Chapter 10
I had sat there for an hour, the only sound was the faint murmurs from inside the room, I couldn't even make out one word of their speech and trust me I had been trying. An elderly woman came up with a trolley full of refreshments so I took them from her at the door and when it turned three on the dot, I knocked on the door. What was strangest was all noise vanished from the room a second before I knocked, like they knew I was coming. Shaking away my paranoia I pushed open the door when someone called for me to come in and wheeled the trolley into the room. I quickly set about making sure everyone had what they needed before hurrying out the room, not liking the way that I was being stared at.
It wasn't until I was safely back in my chair that I realised that the door hadn't completely shut and I could now hear more distinct snippets on conversation. I glanced around the empty space before me before covertly rolling my chair closer to the door and leaning my head towards the sound so that the chair lurched for a moment before settling.
"Now what do we do about the protected? Do we let her remain here or do we take her into sanctuary?" A high pitched woman's voice reached my ears and all I felt was confusion as multiple voices chimed in at the same time afterwards to put the money's worth in.
"Silence." Lucius voice was steely and full of authority and everything fell into silence. "The protected shall remain here until such a time when we know what the upper levels want with her."
Gabriel cut in then. "But under your protection she has almost lost her life once, how do we know she is safe with you?" There was the sound of shuffling and I could just imagine Gabriel lifting his head so that his eyes swept over the room, his very essence gaining attention. "She should come to the sanctuary; she will be safe there until He informs us of her path." Someone scoffed and then a few other people tittered in derision.
"You say that, but weren't you attacked on the same day? But unlike us, you were too goody two shoes to do anything about it? That's the problem with angels, think you're all high and mighty but you have no backbone." The sound of a chair crashing into a wall startled me as my mind ran over Lucius' last words...angels? Either these people were seriously deluded or I was in something that was way over my head. Normally I would lean towards the first option but then I remembered the box and how the contents had been completely incinerated. How does that even happen? Even I know there is no such thing as spontaneous combustion.
I heard footsteps approaching, so with a surprised squeak, I hastily rolled my chair behind the desk and picked up a highlighter as I pretended that I was focused on the document before me. The door was tugged open so hard that it ricocheted off of the wall so that I could feel the vibrations through the soles of my shoes. Feigning shock, I glanced towards the door in time to see Gabriel and some his 'angel' friends leaving the room with expressions of discontent on their faces. It was strange because even with Lucius riling them up they didn't really display much emotion, even the discontent that was displayed by a slight downturn on the corner of their mouths seemed to be a struggle for them to maintain.
Lucius rushed out after them, grasping tightly onto Gabriel's arm and swinging him around to face him. "Brother, this is a fight we must wage together. She will be safest here; we already have her under our protection as well as her child. We can keep her safe if you cooperate with us."
Lucius looked almost pained to even say this to the man, his eyes squinting down at his rival. Gabriel looked from Lucius' eyes down to his hand that was grasping tightly to his arm and a look passed briefly through his eyes, so quick that I was uncertain as to whether I had really seen it, but there it was a clear as day as he regarded Lucius with his almost emotion free gaze.
Lucius suddenly pulled him arm away and cussed as he dropped it to his side but I caught a glimpse and let my mouth drop open. The flesh on his palms of his hands had been seared with some invisible branding iron and they were now imprinted with a strange symbol in an angry red colour.
"I am not your brother." Gabriel's voice held no emotion as he stared unflinchingly at Lucius. "We will assist in her protection but nothing more. We will contact you when we know more, about either situation. Goodbye Lucius." With that Gabriel spun on his heel and left Lucius in his dust. He looked regretfully after them before shaking his head.
"Are you okay?" I asked softly as he wandered over to my desk. He gazed at me a moment before taking a seat on the corner of my desk.
"I'm fine." His tone was firm but I just gave him a pointed look before snatching the burnt hand only to see nothing but an old scar that looked like it was years old rather than a few seconds. Lucius pulled his hand from my grasp and snatched up the papers whilst I just stared at where his palm had been. I swear that mark wasn't on his hand before he touched Gabriel, I'm sure I would have noticed a scar as distinctive as that.
I put a hand on his arm so that I commanded his attention whilst trying to appear apologetic when in reality so many thoughts were rushing through my mind that I was having difficulty keeping up with them. "I'm sorry; I just thought he hurt you." My voice was soft and when I saw his frown I realised I had overstepped some sort of boundary, not that we hadn't already done that with the let's play happy families moment we had a few days ago. Clearing my throat I pulled back my hand and turned my gaze to the blank computer screen instead. "So I'm guessing the meeting didn't go so well."
Lucius grunted before sliding off of the desk. "It went just peachy. I'm heading back up to my office, clean up here and then meet me there; I have something for you to do." I nodded and watched him walk off with a jolty swagger, the thuds of his footsteps showing just how riled up he really was.
Pushing up from the seat I looked into the meeting room and was surprised to see that it wasn't completely empty. A guy sat at the far end of the room gazing out of the room looking completely lost in his thoughts. Not wanting to disturb them I started to retreat but their silky smooth voice halted me. "Stay child, take a seat." The man lifted his head and I was shocked by the gaze that met mine, it was familiar somehow but I couldn't figure out why. Obliging the messy haired man with his request I took a seat opposite him so that my back was facing the window, choosing to politely ignore the fact that he had called me child when he looked only a few years older than me.
"Ezekiel right?" I questioned as I leant back in the chair and took in all of the man before me. He looked amazing in the finely tailored suit but there was something in his eyes, I couldn't understand it. On the outside he looked so emotionless and serene like the rest of his companions but swirling in the pits of his eyes were so many different emotions that it sent me to dizzying heights. He nodded once and then looked past me as if he was seeing something completely different to what everyone else did.
"Yes, but you can call me Zeke, I always found my true name a mouthful." He flicked his eyes to me for a moment as a smile quirked at his lips before he looked away and let out a morose sigh. "You do not remember me but one day you will. Things are coming Miss Holmes. Good things, bad things and terrible things." He paused as he ran a hand through his mop of sandy brown hair and then met my gaze. "And you are going to be in the middle of it. Only you can decide the outcome of the events, it sounds cryptic and crazy to a modern mortal because most, like yourself, have no belief in things that you cannot see. You already suspect, I see it in your eyes, but you are not ready for the full truth. Remember to keep your eyes open Miss Holmes, not everything is what it seems and I can assure you that there are things out there that make your idea of demons and hell look like child's tales." He pushed his seat back and stood up whilst I just stared at him dumbly, what was he trying to say? That some sort of apocalypse was coming? The people Lucius knows are really pushing it towards the crazy end of the scale.
"Um, you said I knew you?" I looked at him questioningly as I too stood up on shaky legs and walked around the table so that I was before him. Choosing to ignore all the other crazy stuff he said that sounded like some bible obsessed loon that predicted the end of the world every other day, I glanced up at the man before me trying to see if looking closer at him would prompt any memories of who he was and how I knew him.
"Patience, it will come in time, sweet Vannah." He then did something that completely shocked me then. His hand reach up and caressed my cheek before moving to my lips where his fingers traced the contours as he took a step closer so that we were so close that I could feel his breath stirring my hair. My eyes fluttered closed waiting for something and then I felt it, his warm soft lips pressed against my forehead. I felt so at home that I exhaled slowly and my whole body relaxed as I leaned towards him. "Goodbye Vannah." I felt him whisper against my forehead before his touch was gone and when my eyes pulled open, so was he.
I stood there mutely in complete and utter shock, unsure what the hell had just happened. I stayed there for about ten minutes before I remembered that Lucius had a task for me to do so I hurried with sorting out the room and putting it back to its former immaculate state. On my way back up, I contacted the woman in catering so that she could come and get the trolley. It wasn't until I was stood in the elevator waiting for the doors to open to the right when floor all I could think about was what I had overheard, what Ezekiel had said, what he had done and the whole thing between Gabriel and Lucius. There was just too much to understand and I could feel a headache coming on from just thinking about it. It looks like Google was going to become my best friend.
When I got into Lucius' office he handed me another cardboard box, larger than the one I had brought in earlier so it was harder for me to wrap my arms around it and with specific instructions not to open it, he told me to take it to Mr Watson. Once there, I was to ask that he give me the package that needs to be delivered and that after I had posted said package personally, I could go home for the rest of the day. I thought it was all a bit vague and mysterious and I hoped that he wasn't using me to carry illegal substances but I chose to ignore that possibly and did as I asked.
Slipping on my coat as I walked out into the heavy rain, I clutched the large envelope to my chest, checking the address before hailing down a taxi and clambering inside. I shivered as the sudden overbearing heat of the black car permeated the layers of my jacket and warmed my frozen skin. Giving the driver instructions, I leant back into the tacky leather seats that smelt faintly of sweat and something else that I couldn't quite identify but didn't want to even think about.
Fifteen minutes later the taxi pulled up outside a residence. I don't know what it was about the place but it felt strange. It wasn't a bad strange but it wasn't a good strange either. "I'll be right back." I murmured to the driver as I pushed open the car door with reluctance and then stepped back out into the rain. The building that loomed before me looked like every other is the cookie cutter street but there was something different about this one. Taking two steps at a time I climbed the steps up to the front door and raised my hand to knock only for it to be pulled open before my hand could come in contact with the red painted wood.
An elderly woman stood before her clutching the door. She wore thick rimmed glasses, a classic set of short grey curls lay atop her head and a crocheted shawl lay across her stooped shoulders. The woman stared up at me with a look that was too complex for me to understand before her gaze moved to the envelope clasped in my hand. I was just about to speak when she grinned revealing her gummy, toothless mouth as she reached her hand out. I slipped the letter into her grasp which she snatched and held close to her, stroking it with reverence before she nodded and retreated back into the house closing the door behind her. Okay that wasn't strange at all.
By the time Danny was settled and I was safely in the confines of my bed, there was nothing to keep my mind from wandering as I fell to sleep. My nightmares filled with faces that I had seen today, some bearing soulless black eyes and the others adorning white wings and golden armour; in the midst of it all was him. Ezekiel was standing in the middle of the two sides with his arms wrapped around me, he was protecting me from the stares of both sides as I cried bloody tears that fell from my cheeks and ran down the metal of his own gleaming armour before dripping off of the metal plating onto the floor. What terrified me the most, was the bodies of the dead that littered the floor around me not one drop of blood spilled, but every one wore the pale emaciated mask of death. Laid amongst the dead were some familiar faces, including both Marianna, Kirsten and with a heart wrenching wail, I noticed Danny little body nestled in there too. Not knowing what to do, I held on tighter to Ezekiel wishing to wake up from this dream.
The last words I heard before I woke up, was a voice that brought tears to my eyes from the very sound. "Only you can stop this."