Through a Glass Darkly (Harbingers Book 17) Read online

  Through a Glass Darkly

  Bill Myers

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Afterword

  Other Books By Bill Myers

  Coming Next . . .

  Published by Amaris Media International in conjunction with CreateSpace.

  Copyright © 2016 Bill Myers

  Cover Design: Angela Hunt

  Photo credits: ©[email protected]

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

  ISBN-13: 978-1540510099

  ISBN-10: 1540510093

  For more information, visit us on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harbingers/705107309586877

  or www.harbingersseries.com.

  Introduction

  HARBINGERS

  A novella series by

  Bill Myers, Frank Peretti, Angela Hunt,

  Alton Gansky, and Jeff Gerke

  In this fast-paced world with all its demands, the four of us wanted to try something new. Instead of the longer novel format, we wanted to write something equally as engaging but that could be read in one or two sittings—on the plane, waiting to pick up the kids from soccer, or as an evening’s read.

  We also wanted to play. As friends and seasoned novelists, we thought it would be fun to create a game we could participate in together. The rules were simple:

  Rule #1

  Each of us would write as if we were one of the characters in the series:

  Bill Myers would write as Brenda, the street-hustling tattoo artist who sees images of the future.

  Frank Peretti would write as the professor, the atheist ex-priest ruled by logic.

  Jeff Gerke would write as Chad, the mind reader with devastating good looks and an arrogance to match.

  Angela Hunt would write as Andi, the brilliant-but-geeky young woman who sees inexplicable patterns.

  Alton Gansky would write as Tank, the naïve, big-hearted jock with a surprising connection to a healing power.

  Rule #2

  Instead of the five of us writing one novella together (we’re friends, but not crazy), we would write it like a TV series. There would be an overarching storyline into which we’d plug our individual novellas, with each story written from our character’s point of view.

  If you’re keeping track, this is the order:

  Harbingers 1—The Call—Bill Myers

  Harbingers 2—The Haunted—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers 3—The Sentinels—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers 4—The Girl—Alton Gansky

  Volumes 1-4 omnibus: Cycle One: Invitation

  Harbingers 5—The Revealing—Bill Myers

  Harbingers 6—Infestation—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers 7—Infiltration—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers 8—The Fog—Alton Gansky

  Volumes 5-8 omnibus: Cycle Two: The Assault

  Harbingers 9—Leviathan—Bill Myers

  Harbingers 10—The Mind Pirates—Frank Peretti

  Harbingers 11—Hybrids—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers 12—The Village—Alton Gansky

  Volumes 9-12 omnibus: Cycle Three: The Probing

  Harbingers 13—Piercing the Veil—Bill Myers

  Harbingers 14—Home Base—Jeff Gerke

  Harbingers 15—Fairy—Angela Hunt

  Harbingers 16—The Sea—Alton Gansky

  Volumes 13-16 omnibus: Cycle Four: The Pursuit

  Harbingers 17—Through a Glass Darkly—Bill Myers

  There you have it, at least for now. We hope you’ll find these as entertaining in the reading as we did in the writing.

  Bill, Frank, Angie, Al, and Jeff

  Chapter 1

  “We will be arriving at Baghdad International Airport in approximately twenty minutes. Please return to your seats, stow your tray tables, and put away any articles you may have removed during flight. Electronic devices must be turned off at this time.”

  I glanced up from my sketchpad and looked out the window. Nothing but brown. Brown hills, brown mountains, brown deserts. Same brown I’d seen the last two hours. I shook my head and went back to sketching.

  The rest of the team, Cowboy, Andi, and Pretty Boy sat up in the other compartment, which was fine with me. We’d been on the outs since we got word of our little trip a couple nights back. I suppose you could blame me, but you gotta admit I had a pretty good argument.

  It’s not that I got somethin’ against where we’re heading . . . ‘cept for the fact somebody’s always blowing somebody up—Iraq, Iran, or wherever we’re goin’. I’m no geography major and don’t care ‘bout the details, but it’s like every day you hear bad stuff happening there.

  Not exactly the place to be dragging a kid, no matter how important our assignment. Then there’s the stuff the professor told us when he dropped in for a guest appearance from that other universe or dimension or wherever he is:

  “Every battle has been a prelude to the war

  that must come. The war you must win.”

  Nope. Not with my boy. I don’t care how much they guilt me. Daniel’s my responsibility and I’m calling the shots.

  My “discussion” with the others began two nights ago in that Dallas hotel, the one Chad scored for us as headquarters. I got no complaints about the place. But it don’t give him the right to give orders, a fact that still hasn’t registered in that egotistical brain of his.

  It had been about 7:00 PM when our cell phones all lit up, all with the same instructions.

  Attached find e-ticket for your trip to Iraq the day after tomorrow. Please bring bathing suits.

  That’s it. No name. No ID. Not that there had to be. We all knew it was from the Watchers, the little group of people, or whatever they are, who’ve been running us all over the place. Again, no complaints. Truth is, things were pretty boring ‘til they came along. But this assignment, and with Daniel, well, it was way over the top. And as we sat around Chad’s living room, I couldn’t of made it clearer.

  And their response?

  “You worry too much,” Chad had said, putting away another brew. “Ask me, you’re smothering the kid.”

  “Smothering?” I felt my jaw tighten.

  He nodded and belched. “Definitely time to cut the apron strings.”

  “Cut the apron—”

  “If you ask me—”

  “No one’s asking you, pretty boy. Fact is, you’re the last one I’d be asking.”

  “Which is your whole problem.” He motioned to Andi, sitting at the computer, and Cowboy, who sat beside Daniel, who was playing one of them cell phone games. “Before you guys met me, you were nothing—no plans, no organization, just stumbling around in the dark chasing your tails.”

  “Listen, you arrogant piece of—”

  Andi coughed loudly. I glanced to her and swallowed back the words. I been doin’ pretty good in the language department; tryin’ real hard with Daniel around. But this jerk, he made it so . . . let’s just say he knew how to push my vocab buttons. Particularly the blue ones.

  “Guys, guys—” Cowboy (aka Tank) raised his meaty hand. As usual he was
trying to be the peace maker.

  “Not now,” I said. “He may have you all fooled, getting this hotel and playin’ his mind tricks.” I turned back to Chad. “But you and me, we know different, don’t we?”

  He tried to hold my gaze but knew what I meant—the stuff I saw when we crossed through the portal together, when we entered that snowflake thing and I saw all those ugly pieces of his past life. Yeah, I knew the real Chad Thorton, top to bottom, and he knew I knew.

  I continued. “Daniel, he’s my responsibility and I’m done putting him in danger.”

  “Smother, smother, smother.”

  I swallowed, fighting back the impulse to rearrange his face. I’d done it before and he knew I could do it again.

  “Your kid looks in pretty good shape to me,” he said.

  “And the scar in his back?” I said. “That fairy thing practically killed him.”

  Andi stepped in, nice and gentle. “But it didn’t.”

  “This time.”

  Pretty Boy didn’t let up. “The kid’s got powers and gifts just like the rest of us. Not as developed as mine, no one’s is, but the potential’s there. And he was the only one who kept his head and didn’t freak when we were stuck on that cruise ship trying to figure out who we were.”

  “He’s got a point, Miss Brenda,” Cowboy said. “The Watchers put him on the team for some reason.”

  I motioned to the message on Andi’s computer and on our cells. “There ain’t no way in heaven or hell I’m letting him go to Iraq.”

  “Miss Bren—”

  “People die over there, Cowboy. Every day.”

  “People die everywhere,” Pretty Boy sighed.

  “And the professor’s words?” Cowboy said. “About Heaven and Earth needing us? And those angels chained under the Euphrates River?”

  “Which, I might point out, runs directly through the heart of Iraq,” Chad added.

  Time to go. I got to my feet. “Be sure to send me selfies.”

  “Hold it,” Chad said. “You’re staying behind, too?”

  “A boy needs his mother.”

  That’s when everything got real quiet. No one had ever turned down the Watchers before. And now that things were heatin’ up . . .

  “Maybe,” Cowboy cleared his throat. “Maybe we should chew on it for the night. I mean it does sound kinda dangerous.”

  Chad snickered. “So Bible boy is chickening out, too?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You can sleep all you want,” I said, “but there ain’t no way I’m taking this child to Iraq. Come on, Daniel.”

  He got up and joined me, eyes still glued to his cell phone.

  The plane lurched, pulling me from my thoughts. I focused on the sketchpad. I was drawin’ butterflies. I had them flyin’ over a cool park with flowers and trees and a stream. Each one had an eye on both of their wings with all sorts of designs around them.

  I shook my head over the conversation. It was true, I’d made up my mind about me and Daniel. There was no human way I would change it. Then again, with these little trips, we weren’t always talking about human . . .

  Chapter 2

  The plane hit the runway, rose slightly and hit again, harder. I guess they call that landing. As we taxied toward the terminal my mind again drifted back to how I got here . . .

  “Sleeping on it,” like Cowboy suggested, didn’t exactly go the way I had planned. Or like any of us planned. Turns out the professor had shown up again. Not in a mirror like before, or on a boat, but in my dream. In everyone’s dreams. That’s what we learned when we all got together that next morning.

  Now, ’fore we go any farther, let me make it clear he ain’t no ghost. Least we don’t think so. To be a ghost you gotta die. And as far as we can tell the professor isn’t dead. Just found a way to slip into some higher dimension or alternate universe or whatever the brainiacs call it. Like that village place we visited where Little Foot comes from.

  Least that’s what we figure.

  Back to the dreams. Sitting in the living room the next morning I had been the first to break the ice and tell mine.

  “So,” I said, “I was in my shop tatting a dancing couple on some lady’s ankle when the couple came alive and began dancing all over her leg. And the man, he looked exactly like the professor.”

  Everyone got real quiet. Andi turned to her desk computer and typed the word:

  Dancing

  “What type of dance?” Chad said.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “A waltz, the twist, some sort of ballroom thing?”

  “The polka?” Andi asked.

  I looked at her surprised. “Yeah, maybe. How did you know?”

  She explained as she typed:

  Polka

  “Believe it or not, it was his favorite dance.”

  We traded looks and chuckled. The old dude was full of surprises.

  “And Tank?” Andi said. “You dreamed about him, too?”

  Cowboy glanced away, a little embarrassed.

  “Tank?”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I was back in my college anatomy class.”

  “You were in college?” Chad asked.

  “Football,” I said. “Big time scholarship.”

  “Of course.” Chad said. “Nothing that required opening a book.”

  I ignored him. We all did.

  Cowboy continued. “The professor, he was up front teaching and he’d drawn a picture on the board.”

  “A picture of what?” Chad asked.

  Cowboy glanced down.

  Andi repeated the question. “What was the picture of, Tank?”

  The big guy finally looked up and swallowed. “You.”

  I tried not to smile. We all knew Cowboy had a crush on her. Now it sounded like she’d worked her way from his heart into his dreams.

  “Your face,” he said.

  The slightest color rose to her cheeks.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “He had an arrow pointing to your mouth.”

  She hesitated, then turned and typed:

  Mout-

  He interrupted. “Actually, it was your lips.”

  More hesitation. She deleted the word and typed:

  Lips

  We sat there a moment staring at the words on the screen.

  Dancing Polka Lips

  I turned to Andi. “What about you?”

  She nodded. “I was in the professor’s office, only it looked like a doctor’s office. He was wearing the obligatory stethoscope and was examining my throat, having me say, ‘Ahhh . . .’”

  I nodded and motioned her to write it down. She turned and typed:

  Ahhh . . .

  “What about you, Chad?” Cowboy said.

  “I got nothing. Just a peaceful night’s rest.”

  Selfish even in his sleep. Why wasn’t I surprised?

  We turned back to look at the screen.

  Dancing Polka Lips Ahhh . . .

  “So what are we talking here?” Chad said. “Multi-dimensional charades?”

  Studying the screen, Andi answered, “Whatever it was, he was clearly speaking in code.”

  “Like he didn’t want others to know what he was saying,” Cowboy said.

  “That’s why they call it code,” Chad said.

  We ignored him and kept staring at the words.

  “Get rid of the Dancing or the Polka,” he said. “You can’t have two of the same thing.”

  Andi nodded. “We’ll lose Dancing.”

  “Because?” I asked.

  She lowered her voice, doing her best imitation of the professor, “One must never speak in generalities when one has the opportunity to be specific.”

  She deleted the word. We kept staring at the screen:

  Polka Lips Ahhh . . .

  Finally Chad said, “You’re kidding me, right? You don’t see it?”

  “See what?” Andi asked.

  “Really? You�
�re that dense? Flip it around. Put the Ahhh . . . first.”

  Andi cut and pasted for the screen to read:

  Ahhh . . . Polka Lips

  “I don’t get it,” Cowboy said.

  “Come on people. Look!” Chad sighed. “Ahhh polka lips. Ah-polka-lips.”

  Andi was the next to get it: “Apocalypse?”

  “Couldn’t be any clearer,” Chad said.

  I frowned. “He’s telling us the world is coming to an end?”

  “You think?”

  “Or . . .” Andi said more thoughtfully, “that’s what our mission is supposed to be.” No one answered, so she explained. “Those four angels he told us about, the ones under the river?” She turned to Cowboy. “They’re in the book of Revelation, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am, chapter nine.”

  “And Revelation, that’s where the Apocalypse supposedly takes place.”

  He nodded.

  “So . . .”

  “We’re somehow involved with the Apocalypse?” he asked. “The end of the world?”

  I spoke slower, thinking out loud. “And that’s what they expect Daniel to risk his life over?”

  “Don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” Chad said.

  “What? Why?” I turned to him.

  His eyes were closed and his hand raised. “Shhh . . .”

  “What are you—”

  “Quiet.” He scowled like he was concentrating. Everyone traded looks, then he continued, “If you go to his room, you’ll find he’s long gone.”