Pillars of Fire Read online

  Also by Laurice Elehwany Molinari

  Books

  The Ether: Vero Rising

  Screenplays

  My Girl (Columbia Pictures)

  The Brady Bunch Movie (Paramount Pictures)

  The Amazing Panda Adventure (Warner Bros.)

  Anastasia (Uncredited) (Fox Animation Studios)

  Bewitched (Uncredited) (Columbia Pictures)

  ZONDERKIDZ

  Pillars of Fire

  Copyright © 2014 by Laurice E. Molinari

  ePub Edition © January 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-73559-5

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zonderkidz, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Molinari, Laurice E.

  Pillars of fire / Laurice E. Molinari.

  p. cm. — (The ether ; book 2)

  ISBN 978-0-310-73556-4 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-0-310-73559-5 (epub)

  1. Guardian angels — Fiction. 2. Angels — Fiction. 3. Demonology — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction. 5. Animals, Mythical — Fiction. 6. Good and evil — Fiction. 7. Family life — Maryland — Fiction. 8. Maryland — Fiction. I. Title.

  PZ7.M7337Pil 2015

  [Fic] — dc23

  2014031386

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — ​electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — ​except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Illustrations: Randy Gallegos

  Interior design: David Conn & Ben Fetterley

  14 15 16 17 18 19 /DCI/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my husband, Chris, who dreamed of the Ether as a boy.

  CONTENTS

  1. Medical Wonder

  2. Going Green

  3. Trial by Fire

  4. Tracking Unicorns

  5. The Hair

  6. New Girl

  7. Angel Trials

  8. Ariel the Power

  9. Children of the Fallen

  10. Beyond the Clouds

  11. Zombie Ants

  12. Invisible Angel

  13. Surprise Party

  14. Fort-i-fires

  15. Soul Searching

  16. Riddle of the Imp

  17. Hyena’s Den

  18. Michael

  19. Pep Rally

  20. Unlikely Hero

  21. The Dreamer

  22. Jacob’s Ladder

  23. Pool of Truth

  24. Marsh Creatures

  25. The Black Castle

  26. Lilith

  27. Wreaths of Glory

  28. Vero’s Task

  29. The Burning Hatred

  1

  MEDICAL WONDER

  The moon was nearly full, but no light pierced the canopy of cloud and tree to reach the forest floor. Below the tangled branches, the woods were dark and deadly still. Not even the melodious music of the evening crickets could be heard.

  From the center of the forest, a column of heavy black smoke wafted through the trees, choking the life from the surrounding air. A moment later, the eerie silence was broken. Birds screeched, branches snapped, and animals crashed through the underbrush, all fleeing in a widening ring of panic. Something was not right in the woodland.

  The smoke came from a bright fire in a small clearing. A hunched figure, cloaked in shadows, slowly stepped into the light of the flames. She was a gaunt woman, and behind her trailed a carpet of coarse black hair that gleamed dully in the light. Longer than a hundred wedding trains sewn together, the hair seemed to have a life of its own, slithering around trees and rocks with the agility of a serpent. It looked endless in the dark.

  When she reached the fire, the woman swept aside her ragged robe and dropped to her knees. The flames revealed cavernous wrinkles and deep black eyes. She looked to be thousands of years old.

  “I am listening, my prince,” the haggard woman snarled to the blaze before her. Her voice sounded like the screech of a hundred hungry owls.

  “Our time runs short,” said a voice from the fire. The flames rose and fell as it spoke. “The others have disappointed me greatly. But you shall not.”

  Eighty yards away, next to an abandoned well, a fleeing white-tailed buck unknowingly stepped on the long black mane.

  “Are we sure it is one of these fledglings?” screeched the hag.

  “His true nature will manifest during the Trials. Then we will know with certainty,” the inferno breathed. Despite the intense heat from the flames, its tone was menacing and cold. “The child cannot live.”

  Suddenly, the end of the woman’s hair train rose up like a king cobra readying to strike. The buck’s eyes filled with terror, and he tried to bolt, but the hair coiled itself around its body with the speed of a viper. Within seconds, the panicked buck was completely encased by the hair, strangled, devoured, and then just gone.

  “Don’t offer me creatures of the forest,” the fire said. “Offer me the fledgling, for he will be the prize of all prizes.”

  “I will do as my prince commands,” the hag said. A smile cracked her ancient lips. “The child will not be.”

  As she stood up and turned to leave, the hair gliding with her, the blaze called out. “Do you loathe me?”

  The woman stopped and slowly turned to face the fire. Her eyes were hollow. “I despise all that He has created. So you are no different.”

  Pleased with her answer, the fire let out a wicked laugh, and the hag disappeared once more into the dark forest.

  Vero Leland stood with his back against the stark white wall. His gray eyes nervously scanned the room for items that could be used to injure him. There were syringes with long needles, razor-sharp scissors, and pointy scalpels on the counter. The room was filled with the nauseating smell of rubbing alcohol. Looking around at the many dangerous objects, Vero was scared. But he was more scared that the flower-themed, flimsy paper gown he was wearing would fly open and expose his pasty backside. He clutched the opening shut in tight fists.

  “Sit down. You’re going to rip the gown,” his mother, Nora, told him. “Really, Vero, you’re too old to be afraid of the doctor.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s getting a shot. Just look at the size of those needles!” Vero said, nodding to a metal tray on the counter.

  “I’m sure they’re not all for you,” Nora winked, her faint laugh lines showing.

  Vero looked at his mother skeptically, but Nora’s vibrant green eyes filled with tenderness as she gazed upon her only son. “I remember your first set of shots. You were so tiny. When the doctor pricked you, you cried and cried. Then I joined in,” Nora said, tearing up. “It broke my heart. The doctor thought I took it harder than you.”

  “Knock it off, Mom.” Vero rolled his eyes. “You’re so embarrassing.”

  “No more embarrassing than a knobby-kneed thirteen-year-old boy in a flowered paper dress,” Nora replied, looking hurt.

  “Sorry, but, it’s just that I’m old enough to get a physical by myself. You don’t need to be here with me.”

&nbs
p; “But I’ve always taken you to your physical.”

  “I’m not a little kid anymore,” Vero said. “You treat me like a baby. You won’t even let me have a cellphone!”

  “You’ll get one when you’re older, like Clover,” Nora said.

  “See? Like a baby.” Vero pouted.

  Nora’s expression softened. “What if Dr. Walker has questions, and you can’t answer them?”

  “I’m sure he could find you in the waiting room.”

  Nora looked at Vero, her lips pursed. She knew he was right, but it was so hard to let go. Nora had always struggled to give Vero independence. She feared for him more than for her daughter, Clover. Thirteen years later, she still regularly woke up in a cold sweat after reliving the night she had found the abandoned baby Vero in the hospital. The night a figure cloaked in a dark robe chased her through a grocery store while she clutched Vero to her chest. The night she so desperately wanted to shake from her memory, but knew she never would.

  “Hello, Vero,” the doctor said as he shut the door behind him, snapping Nora from her thoughts. “How’s my medical wonder doing?”

  Dr. Walker had known Vero his whole life but usually only saw him once a year for his annual physical because Vero almost never got sick. Nora had brought Vero in a few times to discuss how to put more weight on him, but other than that, Vero rarely saw the doctor.

  Nora stood up and opened the door. “I’ll be out in the waiting room if you need me,” she said.

  “You’re not staying?” the white-haired doctor questioned.

  “No, he can handle himself.”

  Vero smiled gratefully at his mom. Taking one last look at her son, Nora slipped out, leaving him alone with Dr. Walker.

  “So, Vero, how is everything?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “You feeling okay? Any complaints?” Dr. Walker listened to Vero’s heart with his metal stethoscope.

  “No.”

  “Breathe.”

  Vero took a few deep breaths as the doctor checked his lungs.

  Dr. Walker smiled. “Very nice. So how’s your back?”

  The question threw Vero. “Oh, um . . . my back?”

  “Your mother called a while ago, said you were complaining it hurt?”

  “Oh, that thing. Yeah, they bought me a new mattress, and it stopped bugging me after that.”

  Vero felt guilty about twisting the truth, but there was no way he could be honest. Dr. Walker would never understand that all his back pain had completely disappeared the first time he had sprouted his wings. That the back pain had actually been nothing more than guardian angel growing pains.

  “Let’s check your vision. Put your hand over your left eye and read the chart.”

  Vero covered his eye and read the chart hanging on the other side of the room. “E, F, P, T, O, Z . . .” he said.

  “Just read the lowest line you can see clearly,” Dr. Walker interrupted.

  Vero squinted as his eye scanned down the chart. “I can make out the last line. F, E, A . . .” he read aloud. “R, M, E.”

  “That’s awful, Vero! You got every single letter wrong,” Dr. Walker told him. “Try the line above it.”

  “But I see ’em clearly.”

  “Remove your hand and read it with both eyes.”

  Vero dropped his hand from his face. He stared intently at the last line. “F, E . . . A, R, M, E,” Vero repeated.

  Dr. Walker scribbled something on his prescription pad and tore it off with great force.

  “It took thirteen years, but we’ve finally found something wrong with you! You need glasses, Vero,” he said as he triumphantly handed the paper to Vero. “This is a prescription to see an eye doctor.”

  “But I’m sure I’m reading the line right.” Vero walked over to the eye chart and put his face right up to it. “See? I’m right. Look. F, E, A, R, M, E.”

  “Interesting . . . not only near sighted, but you’re far sighted as well.”

  Then it hit Vero. The letters, F, E, A, R, M, E — they spelled out “Fear me!” He was getting a message that the doctor could not see — a message from the Ether. Fear me? he thought. Was he being threatened from beyond?

  It had been several months since he had heard anything from the Ether, and Vero missed it terribly. He longed for the vast fields of wildflowers, so brightly colored he had to shield his eyes. He ached for the warmth of the Ether’s eternal light. Most of all, he wanted to sprout his wings and soar into the Ether’s brilliant blue sky. In fact, it had been so long since he was there, he had begun to worry that maybe he wasn’t actually cut out for angel training, and he had been eliminated from his group of fledglings.

  Fear me. A chill ran through Vero, giving him goose bumps. No matter how badly he longed to return there, he knew not everything in the Ether was good.

  “Any questions, Vero?” Dr. Walker asked, his kindly eyes twinkling.

  “No,” Vero answered, relieved that there was no mention of any shots.

  “Then I’ll see you and your new glasses next year,” the doctor said on his way out. “You can get dressed.”

  After the door closed, Vero reached down to grab his jeans off the blue chair. As he ripped the thin plastic belt from his waist, someone knocked, then entered without waiting for a response. Vero quickly spun around and saw a young pretty nurse holding a small metal tray. His hand instinctively pulled the back of the gown shut to hide his underwear.

  “Time for your shot,” the nurse smiled, flashing a set of perfect white teeth.

  “But Dr. Walker didn’t say I needed one!” Vero panicked. “He said I could go.”

  “Doctors never like to deliver bad news,” the nurse smiled. “They make us nurses be the bad guys. Sorry, sweetie.”

  Vero looked at the woman. Even though she smiled, no warmth reached her eyes. She didn’t seem at all sorry for what she was about to do to him. Perhaps after years of dealing with screaming scared kids her sympathy had turned to indifference or worse — annoyance. Vero carefully jumped up on the examination table, one hand still clutching the gown’s back flaps. As the nurse rubbed his arm with a small alcohol swab, he swallowed hard. Now that he was officially a teenager, he would put on a brave face and take his shot without complaint. But deep down, he regretted sending his mom out to the waiting room. He still wanted to hold her hand.

  “It’ll be over before you know it,” the nurse said in a flat, monotonous voice. “Hold still.”

  Vero looked into her eyes for reassurance, but found none. Instead, he saw red. Glowing little flecks of red. Vero gasped. He knew what those flecks meant. He had seen them before. The nurse clenched his arm, ready to stab the long needle into his soft skin, when Vero leapt off the examination table, grabbing the first thing he could reach on the counter to defend himself. Vero looked at his hand — a stethoscope! It would be about as much help as the Q-Tips that had been lying next to it.

  “Tell us who it is!” the nurse gurgled deeply as she backed him into a corner.

  “Who are you?” Vero yelled.

  She growled, revealing that her sparkling white teeth had turned to rotted fangs, and lunged at Vero. Vero rolled underneath her outstretched legs, narrowly escaping. The nurse spun and wildly jabbed the syringe at Vero. He jumped back against the examination table. As the needle came straight for his eye, he grabbed a pillow and blocked it. The needle punctured the fabric and cotton padding, nearly stabbing his nose.

  “Tell us which one of you it is!” she commanded.

  Vero bolted to the door, but the enraged nurse slammed into his back before he could open it. Feeling the tip of the needle press against his neck, Vero, turned, grabbed her wrist, and with unexpected strength, twisted it, thrusting the needle deep into her shoulder and compressing the plunger. The nurse snarled, and with a final shriek, she tumbled off his back onto the hard floor. Vero was breathing so heavily, he thought he’d pass out. But he had more pressing worries. How was he going to explain the dead nurse, or whateve
r creature it was, lying in the middle of the room?

  As Vero stared at her, he noticed the stethoscope on the floor. He bent down and quickly picked it up. He wasn’t completely sure she was dead, so he grabbed a scalpel with his other hand for protection. Vero then kneeled, put in the earpieces, and placed the listening end over her heart. There was no heartbeat. Relief swept over him, followed quickly by anger. “Fear you?” he spat. “How about ‘fear me’?!”

  But then he heard something, a faint sound in the stethoscope. It was the distant echo of eerie cackling, and it was growing louder. Vero yanked out the earpieces and chucked the instrument to the floor, holding the scalpel in front of him like a sword. There was a demented smile on the nurse’s face that hadn’t been there previously. Puffs of black smoke blossomed from her nostrils.

  Vero backed away as the nurse’s body began to blacken. Soon, all that remained was a scorched mark on the checkered tiled floor. Horrified, Vero dropped the scalpel, ran out the door and raced down the hallway toward the waiting room.

  Annual physicals are not supposed to be life threatening! Vero thought. When he saw his mother in the crowded waiting room, casually leafing through some gossip magazine, Vero ran into her arms. Nora was caught off guard by his embrace, and dropped the magazine. Parents and kids looked upon Vero with interest. He was still wearing his pink flowered paper dress.

  “Vero, what’s wrong?”

  “The shot . . . She was trying to give me a shot!” he blurted, fumbling over words.

  Dr. Walker stood behind the appointment desk reading a patient’s file. He overheard. “No shot today, Vero. Your vaccines are all up to date.”

  Vero let go of his mother, his common sense returning to him.

  Nora stared at Vero intently, then she said, “Come on, you need to get to school.”

  A chubby five-year-old boy walked over to him, laughing and pointing. “I see London. I see France . . .” he giggled.

  Vero turned beet red.

  “I see that kid’s underpants!”

  Vero hid behind his mom.

  2

  GOING GREEN