Marked for Damnation

  There’s a strange change approaching.

  He waited until he was sure I had gone back to the safety of my home. Now I must find the others, he thought as he retrieved the small folded up piece of paper from the pocket of his long black trench coat. They’ll be waiting for me. He closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling the energy pulse through his veins. A thick fog settled before him. Moments later when it cleared, a shiny new black Hummer sat before him. He opened the door and got behind the wheel. Once again he looked at the small piece of paper. Then he put the vehicle in gear and took off in the direction of his destination.

  He was annoyed at having to drive the vehicle and follow what the humans called a speed limit. Especially since he could just spread his wings and fly to where he was going a helluva lot faster. His wings didn’t show now. They had shrunk back into his back and skin had smoothed over them. It was to help him blend in with the human world, but still, he felt weird without them. At least he felt comfort in knowing that all he had to do was close his eyes and concentrate and he could will his wings to be seen again. But he feared that the more time he spent away from the light, the harder it would be.

  He reached his destination - an old farmhouse set far back from the road. The location was remote, not another house in sight for miles. He parked the car, got out, and strolled to the front door. It opened before he even knocked.

  “Michael,” she called out with a smile, her arms extended.

  Michael hugged her back then backed up a few steps to look her over. She looked beautiful. The red highlights in the rich brown color of her hair seemed to spark, giving it fire. She wore it pulled back tight enough to stretch the corners of her soft brown gleaming eyes.

  “Melanie, you look well. Staying in shape I see,” Michael said as he noticed her toned muscular arms. “You’ll still need some training though.”

  Melanie looked over Michael in his human form. She had to admit he looked good and she felt herself instantly attracted to him. Heck, she couldn’t help but wonder what girl - human or other - wouldn’t be attracted to this man. He was maybe a half an inch short of six feet tall, with thick black hair, which was short in the back and a bit longer in the front, hanging loosely just above his eyebrows. His eyes were dark blue, yet light at the same time and seemed to glow – a feature she knew would change the more time he spent on earth and away from the light. And he had the most perfectly shaped lips she had ever seen. Although he was dressed in black jeans, t-shirt, and a long black trench coat, she could still tell that he was in fighting shape. His whole being seemed to just radiate power and strength. As if all of that wasn’t enough, he had the most angelic voice she had ever heard. When he spoke, it gave her goose bumps. Michael smiled to himself, exposing his dimples, as if reading her mind.

  Melanie hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath as Michael looked her over. Now as she let it out, the wariness left her gaze. It was replaced by hope. She had stayed in shape and was an okay fighter, but she was hopeful Michael could turn her into a warrior, like himself.

  Melanie was an angel too – not an Arc, but an angel nonetheless, raised human. Her mission while on earth was to give people hope and help lead them to God. She also ran the local soup kitchen.

  “I only just found out you were coming as well. I thought He only sent one warrior at a time?” Melanie asked.

  “Where’s Raphael?” Michael asked, ignoring her question.

  “Raphael is already inside. He arrived a few hours ago and has already secured the perimeter.”

  “Great,” Michael replied as he ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Well, let me do a quick perimeter check myself and then we’ll go inside and talk weapons.”

  After Michael did a thorough check of the perimeter, he opened the front door and walked inside. Raphael and Melanie were sitting on the sofa in the living room.

  Raphael rose from the sofa. “Brother,” he said as he opened his arms.

  Michael returned the hug. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Ready and waiting,” Raphael replied.

  Melanie smiled and watched as the two Archangels embraced. Looking at the two of them, it was obvious that they came from heaven. Raphael had the same angelic eyes, although his were a bright, yet dark green. His hair was a dark brown and feathered softly in front. He was a tad bit shorter and didn’t appear as physically strong as Michael, but he was beautiful nonetheless. Only an Arc could have physical looks as alluring as theirs.

  “Good. I’m in charge now,” Michael said as he turned to face Melanie. “I’m assuming you already have an arsenal.”

  Melanie shook her head. “Of course.”

  “Great, take me to it.”

  Melanie led the two men out the back door and about twenty feet from the house and stopped. “It’s just under here,” she said as she began kicking away dirt with her feet. Michael and Raphael joined her, uncovering a chained cellar with wooden doors. Melanie removed a chain around her neck, which held the key. She knelt down and put the key in the padlock, unlocking it and removing the lock. Michael pulled at the chains and the wooden doors swung open and hit the ground with a thud.

  The three of them descended the concrete steps into the dark cellar. When they reached the bottom, Melanie pulled a string and a light came on. The whole perimeter of the cellar was one big armory wall. Michael inspected its contents, which consisted of shotguns, handguns, grenade launchers, rifles, machine guns, and submachine guns.

  “Talk about overkill,” Raphael whispered.

  Michael picked up an M16A2 rifle and smiled. “Now this is what I’m talking about.” Then he turned to Raphael. “A spiritual war is coming to man whether they want it or not. The beasts of hell have been unleashed and we must be prepared. Besides, there is no such thing as overkill when fighting evil.”

  “So now what?” Melanie asked.

  “Now we work on your combat skills and I teach you how to shoot during the days.”

  “And at night?”

  “At night we watch and we wait.”

  “What about the soup kitchen?”

  “You’ll still run it at night. Raphael will watch over you and I’ll watch over Uriel.”

  Chapter 8

  A knock at my door startled me awake. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up in bed. “Come in,” I said as I looked over at my alarm clock. It was already 9:20 am. Had I really slept that long?

  My mother pushed the door open and turned on the light. Then she looked over at me. “Are you okay?”

  I rubbed my head and cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. I’d always been a terrible liar, but this lie was one I’d told over and over again since I was a little girl, so it sounded almost convincing now - even to myself.

  She sat down next to me on the bed. “I know you’ve been through a lot this past week. If you need to talk or anything, I’m here for you. I just wanted you to know that.”

  I shook my head and smiled. Talking about it isn’t going to change anything. I’d rather just try to forget it. Forget it all! I had learned early on in life to shut off the part of myself that wanted to cry, wanted to scream. Although, I had to admit that I did lose that battle sometimes in my weakest moments, which had been happening a lot lately.

  “Well, you need to get up. The insurance company was already out this morning and they gave me the approval to have new windows installed. I have a crew on their way right now. Should be here in about twenty minutes or so.”

  I looked over at my boarded up windows. I hated how dark and depressing my room looked without the sunlight filtering in. I was glad my mother was able to get somebody out so quickly to install new windows.

  I yawned, stretched, and got out of bed. There was stuff scattered all over on the floor. I tried not to step on anything as I made my way to the bathroom. I turned the shower on cold to wake myself up; then quickly turned i
t warmer and let the hot water envelope me.

  The workmen installed the new windows in record time. As they worked inside, another crew was patching up the roof. I helped Tommy in the yard. He fired up the old chain saw to cut up the branches in the yard that had been taken down by the storm. I put them into neat little piles in the wheelbarrow to be stacked up on the side of the barn where there was already a growing pile of wood.

  I looked up at the old oak tree. The large thick branch that held my swing was still intact. I loved that swing. Gina’s father had used thick rope to hang it when we first moved in. You could really swing high on it and it felt so sturdy.

  As I was loading more wood into the wheelbarrow to take back to the barn, I heard a beep and turned my head to look. Gina was just pulling into the drive. I continued stacking wood into the wheelbarrow until I had a full load, then I met her in the driveway on my way to the barn.

  Gina got out and slammed her car door shut. “Wow, you guys got a lot of damage,” she said as she looked around in disbelief.

  “Yeah. They’re installing new windows right now. They all blew out last night. Or in, or whatever,” I laughed. “Some guys just got done patching the roof and they’ll be back sometime this week to put new shingles on and fix the siding.”

  Gina stood there shaking her head as she continued to look around. “We didn’t get much damage at all. Just a few shingles tore off the roof. Mostly we just had leaves plastered to the siding on the house,” Gina laughed.

  “Well you guys sure got lucky.” I looked over at Gina and smiled. “So are you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna help me?”

  The three of us – Tommy, Gina, and me worked in the yard until early afternoon before we decided to break for lunch. My stomach was growling and the heat was making me dizzy. Tommy decided to take us to the town bar for lunch.

  The bar was pretty deserted, just a few old farmers mostly - on break from the fields no doubt. We took a seat at the counter and Sally, the owner’s daughter, greeted us. Sally was in her thirties, but looked much older. I reckon it was probably from all the drinking and drugs she did. She had a reputation of being a bit of a wild one. I had lost count on how many children she had; each one by a different father, yet she was still unmarried. Town tramp is what most people called her behind her back. Of course I never joined in. My mother had always told me to judge not, lest I be judged myself. Besides, I didn’t believe in judging another person unless I walked a day in their shoes. We all have our stories.

  “Howdy y’all. What can I get for ya?” she asked, as she looked each of us over - her gaze finally settling on Tommy, where it then stayed as she stuck her chest out and flashed him a smile. I laughed to myself thinking he was probably her next conquest. The girls always did seem to like Tommy, although he seemed oblivious to it all. He had had a serious girlfriend for a while and was heartbroken when her parents moved her to Florida.

  Her name was Tiffany. She was a tiny little thing, maybe five feet tall if that, with beautiful long brown hair that hung down below her waist and she had these big green doe eyes. She was two years younger than him. They had met at the ice cream parlor and had hit it off right away. Once they started dating, they were inseparable. They used to take me along on some of their dates and Tiffany had quickly become like a sister to me. We were both heartbroken when she had to move – Tommy understandably more so than me.

  They had written letters back and forth for a while. But soon the letters became fewer and further between. And eventually they just stopped. Tommy wrote to her a few more times but didn’t get any sort of response. He didn’t talk about it, but I knew he was crushed.

  Tommy had only been in love one other time. It was with Heather, his first serious girlfriend. He was head over heels for her. She was his high school sweetheart. They had met their freshman year. He had proposed to her their senior year and she had said yes. He gave her a promise ring and they had agreed to get married after they graduated.

  There was a big party right before graduation and Tommy was supposed to go with Heather. But he had been sick, so he stayed home. Heather ended up going with some of her girlfriends. Everyone was drinking at the party and she ended up getting killed in a head on car crash with a semi truck that night, along with three other girls from school. All the girls were so mangled from the accident that they had to have closed caskets at their funerals.

  Tommy never forgave himself for Heather’s accident. He always felt that if he had gone to that party, she would have been riding home with him and would still be alive. Or, they would both be dead and that would be just fine with him too, for he had a hard time going on without her. She had been his world. He had stayed single for years after she died, until he met Tiffany.

  Now it had been over two years since Tiffany had moved, but Tommy hadn’t dated anyone new. Sure he hung out with lots of girls. But he never dated any of them or showed any interest in them other than friendship. Much to the dismay of the local girls, I must say.

  “Nicole!” Tommy’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. He was waving his hand in front of my face. “Earth to Nicole. Are you there?”

  “What?”

  He motioned toward the bartender, who stood holding an order pad, staring at me impatiently as she smacked her gum.

  “Oh, sorry.” I quickly glanced at the menu and gave her my order.

  I put my elbows on the bar and my head in my hands as I let out a deep breath and ran my hands through my hair. The air in the bar felt sticky and smelt of burnt nachos and something I couldn’t quite identify.

  Suddenly something I heard caught my attention.

  “It was right in John’s bean field...”

  I cocked my head to the side to listen more intently.

  “Shaped like a cross...”

  My eyes scanned the room to see who was talking. Sitting at the bar a few seats down from me was old man Earl, a local farmer and a regular at the diner where I worked, and his son Ted, a nasty old pervert in his sixties.

  “Said him and his wife went out to the fields with flashlights...”

  “Caught a man in the crossbeams of the light...”

  “Wearing a long black trench coat...”

  “When he turned the flashlight back, the man had all but disappeared. Poof! Just like that. Like he vanished into thin air.” Earl chuckled.

  “Here you are,” Sally said as she put our plates down in front of us.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Tommy and Gina as I stood up. I walked over to old man Earl and his son.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying.”

  “Oh, hey, Nicole. How are you doing? I heard about your accident. I’ve missed you at the diner,” Earl said as he smiled at me.

  I slid onto the vacant bar stool next to him, avoiding Ted’s eyes as they roamed up and down my body. “I’m doing just fine, Earl. Thank you. I’ll be back to work at the diner tomorrow night. Now what were you saying about John’s field?”

  I listened intently as Earl told me the whole story about what he had heard.

  “Well, that is quite strange,” I agreed. “What do you think it was?”

  “It’s the aliens,” Earl said matter of factly.

  It took everything I had to hold in the laugh that was desperately trying to escape my mouth. I bit my lower lip and swallowed hard, willing it back down. “Well, all right then,” I said and nodded as I got up and walked back to my seat.

  As I sat down, Tommy and Gina were both staring at me. I shook my head and nodded in the direction of old man Earl.

  “What?” they both asked.

  I looked over at Earl again. He was looking right at me. He smiled and tipped his cowboy hat. I smiled back. “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered as I took a big bite out of my sandwich.

  Darkness was just falling when we finally finished cleaning up the yard. Gina and I grabb
ed a bag of chips and some sodas and headed up to my room to hang out for a while and catch up on everything that had been going on lately.

  I started by telling Gina about what had happened with Nevaeh and Devin and how Tommy had acted when he met him.

  “It was strange the way Nevaeh had acted. I mean I know I just got her, but she’s so sweet to everyone else. I just don’t understand.”

  “Since you brought it up, Nic, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well there was something about Damien that night too. I don’t know, he’s really cute and all, but he kind of gave me the creeps. Know what I mean?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t really know. I can’t put my finger on it exactly. There was just something odd about him.”

  “Okay, weirdo.” I giggled.

  I decided to chalk it up to Gina’s nerves and moved on, despite the voice in my head telling me that she was right. I told her about what I had seen in the field last night and what I was talking to Earl about at the bar.

  “Aliens?” Gina laughed. “Did he really say aliens?”

  I laughed too. “Yeah, I guess old man Earl is really losing it.”

  “That sounds really cool though. Do you think it’s still there?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I want to see it. We should go check it out.”

  I got up and walked over to the window, peeking out. The stars had just begun to come out and the moon was shining brightly. “I don’t know. It’s pretty dark outside.”