Tree of Life Book III

Part I - Chapter 05

TREE OF LIFE BOOK III – PART I

CHAPTER 05

Just before morning, when the sun was inches from the top of the trees, Nicole felt wind in her face and she woke up.

"Oh!" Her hand flew to her chest and seized it, right there in the middle, right there where her heart was chugging away beneath her fingers like a steam engine.

The dread of it…that feeling…

All the while, the gale in her face was continuing, gusting, not so strong but enough to knock things over in the room so there was paper and other debris everywhere.

With her other hand, Nicole reached up to pin her hair back from her face. She blinked a few times. Feeling short of breath and clutching her heart still, she sat up in her bed and looked out.

Just seeping out of the room was a figure in a cape, riding on the wind, flying, like Wendy would do when alone and no one else was around to see it.

Wendy…

Her eyes blew wide. "Wendy!"

She threw a glance over at the baby's bed by the corner. It was empty.

She jumped out of bed. She scanned all around. She couldn't see Wendy anywhere. Ella had been asleep in the cot next to hers, but now she was rolling over into wakefulness too. Though none of the lights were on, Nicole could see well enough by the brightness of the morning slipping in through the window in a haze.

From behind her, another figure emerged, also riding on air, not touching the ground or anything else. It made for the door.

"Hey!" Nicole threw herself at the form. She landed a punch on the creature's back.

"Ungh!" The figure grunted.

From the grunt, Nicole could tell it was a woman.

The woman ignored the hit and raced out the door and was gone.

Nicole dashed to follow. She couldn't see her quarry, but by the fluttering sounds she could hear from ahead, she made her pursuit as far as the edge of the camp.

Bursting past the last pavilion, Nicole caught sight of the woman once more. She was hell bent for the tree line and seconds from the forest beyond. She was fifty yards away.

Nicole stopped. "Hey!"

The woman didn't slow.

"Nephilim!"

That did it.

The figure stopped. She froze. Right by the edge of the trees. Her cape, in the abruptness of her halting, rustled as it caught up to her and wrapped itself around her body like folding wings on a bat. She pivoted around.

Nicole stood her ground. She took a defensive stance.

The woman floated higher, until she was twenty feet from the ground, an apparition as light as air, a ghost. The first rays of the sun shot down from behind her in beams so you could not tell with certainty. Perhaps she was a god, a giver of light from heaven above.

"Where is my daughter?" Nicole was still short of breath and gasping. "Why have you taken her?"

The figure smiled. She threw back her cape and Nicole gazed upon her enemy fully for the first time.

A tall figure, taller than herself, measuring at least ten feet. With long, straight red hair that wavered like seaweed in the ocean, but now in a breeze, in a storm, in a whirlwind of her own making. She had chiselled, aquiline features, especially in the nose and chin. Her complexion was so desperately white that her mien seemed entirely transparent.