~*~ 27 ~*~
Up ahead, parked in front of my house was another news van. Groaning audibly, I hastily pulled into a driveway up the street from my house, backing out, returning the way I had come. I didn't want to deal with them, especially alone. I couldn't understand the big interest here. How had they known that I wasn't at the school or had they pulled up waiting for me just missing me before I had left for school? I felt really alone. Heading back up north I decided to go for a drive, maybe find someplace to hang out until school let out when I could go to Sarah's. I kept heading north past town and further up into the mountains.
The drive was relaxing, the view absolutely gorgeous. It was sunny and the snow was sparkling on all the trees. The roads were clear and free from all other traffic. Up ahead there was a little gas station with a convenience store for the hunters who came up this far, but mostly for the local logging traffic which consisted of a good portion of the men from town and the surrounding area. Pulling in and putting in another forty dollars of gas into my car. I purchased some munchies and a couple bottles of juice. It wasn't long before I was heading north again.
I didn't have an objective to where I was going. Just driving and letting my thoughts go wherever they meandered to. Deeper and deeper into the primordial forest I drove, the road curving through trees so thick it obscured the view. Most who traveled this far north on this highway towards Canada were loggers and I didn't see many of them. Driving alone up here I relaxed.
The feeling came again, thick like a cloak, it was so overwhelming that I had difficulty taking a breath. It was like what I would imagine a heart attack would be but without the pain. It scared me. Putting on my hazards and pulling over to the shoulder of the road, I grabbed at my cell phone. I was waiting for that strange cloying feeling to pass as the others had, this one by far the worst yet. I kept telling myself I was safe, there was no danger for me here. I tried to probe the feeling gently, find out what was causing it.
Holding my cell phone which was on the car charger, I looked down at the front display just as it lit up, beginning to ring and vibrating. Startling me it slipped out of my hands. Fumbling for it I dropped it again. Reaching down I pulled it up by its charger cord. "Hello?"
I couldn't shake the feeling of apprehension, nor did it didn't feel wise to probe it anymore. In fact it was something I wanted gone— now!
"Rowan?"
It was Tina.
"Yes?"
"Where are you?" She sounded edgy.
"Not sure, why?"
"What do you mean you're not sure?" she sounded confused. I could hear the anxiety that mirrored my own creep into her voice.
"I'm north of town by about, I don't know, forty miles? Why?"
"Gray—- Bryce sent me a message."
"I know his real name, you can use it. What message?"
"He said for you to turn around and get your butt back home immediately!"
How had he known?
"Why?" I quipped back at her. I was still struggling with a now almost debilitating feeling of overwhelming fear. I didn't want to let her know. I could handle this.
She sounded a bit mystified herself. "He didn't say, only told me to make sure you did it now." she stressed that last word intensely. "Now Rowan!"
"How come he sent that message to you and not me?"
She was silent for a long time, probably trying to figure out what she could say and what she couldn't.
I helped her out. "Just spill it Tina! I know!"
Just calling her by her familiar name Tina rather than Bettina was enough to tell her I had remembered a lot.
"Where he is he can't get to you."
"But he can you?"
"Hang on." I could hear her whispering to someone.
Archer took the phone from Tina. "Get your cute self back to town or I will be there in a flash, and you will look mighty silly coming back home in, from what it will look like to others, a levitating car!"
I didn't doubt that he wouldn't get here via angel power and pick my car up carrying it back down the mountain if I didn't comply.
"Fine, but can you tell me why?"
There was a long pause as if he was unsure of what to tell me, or even if he should tell me anything at all. I heard Tina in the background "Just tell her Archer and get her mule-butt off that mountain now! Grayson said NOW!"
Archer didn't mince words. "Zale is here."
A suffocating feeling washed over me, I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. There was now only that cloak fear that blanketed me completely.
"You still there Rowan?"
I nodded. "Yes" I croaked hoarsely.
He must have picked up on something because he suddenly snapped "I'm coming up there right now! Stay -where -you -are!" his voice exploded over the phone. And then the phone line went dead.
I didn't want to hang the phone up because if I did I would be totally alone. It didn't matter that he wasn't on the phone anymore, just holding it made me feel better.
It happened in barely enough time for me to grasp what was going on. The air shimmered similar to the way that Grayson's did. Light engulfed my car spilling inside comfortingly. That feeling of cold dread eased a bit.
Just a bit.
I could see Archer standing now just in front of my car looking behind it over its roof. He looked angry. His anger was directed at something above and behind me. He looked the way you would picture an angel who was biblically and righteously angry. His eyes glowed liquid fire. And then another flash, of glowing teal, I could see a sword flaming a blue green color. Tina now stood just to my left, in the middle of the road, her sword at ready, glaring at something behind me as well.
Scared but also relieved I got brave enough to look into my rear view mirror. I could see nothing behind me.
For just a moment I toyed with the idea that there was absolutely nothing wrong, that I was dreaming all of this, another one of Grayson's spell induced dream-slips. Then I saw anger and defiance flash from Archer's eyes. He seemed to grow in stature. Suddenly he was very, very tall and heavily muscled. I wasn't imagining anything and this was not a dream slip. Archer was now complete and total Guardian. Looking to my left I saw the same of Tina, having now become much larger. She looked as angry as Archer, her glowing sword arched upwards in a ready position.
Confused I looked up at Archer who had now unfurled his wing like an enormous aura. Wings that reached up and up! I couldn't see the tops of them from where I sat still wearing my seat belt. He looked awesome in his anger like a fierce, battle hardened warrior, even larger and angrier than Grayson could be.
Part of me wanted to see what was going on but I didn't dare. That's probably the only reason I wanted to see anyway, because I felt safe that they were here. I was smart enough to know if they weren't, than that feeling of cold blackness would be engulfing me completely right now, freezing me to my spot. I would probably die from fright. I wasn't ignorant of what was keeping whatever it was away from me.
"Rowan?" the timber of his voice boomed, making everything vibrate with its deep resonance. He wasn't taking his eyes from whatever it was that was behind me that I couldn't see.
I tried looking up at face. I had to lean over my steering wheel, he had gotten taller!
"Get out of your car Rowan." His voice brooking no defiance whatsoever, I could feel my steering wheel vibrate even. I fumbled around with my suddenly obstinate seat belt. I couldn't see what the danger was but knew it was very real. Up to this moment I had known Archer as a Christmas Carol singing young man with a smile that lit up a room, not this enormous, flashing, incredibly angry warrior with flame red, black and gold wings standing in front of my car ready to do battle for me!
My seat belt suddenly clicking open and slid out of the way almost magically. Opening my door nervously, looking first to the rear of my car, seeing nothing, stepping out I shut the door. Hedging along the fender of my car, I passed an enraged and equally fierce looking Tina who was angrily fixated on something behind and above us.
The pavement was wet and dark, the sun now obscured by clouds. I could only make out a tiny cold white ball where there had been sun a few moments ago. The weather had changed very fast. A chill pebbled my flesh and I rubbed at my arms. Archer motioned me toward him. Wordlessly I complied. He never took his blazing eyes from something I couldn't see. As I neared him he reached out with his incredibly strong looking arm, pulling me up against him tightly. Then all the lights got brilliant and blinding again and I knew he was taking me somewhere else, away from whatever had been there waiting to get me.
And then something slammed into him hard!
The jolt was enough to make him loosen his hold on me. I felt as if I was about to fall from an incredibly high place. I screamed. His hold on me tightened. There were now fiery blackish purple and sickening green flashes all around us. Tina's sword flashed very close to us. Something plowed into her because I saw the light of her sword move very fast away from us.
Unexpectedly, Archer took another hit from something I couldn't see and grunted. I could feel something impact hard into his body with a velocity that reminded me of the time dad had hit a deer with his old car when I was about nine. The impact was a sudden with a jolt that shuddered deep in your bones.
"Hold on tight" he hissed at me through clenched teeth.
As if I would do anything else except that! And then I saw it. Just for an instant, but there had been another face in that swirling bank of flashing lights and dark colors. It looked like pure evil. An angel not like Archers or Grayson's, this one was shrouded with eerie light and twisted into a mask of intense rage. Strobes of light, violent purple and putrescent green, illuminated around us.
"Rogue!" snarled Archer at the face I'd just seen.
"You'd better call off the King!" the voice in the flashing colors snarled just off my right side.
"Take it up with him yourself!" Archer spun suddenly upwards at a dizzying speed faster and faster. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly.
The other thing kept up with him, right beside us snarling and grasping out for me.
"That is what I am trying to do!" the evil sounding voice hissed ominously close. Then it growled a deep rasping roar. Something came slashing viciously at me. It was long and wickedly pointed, glowing like bronze and rust colored fire at the same instant a teal flaming sword slashed by.
I heard someone screaming. The voice wouldn't stop. It was mine.
The flashing pulsating lights darted to and fro, everywhere that Archer went, it kept abreast of us. As if it were toying with Archer and Tina.
"Give me the girl and you'll keep your wings baby angel!" the voice sneered menacingly. "She's my legal charge!"
A smoldering hand reached out grabbing for me, grazing my shoulder. I could feel intense heat and cold radiating from it burning into my skin.
"Not anymore she's not!" Archer said vehemently diving a different direction trying to elude his enemy. In an instant I understood that this was my enemy as well. This was Zale, my once Guardian Angel who had gone bad, turning into evil. Another evil twisted face shown itself out of the ominous dark roiling cloud like fog. I saw it only for a second and then I didn't see Tina anymore as she took on the second attacker herself.
Zale slammed into Archer again even harder. Archer woofed out a breath of air and floundered. It felt as if we were very high in the air.
"She's mine!" Zale growled viciously. "You don't have the spine to save her, nor the strength. You're just a baby" it sneered again. "Where's Grayson now?" Zale reached for me again with his smoldering hand.
Archer's grip on me changed suddenly turning vice like. I couldn't breathe and he was squeezing me hard enough to crack my ribs. It brought tears to my eyes.
"NO Archer! Don't!" Tina shouted. I felt Archer jerk suddenly and steeply turn into a downward power dive. He was moving at an incredible velocity, everything around me turned into a tunnel of light. My ears began popping. My eyes feel like they were going to explode out of my head. Wind plastered my skin so hard it felt like I was being peeled alive.
I screamed but no sound came out. There was nothing to hear but roaring rushing sound that I felt as well as heard. If Archer hadn't been holding me in a vice like grip I knew I would have been ripped from his arms and shredded into oblivion. And then merciful blackness took me, obscuring everything from my mind.