My sword trembled in my hand, glowing with a light that came from the Son. At times, I wondered if my weapon was a sentient being. It seemed to come alive whenever I fought and held its light far longer than other guardians could boast.
Heat slid through me and I sensed the presence of darkness approaching before the demon opened his mouth to scream an expletive. I balanced on the heels of my feet and spun, wielding my sword around as I did so.
My weapon cut through his torso, flowing right through his form as if cutting through cheese. He groaned and disintegrated, clinging to the body that had allowed him to enter before finally exploding into nothingness.
It angered me to see so many evil spirits in the room of young humans. Though I knew the demons had no authority on earth without a body, these children seemed keenly unaware and carried spirits of drunkenness, lust, and rebellion on their shoulders.
Did they not see? Did they not want to be free?
As my anger mounted, white hot light poured from my lips and streamed through my eyes, vanquishing the rest of the princes of darkness and turning them to ashes. The spray of fine dust got caught in my throat and I coughed, blowing the particles out of the way.
My sword continued to fizzle and spurt light as if waiting for another evil spirit to come at us. I chuckled and wiped the glossy metal off on a napkin waiting near the ice-box filled with beer.
We’d done enough fighting for one day. It was time to find Denise Carballo.
I peeled back the thin veneer separating the spiritual realm from the physical and crossed over, grinning from the aftereffects of a fight done right. All around me, nineteen-year-olds held red cups, danced, and flirted, reveling in the freedom of their youth.
They had no idea. Their vision of independence was really a mirage paraded before them by the princes of darkness. The demons thrived in their ignorance. As the night wore on, that bondage would only grow worse.
But it wasn’t my job to debate the merits—or lack thereof—of the children of man. I was only concerned with one. A girl. Five foot six inches. Beautiful by human standards. Vivacious. Bright. And a little more adventurous that I preferred.
Where was Denise?
I scanned the room but did not recognize her in the crowd. I’d only been fighting for fifteen minutes. Had she wondered off in that time? I returned my sword to its sheath and marched outside.
The cool, tropical air blew against my face and drew a lock of brown hair against my nose. I brushed the tendril away and stared out at the Caribbean Sea that flowed calmly into the black horizon. The moonlight danced over waving coconut trees and revealed a parking lot that was empty save for a variety of fancy cars.
Belize was a tiny country just south of Mexico and bordered on the east by the Caribbean Sea. Less than 400,000 populated the fertile land and only 95,000 lived in Belize City. How had I managed to lose one amidst such a small crowd?
Holding out my arm, I pressed the skin there and awakened the tracking beacon that was linked to my human charge. Instead of the transparent map that I had come to know, the beacon spurted and fizzled, revealing a picture that I could not read.
I slapped my hand against a nearby car to shake the technology loose. The entire back-end of the vehicle flipped into the air and crashed down, blaring its alarm and drawing a crowd of the party-goers outside.
Oops.
Fortunately, the beacon responded to my efforts and revealed a map with a blinking red dot. Eagerly, I unfurled my wings and took off, sailing through the currents of the sky.
The locator led me to a hospital room in the middle of the city. Strange. Had one of Denise’s friends been hurt? Had she gone to visit them when I was occupied with the demons?
Surely, it couldn’t be Denise in the hospital. Her calls would have pierced my ears if she had been in danger.
I alighted in the room and, to my surprise, spotted Tan, Denise’s tiny best friend, staring at the wall in deep thought. Like my charge, Tan achieved the human standard of accepted beauty with strong facial features, flawless brown skin and long, curly black hair.
I dialed into her thoughts as if choosing a station on the radio, still wondering why my beacon had beamed me here instead of placing me at Denise’s side.
“What happened tonight?” Tan mused to herself.
“I too would like to know.” I slammed the button in my wrist that would reveal my human disguise. Urgency frothed in my stomach. Something was wrong and the only child of man who could help lay before me.
Tan yelped and pulled her blanket up to her nose. Her gaze darted about the hospital room. “Who-who’s there?”
“Can’t you see me?” I frowned.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Look, I can’t help you find peace or rest or whatever. Go haunt someone else.”
How dare she.
“I’m not a ghost.” I paced the room. “I’m an—” A clatter drowned out my introduction. In my haste, I’d knocked into the dresser that held her cell phone and the device tumbled to the floor.
Visibly trembling with fear, Tan lifted her fingers to her forehead and hesitated. “What are the steps to the Sign of the Cross again? It went up first? Down? Forehead and then right shoulder? No… left shoulder?”
“It goes up, then down.”
“Oh my g—you’re Catholic? Great! How am I supposed to free myself from a Catholic ghost?”
“Tan, listen to me! Where is Denise?”
“I don’t know! The last thing I remember was getting ready for Cameron’s party tonight. When I woke up, they told me... that I’d died. Please don’t hurt me!”
Panic tore my insides to pieces. Tan had died and come back to life… but what about Denise?
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