POSTHUMAN

Chapter Seventeen

"Uncle Marcus!" chorused Mads and Helena; they ran at Marcus and almost tackled him with a hug. He laughed indulgently and mussed their hair, Helena pouted at him and Mads giggled – the reaction he got every time he did that.

        "Mads! Helena! Bring Uncle Marcus in here, dinner's almost ready!" Ruth's musical voice came from the kitchen. Each child took a hold of one his hands and led him into the dining room at a brisk pace, Helena just ahead of Mads. Helena's long auburn hair swayed gently behind her, her nose held up a little haughtily, trying ever so hard to impress an adult. Mads had the rich blonde hair of his father, but both children had more compassion in their green eyes than Judah had in his greyish-blue.

        Helena gestured too grandly towards the beech dining table and six chairs upholstered in real leather, none of that faux nonsense for the Nimåfänger family. Mads pulled out a chair and patted the seat, Marcus thanked him and sat down. Mads valiantly tried to push the chair back into place, but to no avail. He gave up and sat his own chair, somewhat embarrassed. Marcus pulled a face at the boy and his mood soon brightened, Helena tried not to laugh at the cross-eyed, bulging-cheeked picture that her godfather gave but lost that battle. Ruth rounded the corner, a casserole dish held in oven-gloved hands.

      Marcus remembered having Flygande Jakob another time he came to Judah's house, he had thoroughly enjoyed it. Ruth deftly balanced the dish as she plated up the vibrant casserole there at the table, she glanced over Marcus' shoulder and gave the man behind him a brilliant smile. "And at last he deigns to grace us with his presence," she teased her husband as Judah kissed her cheek.

        Age had not marred Judah, the only sign he had grown older were little flecks of grey that subtly dotted his temples. He worked for the Providence Governmental Security Police in a prestigious, well-paid position. Better men than Judah would have let themselves go if they had gained such a cushy office job. Gone the way of the wealthy police official and allowed themselves to rest on their laurels, get out of shape. Not Judah though, with his sleeves were rolled up Marcus could see the man had kept up with the strenuous regimen he had maintained in America. Perhaps thrown himself into his fitness even more to stave off inescapable boredom. Judah smiled up at his wife as she handed him a plate. Ruth finally took up her place at the table, she blew a lock of red hair out of her face before taking up her cutlery.

Marcus and Judah sat in the loft, behind a telescope, a little coffee table between them. A bottle of Barbancourt Estate Reserve rum stood on the tabletop, two quarter-filled rocks glasses either side of the bottle. "How'd you come by this?" Marcus gestured to the bottle; he picked up his glass and sipped at the dark liquor.

        "In my line of work, if you do your job properly, you get to have friends in high places," Judah peered into the eyepiece of the telescope, when he looked up at the night sky an innocence graced his features that Marcus had never seen, moonlight poured in through the roof window, "There's something so beautiful about that, isn't there? That we can see hundreds of blazing suns as tiny specks with the naked eye, but most planets are invisible. If stars are specks, and planets are unseen then that makes us less than nothing." Judah leaned away from the telescope and drank from his glass.

        His friend sighed deeply, tension and stress drained away from the man in a breath. "I'm going to die, Marcus, very soon, and when I do, I don't expect you to stay in London and watch over my children. You've got something that you'll need to do when I die," this was so calm that Marcus thought for a moment it was a sick joke until he saw the earnest look in Judah's eyes.

        "How can you possibly know that?" Marcus placed his glass onto the coffee table, his hand shook a little. Judah, Philip, Tristan and Clement were his only friends in the entire world. He did not want to lose one of them.

        "Ever since I was little, there have always been moths in my dreams Marcus. But for a year Marcus, there have been more and more white moths in my dreams. Pure white, not a speck on them. I'm falling towards the ground, there are coins all around me, and the paving stones begin to change into flights of moths – hundreds of thousands of them. White, white, white...everywhere I look and then I wake up. Last night, there were white moths and one that wasn't. It was a Death's Head moth but after about three seconds, it turned white," Judah held his gaze the entire time he spoke.

        "So?" Marcus felt his stomach churning.

        "In many cultures moths are a symbol of death and magic, Marcus, especially the Death's Head and white moths. I have led a charmed life and it appears I shall die a charmed death," Judah glanced at the moon before looking back at him.

        "Are you suggesting magic-?" Marcus was nonplussed.

      "No, I'm saying that somehow I've been given an omen, a warning. I can't change fate, so I've reserved myself to it and when your time comes, you should do the same. Because your time is coming, Marcus. When I took you into my service, I sealed your fate. Time is falling out precisely how it needs to. You never killed anyone out of spite Marcus, I know that..."

      "Kongolo..." whispered Marcus, he wanted to stop holding Judah's gaze but he was stuck, near enough entranced.

      "In spite, never, you've never really killed anyone in spite Marcus. In Utah and then every time after, I know no children died. That's why I spoke so highly of you. Your guilt keeps you here Marcus, but when you let go of it, you will die and you won't mind. I've done things I'm not proud of; I'm involved in them still. We both are. I'll wake up tomorrow and go to work, and then, I won't come back home. It's time to say goodbye, Marcus," Judah stood, he still faced Marcus. He stepped around the coffee table as Marcus stood to leave.

       Marcus turned toward Judah and held out his hand but instead Judah brought him into a crushing hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. He could have sworn he heard Judah sniffle before he released Marcus, so quickly that Marcus might have imagined it. Judah really must be about to die, that or the world was about to end again: neither notion appealed to Marcus.