Empyreal (The Earthborn Series Book 1) Read online

  The Earthborn Series: Book 1 Empyreal

  By Spencer Helsel Copyright © 2016 Spencer Helsel

  All rights reserved • Printed in the United States of America Cover design by Jessica Helsel

  Book design by CreateSpace

  ISBN: 978-0-692-84232-4 For my wife Jessica. You’re my favorite.

  Acknowledgements

  This book wouldn’t exist without so many people. First and foremost, I want to thank my wife who created the amazing cover art. To my family, especially my sister who has shown such strength and courage, thank you for all the encouragement. A special thanks goes to David Robinson for the editing services and feedback to make this novel better.

  Appreciation also goes to some of my students: Jennifer Thompson, Sabrina Bernedt, Jaime Periquet, Zoe Robinson, Skye Fricke and Daija Brascom who encouraged me to pursue my writing and spent time reading rough drafts. I am forever thankful to have been your teacher.

  And thank you to whomever bought this book. It’s hopefully the first of many to come.

  Part I Earthborn

  Chapter One

  “Seven minutes of darkness,” the host of 115 JHN Los Angeles crooned through Dani’s headphones as she lay on her bed. “That’s how long the solar eclipse is expected last as the sun slips behind the moon. For seven minutes there will be no daylight, but wear protective eyewear. It’s going to be one hell of a sight. You won’t want to miss it.”

  The station switched to a song and soothed her back into her quiet, meditative state. She sighed, one hand resting on her stomach, the other flung out above her head; another nothing day in a long stream of nothing weeks. Summer was ending but unlike her classmates, she wasn’t trying to get in one last trip to the beach or see the newest movie. Dani was anticipating school starting again for one infuriating reason.

  She heard him despite her music. His scream was muffled by her headphones. She wished it blocked him out completely.

  “Daniella! Get out here!”

  Ricky’s voice grated her nerves. She ground her teeth together.

  “Daniella!”

  “For the love of God,” she muttered, pulling off her headphones, “what Ricky?”

  “Get out here!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so!”

  Her door was closed, but without the headphones she couldn’t block out the party in the living room or the dozen raucous voices.

  Or him pounding on her door. “Open up!”

  “Go away!”

  Ricky didn’t like being shut out of any part of—as he put it—his house. There wasn’t any lock on the knob, but Dani found a way to jam it when she wanted privacy. Unfortunately, the thin walls didn’t stop his yelling.

  “Yvette!” Ricky screamed. “Get your daughter to open the door!”

  Her mother’s voice joined in. “Daniella del Lucio! Will you please get out here?”

  “Listen to your mother!” Ricky echoed, as if somehow that helped.

  Groaning, Dani sat up and dropped her feet to the floor. There was no way to get out of this. Whisking back the strands of her black hair into a loose ponytail, she slipped her feet into her sneakers. Ricky was her mom’s most-recent and most-worthless boyfriend. They moved into his house a couple months ago. Her mother, Yvette, lost their old place. They needed a roof and he had one. Dani hated him, roof or not.

  Hanging from a nick in her headboard, she picked up a necklace and looped it around herself. It was a simple silver chain with a ring, but it was special to her.

  She was almost to the door when Ricky barked from the other side, “Daniella! Now!”

  “Ya voy! Jeez!” She was never one to back down from argument, especially with Ricky. He yelled. A lot. It made living here tough. Her mom got by, but that was only because she didn’t argue with him as much as Dani. When her mom did argue, it was ugly. Dani lay awake at night, hearing them fight in the living room or their bedroom or pretty much wherever he felt like screaming. Which was everywhere.

  Her mom always tried to smooth things over. She was real quick to come to his defense. Dani used to ask why she stuck up for him. But now? She didn’t bother. Yvette played it off like it was no big deal and after a while, Dani stopped asking.

  And she pretended to not notice the bruises.

  She threw open the door. “What do you want?”

  The hallway was full of people. There were always people over. Music thrummed noisily from the living room. The thick, chalky air mixed with the stench of cigarettes. Dani hated cigarettes.

  One hung halfburned from Ricky’s mouth. He was a hefty guy with a scowl to match his seemingly-constant sunburn-red face. He worked as a used-car dealer, but if the past was any indication, he wouldn’t be there long. He’d gone through two jobs since he and her mom hooked up.

  Trash, ash trays and empty bottles covered every surface of the house. It stunk like a dive bar, but that was probably because on any given day, at least five people came over to party.

  “I need cigs.” He sipped from a nearly-empty bottle, ash falling into the murky, foulsmelling liquid. “And we need more beer.”

  “So?”

  “So run down the street and get some.” He grinned at her with cracked, dry lips under his bushy mustache. She never knew what her mother saw in him. He was as attractive as a zit.

  “You yelled at me to come out to get you cigarettes and beer? Did you forget? I’m sixteen, Ricky. I can’t buy that.”

  “Quit being a brat and go to the store. They won’t card you.”

  “With what money?” Dani asked.

  “You got money.”

  “It’s my money.”

  “It’s my house.” His lip curled back angrily from his yellow teeth. She swore she could see his breath like a cloud of putrid green. “Or do I have to remind you?”

  Not after the other half a million times, she didn’t say.

  Her mom hurried from the living room, dressed in sweats and a tank top. Her mess of blonde-highlighted hair fell loosely around her eyes and she smiled, but it did little to cover up her look of dread. Dani could tell when her mom faked a smile. Usually, it was around him.

  She handed out beers to the guests and quickly flew to Ricky’s side. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m trying to get your daughter to help out around here,” Ricky snarled, “but like usual, she’s being a pest.”

  “Only to piss you off, Ricky.” Dani smiled sweetly at him.

  His frown deepened. Lately, it was difficult to hold her tongue. Dani usually got herself into trouble with a snarky comment.

  Yvette jumped in, putting herself between her boyfriend and her daughter. “Oh honey, it’ll be fine. Here.” She pulled out several bills from her purse and handed them to Dani. “Get some drinks for Ricky and me. I could use a smoke, too. Then buy yourself a soda.”

  Dani stared at the money. She knew it was from her mom’s shift at the clinic. Since it was a freeclinic, it didn’t pay very well. Her mom hadn’t had a job that paid well for some time. The reason for that was the beer in her hand. At almost noon, it probably wasn’t her first. Or second for that matter.

  “What about him paying for it?” Dani asked. “It’s his ugly habit. And all these arrimados around here are his friends.”

  Ricky made something between a grunt and a growl. “Don’t speak that Spanish crap around here. You know I don’t know it.”

  Dani couldn’t help herself. “El burro sabe mas que tu.” A donkey knows more than you.

  “Honey, relax. Its fine, its fine.” That was her mother’s line when Ricky got angry. Its fine, its fine. It never was. “Just do this for me, sweetie.” She bra
ved a smile. “It’s an eclipse party! Everyone needs to have a good time. Maybe you should invite someone.” Yvette giggled. “You could always invite Nathaniel. He’s such a cutie.”

  “Oh God Mom! Eww!” Dani rolled her eyes. “We’re just friends. That’s it. Nathaniel is like my brother.”

  “Well, he certainly doesn’t look at you in a brotherly way.”

  Ricky shoved Yvette out of the way. His sweaty, musky face was suddenly in hers, scowling. “Look kid, you and your mom can gossip all you want later, but I need cigs and beer now. Go get ‘em,” he grabbed her arm, shoving her back, “you useless waste of space.”

  That was her breaking point. She didn’t like him, she didn’t like the way he treated her mother and she certainly didn’t like him touching her.

  She angrily stuffed the money back in her mom’s hand. “No.” She retreated back inside, grabbed her gym bag from the bed and shoved past them.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Ricky demanded.

  “Out!”

  “Like hell! I need stuff!”

  “Get your own stuff, lamecharcos!”

  The house was full of people as she stormed through. She heard Ricky behind her and her mother talking him down, but Dani didn’t bother looking back. She slammed open the front door and marched out into the hot California morning.

  Screw him.

  Ricky’s house was in a suburb of Sun Valley. Hot and dry, it deserved its name. On hotter days, it felt as if they were two miles from the sun. You could cook on the sidewalk.

  But Dani didn’t mind. Anything was better than being stuck inside that house.

  “Dani!” Her mom followed. “Dani! Stop!”

  She heard Ricky yelling inside. Big surprise. Dani distinctly made out her name, plus a few adjectives she wished she hadn’t.

  “Dani, wait!”

  “What the hell are we doing here, mom?” Dani spun on her heel, confronting her mother. Her disheveled appearance, the running mascara, the beer still in her hand; Dani fumed. And she wasn’t about to bite her tongue. Not after that pig touched her. “Why the hell are we living with that jerk? He treats you like trash and me worse!”

  “Honey—!”

  “No, mom, no! Ever since we moved in, he’s made me feel like he owns me. He’d rather yell than talk. And now I’m buying him cigarettes and beer? I won’t do that.”

  “It’s for everyone.” Her mom brushed back strands of her messy hair nervously, finishing her drink. “Honey, we have people over.”

  “We always have people over!” Dani screamed at the house full of partygoers. “Do any of you actually live anywhere else?”

  She could see a few staring out the window.

  “Daniella! You hush this instant!” her mother hissed. “They’re our friends.”

  “No, they’re his friends!” Dani shouted. “I haven’t seen anybody we used to know. I haven’t seen one, single person from the old neighborhood since we moved here.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Really? Who? Who have we seen?”

  “Well, there’s Nathaniel—.”

  “Who I’m embarrassed to bring here!” She glared at her mom. “And cigarettes? You never smoked before.”

  “It helps me relax. You of all people should know I’m under a lot of stress at work.”

  Months of frustration spilled out. “At work? Where do you work mom? The freeclinic?”

  “It helps people.”

  “You don’t work there because it helps people. You work there because it’s the only place that’ll take you.”

  “They didn’t have space for me at my old job.”

  Dani snatched the empty bottle from her mother, holding it up angrily. “They didn’t have space for a drunk!” Dani chucked the bottle at the sidewalk, shattering it. “You moved in with Ricky and now you’re drinking before noon.”

  “It’s a party.”

  “It’s disgusting.”

  Dani stormed down to the sidewalk. She was too angry to talk anymore. Her mother yelled after her. “Where are you going?”

  But that was it. No more. Dani headed down the street. She hated Ricky. She hated living there. It felt more like prison than home.

  Ricky’s house, like quite a few others on the block, was a squat, one story bungalow on the corner of the street. It had almost no grass left in the yard and the recent drought in California killed all of the remaining plants. Any more days like today and it would spontaneously catch fire, or at least Dani entertained herself with the idea it would.

  Dani needed time. She needed to clear her head. And she had an idea of where to go.

  Hey. She snapped off a quick text. Can we meet up?

  She crossed the street at a jog. A few seconds later, his response came back. Yeah. Where?

  Meet me at the Wreck Center?

  Sure. What’s up? Nathaniel texted.

  I need to get out. You know where to find me.

  Nathaniel was a friend from her old school, Lightpoint Academy; before she moved in with Ricky and had to transfer. He lived in one of those foster homes with way too many kids and not enough adults. At sixteen, he was the eldest of four other kids, with no chance of adoption or the need to be. From what he said about his foster parents, it wasn’t a pleasant experience going home. They had that in common.

  The only reason he went to Lightpoint, a charter school, was because the foster system secured him a scholarship. Though being a foster kid put a scarlet F on his chest, he wore it like a badge of honor. He was an outsider like her. He and Dani hung out after school, since neither of them wanted to go back to where they lived.

  Not home; just where they lived. Neither saw it as home.

  On days like today, they went to the Sun Valley Recreation Center. They referred to it at the “Wreck Center” because they felt like their lives were wrecks; their social lives were wrecks, their home lives were wrecks, their school lives were wrecks. They commiserated. He was the brother she never had.

  Well, he certainly doesn’t look at you in a brotherly way…

  Dani rolled her eyes. Thanks Mom.

  The Rec Center had one great thing: a punching bag. Usually, if she wasn’t at the house, she was here; more than usual, lately. And the only thing that soothed her soul was to hit something.

  She crossed Strathern, then Lorne, arriving at the squat beige building. The Rec Center was a community spot for parents and kids. It had baseball fields, a jungle-gym and wide open spaces shaded by trees.

  As Dani crossed the street, she heard flapping wings. Slowing down, she looked up and spotted a snow-white bird. The animal reminded her of a dove, but looked more like a hawk. It was larger than the average hawk, with a spread of feathers around the top of its head like it a crown. The bird landed on the branch of a tree overlooking the sidewalk.

  She smirked. “Hi there. What zoo did you escape from?”

  The bird cocked its head, watching her curiously.

  “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.” She said playfully. “I’m not your food.”

  The bird ruffled its feathers.

  “Yeah, that’s right, be intimidated birdie.”

  She toyed with the idea of calling animal control―the bird was way too exotic to be local―but because she was looking up, Dani wasn’t paying attention and ran headlong into someone. He was a grimy-faced man; a homeless vagrant with sweat-stained clothes and reeking of something dead. Dani normally didn’t pay the homeless much mind. They hung out near the Rec Center, though usually they didn’t bother anyone. She even gave them a few dollars here and there.

  This guy, though, didn’t ask for money. He just glared at her.

  “Sorry.” She mumbled, stepping around him.

  Or she tried to, at least. He stepped in front of her, blocking her.

  “Excuse me.” She said, trying to side-step him again. Again, he followed. “Hey! Get out of my way!”

  The man leaned in to her. He reeked. Dani never
really made fun of anyone for the way they smelled, especially a homeless person. It wasn’t their fault. But this man smelled of something so horrible she actually gagged a little.

  She backed away. He took a step forward. What the hell was he doing? And then, he did something really weird:

  He sniffed her!

  He’s smelling me? What a perv! She jumped around him, spinning and not letting her back to him. He creeped her out. The man followed, continuing to inhale deeply again and again as if she was the first good thing he smelled in years.

  “Get away from me!” She warned. She was backpedaling so fast she didn’t notice another vagrant behind her. She bumped into him. This one was larger, but equally as filthy. He also gave her a curtesy whiff, piquing his interest. “Jeez! Back off!”

  She fled from the group, shaking. She kept up the pace, not running but certainly not taking her time. Thankfully, when she glanced back, the pair of homeless men did not follow her, though they did watch her from where they stood.

  What the hell was their problem?

  ______________________

  The encounter freaked her out, but shaking it off, she slipped inside and checked in. She was happy to be here. Here, she felt safe. Here, there was a chance to hit something.

  She changed into a pair of athletic shorts and top before heading to one of the spare rooms. Stepping inside the hushed, air-conditioned space, she smiled widely. In front of her was a punching bag.

  Dani never took self-defense classes. Most of what she learned was trial-anderror. She’d been coming for the past couple of months. She was never the violent type, but something about hitting the bag helped calm her down. She was such a regular the people at the center usually kept a room open for her.

  Slipping on a pair of clean gloves from the rack, she loosened up and stretched. When she was ready, she approached the bag.

  The first punch was solid. It took nearly breaking her wrist to learn to keep her arm straight. Dani swung her body into the blow. The bag bounced. All the power came from her hips. She hit it again, gritting her teeth. After nearly passing out a couple of times, she learned to not hold her breath; instead exhaling when she struck.

  Smack! Smack! Smack! Her knuckles collided off the surface of the bag. Smack! Smack! Smack! She came at it hard, first quick punches and then power strikes.