Chapter Seventeen
It was the loud whine of a close plane which caused Allen to look up. He was almost knocked to the ground from the vibration screaming through the earth. And then he saw it; the flames jutting out from the side and back of the shooting star.
“Holy fuck!” This was something you didn’t get to see every day. Eden could wait one more day. He began to run in the direction of the falling plane in hopes of seeing death in many various ways.
He didn’t have to run all that far. This time he was knocked to the ground as he felt the plane go down. He wondered how far the fire trail would be and how many bodies had either fallen out on impact or else were being dragged by the dead plane.
When he reached the site he saw that the nose of the plane had, as most planes do, smashed into the ground first and had slid for roughly a mile before it had slowed enough for it to stop. Allen jumped down into the pit created by the plane and took a large inhale.
He closed his eyes and smiled and reached out his arms in the direction of the wreckage. He kept telling himself that he wasn’t sick; he just enjoyed death. Nothing wrong with that. No sir.
He passed seats, burned corpses, and other metallic debris before reaching the actual rear of the plane and when he got there he was shocked at the sight of two survivors. He has heard stories of people living through crashes (Tarzan came to his mind right away), but there was no way in hell anyone could have survived this crash; the entire plane was ripped to smithereens by the time he got there – and it was still burning from the cockpit.
He watched as a man and woman crawled their way from the side of the torn plane and up the embankment created by it. Once they were safe on the same ground as Allen, they stood up and both fell back onto their knees.
Curiosity got the better of him and Allen decided to walk over to them. “You guys okay?” he called out to them when he approached from behind.
He watched as they coughed, gagged, and vomited before the man finally turned and looked up at Allen.
Allen lost balance and fell back onto the ground next to them as he looked at the man behind shock and surprise. There was no way in hell,
“Is there help coming? She’s pregnant,” said the man and Allen nodded an affirmative. “Name’s Vince. Thank you.”
Why wasn’t he up on his feet right now trying to kill me? He looked down at his dark hands and realized that Vince would never have recognized him now that he has a nice new body to play around with.
“Jonah,” Allen stood back up, held out his hand, and Vince grabbed hold.
Vince stood up and helped Samantha to her feet. “She needs a hospital. Quick.”
Allen nodded but realized that they would have to return to the inner section of Jerusalem for a better hospital. “Follow me,” he said and began walking back toward the city he had recently destroyed. He hadn’t leveled the entire city, just small parts of it just to show his power.
Vince picked Samantha up and carried her as they walked.
When they reached the inner city all was dark and a warm breeze blew throughout. Allen walked several paces ahead of him, but Vince couldn’t help not to walk slowly as he studied the buildings. Not a single structure here wasn’t burnt to some degree. No life was found here as he looked through the blackened windows. There was a strong feeling of sorrow as they walked through the city.
“What in God’s name happened here, Jonah?”
“Terrorists,” Allen replied as he looked back at Vince; Samantha had witnessed the views as well, but she was too out of it to fully feel its impact. “But don’t worry; the hospital’s in a better location.”
It seemed as if they had walked for another hour or so before they arrived at the hospital and once inside, Samantha was hurried into another room. Vince took a seat in the waiting room and found a television in the far corner. He went over to it and turned it on to see if there had been any reports about the crash.
Allen had become intrigued that Vince had survived such a devastating plane crash and he wondered if there wasn’t in fact some divine intervention going on here and so he sat and waited with him through the long hours.
Although he had just woken up a couple of hours ago, Vince nodded back off several hours later and he did not have to look for her this time.
“What happened? I feel like I can’t breathe,” whispered a frightened Mykella and Vince rushed to the girls’ side.
“There was a crash on the way to Jerusalem. Your mother’s in a hospital. She was alive when we got here, but she was going in and out.”
“Will we be okay?”
Here Vince could find no answer. He wished they would be but he wasn’t very optimistic about it. All he could do was look at her and wrap his arm around her trying his damnedest to comfort her for whatever was to come.
He felt her trembling in his arms and felt every gasp of breath she took and feared that the next one would be her last. And as suddenly as it had begun, her breathing returned to normal and they both let out a sigh of relief. They smiled at one another and he drew her closer to him and embraced her.
She gasped and patted him on his back. “Vince, I just got my breath back. Don’t squeeze it out of me.”
He released her with an apologetic smile. “I was just terrified to lose you.”
Mykella smiled behind a blush and looked him up and down. “My mom is very lucky to have you, Vince. Don’t give up on her just as you haven’t given up on me.”
Vince opened his eyes and saw that Jonah was standing over him. “Your lady friend is all right.”
Vince sat up and stretched his arms with a yawn and a ‘thanks.’ He stood and rubbed his bruised face. “How bad is it?” he asked and looked at Jonah.
Allen thought of a million horrible things to say to this pathetic mortal but settled on: “I’m sure you’ve looked better.”
Vince smiled and patted Jonah on his back. “Thanks,” he said and made his way over to the nurse’s station and inquired if he could see Samantha. He was led into a room at the far end of the corridor and he almost cried when he saw the battered young woman.
He was damning himself for allowing her to come here with him. If she was back home she would be waiting for him to return. Truth be told, if this were the case, he would probably not have survived the crash and never go home.
He went over to her and placed one gentle hand on her blackened cheek and his other hand on her large abdomen.
“They will be alright.”
Vince turned and saw that the doctor had entered right behind him.
“The baby lost some oxygen but we were able to moderate this. It was a good thing you brought her here when you did; any later and they both would have died.”
He was telling Vince nothing that he didn’t already know but Vince nodded and thanked him nonetheless. And then the doctor turned his attention to Vince's wombs. “I think you need to have yourself looked at, too,” he said.
Vince shook his head. “I feel pretty good considering my plane fell from the sky.” He looked back at Samantha. “Will she have a complete recovery?”
“You must understand something Mr…?”
“Hopman. Vincent Hopman.”
“Mr. Hopman, Samantha has hit her head pretty hard on something – I couldn’t say what, it could have been something that had fallen on top of her. I felt a deep impression on the back of her head. I don’t know if there’s any damage done to the brain. You should take her back home and have MRI’s, EKG’s, and EEG’s done as soon as you get there and have a neurologist take a look at them. Then you will know how much damage has been done.”
Vince nodded and the doctor excused himself out of the room. Alone, Vince sat down next to the unconscious young woman and took her hand in his. Ashamed, he could not look at her face. It had been his fault she was here now. He wasn’t strong enough to stop her from coming.
“I am so sorry. I never wanted anything to hurt you.” He bowed his head and let the tears flow as the guilt crushed down on him, suffocating him.
Beneath his hand which lay on her abdomen, he felt a sudden thump and he looked up in surprise. Never before had Mykella ever kicked him. He smiled and gently laid his head down on her stomach and told Mykella how sorry he was as well.
An hour later Vince learned that he was to leave the hospital (he was not related to her, after all) and so Jonah was kind enough to offer a room to Vince during their stay in Jerusalem. At first he was going to decline the invitation but Jonah kept insisting and so Vince finally agreed and they left the hospital together.
They walked another quarter mile before they reached a house that was built underground. When he entered Vince had to crouch through most of the house (he felt like he was visiting a Hobbit house) and when he was ushered to the spare room, Vince knocked his head on the top of the door frame.
Jonah repeatedly apologized and beneath the deceit, Allen laughed to himself.
Jonah suggested that Vince get washed up and sit in the living room and have a bite to eat before retiring to bed for the night. Vince accepted and found his way to the bathroom to freshen up.
After he had closed the door Vince turned and looked at his face in the mirror for the first time since leaving Ireland. He had received countless cuts across his head and face, he must not have lost that much blood, however, because he never felt light-headed, and he wouldn’t be surprised to find his nose had been fractured. Do I look like mankind’s guardian?
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He grinned to himself and shook his head. He never questioned why he didn’t feel the pain he most likely should have felt. In fact, he never wondered why he and Samantha had even survived the damned plane crash when, surely, everyone else perished.
Mykella.
She was why they had lived. But does this mean that he believes in fate? That someone has a plan set out for them? Could everything be so simple?
Mykella. If he were to be her protector, why hasn’t he protected her yet? Samantha was nearing her final trimester and his mother didn’t think she would make it to full term. There was a part of him that wanted something bad to happen so that he would protect her. Then there was that other part that wanted nothing to do with fighting and war.
He closed his eyes and pictured Mykella as he had first seen her crouched beneath the seat of the plane, terrified beyond anything she had ever known before. And why? Because of some Dreamkiller taking on the form of his sister? He didn’t get the chance to tell her that this Dreamkiller couldn’t harm them without a master to control them. If this were true, is it possible, then, to kill this fiend at all?
Why am I here, Mykella? What is it you want me to do here?
He turned on the cold water and splashed his face with a couple of handfuls. He found a towel on a rack next to the sink and he dried his face and hands with it. One last look in the mirror and he placed the towel down on the vanity and then left the bathroom to find Jonah.
He found the small living room with ease and saw that his host was sitting on an easy chair in front of a coffee table. Vince walked over and sat down on the blue couch opposite the table. Jonah smiled and gestured to the plate and cup on the table. “Tea and cake.” Allen thought for a moment and then smiled. “It’s from my nephew’s bar mitzvah.”
Vince nodded and grabbed the cup and brought it to his lips. “I want to thank you again for taking me in like this.”
Jonah lifted his hand and waved him off. “Think nothing of it. I am here to help everyone in need.”
Vince smiled at the older man. “I need to go to the police department and make a report about what happened tonight.”
“You can go in the morning when you are well rested. Now, we drink.”
Vince sat back and laid the small plate on his lap and began taking bites of his cake. “It’s very good, thank you.” Jonah smiled and nodded. “So, what is it you do?”
Allen thought about this for a moment. “I work with my hands,” was the best he could come up with.
“You’re a carpenter?”
Jonah smiled. “So to speak.” He looked down into his cup. “What do you do?”
“Would you believe I’m on a mission from God?” Vince smiled. He didn’t really want to tell the man that all he was was a student.
Jonah cocked an eyebrow with suspicion.
“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I can communicate with a spirit and she told me to come here. Why, I don’t know,” he said, now regretting he had said anything at all.
Jonah sat back and stared at Vince with glassy eyes. He was breathing hard, yet regular. If he were hyperventilating, Vince couldn’t detect it. “What is this spirit called?” he finally asked.
Vince took another sip of his tea. “Mykella.”
Allen closed his eyes for a moment. “Let me hold your hands a moment, please.” Reluctantly, Vince held out his hands and Allen grabbed them and ran his thumbs in circles across the backs of his hands. He could see the young woman! He could see her red hair and see her green eyes. He could see even further; he saw how fragile this woman was. “I would like to see her. Please, introduce me to her.”
Vince pulled his hands back quickly. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
Jonah nodded and smiled. “It is a gift as well as a curse.”
“No, I don’t think she can let herself be seen by other mortals.”
Allen smiled at the sound of this. ‘Other mortals.’ Does he not know who I am? All I have to do is wish to see her and so I shall. This is the same woman I saw so many years ago with you, my lovely. So many fucking years ago in the time chamber with Orion. What was it he told me? He smiled again. Oh yes. This woman has the ability to become a Dream Crusader and she could become a threat to us all.
“I insist that you introduce us at once.”
Vince stood up, hitting his head on the ceiling. “Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t just tell people what to do.”
Jonah leaned back in his easy chair behind a larger smile. “I can do things to you you’d never believe possible, Vincent. I could make you powerful and I could also squash you under my foot whenever I want.” He stood up and it seemed that no matter how tall he was, his head never touched the ceiling; it was as if this man was made of a different material than Vince.
Intimidated as he was, Vince stood up to the thing which stood just inches from his chest and pointed a finger at him. “I don’t know what you want, but you’ll never get close to Mykella. I don’t know what kind of devil you are – you just don’t understand prophecies and who I am. I will stop you before you lay one goddamned finger on her head. Understand?”
Allen tilted his head back and roared in laughter and he extended his arms. Before he knew what was happening, Vince saw the house changing material as the man did. It had a new elasticity which was beginning to shrink in size. The walls were becoming rounded and closing in on them as Allen folded his hands into fists.
Vince quickly looked around the room and thought that this was not a real house at all; just some hallucinatory place created by this stranger. He was frantically looking for a way out of this place; he wasn’t sure if the door and windows were real at this point.
“Can’t you see there’s nothing you can deny me? Your Daddy couldn’t deny me his life, so why are you denying me this little meeting?” Allen shouted over the sounds of the room mutating into something different and, obviously, smaller.
Vince stopped looking for an escape and turned back to Allen with a confused expression. He tried to see through Jonah. “Allen?”
Allen laughed again. Damn, this is fun! “The one and only!”
Two emotions were battling inside his head at this moment. He wondered if he would be able to kill the motherfucker right here and now; to tear his head right off his shoulders. He was also wondering if he should flee this place and live to fight another day.
He glanced down with his eyes and saw that Allen was standing on a large area rug and he instantly bent down, grabbed a corner, and gave it the largest tug he could muster out. This did what he was praying for.
Allen fell onto his back and the room ceased its collapsing motion and Vince headed for the door. He pulled it open, dislodging it from its frame, and stumbled out into the night air.
He didn’t stop here to rest. No, he ran with all his strength back to the hospital. What he hoped to do there he wasn’t sure. If he didn’t go back, then Allen would most likely kill Samantha. If he did go back, he would try to kill them both anyway. Maybe he could try to get her relocated until he could get clearance to get her the hell back to the States.
He didn’t have enough time to ponder what to do. He ran into the Emergency Room entrance, almost out of breath. When he approached the desk, “I need help,” he said and the nurse came quickly to his side. “My girlfriend’s here. I went to this man’s house for a bit to freshen up. And now I find he’s a madman who may be coming after me. I need you to call security to watch the doors so I can talk to her doctor.”
The nurse put forth a very disgruntled expression. “I don’t think so. I think you’re a madman. You should leave before I call security.”
“Yes! Call security. Tell them to get their asses down here.”
It took her but a moment to make the call and less than that for four officers to come to her aid. They looked from the nurse to Vince and then headed toward him with their hands on their guns.
Vince raised his hands and headed to the door and then stopped when he saw a familiar stranger coming toward the hospital in long, yet unhurried, strides. “There he is!” he shouted and the officers took a mindless glance over Vince’s shoulder at the man coming their way.
The shortest of the four saw the approaching man and grunted behind a smirk. “That’s just Jonah. He runs that small shop down in inner-city. I seriously doubt he’s here to start some mean business.”
The others laughed and nudged Vince in his back. What they had not noticed (only if they looked real hard at the man who looked like Jonah) was the heat rolling off the man’s shoulders and head. As Vince stared at the man, he was startled when he saw the eyes of his predator staring right back at him with malice in them.
Vince couldn’t take any more chances; he was, after all, the guardian of mankind; the protector of mankind’s defender. He spun around before any of the officers saw him and he brought his hand down and grabbed the pistol of the officer closest.
He didn’t allow them any time to pull their weapons; he was already through the doors heading toward the elevators. Nerves made his finger press the Up button repeatedly until the door opened and he went in and quickly pressed the number 3 floor. He looked down and noticed that his left knee had been thumping from anxiety.
Once he passed floor 2 he knew that Allen had entered the hospital. He heard a loud explosion from below and felt the elevator tremble as it ascended to the next floor.
Before the door opened to its full width, Vince ran out and down the corridor to Samantha’s room. He saw that she was still unconscious, sedated he thought, and turned around to leave the room to search for her doctor, but before he could, her doctor was standing in the doorway with a worried expression on his face. “I thought you’d come back tonight,” he said.
“I need to get her out of here. It’s a long story, but someone’s after her baby,” he began and then they both heard the screams from below. “He’s here. We have to get her out of here, fast.”
The doctor looked down at the pistol tucked into Vince’s waistline and then back up at Vince’s terrified look. “You’re not going to shoot me. Are you?”
“No, I’m not. But I will if you stop me from taking her.”
At that the doctor came into the room and helped Vince unplug the IV’s and other vital statistic monitors and the oxygen clip on her finger. Vince picked the woman up and headed for the door after nodding to the old man. “Thank you. You will not be forgotten.”
As he watched Vince carry his prize down the corridor in the opposite direction, he couldn’t stop pondering the young man and his final words. You will not be forgotten. No matter what religious background this young man may have and no matter how different they may be, he couldn’t just dismiss the divine intervention brought before him. “Celia’s going to kill me,” he mumbled aloud and then ran after Vince, barely catching him before he entered another elevator.
He held out his hand to Vince and said: “Dennis.” Vince shook the man’s hand as he adjusted Samantha’s weight and then the doctor entered the elevator with Vince. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a ring of keys and then put them in Vince’s breast pocket. “Take my car. Get to the airport (I’ll look for it there) and take yourselves back to the States – get as much space between you and that creature.”
There was nothing Vince could say to the man to elaborate how much he appreciated the gesture. Instead he nodded his head.
“Now, I’ll take you to the back door where the smoker’s eat lunch and then to my car. That’s as far as I go, my friend. Whatever war you have brought here, I want nothing of it.”
As the elevator opened, “I’m afraid you don’t have much of a say in that. The war will be at your doorstep soon enough I’m afraid,” said Vince as he followed Dennis through a darker corridor which was lined by unused stretchers and extra beds.
Dennis stopped when he reached his car and opened the door for Vince and they put Samantha in as comfortably as they could and snapped the seatbelt. He met Vince at the driver’s door and stopped Vince as he opened the door. “If a war is truly coming, then we as humanity must put aside our petty differences like religions and races to stand together as one to fight.”
Vince grabbed Dennis’ hand and shook it. “I wish it were that easy. I think that’s why one person was chosen to fight the battle alone and not all of humanity.”
Dennis turned his head and saw smoke issuing from the hospital windows and turned to Vince. “You’d better get going. She should regain consciousness in several hours – you might want to find a hotel in the meanwhile. I wish you well, my friend.”
Vince closed the door and opened the window. “Thank you again for everything,” he said and drove toward the Entrance/Exit of the parking lot. He happened to glance in the rearview mirror just in time to witness Allen emerge from the hospital and spy the car he was driving.
Enraged, Allen lifted his arms and lifted several cars and sent them through the air in Vince’s direction. They had crashed into other cars just yards before striking their mark, causing the parking lot to become inflamed as the cars exploded. Allen turned and saw Dennis standing next to an empty parking space.
He knew that this man had given Vince his car – he could read his mind after all. Pure hatred filled Allen’s soul as he stared at the frightened man standing alone in his white jacket and leather shoes. Allen reached out his hand and before Dennis knew what was happening, his heart had exploded out of his chest and landed in Allen’s open hand.
It took several seconds before Dennis fell to the ground, but before he did so, Allen suggested that this doctor try and save his own life. Allen walked over to the man lying dead on the ground with a look of pure satisfaction. If it took a million people to die just to get to Vincent and this Mykella, the happier he would be. The more blood on his hands, the less Allen becomes himself and begins to become something new; something evolution should have created generations ago.