Retribution, Devotion by Kai Leakes Page A

and seers being blocked, her words telling him that she would see him again in a strange land and that he would get his lives back with the awakening of the One Oracle, his own blood.
    Calvin’s shoulders rolled with the flood of memories. Her Denotation vision paused the wedding. When she opened her electric white bleached eyes, they returned to their amber-green radiance. Later their consummation was interrupted by war. Debris rained around them, bodies went flying. Every Warrior, female and male, took to their weapons. Hand-to-hand combat was his strong point then and his blades, his trusty scythe blades were still in his hands even then. Pure blood demons faced him, as he cut monstrosity after monstrosity apart. Black-red blood covered the sky while it rained down purified by the mystics in the village.
    People he loved died around him while he fought until his hands bled. He tried to protect his loved ones and his new bride, who he saw fighting in the beautiful style of a seasoned warrior. He remembered her method of fighting. Strangely she preferred her hands as well, using blades that locked between her fingers as if claws. Her tribe was known for the jaguar claws in fighting he recalled. Her mahogany pupils flash pure white, marking her, a Guardian oracle. She was coming into her maturity. Tradition stated that they would have been linked as one and matured in power together but now it was different, now their world was ending.
    His mystery woman sliced and heart snatched demons. Each touch she laid on them caused them to implode into cinders due to her anointing touch. Rain fell then thunder sliced the graying skies as she hurled psalms against the demons that grouped around her. In harmony with her, he dropped down to finish a kill, fangs descending; then they stood back to back.
    Briefly glancing over her shoulder at him, her light brown sugar eyes locked with his in love, as they fought side by side. That was all he could see of her were her eyes, her braids, her beautiful syrupy sweat covered coffee bean skin. As for that fight, he couldn’t remember it all. He remembered watching his bride being taken, then given the Dark Bite before his eyes. Her blood splayed over his face, while he was bound then taken from her by strange men with pale skin and demon eyes. Men he later learned to be Cursed demons from the Europe nations. Men who took him from his homeland to Louisiana then took his name, replacing it with “boy.” To this day, he hated being addressed as such and he hated the name Cuff. He was only seventeen then.
    Thinking back he smirked slowly unwrapping his bloodied dressings, that name, “Boy” and what he had found was the reason he lost his life in the 1920s; well, one reason. His love for music, drinking, food, hunting demons, women, and his anger with the discrimination he lived in the enclave of the Harlem Renaissance were the other reasons he had been caught up. It was also the reason he had died protecting, yet again, his family, this time his great-aunt and uncle. They survived and waited for his rebirth to tell him all he missed, even as he prepared to fight in ’Nam. They begged for him not to, knowing his curse. He loved them and even though he was reborn in the eighties, their natural death still hurt to the point that he missed them to this day.
    With a rub of his wrists, he reached to rub at the back of his neck, standing before his mirror in the bathroom. The steam of his shower slowly fogged the glass. The warm healing oils glistening against his skin absorbed into his body with a glow. Memories of the chains that kept him from his mystery woman flashed in his mind. The echoing words from his spirit whispered, As it was before, so shall it be again. He closed his eyes then clenched his jaw at the painful memories. That was then. This was now. For now, he had to get his business in order. The anniversary of his death was coming and soon, his light would be over