by Terry Reid
Christopher crumpled the piece. Tears in his eyes, he rose to his feet.
“What does it say?” Gordon demanded.
Christopher looked down at the fallen officer with pity in his eyes. “You have done much and more than we could ever have asked of you. Your part in this story is done. Godspeed, Gordon Sloan. It was our honour knowing you.” With that he sketched a courteous bow and vanished.
“Christopher!” Gordon shouted at the top of his lungs. But no one answered him.
******
Gabriel stood tapping his foot. Pulling his sleeve back, he glanced at his watch. He looked all about him and growled. They’re late. Drawing a deep breath, he turned his attention back to the heap that lay a few feet away on the dark tarmac. No matter. This will be on them, he thought stepping over to Stacy Hughes. He scooped her lifeless body up in his arms, tossing her over his shoulder. The chains wrapped around her arms and legs jangled from the motion but the weight was nothing to Gabriel. He made the short walk to the dockside, his boots crunching against the icy asphalt.
Reaching the edge, Gabriel glanced down the long drop to the quiet, rippling dark waters. He looked around one more time - seeing if any of them were on their way. Seeing no one he sighed. Gripping Stacy, he prepared to throw her in, but at the last he hesitated. Grinning to himself, he slowly turned around. Standing in a semi-circle around him were the four angels, Michael at its centre. “I see you took your time healing. You missed a good fight,” Gabriel shouted.
Michael answered by drawing his sword.
Gabriel held his hands out in supplication, balancing Stacy on his right shoulder.
“Let her go, Gabriel! There’s no way out of this!” Christopher shouted, moving a step forward.
Gabriel looked at him as if he were a stranger. Then he smirked. “Little brother, it’s never like you to raise your voice. It’s nice to see you learn some courage for a change.” His eyes sparkled. “Or is that the boy I’m talking to?”
Christopher’s eyes narrowed and he drew his blade.
“No,” Alex said, holding a hand out to him and Christopher stopped. The guardian eyed Gabriel. “He’ll only run again.” He looked to Chris. If he does we will lose him again. Hayley and I have just run half way around the city looking for him. It’s only luck that you managed to sense him going to the hospital in the first place.
He has John’s mother!
I know but be patient, Michael has a plan. Follow his lead.
“And what plan is that?” Gabriel shouted, directing his words at Michael. Alex and Christopher blinked, betraying their surprise. The archangel, however, never so much as twitched.
“Let her go,” Michael said, nodding towards the bundle of Stacy Hughes. “This has nothing to do with her.”
Gabriel laughed. “I know that, Michael, thank you so much for stating the obvious but she is still the mother of a War Child.” His lips peeled into a devilish grin. “She is therefore the perfect target.”
“If you throw her, I will catch her before she hits the water,” Michael said. “And these three will kill you. They have my leave.”
Gabriel smiled and held his hands up in surrender. He stepped back over the edge, vanishing from view.
Michael vanished. He reappeared only feet above the Clyde, arms wide open in time to catch Stacy from her plummet towards the dark, freezing depths below.
Gabriel attempted to teleport, only to be grappled by Hayley. A fist to the face sent his head reeling. He smacked her back, clipping a temple, but she held onto him tight. A head butt to his nose and she broke it, sending blood streaming into his eyes. They hit the water in a tangle of thrashing limbs and punches.
“Hayley!” Alex shouted at the top of his voice, running to the dock’s edge. He looked about desperately but couldn’t see them.
“What are you waiting for? Get her!” Michael shouted, reappearing some feet away, Stacy in his arms.
“She’s blocking me! I can’t teleport!” Alex shouted. Gripped by panic he dived in. Christopher sprinted towards the edge after him.
“No!” Michael shouted and Chris came to a staggering halt. The younger angel looked at him, confused. “This is their fight.”
Christopher hesitated. He looked at the dark waters, torn between his orders and his loyalties.
“Go!” Michael screamed at him. “If you help them John will die!” Wrapping his large wings around Stacy, the archangel vanished.
Christopher stood staring at the spot Michael had just occupied, lost. Then he felt it. The earth trembled beneath his feet. Just as quickly, the tremor stopped. He looked up and down the silent dock. What is it? What’s happening? John shouted inside his head.
“I don’t…” then he felt it. Out at sea, somewhere miles beneath the waves, something had exploded. He sensed its power - like a miniature bomb going off – and the tsunami that was heading their way. Spreading his wings, Christopher launched himself into the sky. Focusing on the stars he flapped as hard as he could, desperate to get away from the ground. It was not until he was finally above the reach of the tallest building in the city that he dared look down. He wished he hadn't.
The lights on the distant shoreline vanished, then the ones beyond them and then those after that. Christopher’s hand came to his mouth. Building after building fell, succumbing to a blanket of darkness. Then he heard it: the rushing waters. It surged up the Clyde first, spilling over the heights of the dockyard’s edges. Spilling over land, the freezing black waters raced by flats, shops and towers. Sirens blared and people screamed before disappearing beneath the unforgiving crushing black tide of winter's wrath.
But despite its ferocity, despite its carnage, many buildings stood firm against the waves. Not far beyond where he flew the waters ended, doing no more than lapping at the feet of the towers in the city centre.
What are you waiting for? We must help them! John screamed inside his head.
Christopher shut his eyes; silent tears streamed down his cheeks. He silently turned his back to the city and turning towards the sky, took off in direction of the stars.
Chapter Twenty Three
John lurched upright as life shot through his body. He gasped, inflating his mortal lungs with the cold night air before falling onto his back again. His second breath was less of a shock to the system but it was still freezing. John’s eyes darted about. He was dizzy and could taste vomit at the back of his throat while his fingertips and toes tingled with pins and needles. John cringed as a flood of hazy memories raced through his mind: the screams of panic, Christopher’s flight, the sight of high waters racing into the centre of the city, standing before it and driving it away from fleeing citizens with an outstretched palm. The memories faded after that, but John got the sense there was more, much more. He forgot it all in a heartbeat when he recognised where he was - his mother’s bedroom. A glance to his right revealed her lying next to him on the floral patterned double bed. “Mum! Mum!” he shouted, rolling over and shaking her desperately.
“John?” she mumbled, looking up at him through half-lidded eyes. “What is it, honey?” she asked. John burst into tears and buried his head into her shoulder. For a few moments she lay there confused, until she realised where they were. “John. What’s going on?” she asked, wrapping a comforting arm around him. But her son could do no more than cry with relief.
******
Sometime later Stacy and her son made their way to their living room. They sat on the couch beside one another, sitting in the soft, warm glow of the table lamp and the silence of the night. Both of them sat with a cup of tea in hand but neither mother nor son had touched them. They were going cold now, there heat leeched by the cold.
“There was nothing more you could have done,” Stacy finally said, no louder than a mouse. John looked at her with wide eyes. Stacy noticed the dark rings around them for the first time. They were so dark they were almost black.
John glanced back at his tea, suddenly unable to meet his mother’s g
aze. “If Chris hadn’t taken me away I could have.” She placed her hand on his wrist and he looked at her.
“You would have died as well.”
John felt the tears welling in his eyes again. He shook his head. “How do you know that? Christopher left because he was told to. He only saved those people because I made him! But we could have saved more! We could have saved everyone!” He started crying again, suddenly overcome by it all.
Setting her cup and his aside on the nearby table, Stacy drew her son into her arms to comfort him. Once he had settled she said, “Don’t be angry with Christopher. You told me yourself he was your guardian, and no matter how recently you found that out it is his duty to protect you first.” She squeezed him tighter. “Besides, there was no way you two could have saved everyone.”
John sat up, pulling away from her embrace. He sat staring at a spot on the floor, shaking his head vigorously, fighting back tears. “That doesn’t make it right. It wasn’t enough. A lot of people still died. We could have stopped it from happening to begin with. We could have saved everyone.” He choked on a sob. “We could have saved Alex and Hayley!” He crumpled into his mother’s arms, overcome with guilt and tears.
******
A heavy metal door swung open on squeaky hinges. Gabriel raised his head at the sound but otherwise made no move from the darkest corner of his cell. The guards had turned down the orb light that hovered in the ceiling of the arched hallway outside it; the brightness had upset the fallen angel to the point of his skin breaking out into terrible blisters. It now operated at half strength, a muted white light that cast eerie grey shadows across the grey marble floors, pillars and ceilings. Light still managed to poke its way inbetween the bars, but the farthest corners of the poky cell had become a dark refuge for Gabriel.
Soft footsteps descended a flight of steps and continued down the hallway. Gabriel’s cell was the farthest away from the door.
Gabriel wasn’t surprised by who his visitor was, although it was his first from the man. He always expected his father would make an appearance sooner or later. It was a change from The Elders or Michael, even if it was a contemptuous one.
Andrew stood a healthy distance from the bars and stared at his fallen son. Even masked in shadows he could still make out his face. Andrew stood there in silence. He made no inclination to speak or otherwise show any warmth to the incarcerated angel. The two guards that stood to either side of Gabriel’s cell also paid the prisoner no mind.
“Have you only come to stare at me?” Gabriel finally asked.
Andrew’s face betrayed no reaction. “Come out of the shadows so we can speak properly,” he said flatly.
Gabriel began to pace the back of his cell, remaining in shadows. “Why don’t you come closer to the bars and we can speak properly?”
“Do you think this a game, Gabriel? You will be tried tomorrow and it is very likely you will be convicted.”
Gabriel smiled at that. “I hope for it. I hear Lucifer is desperate for me. I was told about what happened at Longtown.”
Andrew shook his head. “You cannot talk your way out of this one, Gabriel. Lucifer will not listen either. If you think to make a pact with him you are sorely mistaken.”
“Then why are you here?”
His father stared at him for a long minute. “Because I need to know why you did what you did.”
Gabriel stopped pacing, eyes flashing in the dark. “Which part?”
“All of it, if it was up to me. But I doubt you will tell me anything. So instead I will ask you only this: why were you so obsessed with Hayley Foster?”
Gabriel stormed to the bars, the light finding his pasty, thin features for the first time. “I am sorry, is everyone truly blind as to what she is?”
“I know what she is.”
“Do you?” Gabriel asked, wrapping his painfully thin fingers around the black metal shafts that held him captive. He winced under the light but otherwise seemed unaffected by the muted glow of the orb above. “She’s more than just my baby brother’s soul mate, much more.”
“I know that, but what I struggle to grasp is what her mission and her human life, for that matter, ever had to do with you. Her mission failed because of your interference. At first we thought it was jealously that drove you to try and kill her, after the death of Lily in the Second World War, but now I know it is much more than that.”
Gabriel tightened his grip on the bars - his knuckles turning white. “Lily is dead because Alexander did not protect her!” he spat.
“Lily was your own to protect, not Alexander's. He was not even supposed to be there that day. He was sent to find you as soon as The Elders realised that she was alone. He found Lily safe in the air raid shelter and went looking for you. It is not his fault that she was dead by the time you two returned.”
“Alexander can see the future! He would have seen the bombs coming!”
Andrew shook his head. “He had no vision that time. He had no way of knowing the bombs would fall there. You were sworn to protect her, you,” he said, pointing an accusing finger. “You should have saw the bombs, must have saw them. You were an archangel, your visions of the future were far better than everyone else’s. They always were.” He shook his head. “How you missed Lily’s death, I do not know. The Elders should never have sent you to Earth in the first place. You only wanted to go so you could run from your responsibilities. You lied about wanting to become a guardian so you could engage in greed and debauchery. You became selfish and lazy.”
The bars creaked as Gabriel squeezed them tighter. Andrew took a half step back, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. Gabriel smiled. “Is that really why you think I was sent?”
Andrew ignored his mockery. “It was your carnal relations with a human which led to Lily’s death and in turn the birth of Hayley Foster. She is but one of the many instruments the Creator has had to send forth to right your mess these last several decades.”
Gabriel shook his head vigorously. “Don’t you dare compare the two of them! They are nothing alike!”
His father stepped up to the bars again. “You were never told why Lily was born, where you? If she had lived, she would have done many things, seen many things and judged accordingly. When she had died and returned to us a decision would have been made based on all she had learnt.” Gabriel continued shaking his head as Andrew spoke. “The Creator would have decided whether man was worthy enough to keep living or not…”
“No! No she was not a War Child!” Gabriel shouted at the top of his lungs. The bars rattled from the force of his grasp and Andrew retreated away again. “You’re lying! She was going to grow up and be an artist! She was a sweet child. She would never destroy mankind if the Creator had ordered it! She didn’t have the power!”
Andrew stared at him, eyes as hard as steel. “She would have been given the power when she ascended, Gabriel.” He sighed. “Now it is up to the other War Children to finish what Lily started.” His eyes gleamed with tears. “If you had not been so enraged and jealous of your brother, you would have never interfered and Hayley would have completed her work. Now she and Alexander are both dead. Thousands have drowned because they had to destroy you.” He straightened and any emotion he had shown vanished from his steely features. He looked at Gabriel as if he were a stranger. “If it were up to me I would have brought Alexander back and his soul mate.” Andrew shook his head. “Not you again.” He sighed. “But I hear the Creator is angry and wants to deliver proper justice on you.”
Gabriel staggered away from the bars, eyes wide with tears. But in a heartbeat his face turned into a feral snarl and he flung himself at them. They rattled in protest but held firm. The noise was enough to draw a quick glance from the guards. “You could have told me Lily was a War Child! You could have said at any time! If I had known, none of this would have happened! I would have steered Lily away from that terrible path! I would not have allowed her to be the Master’s puppet!”
Andrew shook hi
s head. “She would still have been a War Child and still would have met the same fate regardless of what you did,” he said. “I did not go to Purgatory to try to recapture you, Gabriel. I came to try to tell you. I hoped it would make you come quietly but as always you did not choose to listen.”
“I thought you’d come to kill me!” Gabriel insisted, his shouting ringing off the vaulted ceiling. “I might have done many things, Father, many terrible things, but my obsession with Hayley Foster was honourable! I was trying to save the world, save the humans from what she will do!”
“What she might have done,” Andrew corrected him. “A decision had not been made and will not be now for some time.” He frowned. “And this claim you make about defending the humans is ridiculous. Why should I believe such nonsense? How many have you killed without a second thought since you lost Lily? You don’t care about them.”
“I do, I swear I do!” he protested, his eyes glistening with fresh tears.
Andrew regarded his fallen son for the longest time.
What he thought of Gabriel’s desperate pleas the former archangel could not tell. Then, without so much as a sentiment or farewell, he turned to leave.
“This is not right!” Gabriel shouted at his retreating back. “You should be in here! You betrayed me!”
His father turned back to him, his eyes as cold and hard as ever. “What you have done was not right. What the Creator decides is right, regardless of whether you agree with him or not. Goodbye, Gabriel.” He left him then, alone with his guilt and his demons. Andrew shut his eyes for a moment as he walked the long walk back to daylight. When he opened them again, a single, solitary tear rolled silently down his right cheek. Tomorrow he knew he would lose another son.
Gabriel screamed and threw his fist at the wall, breaking his knuckles. He crumpled to the floor, clutching his bloodied and broken digits. He looked to the two guards outside his cell but neither so much as turned an eye his way.
Chapter Twenty Four