Prologue:
The Weather was
harsh at half past three and the wind was threatening to blow the
house away. To be more precise it was just one house. All the other
homes down JC Drive were dealing with an onslaught or rain and wind,
but nothing to the extreme of house number 4116.
From the outside it
was nothing more than the same cookie cutter house with white fences,
the perfect cut lawn, and the same two matching trash bins at the end
of its paved driveway. There was nothing special about the house
chosen - number 4116 - not from the outside, anyway.
But within the white
door of number 4116 and beyond the powder blue trim and white paint
was a secret. A well-kept secret for nearly a millennium.
A woman, her human
name Patricia Faulk - and yes, human is the appropriate term for the
creatures that filled her ever growing neighborhood, though she was
nothing of the sort. She was guarding a Portal -- placed conveniently
in her spare bedroom -- and guard it with her life she would, until
this night, September seventh, when a raging storm awoke her from her
rest at half past three.
Patricia, whose real
name could not be spoken by humans only those that crossed through
the portal could wield her name, awake from the cry of the storm and
bolted to its source -- the portal! Her slender figure moved
gracefully and with ease around her collection of books stacked in
high towers throughout the living room and into the small hall. Her
long red hair lightly damp from the shower she had taken hours
earlier had unraveled and clung across her fair skinned neck and
cheeks curling around her cherry red lips and dark brown eyes.
This was not a
normal portal crossing.
She fell to the
floor and crossed her legs in front of the bedroom door. She closed
her hands on her knees, tilted her head back, with closed her eyes to
focus. To cross a portal you must first knock on the door and wait
for an answer, that was what Patricia was doing.
She was answering.
Reaching a quick
mediation-like state her body began to glow and small runes crawled
across her arms and legs, across her belly and neck, until her whole
body was being blotched out by the blacken ink of the symbols. Her
body rose three feet off the ground and those black symbols, one by
one, echoed out and appeared around the frame of the door.
One by one the
letters glowed, until finally the doorway opened allowing passage
into her home. But as the door opened and two people stepped in a
third clawed through reaching with bloodied talons out. This was one
of malicious intent and on instinct she closed the portal, but the
storm remained as the pounding against the magical door continued
demanding her to open it.
“Who has stepped
through this portal?” She asked pulling from her trance, but her
first response was not anything what she expected it to be. It was
the wailing of a baby.
She opened the door
into her spare room revealing a large man, an Archangel, covered in
blood soaked cloth and armor wielding a long golden sword with a
white handle and three sets of tattered wings. His body was shaking
and mangled as he forced himself up off the floor just barely
cradling a small creature whose cries were beginning to wane on
Patricia’s nerves.
“Portal master,”
he spoke with ragged breath. “I am sorry to have brought this upon
you, but I must beg of you to help.”
“Why does an
Archangel need my help?” She asked unmoving with cold eyes at the
intruder into her home.
“I do not. But she
does.” He dropped his sword and held out the little girl for the
woman to see.
“What use do I
have with that thing?”
“This thing is no
mere child.” His body was too worn and tried to hold her any
longer. He fell forward still managing to stay on his elbows with her
carefully propped up. Slowly and carefully he laid her down. He
turned the infant on her side touching the back of her neck.
“What is she?”
The woman gasped as a couple of runes upon her body began to appear.
“They are trying
to get through.” He spoke.
“Who have you
brought to my door?” she demanded.
“It’s the
Darkness.”
“What?” she
hissed as more symbols lit up.
“And if they get
their hands on this child then the Darkness will be released. She
needs time to grow strong. To fight this."
She turned to the
door and looked to her arms, already her body was shifting and her
eyes felt the urge to shut. They were forcing her to open up. “And
you brought them here?” She demanded. “You are disrupting the
order, the way things are done! You will be punished!” She turned
back around to the silence of the room and to the archangel now
touching the back of the child’s neck.
His wings dissolved,
his weapons and armor faded, and soon his very image fluttered. With
his last breath he focused on the portal master sending out a rush of
light against her body. Then he was gone.
She turned back to
the portal with rage towards the Archangel and did the only thing she
could do to save her life from the Darkness threatening her and the
life of the child. She had to sever her connection with the other
dimension and once severed the first thing she had to do was hide the
child.
For the child was
something an Archangel would give his life for, she would ensure his
last request be fulfilled and pray that death did not soon await her.
--Brenda Franklin, author of The Pulse Trilogy
