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The Prophecy

ZONDERVAN

Chapter One

Wanna see ...?" Sam Becker jerked back at the sound of the voice, barely blocking the boot that whipped by his face. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye-someone in an old army jacket passing through the lamplight outside the window of the dojo-just as the next blow knocked all two hundred pounds of him off his feet. He landed on the mat with a startled grunt.

No way did the kid just sweep him like that.

He rose on one arm and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Not so easy to do when you haven't slept in days, he thought as he scrubbed his face with his hand. He felt so old lately. Nursing home old. More like ninety instead of nineteen, and the nightmares were getting worse.

But it wasn't just nightmares anymore, was it?

"Wanna see how far it goes?" The voice whispered again, and Sam glanced sharply to the face that hovered over him.

"What did you just say?"

"I can't believe I just did that?" An amazed grin flashed across his student's face.

Sam grimaced; it made sense in a messed-up kind of way, because he could've sworn it was Jonah's voice he'd heard-not Matty's.

He glanced toward the window to the street outside. A few cars passed, their lights bouncing over the cobblestones that still paved most of the roadsalong the river. Then the dark swallowed up the street again, leaving only small pools of light from the ancient lampposts that flanked the old warehouse.

No guy in an army jacket anywhere.

Sam frowned. Maybe he'd just imagined seeing someone, like he'd imagined the voice. Jonah had been on his mind a lot lately. All of them had, and he hadn't thought of the five of them together in over seven years.

Not since ... that night.

An unexpected shiver crawled up his spine.

We were just kids, he argued with himself. Just a bunch of kids playing a stupid game ...

So why couldn't he remember anything other than that? Why was it that every time he woke up lately, drenched in sweat and struggling to remember, he found himself staring slack-jawed into a black wall of nothingness? What was it that made him so terrified of what was on the other side of that wall?

"Sam?" Matty's large brown eyes stared down at him, tinged with worry. "Did I do good?"

"You did good," he said, forcing a grin. It wasn't the kid's fault that he was so messed up lately. He accepted the scrawny hand and pulled himself to his feet.

"I can still stay for a while, right?"

"Have I ever made you leave?"

"No." Matty's smile broadened like it was the craziest thing he'd ever heard. He dropped to the floor and began to pull off his sparring boots.

Sam felt a tug of pity as he watched him. How the kid had managed a roundhouse and a sweep on him was a mystery. Matty was small for his age, both physically and mentally-or challenged, as his parents had explained when they talked Sam into the private lessons six months ago.

Challenged enough that Sam had almost told them no, until he saw the faded bruises on Matty's face-and then he knew he couldn't turn him away. Troubled kids, as Jonah liked to say, were his kryptonite.

How did you do it, Matty?

Matty stood and handed him the boots, blinking up at him in wide-eyed innocence. "Can we get pizza like last time?"

"First things first-you stink," Sam said, brushing the thoughts off as he grabbed Matty's shoulder and gave him a playful shove toward the back of the room. "You hit the shower and I'll order the pizza, deal?"

"Deal," Matty called out, his voice cracking a little as he hurried off to the shower in his crazy sideways lope.

Sam shook his head and glanced down at the boots in his hand. His smile evaporated as he spotted a glint of steel sticking out from one of the soles. He carefully pried it loose and, fingers trembling a little, turned it over in his hand. A razor? What the heck was a razor doing in the kid's boot? He glanced up as the shower came on, heard Matty's off-key voice rising over the sound of the water in song, and then looked back down at the small blade in his hand.

Matty couldn't have known it was there ...

His mind quickly rewound over the sparring session, and he saw the boot whipping by him again-but this time he saw the razor too, saw it slicing in an arc toward his neck, and a cold chill washed over his body. If he hadn't heard that voice-if he hadn't jerked back just in time ... He swallowed hard.

No. He shook his head. It was crazy-had to be some kind of mistake ...

He took a step toward the shower and then stopped, letting the boots fall to the floor as he turned and scanned the room, his skin tingling. Someone was there ... he could feel them watching him. His eyes moved slowly over the rows of chest protectors and gear along the wall, past the weights and mirrors to the entrance, where a dim light shined over the trophy cases standing on both sides of the door, and found ... nothing.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the mirrors and was jarred by the drastic change in his appearance: dark circles under his eyes; wavy brown hair that was so long it almost touched his shoulders; at least a week's growth of stubble on his face. His instructor's uniform hung so loose on his body that he had to wonder how long it had been since he had a real meal. He looked like he had lost at least fifteen pounds, maybe twenty.

How had he missed that? It was as if he were losing chunks of time, and he had no idea why or how to get the time back.

Sam turned away from the mirror, and directed his focus on the old warehouse that he and Jonah had inherited after their parents were killed.

He had started renovations the day he was released from foster care-the same day Jonah decided to run away and join a band-and was left to purge his demons alone by tearing down walls and painting the place clean. Then on his nineteenth birthday four things had happened: he opened the doors for business, he enrolled in art classes at SLU, and he met his girlfriend, Lila. Number four was that he actually dared to believe things could get better.

Until the nightmares started.

Sam crossed the room to his office and was stopped short by the mess that greeted him as he opened the door. It looked as if a small bomb had gone off on his desk: drawers pulled out, papers and old pictures scattered over every inch of available space. His journal topped the pile and was wide open for the whole world to read.

He took a step closer, feeling his stomach muscles draw up as he peered down at his latest entry. Five words-words he had no memory of writing-had been scrawled across the page, all in capital letters with thick black marker:

THIS IS NOT A DREAM

He slammed the book shut, almost afraid to look around the rest of the office. He felt his body go cold as he spotted the canvas propped against the wall in the far corner of the room.

It wasn't just the nightmares that worried him.

He was sleepwalking too. He'd googled it after finding the first painting-which he didn't remember painting-memorizing the parts that stood out like a line taken from his life: "Sleepwalkers usually remember little to nothing, though some may have a vague memory of trying to escape a dangerous situation ..."

Sam walked over to the corner and turned the painting to face the wall. He didn't need to look to know what was on there. Didn't want to look. It was the sixth painting of his that he had found in the last month-the third in less than a week. Whatever was happening to him was picking up its pace.

But why? Life seemed to make so much more sense before his parents died. It was as if all that was good and right went away with them, and he couldn't seem to find his way back to who he was before.

He frowned. Lila dragging him to the psychic and all the other craziness she could come up with hadn't helped-hadn't helped him to remember either. All he had to go on when he woke up was a nagging sense of being watched-and paintings that screamed that whatever was watching wasn't good.

Everything else was a blank slate.

"Amnesia is another hazard that usually follows a sleepwalking episode ..."

Sam's hands shook a little as he scooped up the brushes and tubes of paint and stuffed them into one of his desk drawers-along with the journal. He'd have to stash the painting away upstairs with the others after Matty went home.

He took a deep, steadying breath and picked up the phone, praying that the guys he'd trained with earlier hadn't been in his office. There was no way he'd be able to explain what was happening to him-not when he couldn't even get his own head wrapped around it all.

"Hey, Sammy, this straightjacket is JUST YOUR SIZE!"

"Shut up," Sam muttered just as the pizza guy from next door answered the phone.

"I haven't said anything yet," Ryan laughed. "Is that you, Sam?"

"Yeah," Sam answered distractedly as he picked up a photo from the pile on his desk. They had all been so young, so happy, as they held their scrawny fish up for the camera. "Matty's here. We'll take the usual."

Ryan might have said something else, but Sam wasn't aware of it as he hung up and continued to stare at the picture in his hand: Jenna, so tiny with those huge grandma glasses ... J, looking slightly stunned, like he'd just won the lottery ... and Carly, with her long red hair, green eyes, and smile like the sun ... He couldn't help wondering if they had been hit with the same strange nightmares lately-or the feeling that something bad was coming.

Once upon a time they had been tight like that, able to sense things about each other before they even picked up the phone ...

Sam sat down hard in the chair and brushed a hand over his face. He was so tired, so overwhelmed by everything that was happening that he couldn't seem to think straight.

He looked at the photo again-at Jonah's crooked grin as he flashed a peace sign behind Sam's head, and he almost smiled. He wished Jonah hadn't taken off to New Orleans. He needed to talk to him bad, needed to show him the paintings ... tell him about the nightmares ... tell him everything. So why did he keep putting it off? Couldn't be that he was afraid his brother would think he was crazy. Jonah was famous for crazy, a guy who summed up his entire life's existence with a line from an old Ozzy Osbourne song.

He shook his head, actually smiling a little as he reached for the phone again, but just as his hand touched the receiver, he froze. The tingling sensation was back, stronger this time, rolling up the base of his neck.

Someone or something was watching him. He swiveled his chair around and came face to face with the huge Bruce Lee poster on the wall behind him, Jonah's forged autograph glaring back at him in bold black script:

Sammy! Let's do lunch. -Love, Bruce

"Idiot," Sam said, laughing with relief.

"Can I tell Lila I sweeped you?" Matty asked, startling him almost out of his chair, and he turned to find his student in the doorway, still dripping from the shower. Sam shook his head. Matty's hero worship of him had been overshadowed by the recent crush he'd developed on Lila.

"Tell you what," Sam offered as he stood and walked around the desk, ushered Matty back, and locked the door to the office. He ruffled the boy's wet hair. "Next time she comes by, you can give her all the gory details. Right now I need to ask you some questions."

"I'd love to hear the gory details," Lila said with a laugh, and Sam leaned left to see her standing behind Matty, long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, her cheeks flushed as she balanced a couple bottles of orange Gatorade on the pizza box. His heart skipped a beat, happy to see her. "Ryan said you sounded ... hungry." She smiled. "I thought maybe after we finish the pizza, we could hook up with Nick downtown?"

"I'm not showing your cousin my paintings," Sam said with a laugh as he accepted the Gatorade she offered.

"Why not?" she demanded. "His new gallery is going to be huge-it's practically a crime to hide a gift like yours!"

"Wanna arrest me?" Sam teased, holding his hands out to be cuffed.

"Very funny." Lila pouted. "I can't believe you're turning this down."

"Oh come on, Li. He's a numbers man, and those paintings aren't for sale-especially those paintings. Not to anyone."

Lila searched his face and then gave him her "eureka" look. "You found another one, didn't you?" Her gaze shifted eagerly to the door behind him. She took a step forward, but he blocked her way. She sidestepped him to the left, and he easily blocked her again. Matty laughed, enjoying their little dance, and Sam grinned.

"Wanna see?" the voice suddenly whispered through his mind.

Sam's smile froze on his face as he turned his head slightly, catching a glimpse of the figure retreating from the front door of the school. The old army jacket again.

"Sam-what's wrong?"

"Why don't you and Matty start on the pizza. I need to take a walk," he said, surprising himself as much as Lila as he hastily slipped on his street shoes, grabbed a jacket, and headed for the door.

He saw them watching him-saw Lila's frown deepen-and knew how crazy it looked, but he had to get to the bottom of what was going on. He shut the door behind him and quickly made his way down the sidewalk without looking back, slipping around a group of clubbers making a beeline for the bars along the Landing as he headed in the direction he'd seen the stranger go, toward the heart of the city.

What is happening to me?

He took a deep lungful of cold air as he walked, forcing himself to weed through the chaos that had become his life. The nightmares ... paintings he had no memory of painting ... the feeling of looming danger that had crept into his waking hours ... some vague line from his childhood that kept surfacing out of the blue ... Matty ... and this stranger ...

He had never backed down from a fight in his life, had trained a good part of his life for some eminent battle he'd always sensed was coming, but how was he supposed to fight all this?

Sam stopped dead in his tracks at the corner, only half hearing the steady rush of traffic as he looked across the street to the man staring back at him, his tattered old army jacket flapping in the wind.

It was him-had to be.

At first glance he looked normal enough; the dark hair was a little long and windblown. The old jacket appeared to be masking some pretty huge muscles, and his stance was poised and alert like that of a seasoned fighter, but he didn't look like any of the guys Sam had fought in the ring. Sam frowned. There was something off about him ... something that felt too new. Like he didn't fit ...

A group of rowdy drunks appeared behind the man and then split apart, streaming around him-but acting as if he weren't there at all.

The stranger met Sam's gaze again, and his eyes flashed with a strange amber color that took Sam's breath away, scared him too. Eyes that were almost lionlike ... that seemed to say a million things that Sam knew he would never understand.

He had seen those eyes before.

Sam felt a strange tug at his mind, like someone trying to gently shake him awake, and his legs went weak, threatening to buckle underneath him.

Cars streamed by, blocking his view. He swore under his breath, waited until it was clear again, and then dashed across the street, but the man was already gone.

"I'm scared."

The words hit Sam so abruptly that he turned around to see if there was someone behind him-even though he knew there wasn't. Not this time. It was his voice, seven years younger, but definitely his voice.

He spied the army jacket again and took off in a jog in the stranger's direction, passing under the I-70 overpass into the dark, trash-strewn intersection that even the cops tried to avoid.

"Wanna see how far that rabbit hole really goes?"

Jonah's voice again, sounding just as young and just as scared, and Sam picked up his pace as he passed the Edward Jones Dome, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the stranger. That line, he thought while he ran. It had been the beginning ...

His breath was coming in short gasps now as he glanced up at the night sky. A dark, smoky-looking cloud drifted over, blocking his view of the stars, and he was hit with another piece of memory.

It was dark like this, dark and-

"I remember the wind," Sam blurted out loud, momentarily breaking the spell of the past. He glanced around, startled to find himself standing in the middle of the old playground where they used to play. It was at least five miles from the Dome ... and yet he had no memory of getting there.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Prophecy by Dawn Miller Copyright © 2010 by Dawn Miller. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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