Eye of the Oracle

chapter 10

THROUGH THE STORM

Pressing his cheek against the poster, Gabriel cried out, “Dear God, I beg you. Protect her! I am helpless!”

Palin swung his sword, but just before the blade reached the bed, he flexed his arms and drew it back. Taking a step closer, he gazed at Bonnie for several seconds. Gabriel lumbered to the bedside and stood next to the evil slayer, so weak he could barely keep his energy from crumbling to the floor. What could he do but stare alongside the slayer?

The poster’s glow highlighted Bonnie’s radiant face peaceful, serene, angelic. The tender skin on her bare arms displayed an innocent vulnerability, as though she were a gentle lamb who knew nothing of the wolf poised at her throat. With her eyes still shut and her mouth stretching into a quiet yawn, Bonnie pulled her knees closer to her chest and nuzzled her pillow.

Palin peered at the door for a moment, then at Bonnie. Lowering his sword, he tiptoed back to the hall and leaned out. Finally, he left the room, and the sound of creaking steps faded in the distance.

As Gabriel backed away from the bed, the poster’s glow disappeared. With a surge of strength, he floated down the stairwell and found Devin and Palin standing close to the front door, both putting on their cloaks.

“Can you see well enough to drive?” Palin asked.

“My vision’s coming back slowly, but I couldn’t even find the breaker box.”

“You couldn’t?” Palin glanced back at the stairs, but only for a second.

“No mongrels in the house?” Devin asked.

Palin shook his head. “And no sign of Gabriel. I guess he disappeared again.”

“In future slayings, we’ll be sure to stay clear of electrical outlets, but I’d still like to kill that mongrel. I’ll ask Morgan if she has any ideas.”

“At least we finally got Hartanna,” Palin said, pointing his sword at Irene.

Devin fumbled for the doorknob and patted a pocket in his cloak. “And I have her blood. Just the medicine for a wound inflicted by the witch’s claws.”

He opened the door, and as they passed into the snowy breeze, Palin laughed. “Hair of the dog that bit you, huh?” The door slammed heavily behind them.

Gabriel knelt at Irene’s side. A pool of blood surrounded her body and streamed along the lines between the hardwood strips. He laid his head on her side and wept.

A sleepy voice sounded from the top of the stairs. “Daddy? Is that you?”

Gabriel spun around. “Oh, dear God!” he moaned. “Don’t let her see this carnage!”

As Bonnie padded down the stairs, she draped a bathrobe over her wings and shoulders. When she reached the bottom, she stopped and squinted. The streetlights cast a dim glow over Irene’s curled body.

“Mama?” Bonnie called. “Are you okay?”

Gabriel raised his hands to stop Bonnie but to no avail. She scooted across the floor and ran around to Irene’s head.

“Mama!” Bonnie screamed, dropping to her knees. “What happened?”

Irene’s pallid face gave no reply.

Bonnie lifted her mother’s hand from the floor. Blood dripped from the ends of her fingers. She grabbed the limp arm and screamed again. “Mama! Can you hear me?”

Irene’s hand suddenly latched around Bonnie’s wrist. Her mouth opened, but no audible words came forth.

“What, Mama?” Bonnie leaned close. “Say it again!”

“Your father betrayed us,” Irene whispered. “Go to the agency. . . . Just like our plan. . . . Don’t let . . . let them find you.”

Bonnie clutched her mother’s hand, her arms and voice quaking. “I can’t leave you like this! You’ll die!”

“You must find . . . the other dragon. . . . Don’t come back here . . . unless I call you.”

A loud clump sounded from the garage at the side of the house, then heavy footsteps. Irene’s eyes widened, and a sudden surge of energy strengthened her voice. “Now run, dear child! You know where to go. Don’t look back! Just run!” With a final, gurgling gasp, Irene stopped breathing, and her eyes slowly closed.

Bonnie shot to her feet. Wiping blood on her nightgown, she swiveled her head from side to side. She clenched both fists and tiptoed toward the back of the house. Still barefoot, she opened the door quietly and disappeared outside.

As the door swung closed, Gabriel waited at Irene’s side. Bonnie wouldn’t go far in such a storm. If the slayer was coming back, it would be better to stay and find a way to keep him from following her.

Dr. Conner’s voice pierced the dreary scene. “Irene? Are you sitting in the dark again?” The footsteps drew closer. “I should’ve known Dr. George wouldn’t show up. The weather was so bad ” He flipped the light switch, but no lights came on. “I forgot. The electricity’s out. I had to open the garage door myself.”

Squinting into the dim room, he called, “Irene?” He dashed to her side and fell to his knees, sliding in her blood. “Irene!” he cried out. “Talk to me!” He tore off his muffler and pressed it against her wound, then laid his ear against her chest. “C’mon! Give me something!” After a few seconds, he sighed. “Okay, you’re still with us.” Keeping a hand on Irene’s stomach, he shouted toward the stairs, “Bonnie! Come down here!”

Gabriel rushed to the rear of the house and slipped through the crack between the door and the jamb. When he emerged on the back porch, swirling snow encircled his energy field like a white cyclone. Bare footprints marred the walkway’s powdery blanket, blazing a path to the access alley beyond an open gate. He zoomed out to the street, but tire tracks swallowed the trail. In the midst of blizzard-like winds, he scanned the snowscape, desperately hoping to spot a hunched-over girl cowering in a bush.

As a gust of wind whistled a mournful tune, he realized the awful truth. Bonnie was nowhere in the area. Setting his sights on her most likely path, he glided toward the main road, scanning the mounting blanket of snow. Of course, she would try to get to the foster care agency. What choice did she have?

Finally, in the distance, he spotted a trail of footprints and floated toward them. The streetlights suddenly blacked out, and the neighborhood fell into darkness. Gabriel roared. Now how would he follow her trail?

Flashing his energy field with every ampere of current he could muster, he crawled close to the ground and followed the outlines of narrow, bare feet as though he were a sniffing hound. The going was slow, but somehow he would find the lost and frightened little lamb.

Bonnie pushed uphill against the hammering gusts, ducking her head to keep the wind-driven snow from stinging her eyes. Still trudging barefoot, she could no longer feel her toes. Her robe had blown away with the first chilling blast, exposing her wings to anyone who might peek out of one of the warm, cozy homes lining the street. Bitter cold sent a pulsing throb into her aching calves, but she kept wading through the drifts one bare foot in front of the other, again and again. The storm was too fierce for flying, and she had to keep moving, had to fight the urge to surrender to hopelessness and grief. Mama was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it except to obey her last wish, to survive and somehow find a former dragon and his son.

A gust of snowy wind slapped her face and sent her tumbling into a drift. Biting cold stung her body like a swarm of bees plunging icicle stingers into her exposed flesh. Exhausted, she lay on her stomach, half buried and peeking out into the darkness of the city as streetlamp after streetlamp winked out under the burden of failing power lines.

Yet a solitary light glittered at the top of the hill, growing brighter by the second. It looked like a beacon sending out a warning to passing shipmasters or a lantern carried by a lost traveler seeking shelter in the storm. As it drew closer and closer, the light transformed into the shape of a girl. From the bottom of her bare feet to the top of her head, she glowed, as if sunshine leaked out through every pore. Gentle ivory flames rippled along her hands and forearms.

She knelt next to Bonnie and laid a warm hand on her cheek. The girl’s hair, already white from the falling snow, glittered in the firelight. “Bonnie,” she said softly, “can you get up?”

Bonnie’s teeth chattered so hard, she couldn’t answer. She pushed her stiff arms against the snow, and with the help of the girl, rose to her feet, barely able to feel anything in the blistering cold.

The girl waved her hand in a wide circle over her head. A towering flame burst from her palm, and a wall of fire cascaded around them, surrounding them in a cocoon of warmth.

“There’s no portal here,” the girl explained, “so I’d have to make an even bigger firestorm to send us to another dimension.”

Bonnie rubbed her eyes. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Oh.” The girl laughed. “How stupid of me. Of course you don’t know who I am.”

“You look kind of familiar.” As her vision cleared, Bonnie focused on the girl. Her hair wasn’t covered with snow; it was actually white, and her eyes sparkled with an unearthly blue radiance. “Are you an angel? Did you come to take me to heaven?”

As the girl laughed again, the fiery cocoon trembled. “My name is Sapphira, and I have come to escort you to safety.” She took Bonnie’s hand, and, as they walked, the cocoon of fire moved with them. “It’s a good thing I found you. You would have frozen to death before too much longer.”

“Thank you,” Bonnie said, her teeth chattering. “The storm’s so bad . . . I couldn’t even see . . . the street signs. . . . I’m glad . . . you found me.”

“Well, once I saw Gabriel, I knew you would be around somewhere.”

Bonnie glanced around at the wall of flames. “Gabriel’s here?”

“Oh, yes,” Sapphira said, her arm still waving above her. “He never leaves you.”

Bonnie smiled for a moment but let it melt away. “Oh. . . . I see.”

“You see what?”

Bonnie’s chattering teeth slowed, and she drooped her head. “He couldn’t be with my mother . . . to keep her from dying.”

“She died?” Sapphira raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

As tears filled her eyes, Bonnie sniffed and cried out, “I’m so confused, I don’t know what to do! I thought maybe you were an angel, and you were going to take me to my mother!”

Sapphira draped her arm around Bonnie’s shoulders. “I’m not an angel, Bonnie, but Jehovah-Shammah sent me to guide you through the storm.”

“Jehovah-Shammah?” Bonnie sniffed again and wiped a tear away from her cheek. “That’s what I sometimes call God, too!”

“Jehovah really is always with us, and he’ll help us through this storm. Just keep your eyes straight ahead and we’ll eventually get to the place he wants us to go.”

“Okay.” Bonnie glanced at Sapphira’s bare feet and matched her pace. “I’m glad you know where we’re going.”

“Oh, I have no idea how to get to your agency, but Gabriel does. I can see through the gaps in the flames, and I’m following him.”

Bonnie laid a hand on top of her head. “Maybe this is all a bad dream. Maybe I’ll wake up, and Mama will be there.”

“If that’s what Jehovah wants you to think, then so be it. He will teach you what you need to know at the proper time.” Sapphira lowered her arm, and the wall of fire began to fade. “Gabriel has stopped. We must be at the agency.”

“Already? That was fast.”

As the wall of flames vanished, the steps leading to the building slowly came into view. Sapphira nodded at the office window. “I see a candle through the window. It looks like someone’s still working.”

“That’s the office I’m supposed to go to,” Bonnie said. “It must be a miracle.”

“I think you’ll be seeing a lot more miracles, Bonnie, but it might be best to keep Gabriel and me a secret.”

Bonnie shook her head and sighed. “Nobody would believe me if I told them.”

“Probably not. At least not yet.” Sapphira raised her hand again. “I will be watching you. Don’t ever forget what you wrote in your journal. Jehovah-Shammah will rise to your aid.” The wall of fire reappeared, brighter and more vigorous than ever, and swallowed Sapphira in its spinning vortex. In a splash of sparks, she disappeared.

Bonnie stared at the spot where Sapphira once stood. The vision of her blue eyes and white hair already seemed to be a fleeting memory, an impossible dream. She trudged up the stairs and pounded her fist on the door. Seconds later, a woman flung it open, her eyes wide. “Bonnie? Bonnie Conner?”

The brisk wind brought a new chill to Bonnie’s bare arms, and her teeth chattered again. “Yes.”

The woman guided Bonnie through the doorway. “I’m Mrs. Lewis. Hurry inside where it’s warm! We don’t want anyone to see your wings.”

Bonnie shuffled across the anteroom’s warm carpet, rubbing her arms. Mrs. Lewis stopped and placed a hand on each of Bonnie’s shoulders. “Your being here can only mean bad news. Is your mother . . . dead?”

Bonnie nodded. New tears welled in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry!” Mrs. Lewis embraced her for a moment, but Bonnie was too cold to hug her in return. “Come into my office,” she continued. “We have a lot of work to do. Is it safe to go to your house?”

“I don’t think so.” Bonnie entered the candlelit office and sat in a chair. “When Mama died, I heard a noise and ran out.”

Mrs. Lewis picked up her telephone and punched in a number. “I’ll arrange to get the essentials from your room. Do you need anything besides your backpack and some clothes?”

“I’d like my journal.” As the tears trickled down her cheeks, Bonnie’s voice cracked. “It’s . . . it’s all I really need.”