Broken Wings: Genesis (Book 1 of the Yeshua Star Series)

Broken Wings: Genesis

By A. J. Rand

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2006 by Bo Savino/A. J. Rand

License Notes.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchase for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is also available in print at most online retailers. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support!

Dedication

To my mother first and foremost, who has always been my biggest fan.

To my editors and friends, who offered encouragement even while bleeding red ink all over my pages.

And still to Kenny Redhawk. True artists create for people an image with their paint, words, and/or music. Each masterpiece becomes something new in the heart and mind of the person viewing it. Although I know this is not what you envisioned when writing your songs, Broken Wings and Voices, this series of books came into full bloom in my own heart and mind from within the words of your masterpieces.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

Chapter 1

[Back to Top]

Heaven and hell. I have to laugh. If I didn’t laugh, I’d start crying and never stop.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

Crickets have to be the most annoying creatures on the face of the planet—at least when you need to concentrate. The sound of their shrill trilling cuts straight through every thought.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I was on a mission and needed focus. Lives hung in the balance, and my objective was close. The damned insects needed to shut up.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

With every trill I felt my focus slipping. I was too close. My heart pounded an erratic tempo to the surging adrenaline in my veins. The edge of the precipice was in front of me. I could see the opposite side of the yawning chasm by raising my head.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

The pounding of my heart was at a full throb, filling my ears with the dull roar of its bass beat. Still those little buggers cut through. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t let my mark know I was there. Instead, I slammed my hands on the ledge of rock in front of me, pulled myself forward and looked over the edge. Big mistake.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

He looked right at me. I tried to pull back but couldn’t. My hands were stuck, caught in a sticky web-like substance. Damn. I hadn’t seen it.

Without taking my eyes from his, I tried to yank free, but it was a no-go. The more I struggled, the more the substance entangled itself around my fingers. His expression was amused, almost contemptuous. His dark eyes absorbed the night, reflecting no light. This man was darkness, all the way down to whatever passed for a soul. He was a true creature of the night, wrapped in its black arms.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

Stupid bugs. I really needed to focus. I couldn’t afford a misstep. It would be my undoing.

He started toward me at a slow, insolent pace across the web strung between the chasm walls. The webbing vibrated with each step, my hands resonating to his movements on the strands. He never took his eyes from mine. I was trapped—caught in his web—and I wasn’t alone. Scattered across the surface were almost a dozen women wrapped in various layers of silken entrapment, unable to get away from the creature that toyed with them at his whim.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I tore my eyes away from him and looked at my hands. They were burning now, the viscous substance of the web marking my skin with lines of raised red welts where it touched. I winced at the searing pain, trying to pull away. Each movement tightened its hold on me, so I stopped. His smile told me that he took pleasure from the struggle. It made him stronger.

He was close now. Too close. If I hadn’t known better, he could have snared me with the power of his attraction. Even though I did know better, I still had trouble separating what I was seeing from what I knew to be true.

He was almost perfection. The slight golden tan of his skin was etched in muscled, shadowed relief amidst the play of darkness. Long, dark hair caressed his shoulders, falling down his back. The face was like that of an ancient god––squared, chiseled, surrealistic symmetry––and I know my gods, trust me.

Every inch of him was designed to call to a woman’s deepest desires. He sucked me in, pulling on my life force, merging it with his own. I couldn’t stop him.

Then I met his eyes again. I felt the darkness bore into me, winding around me, choking off my life force...

That was all it took. I thrust my hands deeper into the web and grabbed tight. If I couldn’t break free, I would use it to my advantage. I yanked hard and quick, like jerking a rug out from under him. It worked.

Off balance, he fell back, landing in the web. He didn’t look happy about it. Neither was I. The weight of his body hitting the web flipped me forward off the ledge. There was no stopping. I was going to strike that sticky surface and I would be imprisoned like all those other women––just one more plaything. His eyes gleamed with anticipation of my entrapment. I closed my eyes and waited to land.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I expected the springy web to absorb my landing. Instead, the painful impact knocked the breath out of me. It was hard, solid and cold. Part of it wrapped itself around me, warm, soft and cocoon-like. I lay still for a second, re-orienting myself.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

The sound of the cricket was near my head now. I was lost, struggling for awareness, trapped in a state of confusion…

Then it hit me. A dream. It had all been a dream. I lay on the cold wooden floor of my bedroom, with blankets entwined about my body like webbing. I shook off the feeling, still caught in the state between the dream world and my waking one.

Chirp. Chirp.

Chirp. Chirp.

I groped for the sound of the annoying insect and grabbed hold of it like a lifeline to anchor me in a moment of physical reality. I let loose a long, shaky breath and flipped open the cell phone. It had been the cricket, cutting through the wandering realm of my dream.

This had better be good.

My voice sounded dry and harsh to my ears. As my mouth formed the words, I tasted the rich, coppery flavor of blood. I must have bitten my tongue. I moved it around, testing. A brief flash of pain made me pull it back further into my mouth. Nope. I had bitten my lower lip.

Yesh? The voice on the other end of the call was hesitant.

What time was it, anyway? I looked around the room and then turned over to look at the clock on the bedside table. The red numbers burned through the darkness. 5:58. The alarm would have woken me up in another two minutes. Chaz was saved from the worst of my crabbiness this time.

You okay?

I thought about the dream and shuddered, pulling the blanket tighter around me for what—warmth? Protection? The kid had actually done me a favor. But I was irritated enough not to tell him that.

Yesh?

Yeah. I’m here.

Are you––?

Fine. I snapped, trying to get my annoyance under control. I’m fine. What’s up?

I’ve got another one for you. His voice held the kind of excitement that always spelled trouble.

Like the last one?

No. I could almost feel the heat of his face rising to embarrassment. I knew he wouldn’t likely make the same mistake a second time––at least not so soon after the first. This one’s for real, Yesh. I think––I’m pretty sure anyway.

What is it, Chaz?

I think we have a dream stalker.

Of course. What else would it be? The thought of the piercing gaze of the man from my dream made my stomach turn over. Or maybe it was the combined taste of blood with the morning breath still thick in my mouth. The alarm clock went off and I reached to shut it down.

Yesh?

Yeah. I’m still here. Where am I going, kid?

Chaz shot me an address that I fixed in my mind. I wasn’t about to scramble for a pen and paper in the dark. There wasn’t any in the bedroom anyway. I made a vague promise to be there when I could and snapped the phone shut. It took me a few minutes to get motivated. I used them to collect my thoughts and center. I leaned back against the bed, still semi-wrapped in my blanket and surrounded by the dusty darkness of the early morning.

People are afraid of the dark. There is something about darkness that makes them uneasy, twitchy. It sets even the bravest on edge, ready to jump at a glimpse of movement, or sometimes to freeze in fear, unable to move at all. When light dispels the shadows, they laugh at their own foolishness to find nothing there.

I stopped laughing a long time ago.

I have learned over the years not to be afraid of the dark. It’s the things that hide in the dark that scare me. Occupants of darkness wear it like a shroud, hiding their true nature from eyes that wouldn’t understand what they’re seeing anyway.

The worst part is that in the light, they look the same as you or me.

They don’t have to hide––they do it only because it’s something deeply ingrained into their nature. People have forgotten how to see them for centuries. Or most people have. Not me. I’ve always been able to see them. Sometimes I wished I couldn’t. Life would be so much simpler.

Time to get moving. Chaz could be onto something. A dream stalker. The thought made me want to puke. I forced myself to get off the floor and extricated my body from the tangled blankets. As I headed to the shower, I snagged my robe from a pile of clothes at the foot of my bed.

I flipped on the light and tossed the robe onto the hook on the back of the bathroom door. It stayed in place. Must be one of my better days. It just didn’t feel like it yet. While I went through the physical rituals of morning absolutions—like getting the fetid taste out of my mouth by brushing my teeth—my mind wandered, starting to wake up.

Chaz was a good kid. Maybe a little overly enthusiastic for someone like me, but that’s okay. We need a little enthusiasm in this world. I’m cynical to tip the balance against a dozen of his kind. Chaz was once one of my rescue victims. I get a few of those, tossed my way by the church that raised me.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a religious person. I was raised in an orphanage funded by the church. That’s where my old man dropped me off after my mother died in childbirth.

The thought still hurt at odd times. It’s not like it wasn’t for the best. Pops was a sociopathic drunk––and did I mention pathological liar? No matter. I was alone in my apartment where only I could see the vulnerability in the eyes staring back at me from the mirror. I didn’t have time to wallow. And more and more, I had even less time to feel.

I turned on the shower and hopped in while it was still cold, letting it shock me fully awake. The streaming droplets ran over me. I let them warm as the moments passed, before I started washing.

The nuns at the orphanage figured out that there was something different about me—my dreams were not the normal dreams of a five-year-old child. They were night terrors with a basis in reality. It terrified them that the things I said I saw and spoke about were not the imaginary musings of a child trying to compensate for loneliness, but rather the kinds of things they had forgotten how to see. So they turned me over to the priests.

Not everyone realizes that religions have more to their concepts of light and darkness than they see. Oh, yeah, sure. There are the regular teachings of heaven and hell. But those focus on having faith that heaven exists and is a happy place to go to.

They gloss over the part about the balance that needs to be maintained between the light and the darkness, and hell is not only real, but it’s all around us. I’m pretty sure it’s because if they could see what is really there, they’d drop faith for the future of their souls and live in the physical reality of the now in order to survive the onslaught against their minds and bodies.

That was my job.

I finished washing and reached to turn off the water. Something stopped me. I brought my hands back and held them under the water, turning them over to see both front and back. They were crisscrossed with red marks––some raised to welts. My fists clenched in frustration. Chaz was definitely onto something. I hated dream stalkers. With a resigned sigh, I turned off the water and went to get dressed. It was time to get to work.

Chapter 2

[Back to Top]

There’s a lot to be said for cruising down the freeway on a bright sunny day straddling a shiny, black, 998cc vibrating crotch rocket. Aside from the obvious, it’s a feeling of total freedom and the closest I’ll ever get to flying like some of the other things I encounter. Okay, I have to admit a bit of envy on my part for that ability. The total freedom of movement, the wind stinging your face and blowing your hair out behind you like an extra set of wings at your head, no traffic––pure adrenalin. You can’t be in my line of work and not be addicted to the rush of adrenalin.

I hit a button at my waist that piped radio waves to my headset.

…House announced today that the president would soon begin his promised promotion of literacy in the schools. His planned tour will take him…

Gack. The radio went back off. I was not up for politics this morning. As far as I was concerned, politics and religion could be lumped into the same category. They were both necessary institutions whose sole function was to give the appearance of control to the masses in a world where control was an illusion for the most part.

Maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate. Both institutions had control enough to keep the masses from seeing the truth of what was really going on. The political and religious factions that drew the most people to their sides were the ones that could put the best spin in place to make people feel good about themselves and the world they live in.

They certainly don’t live in the same world I do. People can’t handle that kind of reality with their coffee in the morning. Coffee. Damn. That’s what I had forgotten. They might not be able to handle reality with their coffee––I can’t handle it without my coffee.

The kind of reality I live in means I can’t turn my back on the world, pretending true evil doesn’t exist. The world the rest of society lives in has its own breed of monsters––rapists, murderers, child molesters––and the list goes on. That’s not to say I don’t feel about these things like everyone else does. They shouldn’t be allowed to have a place in the world at all. But I know the reality behind the true perpetrators of these mundane acts.

The balance between light and darkness is a delicate one. Flip open any newspaper or turn on any television and it always seems that darkness is winning. But that’s not true. It only seems that way. All it takes is one good, selfless act and the balance tips back against a horde of evil ones. That’s why you hear so much about the darkness of humankind. Darkness has to exploit its own acts, sensationalize the fear. It is the only way for them to gain power in the hearts and minds of people.

For the most part, people reject the thought of evil. Only through constant bombardment can it keep a foothold in society. The downside to this? Constant inundation tends to create immunity. The people of today’s world have had their senses numbed to the violence around them. Believe it or not, my side was winning. Or at least I liked to consider myself on the side of good. It was going to take something truly spectacular to shake the world up enough to tip the scales back in the favor of darkness again. It’s coming. I know it is. And I’m going to do my best to stop it if I get half a chance.

I took the exit that would lead me to Chaz, my thoughts wandering in the same direction. He was a good kid. No matter how hard I tried to dissuade him from the path he was on, he stuck like glue. It was annoying at times, but I understood his drive. He needed to do this.

Chaz had been one of my rescue victims. He had a nose for dream stalkers. He should. His father had been one. I was the one to put his father out of commission. Indirectly perhaps, but permanently.

If you think murderers, rapists or child molesters are the worst humanity has to offer, you’d be wrong. They’re bad all right, but at least those types of scum leave a physical trail that eventually leads to their capture or death if people are bright enough to figure it out. Dream stalkers, skin walkers and others of their ilk don’t. Dream stalkers will even perpetrate the same type of crime––abuse, rape, murder––but they do it in the dreamscape where the only evidence left is what appears to be the insanity of their victims.

Think about it. That is, if you can wrap your mind around the thought. Some sick-minded piece of crap goes to a late night meditation class, a bar, or maybe even spends the night with a group of his or her friends. They settle into a good meditative state, go to sleep, or pretend to pass out. They put themselves into a seeming state of unconscious awareness around a group of people who can vouch for their whereabouts. Then they drop into their victims’ dreams, commit whatever crime gets their twisted juices flowing and presto––deed done with no physical evidence.

The really good ones can even beat the crap out of their victims and leave marks and bruises that show up when their victim is awake. What are the cops going to do about it?

Ma’am, tell us from the beginning––how did this happen?

The man beat me and raped me.

These are the bruises?

Yes.

Can you identify the assailant?

Yes.

And when did this incident take place?

Last night, I had this dream–

A dream.

Yes.

You are saying this happened to you in your dream.

Yes, but–

Okay. Thank you, ma’am. I think we have enough to go on for now. We’ll contact you if…

Yeah, right. Case closed. One of the hundreds of women attacked by Chaz’s father was a devout little Catholic girl who mistook the bruises she woke up with as punishment from the Almighty for the type of dreams she was having. After all, they were her dreams, right? So she must have some kind of taint to make her dreams take that direction in the first place. She went to confession and spilled the sordid details to a priest.

The priest happened to be Father David, the one who had taken over my care from the nuns. Up to that point, dream stalkers and skin walkers had been among my primary duties. That was almost ten years ago. I’ve branched out a bit since then.

Dream stalkers are human. They are not demons, unless you were to qualify demons by the amount of darkness in the soul. But they usually appeal for the aid of some demon to get them to the state of getting their yayas off without getting caught. Chaz’s father was one of those. He made a pact with a demoness. She wanted a kid that was half human. He wanted access to the power the dreamscape offered him. It was a match made in hell.

The way the whole thing had gone down was also what made him so hard for me to catch. He wasn’t accessing the dreamscape through his own dreams, he figured out that controlling his kid’s dreams and using him as a channel gave him a lot more power. By the time I caught up to him, Chaz was ten years old and almost completely broken.

The man kicked my ass––several times, if you want to get technical about it. For the short term, he managed to really piss me off. In the long run, he did me a favor. Father David had to open my world up even further into areas the church officially refuses to acknowledge exists.

With a new and broader awareness of what was going on around me, I did the one thing Chaz’s father, and probably the church, never expected me to do––I tracked down mama. I was hedging my bets. Most demons will only propagate the species with their own kind. I figured there had to be something more here, if this demoness had chosen to bring a half-breed into the world. My bet paid off. Now mama was pissed, too.

I never had to deal with Chaz’s father again. Chaz’s mother took care of him. She had not been appreciative that he had tried to break the boy. It wasn’t pretty. It also wasn’t my problem any more. I did track the boy down to his physical location, though. That was my part of the bargain with the demoness. She wanted him out of that place before the cops were alerted to what was left of Chaz’s father.

I took Chaz to Father David and let the priest work with the kid. It took years to repair what daddy had done to him. But Father David was good. I stopped in and checked on Chaz from time to time over the years. When Chaz turned eighteen and left the orphanage, he showed up on my doorstep. The kid burned with the desire for stopping crap like what he had been through.

There was nothing I could’ve said that would have turned him away from it. Well, there might have been one thing, but Father David and I had discussed it and had come to a single decision between us. We never told Chaz about his mother. I’m sure it will come out some day. I hope it never has to come from me.

Chaz works with me, although I try to keep him from the worst of it when I can. That’s kind of like trying to hold back a river