Into the Shadows

Chapter 1

Rhemy yawned while stretching in her bed. She had the strangest dream; that she was part angel and about to embark on a quest to rescue her friend Star, who was a very powerful witch, from Hell and then pursue to save the world with a boy named Brick Southwood, who was prophesied to be her soul mate and who also just happened to be a vampire.
Curling deep under her covers Rhemy gradually began to wake up; the reality of her “dream” sinking in. Slowly she pulled the covers off of her head and peaked out. In the bed next to her was her best friend, Jules, sleeping peacefully. Rhemy wasn’t in her bed at her house on Royal Street. She was in her bed in the female dorms at Rosedown Seminary, school for the supernatural.
Sighing, Rhemy slowly sat up in her bed and picked up her phone on her night stand, looking at the time. It was a little after 10:00 pm.
She walked over to the window and moved the sheer butter yellow curtains to look outside. The moon was full; spreading a soft glow on the magic hidden in the grounds of Rosedown.
In just a couple of hours she would be embarking on a dangerous and almost unbelievable journey. Rhemy, Jules, and Brick would be entering into Limbo, the first layer of Hell. They had to go through Limbo, also known as The Shadows, to get to the place in between Limbo and the Lustful. The Lustful was the second layer of Hell and all the more closer to the demon Beelzebub, one of the unholy trinity. They wanted to get Star while avoiding him if at all possible.
Their friend, Star, a witch at Rosedown Seminary had been trying to decode a spell put on a rose that had been placed on Rhemy’s pillow. While trying to decode the spell Star had somehow activated its dark magic that was meant for Rhemy; causing her to be kidnapped instead by unknown demons and sent into The Shadows.
As Rhemy watched the shadows dance on the ground from the moon shining through the leaves of a large oak near the dorms, she thought back on all that had happened. Just a few weeks ago she was a normal teenager with hopes and dreams of college someday. Now she didn’t know if college would ever be an option. She had a feeling that nothing would ever be like it was before.
Her mind wandered to a specific afternoon when Jules, Reid and she had been at La Croix Coffee and Books sitting outside at their usual spot-the little round wooden table underneath the wooden trellis covered with vines and white lights. The sun was setting and the three of them were drinking their lattes and sharing a large plate of La Croix’s famous sweet potato waffles while they waited for the local star, Chris Claude, to perform. It was a Friday afternoon and you could feel the weekend buzz in everyone. Students from Valencia High were piling inside of La Croix and sitting in what seats they could find outside. Every Friday and most Saturday nights La Croix would have something exciting going on-and almost always included music of some sort. That night was a special night, though. Chris Claude had been a Valencia High graduate and had moved off and made it big time in Nashville. In small town St. Francisville a person could get famous by making the last shot of a winning basketball game. So for someone from there to actually become famous was huge.
As Rhemy’s mind went back to that day, she smiled to herself. That afternoon had turned out to be a carefree and fun filled evening. Chris Claude had put on an amazing performance outside near their table.
Rhemy laughed softly as she remembered Jules thinking she was in love with Chris Claude that night. He was a few years older than them but Jules swore up and down that she was going to run off and marry him and move to Nashville when she graduated in a couple of years.
She remembered the three of them walking home to Rhemy’s house a few blocks away that evening-laughing without a care in the world as Chris Claude’s voice and band slowly began to fade in the distance. The three of them had passed Guarda del Almas, never giving it a second look. They were just three normal kids, with normal lives, who had enjoyed a normal Friday night in their normal world.
Was that really just last year? Rhemy thought.
To her it seemed like a thousand years ago.
She had watched her share of scary movies, but never had thought it possible for the supernatural to actually exist.
Everything had happened so fast. She didn’t have time to let everything sink in. Evil forces were after her; wanting her dead. She had no choice but to accept this new world that she lived in. Her old life was gone.
If she was honest with herself, she was terrified. She was about to go into Hell…Hell!
For as long as she could remember, Rhemy had sat on the third pew from the front in her small Baptist church on Sunday mornings listening to her pastor preach on ways to obtain eternal salvation and how to get to Heaven. She had always tried to not just be a good person but a good Christian as well- to avoid Hell. Yet, here she was about to voluntarily go into Satan’s playground. Rhemy wasn’t ready for this. She hadn’t had the proper training or time to understand all of her powers. To say that she was glad that Brick and Jules were going with her was an understatement. In reality, Rhemy doubted herself. She was told by so many that she was in the prophecy that would defeat evil. But she just felt lost and scared. She didn’t know if she had to go alone if she would be able to go through with it.
As if having to face demons wasn’t enough, Rhemy had to face being a teenager as well; which came with boys. She had put up a proverbial wall all of her life against liking boys and had just never been interested in any. She had sat back and watched the reality of “love” in high school unfold at Valencia High. Rhemy had watched boys fall all over themselves for girls just because they were popular or because of their looks. She had also watched those same girls cry their eyes out because they had believed the “confessions of love” and promises of forever from those boys only to be thrown aside after those boys had gotten what they wanted from them.
Rhemy wasn’t a cynic by any means. She whole heartedly believed in love. She had day dreamed that someday she would find her happily ever after. She just didn’t think she would find it in high school. She chose to not be a victim to her own heart-to get wrapped up in society’s idea of what love was.
Upon coming to Rosedown Seminary that wall that Rhemy had put up around her heart had come down without her realizing it. She had met not one but two boys who were special to her. Brick Southwood was prophesied to be her soul mate; cursed because he was the last living descendant of Eve’s firstborn child, Cain. He was mysterious and dark and set her blood on fire. Gabe Ryon was a nephilim, half angel, like Rhemy. He was the complete opposite of Brick. He seemed to be an open book and he felt comfortable. With Brick, Rhemy felt on the verge on falling over the edge. With Gabe Rhemy felt safe-on solid ground.