Part Seven

Her Broken Wings (Part Seven)
by Phoebe Lee Mathius

"His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression;
Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.
He sits in the lurking places of the villages;
In the secret places he murders the innocent;
His eyes are secretly fixed on the helpless.
He lies in wait secretly, as a lion in his den;

So he crouches, he lies low,
That the helpless may fall by his strength."
Psalm 10:7-8, 10

"This is
my story...,
my life."

Her last thought -- as her body lay dead, after being flung against an old tree trunk. Temptors began crowding around her body, hissing madly, not unlike vultures.

“Lord, I’m sorry for running away,” she heaved.

As she did so, she heard a distant yell. The Temptor-buzzards being stunned at first, all began to scatter -- save one.

“Cowards! Why do you run?” Shyne’s replica screeched at the fleeing others.

Snarling, she picked Shyne up by her neck and swung round to face her challenger.

“It’sssss you!” she hissed, waving her limp victim in the air.

Shyne heard a chuckle. Squinting from where she was, she saw a blurred silhouette of a young man staring up at her.

“Help me,” she mouthed.

“Hang in there,” he said to her.

And that was the last she saw.

Turning to Shyne’s hideous identical, he asked as-a-matter-of-factly, “Who did you expect, Jour?”

The very second her name was mentioned, Jour’s countenance began to morph back into that of a demon.

Obviously angered by this, Jour screeched.

“Ssss I am not Jour, I am SSHHhhyne!”

“Stop kidding yourself, Jour.” He retorted, turning to the crumpled body in Jour’s grasp. “I guess that’s her name, then?”

“Ssss Not anymore-sss! Not after I’m through with her-sss,” Jour cackled. “Then I will be SHhhyne!”

“Gimme the girl, Jour, and you won’t get hurt. You want to live, don’t you?”

“Come and get her, fool!”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” the young man muttered. Drawing a tiny dagger from his belt, he pressed a trigger secreted on its hilt -- activating it. As he assumed his battle position, his dagger grew into a gleaming scimitar in his hand.

Jour reared her head and roared. “You will regret this day, o prince of fools!”

Scimitar and determination in hand, the young man lunged at the creature.

A battle ensued.

“In you, o Lord, I put my trust;
Let me never be put to shame.”
Psalm 71:1