“Looking good over there, Stel,” He called, turning his head just a fraction to avoid the blood spray from his latest victim.

“Thanks,” I called back, plunging my katana into the center of a Shadow, its long wispy body a mere manipulation from the crack of bones and sickening gush of blood I heard when I removed my weapon. “You too!” I offered, thinking sinful thoughts that had more to do with exactly how good he looked than how many Shadows littered the ground around his feet.

“So this…. uh,” Seth started and then paused to turn swiftly in a kicking full circle, taking several Shadows with him, their painful shrieks sounding loudly in the otherwise silent African plain. “Uh, this Valentine’s dance, is it a big deal?”

I smiled, despite the last spray of icky, black goo that somehow managed to land in my hair. I resisted the urge to run my hand over it and sunk my sword deeper into the culprit with extra-splashy blood. “Why? Are you thinking about taking someone special?”

“Well, I was thinking about it, but if it’s…. uh…. lame, then you know, it’s not a big deal,” Seth answered nonchalantly.

“No, it’s not lame. I mean, I don’t think it’s lame. It’s a dance, so it’s going to be fun,” I shrugged my shoulder not wanting to put pressure on him to go. So much of his time at school had been spent with me and my friends that I wanted to give Seth as much space as he needed to make his own life there, choose his own friends…. even date if he felt so inclined or gave into the throng of girls who seemed to worship at his feet.

“So you’re going?” Seth pressed, crossing his blades in front of him and across the heads…. or head-like places of two Shadows.

“That’s the plan,” I agreed. Finally there seemed to be a dwindling of Shadows as the wall of blackness attacking me lessened. I could see Serena and Nate clearly through the last of the lurking evil, finishing their individual piles as the dead and slaughtered disappeared into the night as if they really were smoke, back to hell, back to where they came from.

“Are you going alone….? Or do you and Tristan already have plans?” Seth asked and then cleared his throat quickly. I looked up at him, feeling slight traces of anxiety and watched as he threw himself into the last dregs of battle, flipping into the air and finishing what was left of the Shadows in graceful, expert moves. His body burned with light and his movements left residual traces in the air around him.

“What? Tristan?” I asked and then laughed. “Tristan and I never go to dances together. People already have a hard enough time believing we’re just friends! Showing up at a dance together would be like…. it would be like…. well, we would never live it down!” I laughed again. I plunged my katana into the last of the Shadows, taking my time and twisting the blade to ensure death. The Shadow fell away and poofed into black, insubstantial nothingness before its blood had even stopped splattering.

I lowered my swords and looked around at the nearly empty battlefield. The desolate African plain was mostly obscured by night, but I relished in the dry, hot air. I loved feeling the heat on my bare arms and wished more than anything I had traded in my yoga pants for shorts. The cracked, dry earth spread out like a sea of sandpaper around me. The different, foreign grasses of Africa waved in a gentle night breeze, sending scents of freshness and earthiness to invade my senses.

I needed to start traveling.

On a regular basis.

Without all the blood and carnage and saving the world stuff….

Serena and Nate joined us in a tight circle as the last of the Shadows disappeared back to the inner most circle of hell. Good riddance.

“Do you know what their plan was tonight?” Seth asked Nate as he wiped blood off his hands with a bandana he pulled from his back pocket.

“Not the particulars, it’s hard to get definite information from them in between all the shrieking,” Nate smiled easily, lightening the tension from fighting.

“It really is the worst,” I agreed, looking up at a sky full of Stars. Even the wide open Nebraska sky couldn’t compare to the vast array of constellations and twinkling of Heaven’s army in their battle formations on display from this empty African valley.

“No, the smell,” Serena groaned dramatically, “the smell is definitely the worst! Off planet we didn’t have to deal with these small demons and there was never the intensity of this smell.” She shuddered again, her orange hair shaking with her movement like living fire.

“I could live without the smell,” I agreed, realizing I would never get the chance.

Silence fell over us as Serena and Nate pulled out a couple of water bottles and offered them to Seth and me. I took it gratefully, wiping my mouth of sweat, dirt and speckles of blood on the inside of my t-shirt before taking a long drink.

It was in the silence that I felt the chill of another evil creep over my skin slowly and softly, as if it were a whisper of something sinister floating down from a high place, or echoing off the distant mountains. The hairs on my arms rose in alarm, and I looked around quickly trying to find the source.

Nobody else seemed to notice the drop in temperature or the feeling like we were being watched; watched by somebody calculating our moves…. our conversations…. our abilities. There were not a lot of places for somebody to hide out here, this far from any kind of civilization. A few clusters of cluttered brush dotted the horizon, but nothing that could hide the depth of evil I felt present.

“Do you guys feel that?” I whispered, interrupting the conversation the other three had fallen into.

“Feel what?” Nate asked, his instincts on high alert with the mere idea of me feeling unease.

“I don’t know what,” I half-grunted in frustration. “It’s like…. it’s like I can feel an evil presence out there, but I can’t at the same time. It’s almost like an echo of evil instead of the real thing….”

“Stella you’re going to have to explain better than that,” Seth pressed gently, putting a strong hand on my lower back to encourage me to be clearer. He looked around at the plain, the same way I had done, his narrowed eyes scrutinizing through the darkness, struggling to find some remnant of remaining evil.

“I don’t’ know how to explain better,” I sighed, feeling the threat disappear with each word spoken out loud. Maybe I had imagined it. “You felt them before, right?” I asked Seth, hoping I hadn’t imagined that too. “When we fought at Lincoln’s farm?”

“Yes,” Seth replied confidently and then shifted uncomfortably before adding, “Well, I thought I saw them more than felt anything, but I can’t be all that sure. But you saw them and felt them so I know they were real.”

I sighed, wishing more than anything I didn’t feel like a crazy person right now. “And you guys don’t feel anything now?” I held each of their gazes for a moment, pleading with them to feel what I did, but only concern and sympathy met me.

“No, I don’t,” Serena said softly. “That doesn’t mean anything though, I didn’t feel anything the night you fought so close to your home. We didn’t even know you were in trouble.” She gestured between herself and Nate and he kind of shook his head as if her were ashamed. “So maybe there is something blocking our senses.”

“Is that even possible?” I gasped. How could I do my job correctly if I couldn’t rely on my senses, they were supposed to be my guide on Earth, they were what I counted on to lead me to evil.

“I don’t know,” Nate answered thoughtfully. He was thinking over Serena’s thought, I could see his mind working, his brain trying to come up with a conclusion to this mystery. I wondered if one of his solutions included me being crazy.

As if he could sense what I was thinking, Seth slipped his strong, albeit grimy hand around mine and squeezed it gently. The feeling that we were being watched, or joined by evil…. or whatever that feeling was had completely evaporated by now and I felt foolish making a big deal out of nothing. If what I was feeling were more Shadows they would have attacked us, they are almost incapable of not attacking us when they meet us. And if it were Fallen sent to spy on us, the others would have felt them too. That was one advantage to being a Star, we had all these exterior senses that gave us insight into the supernatural world that existed alongside the physical world on Earth.

I shook my head, and tried to smile confidently, “Maybe these feelings are just my reaction to battle the first couple of times. I haven’t exactly been raised around this kind of stuff.”

“Maybe….” Serena agreed thoughtfully. “But I think it would be a good idea to talk to Jupiter about it when you get home. He might have more insight into what you are feeling, or if the rest of us are broken he should know about it, maybe even know what to do.”

“You guys don’t look broken to me,” I changed the subject, not willing to dwell on my potential insanity. “You were incredible tonight, really.”

“Thank you,” Nate beamed at me. He probably wasn’t used to compliments in the solitude of battle formations in space. “You’re looking pretty fantastic out there too, Stella, you’ve really come a long way in a short amount of time.”

“Thank you,” I blushed.

“Hey what about me? Wasn’t I amazing?” Seth demanded; his mouth turning up at the corners even though he was desperately trying not to smile.

“Oh yes, quite amazing,” Serena quipped sarcastically. “But we always knew you would be.” She patted his shoulder consolingly and I understood her words and gesture as a reference to his parents. Silence followed for a few more minutes before Serena’s head perked up, her eyes burning with concentration as if she really were a stereotype alien, white light poured from her face, blurring the color of her irises and concealing her pretty face. “Do you feel that Nate?”

“Yes, is that… London?” he asked and I watched in quiet awe as every one of his muscles reawakened, tensing into readiness.

“Busy night, I guess,” Serena mumbled, tilting her head as if she were actually listening. She was using her set of external senses, feeling a greater than normal disturbance of Shadows. I would get the sense too, after I turned eighteen. When I could feel the Shadows congregating in the rest of the world it would be one of the signs that I was ready to inherit the Protectorship.

“Do you need us to follow?” Seth asked, shifting on his feet and reaching a hand behind his head to rub at the base of his hairline.

“No, this is lighter fare,” Serena almost smiled in response. She was all Angelic Warrior, her skin heating into a gorgeous glow and the bloodlust back in her backlit eyes. “If we get into a jam we will call, otherwise we will send Jupiter an update in the morning.”

“If you’re sure,” Seth nodded, extending his hand to Nate who shook it firmly.

“Go home, get some rest,” Nate said in way of goodbye. “Don’t you have school in the morning?” he laughed and Serena joined him, reminding me that my human schooling would always be a bit of a joke to Heaven’s army.