Immortal

Strange Encounters with the Vanquisher

The angel turned to me with the smallest flecks of amused surprise. "Where is Miguel? Gone, to my disappointment," his lips didn't quite move so he must have the whole speak-inside-your-head ability. "What involvement with Miguel do you have?"

"Not much," I said, honestly. "Sometimes he lets me read his books. He doesn't like me too much. Are you going to find him?"

The angel's eyes were a mixture of red, purple and pink, a miniature sunrise in his eyes. They were so much kinder than I thought they would be.

"If he does not like you, you are more in my favour," taking several fluid steps towards me, he bent down and held my hand. "He has left only few of his books behind. I will find him, if there are any messages you would like relayed, I will do so, only for you. "

Smiling at the angel, I was surprised by how fearless I felt. I was also surprised that he didn't realise I was a shadow walker, couldn't he sense the darkness in me or something? "What is your name?"

Surprisingly, I didn't hold the hostility I thought I would towards angels.

"The name given to me is Vanquisher of the Mighty Foes. I am Skandaya."

Smiling, I did not even think about before I did it, I touched Skandaya's head, from where he was crouched down to my height. "I hope, Skandaya, that you serve with purity and flame, to burn away the darkness."

Minisculy, his eyes widened. "You have sang the hymns of the warriors before," before I could explain that I hadn't been thinking since I started talking to him and seemed to be doing everything without meaning to, Skandaya cupped his hands and raised them from the bottom of my torso to the top of my head. "Find truth, Knower of War Hymns. Be bless'd and pure in heart and soul."

Then, in a flash of light, he seemed to fly and disappear in the span of a metre, leaving only the faint echoes of the sound of glory behind him.

I was left standing in Miguel's mansion, alone, feeling like I had just been enlightened while feeling incredulous and adrenaline filled at the same time.

Had I just escaped my own death?
***

Down in Miguel's library, I was surprised by how messy it was. There was only one shelf of books left and most of them, including lots of papers, were scattered around the large room that was even larger without the book shelves.

Walking around, I picked up bits of paper or random books. Most of them were useless things, like cooking recipes or nature books. Some were biblical or about mythology but they were all conspiracies.

Going to the window that over looked Miguel's garden, I sat on the window sill that he always sat on and looked out. Skandaya must have gone through everything down here and Miguel must have known that he would. How he got all his books out on time was another mystery.

Since the house had no light bulbs anymore, when it got dark, I moved off the sill. Under my legs, a flat stone brick rocked.

It was one of the four large bricks that made up the sill. Pulling it off, I looked down into the empty space in the wall. It was so dark.

Spiders.

No, no, no. I was invincible. I had lived with two intense twins, died, come back to life, conversed with an angel, who I'm pretty sure had blessed me, even though he was hunting my kind.
A spider couldn't defeat me.

Reaching my hand down, I moved it around searching for- my fingers came in contact with something that was not stone and I eeked pulling my hand out. Tenderly, reaching back in, I pulled out a plastic bag which held a single, beaten up book, whose pages would have to be glued together to stop them from falling out.

Pulling it out of the bag, I read the title that had been pressed into the cover. Recordings of Birds.

Opening it, I realised that Miguel had a sense of humour, despite it being somewhat tasteless. Inside, was information he must have recorded since falling in love with his angel. There were diagrams, information on his abilities, and a neater hand had written down secrets. Angel secrets.

Wow. Amber really was determined to betray her kind.

Still, I was thankful. I would most likely be able to survive thanks to this. There was priceless information on the shadow world that Skandaya would have confiscated for sure had he found the book.

I don't know if Miguel left it for me to find but I would be keeping it. Still, I silently thanked them and left.
***

Breathing quietly, I opened the book and laid it flat on my bed spread. The pages were numbered but I still didn't trust that they would not be easily mixed up. After pressing my palms into my eyes and sighing, I began reading until 4am.

The most fascinating thing was the fact that I could build certain parts of the shadow world. It didn't explain exactly how to do it but I got the general idea. At 5 am, I opened the shadow world, with its potato sack material and dirty brown light, and walked straight in.

There was a certain amount of will power that had to be used, to my surprise. Miguel had some sort of elemental earth power which he infused the shadow world with to make it maintain shape. I could see how that would work but I had no idea how infusing the shadow world with my light or the ability to speak with animals, would retain its shape.

Still I started off simple and tried to create a bugatti veyron. It was only when I was working on the engine, in the dark dusty light, that I began to better understand how to bend it to my will. I had to think of it as dough but at the same time, a part of my own body.

On my hand, my watch was still spinning around like crazy but the hands stopped on nine every few -what I assumed- were minutes.

Getting up to get ready for my meeting with Robert, I created a potato sack door that was supposed to lead to my room.

Stretching in a yawn at my hard work, I walked to the door, rubbing my eyes. Instead of my room, I opened the door and walked straight into the conference room, whistling as I rolled my lights over my fingers, where Robert sat alone.

When I noticed him, I stopped and froze.

Stunned we stared at each other.
***

Dante sat at the table scooping cereal into his mouth as he scrolled through his news feed. People had been buzzing about some crazy thing that had happened in Charlesten and since it was a decent sized town, word got around fast.

Chewing, he opened an article that had an illuminated girl on the front. Superwoman, the title read, real or staged?

George walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of juice. "Turn the volume off that stupid thing," he said, as Dante blasted his music on his phone. Dante complied and continued with his breakfast.

Ignoring the captified look on his brother's face, he stretched and replied to his texts. "You ready for mum and dad?" Pushing the anxiety to the back of his mind, he grabbed a spoon and began sharing Dante's cereal.

"Oi, piss off," he said, pulling the bowl away from George. "And no, I'm not ready. They will disown us for what we've done. I can't believe we're acting as casual as we are."

Beside him, he could have sworn he heard George mumble, "Well, it's not as if they were around often enough for us to care."

He read the article and the more he read, the less he noticed George eating his cereal.

...girl claimed to be from Charlesten Senior School, whose identity remains unknown...was seen in Yulewall...jumped off a building from several storeys up and survived the impact with barely any injuries from the concrete. People are calling this a miracle though some claim it to be a stunt...

Playing the video at the bottom of the page, he remained somewhat uninterested until the girl jumped up off the concrete, looked around in confusion then jumped up and ran. Going back several seconds, he paused at the part where the girl's face was directly in front of the camera and paused it.

"George?" His voice shook as he turned the phone to his twin. "Does this remind you of anyone?"