body language and she rolled down the window just a little bit so that she could try to listen in on some of their conversation.
"Do you think that will hide the smell in there?" It was Alex's voice. What smell? The smell of blood? Smoke? What?
Then Jack responded quietly, "probably not completely, but it will be enough to confuse the police unless they bring a forensics team with them." They stopped for a moment and she heard Alex ask something that sounded like whether or not that was a distinct possibility. Jack only responded, "probably not. They'll just think it's a strong arm robbery and we'll file the insurance. Once it's all blown over, we can start talking about it, but until then, we need to keep quiet."
Sandra slunk back in her seat, confused and afraid over the words of the would-be conspirators. Two men that she loved and cared about were trying to keep a secret from her that had to do with something very bad that happened to her children, and she didn't know why, but she had to find out one way or another.
*******
Jack and Alex stood in front of Alex's car and started to wrap up their conversation. Alex said, "well, the police should be here any minute now. I'll talk to Sandra about what's going on." She overheard this, and when she saw him starting to walk toward the car, she snaked her hand over to her arm rest and cautiously pushed the button to put the window back up all the way.
Alex grabbed the handle and practically ripped the door open as he hopped into the seat next to her. "Honey, I know you're upset, but you've gotta just trust me on this. Don't talk to the police or contradict anything we say. They wouldn't understand what happened here tonight."
She looked at him furiously and started to protest, but her son quietly said to her, "mom, the police would think we're nuts if we told them what really happened. The man who attacked us was some sort of demon or monster or somethin'."
She looked at her son like he was a liar, but her husband reached in and said to her sternly, "I believe him after seeing some of the stuff I saw inside the church." The fact that her husband was so dead serious when he said that scared her greatly because he wasn't a superstitious man or someone prone to flights of fantastic imagination.
A police cruiser was pulling around the corner, and her husband's last words were, "when I walked in there, the sanctuary reaked of sulphur. Something spiritual definitely happened here tonight and there is some really bad damage to the side of the church."
Sandra rolled her window down again to hear what her husband and Jack were saying to the police when they arrived. The two officers got out of the cruiser and mosied on over to them lazily. One of them was getting on in years, and the other was an extremely heavy guy. Not exactly the creme de la creme, she thought.
The older one was forcing the younger, heavier one, to just take notes as he talked to Jack and Alex. He gruffly asked Alex, "sir, we are here about a report of vandalism and attempted robbery."
Alex caughed and said, "Mr. Collins knows a lot more about it than I do. He was here with my kids when it all happened, officer."
The older cop nodded and glanced over at Jack and continued asking questions. "Mr. Collins, please tell me exactly what happened tonight."
Jack paused only for a moment, and then tried to think up some sort of story that the cop would accept. "I was in the church kitchen while the kids were over by the window, just sitting tight while I made them some hot chocolate."
The cop interrupted him, "what were you people doing here tonight, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I give them a private Bible study every week at around this time. Rick in particular shows a lot of potential here and so his parents asked me to make it a personal favor to help him learn the Word." He looked the officer squarely in the eye to try to drive that point home. "Well, the next thing I hear is the door slamming open, and I run back into the sanctuary with a steak knife as the kids are running toward me to get away from this guy."
The cop wanted to know more. "What happened then, Mr. Collins?"
"Well, he and I get to fighting. He's a young guy, and I'm not exactly as young as I used to be. He grabbed one of the large bronze candleholders we have inside the chuch and came after me with it. So I stab at him to try and scare him, and he stumbled back and tripped over the chair." Jack was looking for some sign that the officer was taking all of this in.
The older officer interrupted him again. "So, you didn't actually stab him, you just slashed at him to scare him?"
Jack nodded confidently, and the officer was a little surprised by this and made a mental note to look into it. Later, he would give up due to a lack of witnesses.
He finished the rest of his story, "when he stumbled back, he tripped and fell out the window. Sounds crazy, I know, but if you go back around the church, you'll see blood on the ground." The officer's ears perked up after hearing that. The plot was thickening very quickly, and he might be able to get home at a reasonable hour since his shift was almost over.
The officers, Jack and Alex tromped through the snow to get around the side of the church where Rick had landed. Jack was betting the whole thing on the probability that it would look like an open and shut case. There wasn't any real evidence to contradict him, nor would Sara, Rick or Alex do anything to change the story on purpose. Her kids were fine, so Sandra would just keep quiet.
The snow crunched under their feet, and got their shoes a little wet. As they walked around the corner, they saw the blood on the ground. It was then that Jack realized that Mithra probably saved the story from falling apart when he picked Rick up off the ground. When he picked Rick up, Mithra pulled him away from where he had fallen, leaving a blood pattern that implied some sort of movement away from the scene.
From there, the older officer just started to draw his own conclusions. "Looks like the perp got up and ran off. Probably pinched off his wound with his jacket or somethin' so that when he made his getaway, no one would see the blood." It really was just a dead-end case for them, so the heavy set officer finished taking notes, and they started back to their cruiser.
Jack was dismayed at having lied to the officers, but how could he explain what really happened to them? No doubt, they'd think he was some sort of psychotic nut who probably used the Bible study time to molest the kids. He prayed for forgiveness, and just put it out of his mind since there was nothing more that he could do.
No one said anything until they got back to the churchyard. The older officer turned around to face Jack and Alex, and he extended his hand to shake both of their hands. After that plesantry, he said professionally with a hint of exhaustion, "thank you, gentlemen, we will be in contact with you if we need anymore information or something new turns up." With that said, he opened his card door and hopped in. The primary thing on his mind now was getting home and getting some well-deserved rest.
Jack and Alex watched the cruiser pull out of the parking lot and drive off. Once it was out of sight, they slowly walked over to the drive's side of Alex's car and said goodbye. Jack turned around and went back into the church to cover up the broken window and clean up any snow that might have blown in before it could damage the furniture or floor. Alex got in and buckled his seatbelt without any further ado.
His wife welcomed him with a barrage of questions.
********
"What the hell is going on?" She wasn't mincing words. Now that the cops had left, his wife wanted to know everything.
Alex sucked in his breath and blurted out, "do you believe in evil things like demons?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" She was getting furious at him. "You aren't going to tell me that something like that happened here! That sort of thing just doesn't happen around here. We're good people."
Her lack of faith was starting to frustrate him, so he said to her sharply, "you want to see what happened inside?" She looked at him sternly. "Do you?!" She nodded in affirmation, and he got out and almost dragged her across the churchyard up to the door.
She shrugged off his grip and slammed the door open. When she went inside, she was almost overwhelmed by the stench of the sulphur. The incense could barely cover it for some reason. Her heart nearly skipped a beat when she walked in enough to see the ash on the floor and the shattered window.
Alex grimly said to her, "now do you believe me?" She didn't respond to his question because right now, she didn't know what to think.
Sandra was so flustered that she stormed back outside in a fit. Her whole world was coming down around her, and she just wanted it to all be over. Now.
When her husband chased after her, she just threw her hands up and shouted, "I'm not speaking to you, Alex!" It was then that she looked up and her eye caught a glimpse of a young woman in a cloak standing down the street, watching her.
The woman had long, jet black hair and pale skin. Her hair almost seemed to melt into her attire. She just stood there, watching both of them, and when Alex came up beside Sandra, she put her arm across his chest and pointed in the woman's direction. Alex looked at her and realized that her appearance was not unlike the description of how the mysterious man named Mithra was dressed.
The two of them just stood there for a long time, gazing down the street. Their attention was broken by the sounds of footsteps behind them. They glanced over their shoulders to see Jack walking to his car with his cell phone in hand. When they turned around, they saw the woman turn away from them. She walked a few steps down the street, and Sandra saw her just vanish into thin air.
The air around them was getting colder and dryer, and the snow was starting to come down heavier now. Sandra felt her whole world shatter like glass, and her bones ached from the cold. The greater chill, however, was in her soul because something told her that a spiritual battle had just landed on her family's doorstep and it was one that no one was prepared for.
The two of them walked quietly back to their car. When they got in, neither of them said a word, but it was obvious to their children that anger had been replaced by a common fear and need for security. Sara put her headphones on and lsitened to her iPod. She determined to have some normalcy return to the evening and enjoy what little was left of it before bed time.
********
The police cruiser was about halfway back to the police station and Sam Cortez looked over at his heavy set partner with a bemused look. "You believe that shit, Randy?" His partner just shook his head without saying anything. The whole thing seemed a little fishy, but they didn't want to press it any further. Sam knew Jack a long time ago and knew his reputation. Randy was just not bothered too much because they had better things to do than read too much into what really might have been a case of strong-arm robbery.
Sam pushed his seat back as far as it would go, and then rested just one hand on the steering wheel. It was time to relax and they both knew it. Randy reached over and turned on the radio. He put it on that damn country music station of his, which was the one thing that got under Sam's skin. After a three minute, studio-processed torture session, Randy hit the "1" key on the radio to put it on his classic rock station.
The speakers blared out "Iiiii aaaaaaammmmm Iiiiron Maaaan!!" Iron Man by Black Sabbath, what a fitting theme for the night. He liked Black Sabbath alright, but couldn't stand their Deo era which was after his prime time of music buying. Sam muttered, "I'm gonna have to get this on CD" under his breath. Randy looked up at him and asked him what he was talking about, but Sam just said it was nothing.
They came around a corner and the street was slick with snow that had been crushed and tumultuously mixed with gravel and dirt by many a driver desparate to get home before the storm got much worse. The sidewalk was covered in fresh snow that was only trampled by a few paths of footprints crushed into it.
The town square felt a little like a cross between Halloween and Christmas right now. The air was a little heavy around them in the car, and it had been especially heavy back there at the church. Sam noticed that there was just... something not right about the scenery, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Some of the shadows just didn't hang right on the buildings and there was something especially ominous about the old buildings.
"Strange night, ain't it, Randy?" Sam was looking around the area, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. His partner was largely oblivious.
"It's probably just that crap you listen to, Sam." Randy cocked his eye at Sam, looking for some sort of miffed response from his partner, but he straightened up when saw that he was starting to get jumpy. Randy straighted himself up in his seat and started to scan the street casually himself.
He wondered what was wrong with him that he felt so jumpy tonight. There was nothing particularly bad about the crime scene. It was an open and shut case, as far as they could tell. The parents seemed fine, the pastor seemed fine. It was freaky, but just nothing to worry about.
They were nearly about to turn onto another street when Randy looked out his window and saw a young, cloaked woman watching them from an allyway. There was something not right about it. "Sam, look!" He pointed his finger at the woman, and Sam barely saw her out of the corner of his eye.
It was enough to cause Sam to slam on the breaks. The car slid a little over two car lengths in the snow, but came to a halt. The officers jumped out of their squad car and ran down to the ally to find out what was going on. When they came around the corner, she was standing there, waiting for them.
She flicked her hair out of her left eye and smiled seductively at them. It was more alarming that disarming because she gave off an aura of power that they'd never experienced before. She brushed her hair back with her right hand, and her cloak opened a little to reveal what appeared to be some sort of body armor underneath.
Her voice was soft and feminine, but there was a coldness and vaguely predatory aspect to it when she spoke. "Sam, Randy, you need to forget what you saw tonight." She paused and narrowed her eyes to warn them. "Close the case and forget what you saw tonight."
The two officers felt the hair on their necks stand on end as she addressed them so personally. Randy lightly placed his hand on his sidearm and Sam responded to her like a good cop. "If you know something about what happened, you're going to need to come down to the station with us, ma'am."
The cloaked woman chuckled at them and her eyes pierced Sam's very soul. "Sam, you have no idea what you are getting into here. Go home to your wife and forget everything you saw here." She paused for a second and added, "you are walking into the middle of a battle the likes of which you couldn't possibly comprehend."
Randy unhooked his handcuffs and said to her, with a slight tremble in his voice, "ma'am, you're coming with us. Don't resist. You're a material witness to a violent crime, and if you won't come willingly, we'll have to take you in for questioning."
She laughed at him menacingly and turned away from the two of them. With an uncanny grace she walked down the ally, which made no sense to them because it was a dead end. "Forget what you saw, Sam, Randy." Then, she vanished in front of them. The two of them just stood there and lost track of time, dumbstruck at her just disappearing right in front of their very eyes.
*********
Alex and Sandra were driving home without saying much. They just wanted to get in bed without anymore drama happening to them and their family. The radio was making noise to keep them from having to feel alone and vulnerable in this strange night. No one was really listening to it, especially not Sara who was passed out on the seat next to her brother with her iPod still playing music.
The clouds were parting around the moon, and Alex looked out ahead of them to see what kind of moon it was. The moon was full and its light covered the whole town with a pale glow that had a dolefull quality about it. As they came over the hill, they could see clearly over the horizon to the mountains off in the distance. A lot of movement in the sky caught his attention.
Spectral shapes flapped their wings in formation over the town. He could barely see the them, but he could swear that they appeared to be some sort of angelic being. Ahead of them, the clouds shimmered, and he could vaguely see what appeared to be large vessels moving through the air in front of the humanoid figures in the sky.
Alex reached over and tapped his wife, "honey, look up there. Do you see those weird lookin' things in the sky?"
His wife leaned over and squinted. She shook her head, and Alex pointed up to where he saw them, "over there, honey."
Sure enough, they were there, but they were almost gone now, almost beyond the mountains that formed the natural border of their town. "Alex, get us home, now..."
He didn't need to hear anymore because he was in complete agreement. Alex hit the accelerator and sent them flying down the hill to their townhouse. They didn't know what was going on, but they knew that nothing good could come of them staying on the street.
They were only at the most two miles from their home, but for some reason now it occurred to Alex that they hadn't seen anyone else out and about. There were no signs of activity. The town was all but a ghost town as far as they could tell.
The snow was starting to lighten up for the time being, and they pulled into their driveway. All of the lights in the houses in their neighborhood were out. The only illumination that greeted them was that of the full moon and the street lights.
Their car slid to a gentle stop in the driveway on the snow. Alex made a mental note that he should stay out just a little longer to clear out the driveway in case they needed to leave in a hurry. With the way that things had gone so far, he didn't want to take any chances.
Sandra got out of the car and carried Sara in her arms. Rick groggily stretched his legs and yawned. Alex didn't understand why his son seemed so calm with all that had happened tonight. He would have to have a talk with his son in the morning over breakfast.
**********
The children were tucked into bed, and Sandra was waiting for him to join her. Alex was going around locking all of the windows and deadbolting the doors because that was the one aspect of their security that he felt that he still had control over. He walked into the living room to lock the porch door, and was now only somewhat surprised to see a figure sitting on one of their barstools waiting for him.
It was the woman that they had seen from a distance. She looked up at him and smiled at him, and there was a small degree of genuine warmth in her smile. "Hello, Alex" she whispered. "There are things you must know before the night is over."
He stopped and cocked his head back, "who are you?"
She barely moved on the stool, and said calmly, "my name is Rashaziet. I believe that you have met my commander, Mithra."
That name again! Alex demanded to know who they were, "who is Mithra? Who the hell are you people?!"
She sighed and got off the chair. Her long, slender legs moved her powerfully across the room to him and she looked at him with an an almost hypnotic effect in her eyes. "Alex Lena, I am Captain Rashaziet. Commanding officer of the third battallion, eighth legion of General Mithra's independent combat force. He reports to Lord General Samael, the commanding officer of the third administrative corps, an elite unit of His Majesty Yeshua's Royal Army."
Rashaziet put her hands on his chest and gazed deeply into his eyes, "I am a seraph and an angel of death who executes the traitors who have committed treason against my King. The 'man' who attacked your children and one Jack Collins tonight was no human. He was a centurion in Lord Azazel's administrative corps, an armed angelic unit loyal to the enemy."
She backed off, but continued, "Mithra hunted him down and killed him in your church. This is not normal protocol for us, but he revealed himself in power to your children and was killing them. Mithra responded accordingly and silenced his treasonous mind once and for all."
Alex had one last question for her, and he asked it quietly, "what does all of this have to do with my daughter."
Rashaziet looked away painfully and responded softly, "she is... not of pure blood. One of her grandparents was an angel loyal to the enemy."
He could barely believe what he was hearing, and wouldn't have were it not for the course of events throughout the rest of the evening. Solemnly, he asked, "what does that mean for her?"
Rashaziet looked at him pointedly and said, "at the age of accountability she may manifest abilities and a nature that is in keeping with a fallen angel. She will be mostly human, but will be deeply tainted. You must safeguard her heart until then. Disaster may yet be averted, but if she changes, then understand that we will take her from you." Her lips curled back almost into a vicious snarl, "we will never allow the nephilim to return and usurp nature as He intended it."
Alex was horrified, "you mean, you... may end up having to kill my daughter." He was starting to get hysterical, but was fighting back as hard as he could against his emotions which were nearly overwhelming him.
"There is no guarantee. Whoever her angelic relative was, he was extremely powerful. Judging from the looks of your daughter, I would say an archangel."
A light when on in the second story of the house along the hallway, sending light creeping down the stairs just down to the bottom where they touched the first floor. Rashaziet noticed and added one last thing, "whatever you do, don't go outside tonight. This night is an evil one." As soon as they heard movement upstairs, Rashaziet vanished once more.
Alex saw his wife walking down groggily, and he smiled at her. "Go back to bed, Sandy. I'm just locking up down here."
"Who were you talking to, Alex?" She rubbed her eyes out of exhaustion. She had nearly fallen asleep near the end of their drive home.
"I'll tell you all about it in the morning."
She stopped him and said, "no, you will tell me about it tonight!"
He walked over to the porch door and locked it up tight, then returned to his wife and followed her upstairs to their bedroom. He was not looking forward to this. She slipped into bed first, but propped herself up on some pillows and tried to make herself as attentive as she could. Alex unfastened his belt and slid out of his jeans and ripped his shirt off. He sighed as he got into bed next to her.
"I heard you talking to someone down there, who was it?" she was not going to let this go, that much was obvious.
"When I went into the living room, there was a woman sitting on one of the stools next to the bar. I'm pretty sure it was the one we saw down the street from us when we were at the church." He looked her in the eye seriously, waiting for a response.
Sandra was worried now. "She just broke into our house?"
Now it was going to get very difficult. "Honey, I don't think she had to break into our house. When you turned the light on and started coming downstairs, she just vanished into thin air. I... am pretty sure she can come and go whenever she wants to."
His wife laid back and the look of fright was growing on her face, "what did she want?"
"She said that she was angel who had come to warn us about our daughter. She said something about her not being fully human... that one of her relatives was an archangel or something like that, and that she might change into something like that when she gets older." He winced on the inside, realizing how much that must have sounded like a complete load of crap to his wife.
Then, it hit him. His wife didn't know who her father was. Her mother had met a beautiful stranger and had a one night stand with him. Her mother was a simple country girl who had moved to town to get a job, and this guy just took advantage of her. Besides a bad temper at times, Sandra never showed any signs that she was out of the ordinary, but then he remembered what Rashaziet said. She might change, which implied that not everyone was affected the same way.
Sandy started sobbing uncontrollably in front of him, and Alex reached over to hold her and comfort her, but she just pushed him away. "What is going on?" She wiped tears from her eyes and her lips quivered as she continued. "This can't be true. It's gotta be just a bunch of lies, right?"
He shook his head and said, "Sandy, I saw her face well enough in the light to know it was the same woman. I don't want to lie to you or mislead you. I believe what she said." He looked away for a moment, then ended up laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. "At this point, after everything that we have seen and felt tonight and been told tonight, I'd believe just about anything."
She was shaking now, and Alex reached over and gently touched her. "There is something important that she told me, that's really good news." Sandy looked over at him mostly in disbelief, waiting for the report of something positive. "She told me that she was a seraph, a warrior angel, and serves God, so I think she's not going to do anything bad to us or the kids." He paused for a moment, then put on his most soothing smile he could muster. "She also said that it wasn't guaranteed that anything bad would happen to Sara, but that if something did, she and others like her would come and save her."
"Alex... what is going to happen to us?" She needed some reassurance.
"I don't know, but everything will work out. We'll go talk to Jack about it tomorrow and see what he thinks. He knows a lot about these things."
She nodded weakly and rested her head on his chest. It didn't take long for her to fall asleep. Alex stared at the ceiling for a long time before he started to drift off into sleep. As he dozed off, he could hear the sound of swords clanging and slashing. Blood curdling screams ripped through his mind, and the smell of fire burning flesh and sulphur danced in his senses.
The last thing he heard before falling into a deep sleep of his own were the sounds of powerful guns and missiles exploding and alien voices speaking in strange tongues shouting and crying out in pain. Somehow he knew that they weren't alone anymore.

Chapter 3

It was still dark outside when Sandra woke up. She hadn't slept well that night because of the fears and worries that she had for her daughter. She laid in bed for a while, thinking about how strange the previous night was, especially that woman who kept mysteriously hanging around them. Was she really an angel, or was she some sort of nutjob? She couldn't tell, but what really concerned her was that she actually vaguely heard a woman's voice downstairs that night so she believed her husband when he said that she was there that night.
Rick and Sara didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that they saw two angels in one night. Well, they were a little scared, but it didn't seem to affect them the way that it affected her. She always believed in them intellectually, but never thought that they could be this real. Now they were painfully all too real for her.
She couldn't stand it anymore and gently pulled the covers off of her and snuck out of bed. Sandra looked back at her husband and saw that he was sleeping lightly himself, and so she walked downstairs into the kitchen to start making them some coffee. Making breakfast for her family might be just about one of the only things that would keep her sane right now.
The aroma waffed seductively through the room and her senses lightened up as they greeted the much loved smell. Normally they drank light or decaff, but today called for a more exotic picker upper like the espressor roast. Sandra leaned over the coffee pot and sniffed in appreciation.
Out came the Foreman grill and a fist full of bacon to be cooked on it. The bacon snapped and crackled as grease filtered down and before she knew it, she had a plate full of delicious center-cut bacon ready. She ate one as a little guilty pleasure for going to the trouble of making her family breakfast. Pancakes, waffles and fresh fruit followed shortly behind the bacon.
When everything was done, Sandra saw that the clock above the stove said that it was about seven o'clock. She strolled into the living room and called to her family, "breakfast is ready! Get your butts down here, now!" Alex was already awake, judging from the sound of water running in their bathroom. She was satisfied with the sound of russling of blankets and sheets coming from her kids' rooms.
Sandra returned to the kitchen and started setting up the table for breakfast. She ornately arranged the food so that it would look at least a little bit like a traditional country breakfast, the kind that she had grown up with. Two pitchers, one filled with orange juice and the other milk, and a pot of fresh coffee were the last things to be put down on the table as Alex walked into the room behind her.
He had freshened up a bit, but was still a little groggy from a lack of sleep. Without saying a word, he walked over to her and embraced her gently. He softly kissed her and told her that he loved her. These were the sort of things that she lived for, the sort of things that made her feel like a well-appreciated woman.
"Anything else that you need help with, Sandy?" Alex asked. He was standing about halfway between the kitchen and the table, trying to be of some use.
"No, I've got everything. Why don't you just go make sure the kids are coming down now?"
He nodded and walked back into the living room and went about halfway up the stairs. She heard him call out to the kids, and they came running around the corner. A few moments later, her family was sitting down at the table ready for breakfast.
Everyone ate without saying much except for grace. A little bit of the night still haunted them. She was still pleased with herself since she saw them all enjoy the fruit of her labor. Rick and Sara almost in unison thanked her for making breakfast with meak little voices and Alex smiled at her lovingly.
"Rick, Sara, why don't the two of you go into the living room and watch a movie or play some video games while I help your mother with the dishes?" The two of them didn't need any further instruction from their father. They practically bolted from the table into the living room.
Alex went around and grabbed their plates and walked into the kitchen with his wife. "Alex, I'll do the dishes if you just bring them in here." He might have complained, but it seemed vaguely therapeudic to her so he just went with it. He brought in the last few dishes and stood behind her, and they talked while the water was running so that they could have a private moment to talk.
"So, what did you think of breakfast?"
"It was great, as always." He put on his biggest grin, hoping that it would keep them from talking about anything unpleasant.
Unfortunately it didn't work. "I'm going to give Jack a call once I finish up in here. I want..." she stopped for a moment, then continued, "we... need to talk to him about what happened last night. I've never heard of anything so crazy happening before." With the water still running, she turned halfway to face her husband and added, "Alex, it really scares me. I don't want anything to happen to my little girl."
Tears started to well up in her eyes and, Alex could see her starting to shake. It shook badly enough that she dropped the plate that she was holding and it shattered on the floor. Rick came running around the corner to see what happened, but Alex headed him off before he could get too close. "Rick, it's ok. Your mother just dropped a plate. Now go back in the other room and keep your sister company while we finish up in here."
He turned around and walked back into the living room. Sara had forced him to play one of her stupid games, one that only she liked, and it was eating at him. He couldn't wait for the day to get started in earnest so that he could get out of here and hang out with his friends.
Alex was mostly out of ideas of what to say that might comfort his wife, but he had to try anyway. "That angel Rashaziet said that it wasn't guaranteed that anything bad would happen to our kids, so maybe we shouldn't worry too much. She said that Sara is only about one quarter blood-related to some fallen angel, so there's a good chance that it's not strong enough."
Sandra leaned back against the counter and whispered softly, "I never knew my dad... mom always said that there was something a little strange about him. It was a stupid passionate little fling they had." She started crying, "this is all my fault. I made Sara have to go through all of this. Why the hell is this happening to us? What did we do to deserve this?!" She dropped down onto the floor and buried her head into her knees as she continued crying.
Alex walked over and set down next to her. He put his arm around her and held her close. "Sandy, it's not your fault. You turned out just fine, didn't you? Well, don't worry about Sara until it's time to worry about her. We've still got several years to go before there's any chance of something bad happening." She looked up at him through tear-soaked eyes and he continued, "don't borrow trouble, Sandy. Just trust God that everything will end up right even if it doesn't make any sense now."
She nodded and then put her head on his shoulder. He held her for a long time. They finally broke out of their reverie when they heard the sound of a knock on their front door.
*********
Jack had hurried over as fast as he could that morning. He had only gotten a few hours of sleep the previous night because of how much it had disturbed his very soul. When he woke up that morning, he did a little bit of digging up on the nephilim, and was surprised to find out that there was not that much known about them. His readings through the Book of Enoch revealed a good bit of history, but nothing useful to Sara's parents.
The snow crunched under his feet as he raced up to their door and pounded on it. He was huffing and weezing as they opened the door to welcome him into their house. The cold winter air had dried out and frozen his old lungs, and he was going to need a good cup of joe to get started.
"Goodmorning, Alex" he puffed in between breaths.
"Jack! We were just going to call you. Why don't you come in and join us for some coffee?" He put his hand on Jack's shoulder and guided him inside. Before he closed the door, Alex scanned the neighborhood for signs that something wasn't right, but didn't find any so he closed the door and dead bolted it shut.
Jack took off his shoes and walked into the kitchen with Alex. Sandra was making some fresh coffee as a way to distract her from her tears and sorrow. She was making a light gourmet coffee since Jack couldn't drink the espresso roast that they had had earlier with their breakfast.
The two men walked into the dining area of the kitchen and sat down at the table not saying much at first. Sandra decided to break the silence. "Jack, how do you want your coffee?"
"Black, if you don't mind."
She poured three cups of coffee, one black and two with sugar and creamer in them, and brought them over to the table. Jack reached over and grabbed his cup with his cold hands and held onto it for a moment before drinking any. Once he had taken a sip and his chest was firmly on its way to defrosting, he told them what he knew about their situation.
"I read some of the apocrypha and did a little research online, but couldn't find much on the nephilim except a little bit of history from the Book of Enoch." He drank some more coffee and added, "basically I couldn't find much of anything about what they were like except large, powerful and evil according to the books and sources I found."
Sandra just started to stare into her cup as she stirred and Jack realized that he had not handled it as sensitively as he could have. "The good news is that the one book that I found with information on them said that the nephilim are officially all gone since the flood that wiped out most of humanity a long time ago."
What he was saying wasn't quite getting through to Sandra, and even Alex was getting a little grim toward the conservsation. "There is nothing in scripture to indicate that it's going to be a problem, Sandy. If you didn't change, then I just don't see why Sara would change."
She looked up cautiously at him, and so he finished his piece. "I'm not going to lie to you. Scripture is mostly silent on the matter except for a vague reference in Genesis. The only thing I found were in books that didn't make it into the official canon, but I think you're safe."
Sandra smiled weakly and sipped her coffee. "I hope you're right, Jack. I just... don't feel hopeful right now."
Alex was starting to get worried about something that had been stuck, festering in the back of his mind. "Jack, if something bad should happen to Sara, is there any way for her to avoid it? I've been wondering about this for a little while now. Can she still... well... believe and all that or will she become some sort of anti-Christ monster?"
That question was a doozy for Jack, and he leaned back in his chair. He narrowed his eyes and looked down at his coffee as he sipped it. Without looking up at Alex, he said solemnly and ominously, "all of the stuff that supposedly happened with the nephilim happened millennia before Christ came and forged the new covenant. Be that as it may, none of the things I read about the nephilim showed them having an ability to repent or believe... so... I don't know."
He looked up at both of them and said meakly, "I'm sorry, I just don't know how to answer that."
*********
High above the town, a small number of angelic beings watched the people scurry about their business, oblivious to the presence of these celestial beings. Among them were Mithra and Rashaziet, the two defenders of the Lena family. They were standing on a snow-covered mountain top, and their armors glistened along with the snow in bright morning sunlight.
Mithra coldly asked Rashaziet, "what did you tell him last night?"
She continued to look down at them as she spoke, "I told him that it wasn't guaranteed that his daughter would manifest the full range of nephilim characteristics." It was true, she had told Alex that there wasn't any sort of absolute guarantee that his daughter would go through the change.
"I suppose that that is true, but I sense that the blood in her is strong enough that it is almost bound to happen." Mithra cocked his head toward her, just slightly, and added, "it's not like you to give them hope, captain. Why did you do it?"
Rashaziet didn't meet his gaze, but said softly and whimisically, "I suppose you could say that I felt a little bit of pity for him. He very well may end up losing his daughter. And... then there's the issue of the Luciferian breaking protocol and manifesting physically in front of them." She stopped for a moment and gazed down hard at a car that was leaving town that seemed a little suspicious to her. "Damage control, I guess."
That got a laugh out of her commanding officer. "Since when do you care about collateral damage?" She was mildly disturbed by the jovial look on Mithra's normally hard, but beautiful face. He actually found it amusing.
Mithra narrowed his eyes and started to probe her face while he searched her words and gestures for hints. "You aren't feeling attached to this case, are you, captain?" He had been afraid for some time that she would get too personally involved in something like this. Now, it seemed like a possibility.
She didn't say anything at first, so he reached over and grabbed her by her shoulder and yanked her toward him so that she would have to face him. He sternly said to her, "Captain, it would be a grave mistake on your part to get too emotionally wrapped up in this case. I highly advise you to distance yourself from them before you do something that you will regret."
Rashaziet sighed audibly and glanced up to meet his gaze firmly. "There is something about them that just doesn't seem right. I don't know what it is, but I intend to find out."
Mithra started to shake his head, but she cut him off before he could say anything else. "General Mithra, I have a feeling that there is something important about this girl that we don't know about. With your permission, I would like to put her under surveillance. Something tells me that the Luciferians will be after her again if she changes and that is archangel blood in her veins."
He nodded at that last part. Both of them knew just by looking at her that it was probably one of Lucifer's lieutenants. "Very well" he said coldly, professionally. "You are relieved from your existing duties to keep track of her and any other nephilim that we encounter."
She stiffened up toward standing at attention at the new orders, but then he dropped the bomb on her. "However, if she turns and becomes a threat, you are to terminate her at once." He looked her hard in the eye and finally added, "no exceptions, captain."
Mithra turned away from her and looked down the mountainside at the valley below them. They watched as the people went about their business oblivious to the presence of these powerful celestial beings standing high above them.
Several armored figures carrying terrible weapons of war walked up behind the group and one of them stood behind Mithra and said firmly, "General Mithra, sir, we are ready to leave whenever you are." His accent was soft and almost musical.
The angels turned around and acknowledged them. Mithra just nodded at them and started walking back over the cliff to where the others were waiting for them. There was much to be done and not much time to do it in.
The newcomers to the group raced on ahead of them, weapons in hand, to their transports and got in. Mithra's subordinates took off with the transports, leaving Mithra and Rashaziet alone on the mountain. Before he left, Mithra wanted to confirm what he had said to Rashaziet. "Captain, is there any ambiguity in your mind about your orders?"
She shook her head and said, "absolutely not, sir." He flew off to rejoin his troops, leaving her to resume her post which was here, for now. Rashaziet walked over the top, down to the area that they had originally perched on the side of the mountain and stopped. From where she was, she could easily see the Lena family home. It would make for a long and lonely post, but something told her that when she got to see action again, it would be ferocious.
Rashaziet stood on her cliff for a long time, just watching the people below her that were living side by side with at least one nephilim without even realizing the potential danger that they were in. The cold, crisp winter wind brushed past her soft cheeks and flushed her hair out behind her. To a human it would have been bitterly cold, but to her it was gentle and comfortable.
She enjoyed this time of year immensely. It gave her the ability to spread her wings and soar on cool, arid winds that tickled and caressed her whole being. The mild warmth of the sun would beat down on her as she flew high above in the clouds, allowing her to leisurely spy on the humans while enjoying herself.
For now, she was caught in a reverie, watching and waiting as the sun dimmed across the horizon from her, its rays now starting to barely reach across the mountains that were parallel to her own. The deep hues of the sun were magnificent to her perfect eyes and she saw it in a way that the human eye could not perceive. The light wash richer and fuller than any of those below her would notice.
Night clouds were rolling in and shadows started to creep up around the town. There did not appear to be any suspicious activity, but she couldn't be so sure from where she was standing. She had only one option: take to the skies!
Rashaziet lept off the side of the mountain and spread her wings to their full length. A single, solid flap of her wings sent her soaring high above the mountain and not even a minute later she was soaring above the town in the clouds, starting her first night of surveillance.
The clouds were soft and their light moisture amused her immensely. It wasn important for her to stay up in the clouds where she would not be seen by anyone. She did not want to break protocol and reveal herself unnecessarily to the humans. It was bad enough that Lucifer's agent had done so, and both she and Mithra were forced by the events of that night to follow suit.
Unlike a human, Rashaziet could, as some races said, "see without seeing, perceive without presence." She could see clearly through the clouds through her eyes and her mind's eye, allowing her the ability to always follow Sara and her family. She promised herself that she would never lose sight of them, and would always keep them safe.
The world seemed so small below her, yet the details were so vast an intricate. The snow-covered landscape was carved up by snow plows and movement from pedestrians and animals. It was a winter wonderland, the perfect backdrop for her first patrol. She loved it, nothing could have been more perfect

Chapter 4

Nearly nine years had passed since the War in Heaven spilled into Sara Lena's life. She had grown up into an almost ordinary young woman. Beautiful and intelligent, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was the night just before her fifteenth birthday, and she was incredibly stoked about getting her learner's permit so she could drive! That was the biggest thing on her mind, and it was overpowering any other thoughts including the presents that her family were going to lavish her with.

Sara got up and walked into her bathroom. She snuck down the hallway so as to not wake up her parents or brother, who was back from college to visit for the weekend. The door whined and creaked a little behind her as she closed it. When she turned on the water, it was cold and crisp, the perfect thing to keep her fresh. She brushed her hair back with her hands and looked into the mirror, examining herself closely. Where needed, she wiped her face down and applied some mild astringent to keep her acne at bay.

After a few moments in the bathroom, she returned to her bedroom and turned her computer back on. Once it had booted up, she turned on her webcam and started chatting with her boyfriend Jesse. She didn't have many friends, especially not girlfriends. Women for some reason were never very comfortable around her, and her mother attributed to her being pretty and intelligent.

That was beside the fact that she was a hardened tomboy who was more comfortable with men than other women. She was more likely to go fishing and drink beer with her dad than want to hang out with the girls, talking about all of their little frou frou things like makeup, clothes, boys and who's dating who. Sara just couldn't stand wasting her time on stuff like that, when she could be playing violent video games with her friends or starting to prepare for an engineering degree. That last part really pissed off some of the girls she knew because she always teased them about how much better her choice of men was going to be than theirs in a few years.

Jesse finally logged on, and started talking to her. "Hey, sexy."

"Hey yourself, geek boy!" She puffed her chest up and winked at him. She wasn't much of a flirt, but she was giddy enough about tomorrow that she just went with it.

He popped a Dr. Pepper and kicked back with a video game controller in his lap. "Tomorrow's your big day, huh? A whole 15, wow, you're gettin' kinda old, ain't ya?" He smirked at her, and she knew that he was trying to tease her like he normally did. Sometimes it was nonstop, but she didn't care tonight.

"Yeah, I'm going to start taking driver's ed on Monday at school. My dad has been teaching me how to drive manual and I can even parallel park!" She was certifiably full of herself right now.

Jesse laughed, "yeah, I bet you'll show up all of those sluts. I hear that half of the cheerleaders on JV are going to be taking it that day." He sucked in his breath after saying that. "Oh crap, he thought, that'll just piss her off." He thought that he was about to make a perfect swan dive into the dog house with that comment.

"Heh, they're not going to spoil my day, Jess." She was starting to get that mischevious gleam in her eye. Jesse was starting to realize where her cat Sam got it from. "I'll be doing figure eights around them, and they'll be crying to their jock boy toys to make me stop the hurtin' I'm gonna give them."

Sara reached down below her desk and opened a trick door that she had built into it. It was a big desk and one day when her parents were out, she had gotten her dad's wood-working tools out and cut a hatch big enough to fit a refrigerator into. She then put her old computer in front of it, and cut holes in the side of the desk to allow the chords and wires to stick out for her to use the old clunker.

She reached inside and pulled out a wine cooler and popped the top off of it. Her mood was a celebratory one, so she raised it up toward the webcam in a sort of toast. "To freedom!" She took a swig and propped her feet up on her desk. Her boyfriend sighed and muttered what sounded like, "damn alcoholic" under his breath because everyone knew how much she loved her wine coolers.

"I've got a few guys ready for a LAN party tomorrow, you in?" Jesse was tapping on his game controller and trying his best to get her pique her interest. Normally this worked like a charm with her.

She chugged about half of her drink and replied, "sure, why not? Somebody's gotta kick your butt." Sara casuallyed added, "what do you want me to wear to the party? Miniskirt... jeans and tank top... or that new kimono that my brother got me for my birthday at the anime convention we went to?"

Jesse knew instantly what he wanted, "definitely the kimono!" She giggled when she saw the look of excitement in his eyes.

The kept chatting for a while after that, making small talk, and Sara finished her drink. It wasn't long before she needed to go relieve herself. "Man, that drink went through me really fast," she thought to herself. She excused herself and started to sneak out of her room. The bottle went back into the refrigerator for her to deal with later, and she dimmed the lights at her desk.

When she got out into the hallway, she heard some talking in her parents' room. "Oh crap," she thought to herself. "If they catch me right now, I'm as good as dead. They'll be mad as hell since I was supposed to be in bed a few hours ago!" She saw that their door was ajar, so she started stumbling down the hallway, pretending that she was sleepy and just going to the bathroom in case they noticed her presence in the hallway. She didn't want to take any chances.

She snuck into the bathroom and discretely closed the door behind her. It barely made a sound this time because she took her time closing it so that it would be just one long, low creak instead of a quick, but sharp creak that might alert her parents. Sara took care of her business and started to look in the mirror again.

Her face and hair seemed normal, and she started to flirt with herself in front of the mirror. The alcohol seemed to be making her a little bit tipsy. She played her little game for a minute or two, but as she started to pull away from the mirror, her head started to spin and swim.

Sara stumbled backward and nearly stripped over the bathtub behind her. "Shit!" She was trying to be quiet, but it was a struggle because she was starting to get a little bit scared. When she regained her footing, she started to walk away from the tub and toward, the door, but she caught a good look at her face in the mirror.

The girl who looked back at her had not only no acne, but had nearly porceline skin. It was smooth and delicate like a doll. Her eyes were jet black and her lips blood red. What scared her the most was the depth of the blackness in her eyes. There were no pupils, no irises, nor any white. It was as though she were staring into a dark, laquered reflecting pools that exposed the depths of her soul.

Sara couldn't believe what she was seeing and she closed her eyes, praying to God in the process, that it was just a bad dream brought on by the alcohol that she had snuck into her room. When she opened her eyes, things stayed the way they were. The moonlight poured in above the shutters, through a semicircle of intricate design at the top of the window, and embued her with an eerie, mystical aura.

Her hands! She looked down and they were a little more slender, with nails that looked as much like claws as fingernails. That was the only part that she was liking so far. The nails were black and curled above the tips of her fingers into small, but formidible talons. Still, it scared the heck out of her and tears of fear began to well up in her eyes.

She fell onto the ground so hard that the rug nearly burned her knees through her nightgown. "Oh God, oh God, please, I beg you in Jesus' name, to make this go away!" She buried her head into her hands, and she felt the talons brush against the smooth skin along her cheeks and forehead. The contrast only made her cry harder.

Several minutes passed, and she eventually collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, clutching her legs close to her. She was broken out of her trance by the sound of the doorknob jiggling, and when she looked up, she saw her brother stumble into the bathroom groggy in his boxers and a t-shirt. Sara was terrified because she knew that he would see her as some sort of monster now, not his beloved baby sister.

Rick stumbled in to see a sight that he was not expecting. His little sister was laying half-naked in a fetal position on the floor the bathroom, sobbing. He followed through on his first instinct and immediately reached down and picked her up in his arms. She recoiled from him, and he pushed him away, shaking very badly from some mysterious trauma.

He could vaguely smell alcohol on her breath, and his fear only increased. How would he explain this to mom and dad without ruining her birthday? What if something bad was going on? Dammit! He didn't need this crap tonight, but he was deeply concerned for her. Just conflicted because he didn't want to put the kibbosh on her plans.

Sara put her hands out to keep him back, but after a few seconds, looked down at her hands and saw that they had returned to normal somehow. She looked over to her left at the mirror and saw that her eyes had returned to their normal greyish blue hue. Her prayer had been answered, and she started to calm down, first by putting her hands down and trying to force a smile for her brother's benefit.

She forced a giggle, "hey... I kinda... well... had to much to drink?" He looked at her sternly, and she knew that he was mad at her, so she tried to use her cutness to weasle her way out of it. "You won't tell them, right?" Started straightening her hair and batted her eyes at him.

Rick sighed and shook his head. "Well, at least I don't have to deal with this crap tonight," he thought to himself. If she said it was fine, and damned if she didn't look fine now (which kinda bothered him a little), then why bother himself with the details? Little sister was rebelling a little, but that was her thing and he had to take a break from his pre-med work. If it was fine with her, it was fine with him.

"Is there anything you want to talk about, Sara?" He just had to make sure for his own sake if anyone asked him later.

She shook her head and started to walk toward him. He said, "good, then get out of here. I need to use the bathroom!" Sara didn't need to hear anymore, and so scurried back to her room. Their parents seemed to be sound asleep, but her skin started to crawl out of a little fear and trepidation anyway. The whole night was weird, and she did everything she could to just forget about what happened in the bathroom.

Sara closed the door behind her and raced over to the computer, to find that Jesse had closed the session and gone to bed. She was hoped that he wasn't mad at her, but there wasn't much that she could do about it right now. For a little while, she surfed the net, but her interest didn't last long since she had exhausted all of her regular sites that she had lined up in her news reader.

It was time to go to bed, so she shut down her computer and turned off the lights. The moonlight came in full blast when the lights went out, which was just the way that she liked it. She walked over to her bed, and looked outside to see a beautiful full moon looking back at her.

There was enough time for her to stand at her window and take in the beauty. The night was calm, and she saw a flock of birds perched in one of the trees at the extreme end of her yard. She looked down and saw everything looking dreamy and cozy tonight. Everything was peaceful and she just kept gazing in admiration at the peace and tranquility of it all.

As she backed away, toward her bed, she noticed a figure standing near one of the trees in front of her porch. Sara stepped closer to the window and squinted to take a good look. The shadows concealed the bulk of the mysterious being, but she could vaguely make out a curvy, feminine figure draped in a cloak. It fascinated and scared her at the same time, but at first she didn't feel threatened by this weird person.

A few minutes passed, and Sara couldn't make out anything more suspicious than the woman just standing there, as though she were waiting for something. There was a novelty about it that almost amused her. She could see a car coming down a way's away from them, and she kept looking for some sign of who this person was.

The car finally passed near their yard. Where it passed by, there was a sharp turn which forced its high beams onto the woman in the trees. When Sara looked down again, in that instant she saw that the woman was staring intently at her, with a concerned and almost malevolent look in her eyes. The cloak barely concealed what looked like some sort of armor and a slender, but long, sword.

Sara was terrified, and backed away from the window, shaking. She raced to her brother's room which was adjacent to hers and shook him awake. He woke up startled to the feeling of his sister practically shaking and clawing him awake. He coughed and looked at her through bleery eyes. "Sara, what the hell is going on?"

The terror in her eyes was so real when he looked at her, that he got the feeling that he could reach out and touch it. "Rick, there's someone down there in the trees! I think she's armed and going to kill us!"

It sounded like a load of crap to him, but he wanted her to leave him alone for the night so he resolved himself to humoring her for the sake of peace in the household. He flung the sheets off of him and stumbled out of bed. No sooner than he had gotten out of bed and she grabbed him strongly, too strongly for what he had known her to be capable of, and yanked him over to the window.

Sara tore the window blinds open, and pointed down toward the trees. Rick followed her finger and squinted hard down at the tree line, but saw no one there. "Sara, what are you talking about? There's no one there!"

Sara looked over hard and realized that the woman had left. There were no signs that she had even been there. Rick's room was closer, and provided a direct line of sight down at the tree line, and so she would have seen at least foot prints if the woman were there because the ground was largely barren in that area.

Was she going crazy, she thought. Feelings of powerlessness overwhelmed her and she started to cry again because the night was just going nuts for no good reason. She tried to fight back her tears, but it was a futile endeavor. They came in spades and she clenched her fists in rage at the insanity of it all.

Rick reached over and lifted her chin up as she cried. "Hey, hey, calm down and tell me what's going on."

She shook her head violently and her hair fell down in front of her face, mostly covering her eyes. "You wouldn't believe me. You probably think I'm nuts after you walked in on me in the bathroom." She started crying a little harder after saying these things to her brother, causing him to grow even more concerned for her.

"Well, it is kinda weird when you walk in on your little sister curled up like a little baby on the bathroom floor at 1AM in the morning, and then she wakes you up complaining about strange women stalking her from the backyard." He tried getting her to laugh, but was dismayed when it only made her more upset. "Sorry, I was... just trying to make you laugh a little. Why don't you tell me what this chick looked like."

"No, you don't believe me. Just forget about it, I'm going to bed!"

She started to force herself around him to try to get back to her bedroom, but he put his arm in front of her waste to bar her exit from his room. With his best sympathetic expression, he beseeched her to tell him about it to comfort her. "Why don't you just humor me and tell me what she looked like. You woke me up, so I think you owe me at least that."

Sara snarled viciously at him, "how the hell would I know what she looked like? She was wearing a dark cloak and had long  black hair that covered most of her face!"

Rick became visibly shaken by what she said. "What do you mean, she was wearing a cloak?" He grabbed her by her shoulders and said sharply to her, "what did she look like? Did you see ANYTHING besides that? I mean, anything!"

Sara squirmed in her brother's tight, almost painful grip. "She looked like she was carrying something. Maybe a weapon, I don't know. I only got to catch a glimpse of her when a car drove past and shone light on her." She looked her brother dead in the eye and added with a snarky tone of voice, "her face practically glowed when the car's light hit her. I think she'd make a perfect little angel for you."

She broke out of his grip and started making her way around his bed to the door, but stopped for a moment as she heard her brother address her. "That's because she probably was an angel, Sara."

Sara turned around and walked over to him, tired, fatigued and in no mood for any games. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nine years ago, you, Mr. Collins and I were attacked by a fallen angel, or have you forgotten all about that night?" He looked at her very impatiently. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why she didn't immediately pick up on what had happened and how it might relate to what was happening tonight.

"Yeah, what about it? Are you saying that what I told you about this woman reminded you of that night?"

Good grief, he thought. Had she forgotten all of the salient details? "Sara, do you remember what that angel, Mithra, looked like?"

She shook her head and said, "how would I know? I barely saw him, and I WAS ONLY SIX AT THE TIME!"

What a bitch, he thought in reaction to how she was comporting herself, but he didn't say that outloud for fear of exacerbating things to the point that mom and dad woke up. "That woman you describe sounds exactly like a female version of what he was like. It's... scary how much it sounds just like one of his kind."

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that..." she was really not taking any of this well, and he really couldn't blame her.

Rick went back over to the window and looked around, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Just like the night that Mithra had shown up and slain that fallen angel that attacked them. He turned back to his sister and tried to be the voice of reason. "Sara, whatever the case may be, there's no one there now. Why don't you just try to go back to bed now? You've got a big day tomorrow."
 
She sighed and muttered, "good night." As soon as she said that, she was out the door and on her way back to her bedroom.
 
Rick crawled back into bed and laid there for a while, unable to go back to sleep. After a while he got back up and went back over to the window. He didn't know why, but something just told him that he need to do that. When he looked out the window, the clouds had parted enough to shine moonlight all across their yard.
 
The woman was standing back among the trees, and this time there was enough light for him to be able to see her plainly. She was looking back up at him, and smiled at him. She placed a single finger in front of her lips and made a shushing motion at him, then disappeared into the shadows of the night.

*********

Sara crawled into bed and lay staring at the ceiling for a little while before she was able to fall asleep. Sleep wasn't coming easily tonight for her because there was so much onher mind. Somehow she knew that the mysterious woman (or was it angel?) that she had seen was still there, lurking in the shadows, but she didn't see anything to be gained by trying to find her. She could clearly come and ago as she pleased so it was a doomed endeavor right from the start.

The house was silent and Sara laid there, listening for any sounds that should alert her, but found nothing. The silence combined with her own exhaustion to begin seducing her into a deep sleep. At first she faught it, but quickly gave up as there was nothing to be gained by being fatigued in the morning. Her eyes grew heavier and she drifted off to sleep. Deep, but fitfull sleep soon followed.

In her dream, Sara saw her room melt into a mud and brick hut like one of the ones that an Egyptian might have lived in during the time of the Exodus. She got out of bed in the dream and walked over to some pots which were near the doorway. They were empty, but the markings on them were distinctly Egyptian and it creeped her out because she didn't feel like she was sleeping anymore. It felt too real, even down to the cool, arid desert breeze that blew through the reed door and window.

Off in the distance, she heard faint cries of terror and sorrow, and she opened the door to see what sort of commotion there was. When she opened the door, she found that it didn't go out to the hallway in her house, but onto a filthy, ancient street. There was a steady progression of terror eminating from far down the streets beyond her house. After a few moments had passed, she could see a trail of light zipping through the streets. It was a pale, eery light not unlike that of the moon.

She began to realize that she was witnessing the last and most severe of the plagues visited on the Egyptians, the angel of death's descent on Egypt. She couldn't believe what was happening because it was all too real. The sandy dirt on the street that scraped and rubbed against her feet felt as real as any she had experienced at the beach. She looked down the street again and saw the light was getting brighter. The angel of death was coming her way!

Sara started to run back to the door, but the world around her started to slow down to a crawl like a slow motion shot in a movie. Her legs moved with the brisk pace of a snail and the door seemed to be getting further and further away from her with every step. Even the sounds of terror behind her seemed to be slowing down as the distortion around her caused the sound waves to delay. Pitches deepened, the air got heavier and her legs got heavier.

The pale light was coming around the corner. She could see it clearly as it came around the corner at a normal pace. A few moments later, almost out of nowhere, the light completely surrounded her. The moment of truth was now upon her.

She looked up to see the angel of death, Azriel looking down at her. His hair was long and jet black, covering a beautiful, but severe face. His eyes were a piercing blood red hue that sent shivers down her spine. He wore a gray cloak over a powerful and terrifying suit of armor that seemed as regal as it was effective at protecting him.

A feeling of death creeped up on her and she would have shrieked in terror, but no sound made its way out beyond her lips. Even the words that she wished to speak were dying around her in the face of the dread hand of the Lord.

Azriel continued to stare down at her with a firey rage burning deep within his heart, and he started to unsheath his sword. The blade ignited with a blue and black flame as it was pulled from its holder, providing a startling contrast with the pale, but pure light around him.

Once the sword had been pulled free from its sheath, Azriel aimed it at her right shoulder and cut into her. Several slashes nicked her, and she tried to scream as the hellfire tormented her mortal flesh. When she looked down at the wound, she saw a four-sided cross had been burned into her arm.

"It is done, nephilim" she heard him say. Azriel, the angel of death suddenly disappeared from her immediate sight, and she saw him moving down from house to house, slaying the first born of the Egyptian children. It wasn't quite a minute later when she woke up thrashing in bed at seven o'clock in the morning on her birthday.

Sara's eyes opened slowly, and she felt an intense pain on her right shoulder. When she reached over to touch it, she felt scar tissue underneath her silky pajamas top. She pulled up her sleeve and peaked over at it slowly, fearing the worst. The scar from her dream was there in the land of the living, a solemn reminder to her that not all dreams are flights of fancy.

She stroked the wounded flesh gingerly, wincing in the process. The skin was actually still a little warm from where it had been burned by the hellfire. The skin was smoothing out, which disturbed her a little because the wound was still so new. The worst part of it all was the exquisite detail that she felt when she ran her hands up and down the wound. A sword like Azriel's should not have been able to make cuts that fine.

A sharp knock at her door caused Sara to nearly spasm out of bed in surprise, in the process pulling down her sleeve to hide the tell-tale signs that she was injured. Her mom was at the door, ready to wake her up to get her birthday under way.

"Sara, wake up, honey!" She was at least being considerate enough to not rip the door open like she used to when Sara was younger. They'd gotten into a big fight about that when she was about twelve and since then, her mother respected her space a lot better.

Sara responded as innocently as she could, "ok, I'll be out in a few minutes!" She heard her mom turn around and start walking back down the hallway to the stairs. Sara got out of bed and walked over to her mirror to take a closer look at the scar tissue on her right shoulder.

It was a grim wound. Four crosses, one pointing up, one down, one to the left and one to the right surrounded by a diamond shape. It was some sort of insignia, there was no doubt about that in her mind, but she didn't know what it meant. When she reached up to touch it, the wound had finally cooled off and the pain had largely subsided by now.

She changed into a pair of jeans with a black tank top that had a blood red cross in the center of it. Her clothes had a mildly goth look. Nothing that would cause the old church biddies to faint, but it was enough to agitate some of the cliques that got under her skin. There were a number of girls that preferred the pink prissy frou frou look, but not her.

She opened the door and went down the hallway, shuffling along groggily like an old person. The upstairs were empty now except for her. Sara got to the stairs and started descending them to the living room, and she noticed the downstairs seemed to be quiet as well. It didn't bother her much because she figured that her brother was out with his friends and her dad was out working in the garage.

Sara walked into the kitchen to see what her mom was up to. There was already some food on the table. A glass of orange juice with french toast and sausage waited her. A pair of doughnuts were resting on the counter and Sara began to salivate the sight of their glazed glory. No matter how weird things got, she was still able to derive a sense of normalcy from the simple pleasures like beer, pizza and doughnuts.

"Good morning, sleepy head" her mother said through a bite of a lemon poppy seed muffin. She chewed a few more times and swallowed. "Go ahead and get your breakfast. Your dad and Rick are out looking at a new car, but they'll be back in about twenty minutes."

Her mother walked over to her and hugged her, nearly getting some muffin crumbs on her shirt. "Happy birthday, Sara!" She sat down at the table and started reading the comics while Sara sat down and ate her breakfast. They sat their silently until Sara finished her breakfast.

"Thanks for breakfast, mom."

"Your welcome, dear." Her mother went back to reading the paper.

In the window in front of her, there was a small stained glass art piece hanging from the lock that secured the windows. It had clear wings and a gorgeous multi-colored body topped off with a rich, golden halo. Sara sat there, staring at it for a little while as the sun started coming up, pouring light through it. The stained glass piece cast a subtle, but beautiful illumination on the white table cloth.

Sara's mind started to wander and in her mind she saw the innocent angel morph into an armor-clad warrior with a menacing look on its chiseled, yet smooth face. She shook her head violently and blinked her eyes and the image went away, going back to the innocent cherub that had made her smile when she was a little girl. Her mood was dampened a little, but not by much. Still, there were many questions that she would need to have answered.

Chapter 5

Rick and his dad had just gotten done looking at the new Nissan 350Z. It was going to be Alex's early retirement present for himself since he had done well as a partner at the firm. Through hard work and determination, he had made more than enough money for him to be able to just work for himself, more or less at his leisure.

It was a sexy car, the kind of car that he had wanted to have back when he was younger. Now that he was in his late forties, there wasn't much time for him to still feel young driving something like it. Time was of the essence to him when he raced it down the highway, kicking its tires the fun way.

Alex looked back at the sports car whistfully. It was so sleek, so smooth, so powerful and quite affordable for him compared to the Porsche he had just gotten done looking at earlier. That one was a good twenty thousand dollars more expensive and there was no way that he would be able to justify that to Sandra. They had managed to put away enough money to be able to afford a modestly nice car, but that was, too extravagant to be considered a modest commuter car.

Both of them waved politely at the sales representative as they got back into Rick's car and drove off. His car was a reasonably well-kept Honda Accord that was about five and a half years old. Alex was driving it out of a sort of nostalgia because the car used to be his before Rick had bought it from them when he went off to college. The scholarships that he had won had freed up some of his money, allowing him to afford a pretty new V6 Accord that most of his peers couldn't.

As they raced down the road, Alex kicked back and enjoyed the engine's purr. For what it was, this car was was a pretty powerful machine that he had a good deal of respect for. It was the kind of car that had felt right and respectable for him since a minivan or SUV had never been his cup of tea.

The leather seats underneath him were still smooth and in good shape. He didn't really notice that until the trip back when he took his right hand off of the stick to fumble around for his cell phone which was in his right pants pocket. Alex allowed himself the guilty pleasure of stroking the fine leather, enjoying the feel of his old car. It made him a little envious for the time being because the used Civic that he had bought to replace it didn't have any of these creature comforts. That's the way it was going to be until he bought that 350Z, told himself.

Very few people were on the road at this time of morning on their side of town. Over the years, the focus of industry had shifted elsewhere across town, bringing a sense of senile tranquility to where they lived. No cops in sight, Alex gunned the engine and put the car into fifth gear. The car went flying past several city blocks before he slowed back down to just a hair above being interesting to the police.

In the seat next to him, Rick was looking through a promotional booklet on the 350Z and seemed pretty absorbed by it. He couldn't blame his son for being more interested in the car. It was going to be one hell of a car!

The streets were a little slick, but the skies were beautiful and richly colored as a smattering of storm clouds mixed with an otherwise clear sky to create a beautiful contrast. Alex rolled down the windows to let some fresh air in, and the gust of wind that greeted him was practically a taste of pure freedom. No office, no nagging, chattering drones and busy bodies to deal with.

Rick slightly looked up away from the car manual and said softly, "dad... I... need to ask you something."

Alex took a second to respond, but rolled the windows back up so that he could hear what Rick had to say. Without taking his eyes off of the road, he said "what's up, son?"

"Nine years ago, you know... the night at the church..." Rick paused and a scared look started to creep across his face. "Did that angel tell you anything about Sara's future?"

That question really got to Alex in a bad way. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." he stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts which were nearly bursting out of his skull. "Last night I woke up to go take a leak and Sara was acting really weird. She was... in a fetal position on the bathroom floor acting traumatized." Rick looked over with concern in his eyes at his father. He was looking for some sort of reassurance. "Well, she said she was just acting weird, and I thought she had just been drinking because there was some alcohol on her breath, but then she came back into my bedroom later crying."

Alex looked over at his son, "go on, what happened?" His whole mood had been shattered by this morbid conversation, but he was now getting very fearful for the fate of his family.

"She said that there was some crazy woman looking at her through her window and pointed to the tree line. When I looked, she wasn't there, but then Sara left and I looked again..." he looked out the window next to him. "When I looked again... there she was, looking right back at me." He looked back at his dad, and Alex could see the scared ten year old looking back at him through his nineteen year old son's eyes. "Dad... she looked similar to that angel and she made a shushing motion with her finger and disappeared into thin air. I... I... think... they're coming after Sara again."

The butterflies that had been building up in Alex's stomach nearly exploded out of him. He clenched his fists around the steering wheel, feeling scared and powerless to do anything for his daughter. Alex narrowed his eyes in rage and a tear started to well up in his eye as he growled, "we won't let any of this get in our way of having a good day, Rick. We'll get Jack Collins involved if it comes down to it... he'll know what to do."

They didn't say much for the last few minutes of their ride, prefering to talk about sports cars instead of pensively consuming themselves with dark spiritual musings and fears. The one thing that they did agree on, besides the need to try to keep it a normal day, was that the 350Z was going to be Alex's new car come hell or high water.

**********

Sandra and Sara were interrupted from reading the newspaper by the sound of the garage door opening. They looked up and saw Alex and Rick come strolling in with a few sports car brochures. Alex leisurely meandered over to his wife and kissed her on the forehead as he passed through the kitchen into the living room to watch a ballgame. Rick glanced over at his sister with a tinge of worry on his face, and Sandra picked up on it immediately when she glanced up from her paper, but she didn't say anything.

Rick went up to his room to get on the Internet and talk to some of his friends, and the women of the family were left to resume their newspaper reading. Sara was scouring through the classifieds looking for good deals on a used car, and Sandra was reading some of the commentary, but it was a little dry and boring today for her tastes.

One of the ads caught Sara's eye and she pointed to it, "hey mom, check out this old Acura! It looks really cool and it's not that expensive!"

Sandra looked over at the paper, but didn't immediately see it. "Which one are you talking about, Sara?"

The listing was almost concealed by her mother's hand, so Sara reached over and pointed it out to her. In the process she slipped and scratched her mom's hand, nearly breaking the skin. "Ow! Watch it!" Her mother rubbed her hand and looked down at the roughed up area, then looked at Sara's hand, "are you planning on cutting those things? You look like you're trying to grow claws!"

Sara looked down at her hand and she saw jagged blackish talon-like nails where her short, but feminine nails used to be. Every muscle in her body tensed and she struggled to even swallow at first. She choked up her answer, "yeah, I'll go do it in just a minute." Sara tried to sound innocent and naive about the whole thing, "I guess I just forgot to keep them trimmed!"

It was a feeble attempt to look cute, and it was only partially working on her mom. The conversation wasn't going anywhere so she got up and walked upstairs to her bathroom looking sheepish about the whole thing, but deep down inside feeling scared out of her mind. There was no denying it now, what happened in the bathroom was more than just a bad dream.

***********

Sara started up the stairs and grabbed hold of the bannister because for some reason she started to feel light-headed. As she made her ascent, her nails scaped along the wooden bannister sending a weird sensation through her hands. The sound was loud enough that she saw her dad start to look over at her, so she hurried to the top of the stairs before he could confront her.

Her brother's bedroom door was closed, which she considered to be a very good sign. It meant that she could probably keep another embarassing moment like the one last night from happening again. Still, she didn't take any chances, so she snuck down the hallway into the shared bathroom and quietly closed the door, this time relying primarily on her palm and base of her fingers so as to avoid any contact with her talons.

The door creaked shut and as far as she could tell, she was home free for now. She sighed in relief and walked over to the droor next to the sink on the right, where the nail clippers were stored. Sara opened the droor and found it to be very disorganized, and so she hurriedly ripped it apart, to find the clippers. When she found them, a few good snips cleared up any sign of what happened to her.

There was time for her to hide more of the evidence, so she reached back into the door and got her fingernail polish out. It was some really bad stuff, full of glitter from when she was younger, but it seemed to still be usable. The brush strokes covered her blackened nails convincingly with a pink coat of nail polish and she was statisfied.

She looked down at her fingers and spread them out to examine them one by one. Perfect! The evidence was gone and no one would harass her. All that was left was to put the stuff away and go back downstairs. She put the clippers and nail polish away, and then looked up casually into the mirror to check for zits and other blemishes.

Her pulse skipped a beat and her muscles nearly went limp as she looked at the face that met her gaze. The deep, black eyes that had replaced her normal beautiful brown eyes... the perfect skin that seemed almost otherworldly. It had all returned! The very core of Sara's being went cold and she could feel a few beads of sweat build up on her forehead.

Sara stood there, staring at the grim, but beautiful visage that gazed deep into her very soul through the mirror. It was her, but not quite her, and she didn't know what any of this meant for her. All of her sense of touch seemed to be suspended as she couldn't even feel the fibres of the carpet under her feet and between her toes.

Those eyes continued to cut into and through her, and finally she mustered the mental and spiritual strength to close her eyes. She shook her head violently and clutched her face, squeezing it as tight as she could. When she opened her eyes, the image that greeted her was her normal self. It might have been reassuring, were it not so ominous otherwise.

Sara took a deep breath and calmed herself for a moment, trying to be at least sanguine when she went back to her family. She could feel her heart beat slowing down as the adrenaline slowly flooded out of her system. A single bead of sweat trickled down her head along her left cheek, tickling her gently before it dripped unceremoniously onto the floor. Sara wiped the salty wet trail it left in its wake from her face.

When Sara brought her hand down, she caught a glimpse of her fingernails out of the corner of her eye. Upon a closer inspection, she noticed that a small strip of black peeked out just beyond the nail polish that she had applied. Her heart sank when she saw that, and so she gently pulled the nail clippers and fingernail polish out of the drawer and put them in her pocket. She sucked in her breath and closed her eyes as she gingerly touched the doorknob and opened it.

The door creeked open without any further ado, and she snuck around the corner to go downstairs. This time, her nails were short enough that they did not dig into the bannister as she tip-toed to the first story of her family's townhouse. Not wanting to take anymore chances, she peeked around the corner to see who might be in the living room. It was just her dad, watching a ballgame. What a relief, she thought, as she continued her surreptitious journey back into the kitchen.

She almost made it through the living room without being noticed, but her dad caught her about halfway through the living room, right as her exit was in sight. "Sara, come here, I want to talk to you for a minute."

Her blood went cold and a chill went down her spine. Did he know something already, she wondered. Not wanting to behave even more suspiciously, she put on her best smile and tried her best to prance over to her dad, pretending to be daddy's little princess.

"Yes, daddy?"

Alex reached out and patted the seat next to him. "Sit down for a second."

Sara sat down without delay on the couch next to him. It was a soft, black leather couch. A very expensive couch that they had bought once they started getting some real money in the family. The leather felt cool on her legs, its texture was fine because it was a very high quality leather.

Alex looked over at his daughter, keeping one eye on the game at first. Just before he was about to speak, he noticed her skin was different. "Wow, your skin has really cleared up, Sara." He was sort of hoping that that would get her talking about some of the things that had been happening according to Rick. He didn't want to push her since the events of that night were very sensitive in his family.

She giggled sweetly, "yeah daddy, the clearasil wash that I just got has been working pretty wel