Chapter 9
Grace
We got home a little after eight that evening, and I managed to get most of the kids into bed at a decent time. Everett continued to follow me around after his bath, though, and eventually, I gave up arguing with him and carried him around on my hip.
"You're getting too big to carry," I whispered into his hair as we walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where most of the family was sitting.
He nestled closer into my neck. "Not getting too big," he answered. "Just right."
I chuckled and took a deep breath, hugging my son closer. "You're right," I murmured. "Just right."
Dean's jade eyes flicked to us as we came into the kitchen and he smiled warmly. "Hey, little man," he whispered. "Aren't you ready for bed?"
From the crook of my neck, I felt Everett shake his head.
Smiling and nodding, Dean rubbed our son's back and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Cuddle time is all the time," he commented. He turned his attention to me and tilted his head. "Serra went to put her kids down."
"At her own house?" I asked, feigning surprise. "I am shocked."
"Tell me about it."
Sammy dried his hands on the towel hanging from the oven. "She'll be asleep by the time I walk back over there," he added. "Today was a big day for her."
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "A big day and lots of new toys."
Billy and Jody turned to each of us as we spoke as if they were watching a tennis match. "Heard about all of the new treasures," Billy chuckled. "Sounds like she's in heaven."
I nodded, sitting next to Dean on the bench at our over-sized farm table. "Got to meet our new players, too. Keep an ear out for a man named Nehemiah."
"Nehemiah," Billy repeated. "Got it. Do we know he's a man?"
Shrugging, Dean sighed, "Could be. Could be anything else, too. Angel, demon, whatever." He rubbed his face with both of his palms, "All we have right now is a couple of names and the fact that he's sending Warriors of Heaven to try and kill my wife."
"Try," I grinned. "It'll take more than that to take me out."
Dean tilted his head at me and lifted an eyebrow. "What is it you're always telling Luck? Don't get cocky?"
…
Ryan Strauss
The pull was louder today than it had ever been. After another take-out dinner from my favorite chicken place down the street in Old Ogden, I jumped in the shower and tried to ignore the insistent call from the footlocker at the foot of my bed. I played on my phone a bit, answered a couple of emails, swiped left a few too many times, and finally, found myself standing in front of the footlocker again.
"Fuck," I sighed, shaking my head.
I was hardly a sentimental person, but when my mom died, I couldn't help but save a few important things to remember her by. We didn't have the best relationship and I hadn't even lived in the same city she did since I was ten. She was too busy; off trying to save the world to take care of us. It was one of those messy divorces where my brother and I chose to live with my dad, and I don't remember her being upset over my decision.
The few treasures I saved from my mom's house were shoved into the bottom of the footlocker.
"Fine," I sighed, "let's get this over with."
I had flown back to my hometown for my mother's funeral, staying with my dad longer than I wanted to, just catching up. I took the time to hit up a few of my high school buddies who were still hanging around and managed a game of golf with a college friend as well. Overall, the trip back to Kansas hadn't been a bad one, but because of the circumstances, I didn't allow myself to enjoy it too much.
Before the week of the memorial service, I had met Dad in Missouri to help finish cleaning out Mom's tiny house. As I reached for the handle of the footlocker, my memories forced me to live it all over again.
"Hey Dad," I greeted solemnly as he opened the door.
"Ry," Dad sighed, holding his arms out for a hug. "I'm so sorry, son."
I was already shaking my head. "Yeah," I agreed, "me too."
We began in the living room, clearing out suitcases of paperwork and newspaper articles. I sifted through what seemed like an entire library or old, eclectic books about heaven and hell, demons and angels, spells and witches. Holding one of the books in both of my hands, I took a deep breath and read the title to myself, Heavenly Hosts. Immediately, my mind was thrown back to the memories I had locked away of being attacked by smoke-like creatures with my girlfriend at the time, right after our high school graduation party.
I had never told anyone about it.
"What is all this, Mom?" I wondered aloud.
Dad turned and raised his voice, "What?"
"Nothing," I replied immediately. "Mom's got some weird books."
Shaking his head from the opposite side of the room, Dad sighed. "Don't get me started," he muttered. "Just toss them."
Pressing my lips together, I turned back to the pile of books and took three of the more interesting titles and dropped them into my 'keep' box.
Now, kneeling in front of my footlocker, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, wondering what in the cold hell could be buzzing around in my brain. Slowly, I opened the locker and stared down at its contents. The three books I had smuggled from Mom's house were on top, along with the leather jacket she always had worn. I had also taken a couple of turquoise rings of hers and a very ornate silver necklace, which lay carefully on top of the worn, brown leather. Moving them aside, I reached for the box that held one of the secret things I had discovered in her bedroom: a delicately engraved knife, much longer than my hand, made of a metal I didn't recognize. When I had picked it out of the drawer of her nightstand, it was almost as if it warmed to my touch.
It was almost like it recognized me, which feels even crazier than it sounds.
I had been working at Browning Arms for over ten years and I had never had a metal warm to my touch so immediately.
I took a deep breath and held the knife for a few seconds, wondering if this was the thing that seemed to be calling to me. As comforting as it was to hold, I knew it wasn't it. Pushing the leather sheath back over the blade, I carefully set it on top of her leather jacket as well and continued to dig.
Finally, past the books and the tiny statues of varying religious figures from all spiritual walks of life, I came to the most mysterious find at my mother's house. I hadn't even told Dad about this one, not feeling that I could explain my need to keep it. It wasn't even worth the conversation, but I knew I had to have it.
When I found it, the stone had been wrapped in a dark red velvet, lovingly placed on a pedestal in Mom's closet. It shimmered without light and had markings inscribed on it in a language I didn't recognize. The stone seemed to breathe; pulsing with my own heartbeat and begging to be plucked from the pedestal.
Without hesitating, I glanced behind me to make sure Dad didn't see how stupid I looked, rewrapping a rock in a velvet blanket and shoving to the bottom of my 'keep' box. I had packed it in my suitcase, gone to the funeral, droned through countless strangers shaking my hand and congratulating me on having a mother they could all count on.
Funny thing was, I couldn't.
These people I had never met nor heard about all seemed to have some sort of relationship with my mother that my brother and I never had. Later, while having a drink with Dad out on the back porch, I finally gathered the courage to ask.
"Who were all those people today?" I asked, taking a sip of whiskey.
Dad slowly shook his head and shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, son," he muttered. "I never understood your mother. Always talked about things that I didn't want to know about."
"That's why you left her?"
"That's why she left me."
I nodded slowly, trying to understand my parents.
Again, kneeling in front of the footlocker, I flashed to that graduation party evening in the storm, battling creatures I couldn't identify with a girl that, at the time, I had hoped to marry, even if she had lied to me earlier that day about being a psychic. We were kids. Kids say stupid stuff to get attention.
I bent over the open locker and took a deep breath, reaching for the deep red velvet cloth once more. I hadn't touched the stone when I had discovered it in my mother's closet, but here in my apartment, I felt safe enough to look like an idiot.
Picking it up with both hands, I hefted the rock, still wrapped tightly in velvet. It was heavier than I thought it should have been, considering its small size, no larger than a cantaloupe. I let the velvet fall to the side and examined the carvings.
"Mom, what were you into?" I asked, shaking my head slowly.
The pull I had felt all evening continued to pulse in my ears, right along with my heartbeat. Now that I had the rock in my hands, I felt closer to peace. Allowing the velvet to pool on the floor next to me, I took a deep breath and used my free hand to pick up the stone with my bare hand.
It happened in an instant.
The world around me went silent: if I hadn't known better, I would have thought I had gone deaf, but at the same time, the universe seemed to align perfectly and for the first time things I would have never considered thinking about made perfect sense.
Yes, there was a Heaven and a Hell, and there was everything in between.
Yes, there were angels and demons.
There were Gates and Gatekeepers and they all needed to be protected.
Above all, the Nephilim and her family would need me to help them.
Opening my eyes, I gasped and dropped the stone and watched it roll haphazardly across my bedroom. I had seen her face just as clearly as I had seen it almost twenty years ago.
Grace Browning had been telling the truth and she was much more than a psychic.
