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  Arise

  Book two in the Drift Series

  By: Michael Dean

  Arise

  Copyright © 2013 by Michael Dean. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: February 2014

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1495218088

  ISBN-10: 1495218082

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  ~Dedication~

  This book is dedicated to the young, aspiring authors yet to be discovered. Dream big and write, because we're waiting.

  Chapter 1

  INTRUSIONS

  “It’s been over a week since Miller’s Hill, Leo, how long do you think you’re going to be able to avoid Mark and Sandra?” Shade asked, grasping her pen while glancing up at me from out of her “little black book.” Shadow was sitting in her lap trying to stay warm as Shade struggled to write around him.

  “You make it sound like I want to avoid them.”

  “No, I know you don’t, but he’s your best friend. How long can you keep this up?”

  “As long as it takes, I guess. It’s not easy dodging him at school. After all, this is for their safety. They’re getting too suspicious of me, especially Scruffy. They don’t need to get any closer to the truth. Look how deep you are in it.” I smirked as I sat down on the rock next to her.

  “That’s for sure,” she sarcastically answered, “you do understand that I, on the other hand, cannot stay away from them. Sandra is my best friend, I can’t avoid her, and since Mark is with her, I can’t keep away from him by default.”

  “I get that…and you shouldn’t on account of me. Just make sure that nothing slips out about our situation please—if you know what I mean. The last thing I want to do is get them mixed up in this thing with us. I’ve caused you enough trouble as it is.” I sighed.

  “I know, of course I won’t say anything—and yes—you have,” she stated with a cynical smile.

  “On that note, I’ve been meaning to bring up the fact that you’ve been jotting down our entire course of events as of late. That could open a giant can of worms if that little book of yours falls into someone else’s hands. I should really put my foot down to prevent you from chronicling your ‘life and times with demon boy’ journal writing.” I spoke in a lighthearted tone, but was extremely serious about her not chronicling what I was and what kind of situation we were mixed up in. If a human being, demon, vampire, angel, or whoever read it, who knows what the consequences could be.

  Shade being who she is, completely brushed off my worries by leaning over and giving me a quick peck on the tip of my nose with a smile.

  “Well, you won’t put your foot down because you love me. Besides, if something happens to me, I want my family to know what took place. They will at least know the truth, whether they believe it or not, and with this book,” she said as she held the book up in front of her, lightly shaking it, “they will have something to remember me by. They’ll know about us and will learn about our fate together, no matter how extreme or unreal it may sound. Not to mention, it may give them hope that I’m still alive…just in a different form. But hopefully not like you, no offense. You know?”

  “I understand,” I sympathized, yielding to her again as I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her to me, “but that still doesn’t make it a good idea to write everything down.”

  Shade leaned out of my grasp and belittled me lovingly. “You may be right, demon boy, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to do it anyway.”

  “I figured nothing less from you, girl,” I teased as I bumped against her with my shoulder playfully.

  “So, are you gonna show me what you wanted to show me or what? Just because it’s an unusually warm, fifty degree winter day out here, doesn’t mean that I’m comfy.” She pushed me to finally get to the reason why I pulled her out to my place on this Saturday afternoon.

  “Any excuse to show off, babe,” I answered as I towered over her confidently.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “How did you find this out, anyway? Clowning around as usual, I assume?”

  “More or less. I was bored out here while playing around with Shadow. I started noticing that the faster I ran through the woods, the more the turbulence I created around me. Some kind of strange shockwave happens behind me and…well…you’ll see what I mean.”

  “Well, whoopee, can you get to it then? It isn’t summer out here, ya know!”

  “As you wish, my lady.” I bowed to her in playful sarcasm and strolled into the woods around us, leaving the grinning girl petting the slumbering feline in her lap.

  I started to slowly jog deeper into the dense forest, trying to get as much of a runway as possible. Once I got to where I was comfortably far enough away from one of the many cliff edges that surrounded my home, making sure to allow myself ample running room, I shouted to Shade that I was about to start.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes! Hurry up, you big showoff!”

  I laughed and prepared to start running. Suddenly this excruciating pain overtook my head as if someone had stabbed my skull with a pitchfork. I guess this is what a severe migraine headache feels like to a human. The pain was so sudden and so strong that it took me down to one knee in an instant. I grabbed my forehead and began to rub it, hoping to alleviate the pain. I closed my eyes and. My hearing became muted with a high pitched ringing that overtook all my senses.

  While on my knees, trying to calm this painful storm that overtook me, a cloudy vision came to me. Although the vision was very blurry and I was unable to make out faces, I managed to detect the image of a young woman, maybe in her early to mid-twenties, sitting on a dusty wooden floor crying, clinging to a young girl that looked to be around seven or eight years old who was also sobbing in her grasp. I felt somehow that the little girl was related to the young woman, possibly her daughter. They were wearing attire that looked to be from another time period, maybe the late eighteenth century. Through my haze I could slightly make out the elder girl wearing a long blue dress, snug at her waist but flared out down to the ground from her hips. It had white trim at the end of it, slightly dirty. I guess from it touching the ground as she walked. It looked to be a common blue polonaise gown from the Colonial period. The young blonde girl was wearing a similar white dress. The woman was pleading with me in the middle of her cries, but I couldn’t make out what she was trying to say. I started to approach the distressed pair to get a closer look at them and hear what she was saying but the vision suddenly broke, bringing me back to my current situation, still kneeling on the forest floor.

  Just as fast as the migraine infested vision started, it ended. My head began to clear and I began getting back all of my senses. The muffled ringing gradually left my ears. I stood up and looked around, trying to assess what just happened to me. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Right after my confrontation on Eagle Peak Mountain with Christian and the council, the same exact thing happened to me while I was up in my tree; the same pain, the same vision. I have no idea what’s happening to me or what this all means, but I know there has to be a reason for it. I feel it’s best to keep this particul
ar experience to myself until I figure out what’s going on; no need to worry Shade any further at this point.

  Shouting out again, Shade’s voice bounced off the trees around me impatiently.

  “What’s taking so long, Leo? Stop with the dramatics and get on with it!”

  “I’m ready!” I answered as I gathered my senses and took a runner’s stance.

  I took off into a jog that quickly gave way to a full-on sprint. Pushing my body as hard as I could, I began to run at a pace so fast that the trees and shrubs around me became a blended, straight-line blur. I was blazing through the woods at a faster clip than I ever did before. Maybe it’s something about showing off for a hot girl that really makes me give it my all. The next thing I knew I was at the edge of one of the many cliff drop off points that gave way to the valley below. This was the part of my display that I eagerly wanted to show her and the main reason for my egotistical spectacle.

  When I reached the edge of the cliff, I launched myself off of it. I completely straightened my body out like I was being shot from a cannon, and after soaring for a great distance away from the edge, I began to nosedive into freefall towards the tree covered ground below. I was falling so fast and hard that the wind felt as if it was peeling the skin completely off my face. In no time flat, the oncoming trees below were just feet away from me. Right before flying into them and crashing into the rocky ground below, I released my wings and flew back into the air in an arc. I came so close to the tall trees below that I actually clipped the tops of them with my wings. After curving back up from the fall, I soared back to the top of the valley and back to the spot where Shade was waiting.

  In usual form, I landed in my three-point stance with a thud just feet in front of her, kicking up some of the light layers of patchy snow that have remained in the shadows of the trees. She only sighed and shook her head as her eyes looked at the sky in mild disgust before looking back down to her journal. I knew she was impressed, but she was getting accustomed to my abilities and didn’t want my head to inflate further.

  “Oh my, I’m with a walking, talking, sideshow,” she playfully muttered.

  “Maybe…but I look goooooood,” I teased.

  “What am I gonna do with you?” she added, looking over the top of her diary at me.

  “Nothing you can do but come along for the ride.”

  “I have no choice now,” she said with a smirk.

  “Anyway…what did it look like from your angle?”

  “Other than a testosterone-filled boy?”

  “Uh, yeah. Other than that.”

  Shade hopped up off the rock she was sitting on, causing a relaxed Shadow to do the same from her lap, and started walking me back into the woods I had just run out of. As always, Shadow followed closely behind us.

  “I didn’t really see you until you leaped off the edge into the air, but you sure did cause a wake of turbulence among the woods.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the trees around you actually began to bend towards as you passed by, like there was a tree magnet stuck to your back. The branches sounded like they were breaking and falling behind you. I could see a small wave of the leftover snow stirring up behind you and then it kind of got sucked towards you.”

  We were stomping throughout the forest and she looked around at the trees above us before pointing to the ground. “Ah, here we go, look at the mess you made.”

  Scanning around, I realized what she was talking about. Surrounding us were the tree limbs, needles, and small sticks that now covered the ground by the hundreds. Shadow wasted no time in darting in front of us to explore. We walked further into the fallen debris and our feet crunched as we stepped upon the broken foliage. We looked from left to right and noticed that I had carved a perfect trail through the middle of the woods. It was as if a small destructive tornado had sliced through the dense area. Even small shrubs and bushes were uprooted and laying in the middle of my newly formed broken branch trail.

  I was stunned by how much power I generated in order to create such a disturbance. Even Shade wasn’t prepared for the scene we walked into.

  “Holy crap, Leo,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, what you said,” I agreed. “I wasn’t expecting to see this!”

  “Oh goodie, another reason to pat yourself on the back.” She bent over and picked up a broken branch that had been completely stripped of its bark.

  “I don’t need a reason,” I professed, teasing her back. I really didn’t have as much confidence in myself as Shade thought I did, I just liked watching her scoff at me. It makes her look cute.

  “Uuuhhh, don’t I know it.” Tossing the branch from her hand, she took one last glance around before looking back at me. “Are we finished now?”

  Not answering her right away, I confidently viewed my mess by strolling a few feet down my ‘manmade’ runway, placing my hands on my hips when I finally stopped, and turned to answer her.

  “Yeah, I think I am done for the day.” I smirked.

  Shade just grinned and laughed under her breath as she headed out of the woods with Shadow in tow. After another scan, still in awe of my scene of destruction, I promptly jogged after her in order to catch up with the departing Shade and Shadow.

  “Want me to do it again?”

  “No.”

  When we reached the clearing again, she approached her car and tossed her little black book in through an open window. Shadow saw her throw something and quickly leaped into the car after the suspicious object he saw.

  “I’m going to stop by and see Sandra and then Shadow and I are going back to my house. Are you and I going for a ride later tonight like we planned?”

  “Of course.”

  Shade had recently been sneaking Shadow into her room during the night because she was concerned about the little guy being outside in such frigid temperatures. Just about every night, as of late, I would slip in with the two of them and stay with them until Shade fell asleep. Sometimes I would sit there all night, staring at how beautiful she was when she slept, and other times I would take off for a nighttime flight in hopes of getting some clarity about my next moves regarding hunting Agrelia.

  “Great, I’ll see you tonight then?”

  “Like usual,” I confirmed.

  She leaned into me and I slid my arms around her hips and we shared a passionate kiss. I still flinch a little from the sharp pains I feel when physical expressions of love are shown to me and Shade always holds me tighter when I do that, making sure that I don’t break from an embraced kiss with her.

  “You’re getting better. You don’t squirm like you did at first.” She pulled back from our kiss.

  “Yeah, it still hurts as much as it ever did, but I’m getting some control over it. It’s still hard, though.”

  “Keep working at it, I’ll see you tonight.” She smiled and gave me one last peck before breaking our hold and getting into her car. Shadow welcomed his friend by placing his front paws on her leg from the passenger seat. I couldn’t help myself and leaned in through her window and gave her one more kiss goodbye.

  “See you later…bye, Shadow; you big traitor.” I grinned at my little buddy as I reached over and scratched him under his chin.

  After I extricated myself from the open window, I waved at the parting duo until her car was completely out of sight. Every time she leaves me, especially now that she’s been taking Shadow with her, I feel lonelier than usual. The silence that I have grown to hate, seemed to get louder when they were both gone. Since I was avoiding Scruffy and Sandra in order to keep them safe, my tiny world was shrinking even more.

  Shade and I, as of late, either hung around my spot or just stayed in her room at night when everyone at her house was asleep. We didn’t want to go out on dates in case we ran into our friends. I feel terrible having to shun them, not to mention keep Shade from seeing them as much as she wants to, but this is what I feel has to be done; at least for now.

  So, to kill time unti
l I could see her, I walked back into the woods where I blazed my trail and stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out into the valley at the quiet town below. As a mild, chilly breeze broke across my face, I pondered over the dark cloud that is Agrelia looming over me. I couldn’t delay much longer; it was nearly time to leave Mountainside in order to seek her out in Tombstone, Arizona. Darryl was a mild warm up for the fight that was coming. I just hope that I can come back to Mountainside again to return to Shade. The only way I can do that is to defeat the hell siren.

  Chapter 2

  SHADOWS

  When the chilled night air moved in behind the setting sun, I found myself back upon my branch in thought. To defeat Agrelia, I had to decapitate her. But because she was so elusive and powerful, it would be hard to get close enough to touch her; much less kill her. What worried me further about the beautiful gatekeeper of Hell was her siren scream. This was the piercing wail that screeched from deep within her bowels. It is so loud and so strong that no demon has ever been able to come close to her. When she yells, her scream weakens any spiritual being, rendering them incapacitated and defenseless. A shockwave of sound spews from within her cry, working like a wave that nearly paralyzes a being. It breaks down any demon or spirit of any kind. All that has to be done to conquer an unsuspecting opponent of this hellish siren is to simply carry them off to Hell, or in my case, stab me through the chest with Christian’s demon killing blade. Only angels seem to be impervious to her deadly cries. This is why Agrelia and her subordinates are known as the gatekeepers of Hell. Nothing gets by them. At least nothing that doesn’t have permission to be out, that is. So when a siren opens her mouth, if you are a spiritual being, be as far away from the cry as you can or suffer the consequences. What goes to Hell; stays in Hell. The sirens make sure of it.