The Adventures of Emily Tual Book Four: The Rising

At Emily’s house, Emily and James were once again reading Emily’s codex in the living room to try to find clues as to who the Darkness really was. Emily only had about an hour or so before Emily had to leave for cheerleading practice at the middle school. There was a big game on Friday at the high school and the cheerleaders of all three schools would be there along with the middle school and elementary school football players that would be standing to the side to cheer on the high school team. Emily had already changed into her cheer uniform while James had been reading the codex.

Every once in a while Emily would look up at James. The boy was focused on the codex. It was like he had never read it before. Maybe he hadn’t read it before. She found it hard to believe since James had been around since the Great War. He had spent so much time with Gabriel and Jasper. Was there really no way he couldn’t have read the book? Emily knew asking James if he remembered his time from the Great War was pointless since he had lost his memory when Gabriel and Jasper had found him.

Emily also wondered if James did like her or not. He hadn’t complimented her on how she looked. She wished that he would tell her whether or not he liked her. She knew that now wasn’t the best time but she still wished that he would tell her.

Emily looked down at the book and that was when she saw an illustration. It was of the Darkness sitting on a throne with several Black Hands, she assumed they were generals, kneeling before him. Emily had seen the picture hundreds of times before but there was something off about it. Something she had never noticed before. Her fingers brushed against the illustration. “Emily?” James asked. That was the last thing Emily heard before visions came to her.

The Darkness sitting before the Black Hands…

A shadowy creature coming forth from a dark hallway…

Black Hands chasing two boys…

Emily gasped as she landed on the ground. She looked around her. She was in a forest and it was nighttime. She wrapped her arms around her. It was cold. “James?” She called out. There was no reply. Emily’s heart sank. “James?” She cried out, getting scared. Did James not come into the vision with her?

“Come on Gabriel! We need to keep going!” Emily turned around to see two boys running in her direction. The sound of horses was in the distance behind them. The one boy looked like he was thirteen and the other looked a couple of years younger than him. The younger one looked familiar but Emily wasn’t sure why. She saw torch lights behind the boys. With how high they were, Emily had a feeling that whoever had the torches was on the horses. That was when the horse riders came into the moonlight. Ellie realized that the riders were Black Hands and that they were after the boys.

Emily turned around as the Black Hands rode past her after the boys. If the one boy was Gabriel, then she was seeing how Gabriel and Victor ended up in the Great War. She knew that she had to see how the two ended up a part of it. According to her book, Gabriel and Victor were adults when they met Seraphina and helped her unite the people but she wondered how the two of them ended up in the position they did to help Seraphina lead the people against the Darkness.

Emily ran after the Black Hands, Gabriel and Victor. She had to witness how her mentor and his brother ended up a part of this. That was when everything around her changed.

Emily took a step back as she saw that she was now in a cemetery. It was very creepy. The grass and trees were dead. The tombstones had statues by each grave. The statues all looked eerily creepy. They each had a skull for a head and their wings made it look like they were about to fly. Each one had a scythe in their boney hands. Emily couldn’t tell if they were male or female statues.

There was a noise behind her. Emily spun around, ready to face whatever it was and her heart sank. It was a tall statue. This one had glowing black eye sockets in its skull. The scythe was dripping red with blood. The wings were missing all of their feathers. Emily took a step back as the statue advanced on her. It pointed a boney finger at her. “Sixteeen.” The statue said as it continued to advance on her. “Sixteen.”

“Emily, wake up!” Emily’s eyes flew open and she gasped as she sat up. She was back in her own room. Emily turned to see James. He had a worried look on his face. That was when Emily realized that she was on the couch. James must have moved her there after she had passed out. Her codex was still on the couch. “Are you okay?” James asked her.

Emily looked down at her hands. They were shaking. “I…I will be.” She said after a few minutes. “Just need to recover from what I saw.” She looked at her watch. She was sure that she had missed cheerleading or would be late for it. To her surprise, only fifteen minutes had gone by. She looked at James. “What happened?” She asked him. “I know I passed out after I touched an illustration but what happened while I was passed out?”

James was quiet for a few seconds. Emily was worried that she had done something terrible. Before she could ask though, James spoke. “You were twisting around a lot. Before you woke up though, you were sweating and trembling.” James took Emily’s hands in his hands as he said that last bit. Emily looked down at their hands before she looked back up at him. “Whatever you saw was freaking you out.” James continued. “I was considering calling Gabriel for help when you woke up.”

Emily thought about what she saw. “I think I saw Gabriel when he was a young boy.” She told James. “He and his brother, Victor, were running from Black Hands when they were boys. I wanted to follow them but that was when the vision changed. I ended up in a cemetery. Everything was dead. I know you usually have dead people in one but I mean the grass was dead and the trees were dead too. There were statues of skeleton angels everywhere with scythes and one of them was I guess alive and it was moving towards me and it said only one word twice.” Emily felt all of the words coming out faster and faster as she spoke. She had to get it all out there for James to hear. Hopefully, he would be able to help her understand what her second vision meant.

James was quiet. Emily wasn’t sure if she should continue with telling him what she had seen. “What did the statue say to you?” James asked after a few minutes.

“Sixteen.” Emily answered. “It just said sixteen twice to me. That was when I woke up.” She looked past James at her opened codex. “I got the vision as soon as I touched the picture of the Darkness and her generals.” She told him. “I don’t know why it happened now after all of this time. I mean I have touched each page of that book and never had visions like this during the day.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t had a vision since she had been at summer camp right before the Man with the German Accent had tried to sacrifice her to bring back the Darkness. Did this mean that the Darkness was trying to make a return now after so long?

James became quiet again. He knew that Gabriel wouldn’t openly talk about his past so if Emily thought that she had seen something from Gabriel’s past, her vision was probably most likely right. Gabriel wouldn’t be able to hide that from her visions. Nothing could stay hidden when people have visions. He would have to talk to Gabriel about the other vision though. The fact that Emily had it after all of this time must have meant something.

“James?” Emily asked. She wasn’t sure how she felt about what had happened and James being very quiet didn’t help either. She wondered if there was something that he knew that she didn’t. She stood up and went to her codex. There had to be something in her book that would help her understand the vision.

That was when James joined her. “I need to talk to Gabriel about this.” He told Emily. “He’ll understand what is going on.” He looked at Emily’s codex for a minute before he looked back at Emily. “Don’t worry. I’m sure that he’ll have an answer to this.” James gently kissed Emily’s forehead. “And you do look amazing by the way.” He added softly. He knew that Emily was hoping for him to say something like that. James smiled at her before he left.

At Gabriel’s cabin, Gabriel came out of the basement. He had spent another day trying to get answers from Bastet. Even though she was locked up and had no way of escaping, Bastet seemed like she was the only one who didn’t mind being trapped. She would taunt and make fun of Gabriel day after day. It was like she didn’t care that she was trapped or that the Black Hands hadn’t come to rescue her yet.

Audrey and Aunica looked up from their school work as Gabriel went to his armchair. They both knew what was wrong. Aunica had only been with them for a few months now but she was used to what was going on. “Bastet is still not telling you what you want to know?” Audrey asked. She was annoyed by the cat lady in the basement. She had gone to Bastet to try to get answers about what roles the Witnesses had in the Seventh Tribulation but Bastet had simply smiled wickedly and had kept her mouth shut the whole time.

Gabriel nodded. “I feel like she’s just going to keep doing this.” He answered in a grave voice. He wasn’t the powerful immortal he was once before. Ever since Emily had discovered who she was and the failed ritual that the Black Hand had tried, Gabriel had felt his powers and immortality slowly drifting away. He knew that he could have forced Bastet to talk if he still had all of his powers but it wasn’t likely now. The immortality spell that Seraphina had placed on his was fading and would soon be gone completely.

“If we want to know what the Black Hand is up to, we’ll need a different approach.” Gabriel told them. The only problem was, he couldn’t think of any other approach. They didn’t know where the other leaders of the Black Hand were, assuming any of them were still alive. The only one who might still be alive besides the Darkness would be the Man with the German Accent. The only other approach they could try was to find other immortals if there were any close by.

That was when James came in. “We might have a different approach.” James told them. He had heard Gabriel say that they needed a different approach. Audrey, Aunica and Gabriel all looked at him. “Emily might have given us our different approach.” James continued. “With a vision she had.”

“What vision?” Audrey asked.

James looked at Gabriel for a minute. He knew that now wasn’t the time to mention the vision that Emily had of him and Victor running from the Black Hand when they were kids. “Emily saw a dead graveyard with skeleton angel statues everywhere and one of them kept saying sixteen to her.” James replied. “There was nothing else to it but Emily thought it meant something pretty important.”

Aunica and Audrey looked at each other before they looked at Gabriel. “What does that vision mean?” Audrey asked. She knew that visions always meant something.

Gabriel thought about it. No one liked how quiet he was being. “Did Emily say anything else about her vision?” He asked James. “Anything that might explain why she saw that particular graveyard?”

James shook his head. It was once again quiet in the room. No one said a word as they thought about Emily’s vision.