In the Shadows of Fate

by Rick Jurewicz

  Miranda stepped down onto the main floor and moved closer to the antiquities that filled the vast room. Deacon stood in silence as Jake moved closer to Miranda. Jake kept his focus on her, avoiding the many things that could distract his attention in the room. Neither of them paid any notice to the elevated area directly across the room from the entrance that they had just come in through from the hallway. A large mahogany desk stood before the great backdrop of sky through the colossal window wall, and behind it sat a figure who had watched them in silence from the moment they had arrived in the room.

  The man sat still, his eyes fixed firmly upon Miranda as she moved across the room. He was a handsome man, somewhere in his mid-thirties with short, wavy dark-brown hair and soft, deep blue eyes that reminded many who looked into them of the ocean as the sun lowered slowly into the horizon. He wore a plain, light grey, oxford style button down shirt without a tie, and straight black slacks.

  The man held his hands upon the desk, and only when he slowly began to rise from his seat did his presence finally catch Miranda's attention. She stopped moving, focusing her attention on the man now standing behind the desk.

  A nervous smile came to his lips. He stepped out around the corner of the desk and down the two steps that brought him to the same level where Jake and Miranda were now standing.

  Jake looked at the man with the same speculative consciousness that he looked upon everyone the last few days. Trust was not something he had an abundance of, even for those that may have saved their lives. Miranda stood still in the spot where she first saw the man, faced him directly and waited for him to approach. He stopped short of her by several feet, with his hands held down by his sides. His smile widened.

  "My God...you look so much like your mother," said the man. There was a sadness in his eyes, even as he held his nervous smile. His voice was soft, and yet strong and solid; a gentlemanly tone wrapped neatly in a pronounced British accent.

  "My mother?" asked Miranda.

  "Yes, Miranda. Your mother. My sweet, beautiful sister Suzanne. I'm sorry. I am being rude, Miranda," said the man, approaching closer now with his hands raised, gently placing one upon each of her shoulders.

  "My name is David. David Gale. I am your uncle, Miranda. At long last, you have finally come home."

  CHAPTER 18

  David nodded to Deacon, who was still standing silently by the door. Deacon nodded back and turned to leave, firmly shutting the large oak door behind him.

  Miranda stood in cautious silence, as did Jake as well. The room suddenly seemed much smaller as an awkward tension filled the vast open spaces.

  "Please, come and sit with me," said David, gesturing to the more comfortable area near the fireplace. Miranda and Jake followed David to the furnishings that were arranged in a semi-circle before the hearth, sitting beside one another on the large sofa that faced the crackling flames of the fire. David followed suit, taking his place on an adjacent chair, but appeared to take no more notice of the comforts of the luxurious seats than Miranda and Jake did.

  David sat and faced them directly, his knees tightly together and his hands folded on his lap. Miranda could see flashes of her own eyes when she looked into his, and wondered if this is what it would have been like to stare into the eyes of her birth mother.

  "I am not sure where the best place is to begin," David started. "I am sure that you have more than a few questions, and I can do only my best to answer them all. I want to assure you first that you are safe here. No one will be able to get to you here, and from this point on, as long as you will allow it, you will have every means at my disposal for your protection, as well as the protection of your family and your friends."

  "Thank you, but we don't know a thing about you or anything else about any of this, so you'll excuse me when I say that doesn't offer me a lot of assurance," said Jake. He sounded harsh and agitated. Miranda picked up on it immediately, and placed her hand on his arm to try and put him at ease. Jake was concerned about his own family back home. It had not escaped his mind that these people that were after Miranda may also know who he is and how to get to his family like they did her family. They would obviously stop at nothing, leaving everyone that he and Miranda knew in danger.

  David hurried over to his desk and retrieved a notebook from a drawer on the opposite side of the desk. He quickly returned to his seat across from where the two of them sat and thumbed through the first few pages of the notebook.

  "You have a grandfather, Charles Neilson, 2230 Pembrook Way. Your parents, Dwaine and Rebecca Neilson, live on Fisher Road in Native Springs. Your father works at Erro Tool & Die, and your mother waits tables at Billie's Café, also in Native Springs. Is this information correct?" asked David, staring patiently at Jake, waiting for his response.

  Jake leaned back slightly, not knowing how to respond. Miranda looked at him, and then back at David.

  "Yes, that's correct," Miranda finally stated. "How did you know all of that?"

  David snapped the notebook shut, and set it down on the glass end table beside the chair.

  "If I know it, then those who are after what you have know it as well. I have taken every precaution to assure the safety of your family, Mr. Neilson," David said. After he spoke these words, Miranda noticed a slump in his overall demeanor, as if he looked...defeated.

  "I only wish I could have acted sooner, Miranda. I only wish I could have gotten to Robert and Lorri and Steven sooner. I'm so sorry, Miranda. I am so sorry that I failed you this."

  "It's not your fault. You didn't do this," Miranda told him.

  "It was my responsibility!" David's voice was raised, not in a yell, but a definitive statement of frustration. "This was something that was started far before either of us were born, and it is my responsibility to try to make up for it. None of this should have ever happened. As a Gale, I am responsible for doing everything I can to undo what has been done and make things right!"

  David stood up suddenly and walked to the large fireplace, facing it with his back turned to Miranda and Jake. His head hung low, and Miranda could feel the weight of the burden he was carrying, even without knowing for certain what it was. She had been carrying a similar burden for days. It may not have been her that suffocated the life from her parents, but she felt responsible in a way as if she had done it with her own hands.

  Miranda walked over to David and put her hand on his shoulder. David lifted his head, and turned slowly to look at her.

  "I apologize for that. Please, forgive me. You are holding far too much of your own burdens on your shoulders. You don't need mine as well," he said.

  David led Miranda back to her seat beside Jake, who was looking off to the side, still not knowing what he should be feeling. Miranda sat down and placed her hand upon Jake's knee. He turned to look at her, and they sat in silence for several seconds until David began to speak once more.

  "The men who were after you," David began, "We believe that they work for a man known only as Enoch. The name itself is a play on the ancient script style purported to be angelic in origin, but this man is far from any angel as you or I might imagine. Demon would probably be a better description of him. He believes that great power will come to those who are in control of those documents that you have in your possession. There is a prophecy..."

  "We know about the prophecy," Miranda interrupted. David looked suddenly surprised, but nodded his head to Miranda's resourcefulness.

  "Then you know the dangers involved if it fell into the wrong hands. Generations of my family - of our family - have been charged with protecting the documents from those who may try to use the Caducus Oraclum for corruption. I am guessing that you are also aware of the Order of Sanctity? The Tale of the Two Cardinals?"

  "We know about them," Jake interjected. "We were also told that the group that broke away from the Order believed in the prophecy. If your family had those documents, wouldn't that mean that it was the Gales that were descended from that group?"

  "It is tr
ue, my family were the caretakers of the original pieces of the Caducus Oraclum. It is also true that the Gale family was the last in the line of those that had believed that someday the prophecy may come to light. But by the time it came to the generation of my grandfather, Francis Gale, none of the family believed in the prophecy any longer. My father wanted to continue to fulfill his obligation to his father as the protector of the Oraclum for both historical and sacred purposes, but he wanted it to end with him. He wanted nothing more of it for his family after he was gone. He wanted to turn the documents back over to the Order of Sanctity, but too much time and distance had gone between those who broke away and the original Order. The Order was such a secretive society; there was no way my father could find them any longer, nor could they find us."

  "So what was your father going to do, at the end of his life, if the Gales were no longer to be the custodians of the Oraclum?" Miranda asked.

  David bowed his head for several moments.

  "I don't know. He never told me, and if he told my mother, she never revealed it to me while she was alive. She died three years ago, but in all of the years since the tragedy, in her grief, she never spoke of the documents. I know only what I know from stories my father told me when I was young, and from the times when I would sneak into his study and read his journals. I know, I should be ashamed of such things, but you can only imagine the excitement I would get from hearing his stories. I only hungered for more. Now, the journals are long gone in the fire, and my beloved father along with them. How I wish I could, if nothing else, have his words and his stories back to look upon again. Words and stories. These are the only true things that can bring the dead back to life."

  Miranda's eyelids sunk. David had only just realized his error, and felt ashamed. The talk of losses such as this, while distant past to him, were fresh in the heart of Miranda. He knew her pain, but far more time had passed for him to come to terms with it.

  "How did you find us? Do you know how this Enoch found out about Miranda?" asked Jake, breaking the silence of the sullen moment before David once again could speak. He wasn't going to leave any stone unturned if he could help it, and he still wasn't absolutely sure what to think about long lost Uncle David.

  "Enoch, we believe, found out about Miranda through that greedy snake, Harry Thornton. Harry still worked for my mother and stayed attached to the estate and the home after mother moved us far from Galestone. When I was informed about his death, I was sure that Enoch must have been paying him for years to watch the estate and report on what activities may be going on there. I would imagine that you, being the right age and looking so much like my sister, caught his attention like nothing had before. Enoch is not one to leave loose ends. Thornton must have served all possible purposes for him. I never cared for the man myself, but I would have never wished such a fate upon him."

  "So you didn't yourself find out from Thornton? Someone else from Galestone, then?" asked Miranda.

  "Yes, and no. Aimsley Carter contacted me. It was soon after you left her in Arlo. She was scared after she heard on the local news about the murder of Harry Thornton. I hadn't seen or heard from her since I was a child, so I was..."

  "Is she alright? Aimsley? Where is she?" The fear was evident in Miranda's voice.

  "Aimsley is fine. When she told me about Harry, I sent one of my people to retrieve her and take her somewhere safe until all of this was sorted out. Gale International Holdings has real estate and properties around the globe. Lots of places to hide someone from the rest of the world. I assure you, she is safe." David said.

  Miranda breathed a sigh of relief. She was so scared that something had happened to Aimsley when she couldn't get a hold of her earlier in the day. David smiled at her sense of relief.

  "After Aimsley let me know you had been to see her, I started to learn all that I could about you so I could find you. My mother, God rest her soul, did everything that she possibly could have done to protect you from the Gale legacy. She hid you well away from the world, not too far out of reach, but enough to have you blend in with the rest of the world. I resented her at first for taking you away from us, but over the years I came to understand why she had made the decision that she did. That is why I never tried to find you myself, although now, I am regretting that decision. Perhaps if I had found you years before, this all could have been avoided."

  "We can't know that for sure," said Miranda. "We never will. You can't be too hard on yourself." She said the words out loud. Don't be too hard on yourself, yet she could not escape the weight she carried for what happened to her own family.

  "Perhaps you are right, Miranda. I cannot change the past. I can only hope to change the future. I found out too late about your family, and it took more digging to find out about Jake. By that time, you had already fled, quite resourcefully I might add, from those men who were pursuing you. I had a man watching your friend Lydia Snow for the last few days. Not long before you arrived at the café, that man monitoring Ms. Snow identified the men that had come after you. He called for the backup that came to your assistance and brought you here."

  "The backup seemed to have as much firepower and 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality as the men that came after us," Jake retorted.

  "The people that work for me are highly trained and highly disciplined. I know that you don't trust me, Mr. Neilson. I respect that. If I were in your position I would trust absolutely no one. I want Miranda and everyone close to her kept safe by whatever means necessary. My men would not have used deadly force unless they felt it was the only course of action left to take. Those men were killers. They killed Harry Thornton, and they murdered the family that raised Miranda, who I will forever be indebted to. We want the same things, Mr. Neilson. I promise you this. I don't want any more unnecessary suffering."

  Jake listened to David's words, then nodded his head in silence to David. David nodded in return.

  Miranda held her laptop case close to her side. She had it since she left the car at the café, and had not let go of it since. She reached down, unzipped the case and pulled out the manila folder with the parchment pages inside. She stood up and walked over to David, handing the folder to him.

  David took the folder and opened it, examining the contents inside. He looked up at Miranda as she sat back down beside Jake. Jake had a look of surprise on his face, and David looked at them both now as they sat side by side.

  David turned, walked over to the large fireplace and threw the folder and all of its contents into the roaring flames.

  Miranda could not fully grasp the feelings that were going through her in that moment. Those documents had been in her possession only a few days, yet caused so much chaos and despair in her life in that short amount of time. Now, so quickly and with absolute finality, they were nothing but ashes and painful memories.

  She still wished all of this meant more somehow. Why did her family have to die for this? What of this shadowy villain, Enoch? What was his next move to be now that the things he wanted so badly had been destroyed?

  "Those cursed papers," said David. “They have haunted our lives for far too long. It's only fitting Lucifer get them back through fire and flame. Now, no one ever need fear the damage they could have caused. You can rest now, Miranda. You both deserve it. I will have Mr. Deacon settle you in to one of the guest rooms on this floor. Whatever you need - anything at all - he will get for you. Tomorrow, we can discuss what to do until we know for certain that Enoch is finished pursuing you. I know of possible ways to get a message to him to let him know the Oraclum is no more. If that is still not enough, then I will hunt him until he is found and do whatever it takes to assure you, he can harm you no more. You are the only family I have left in this world, Miranda. Family is all we have in the end. We are all that is left of the Gale line, and I intend to set right all that our family has wrought and restore our family's legacy.

  Deacon showed Jake and Miranda to a room just down the hall across from David's office. Th
e room looked like a luxury suite that Jake expected he might see in a world class Las Vegas casino, just as he had seen in movies. It had a fully stocked bar, three bedrooms, and a 100 inch flat panel LED television in the main living area. The view was incredible overlooking the city, with slanted windows like those in David's office. Paintings hung on all of the walls protected behind glass, and there were two sculpted busts of oriental dragon design in the far corners of the main room.

  "What would you two like to eat?" asked Deacon politely.

  "What's on the menu?" asked Jake. He was starving for some real food after the convenience store cuisine they had survived on the last few days.

  "There is no menu," said Deacon. "Mr. Gale said that whatever you want, we are to find it and have it brought to you, sparing no expense."

  Miranda had been staring out the window, gazing down at the city. She sometimes forgot how the days get so much shorter this time of year. The street lamps were already illuminating. She broke her gaze and turned around, walking up to where Deacon was standing.

  "Does Mr. Gale own the entire floor?" asked Miranda.

  "He didn't mention? Mr. Gale owns the entire building. The Stratusaint Tower is the United States headquarters for Gale International Holdings," stated Deacon.

  "I thought the family was near destitute when he and his mother left for England after the fire?" asked Miranda.

  "Mr. Gale has worked very hard to bring back the Gale name and the Gale business empire. The family had nearly nothing left, but he took what remained and built it back from the ground up."

  "Pizza," Jake suddenly broke in. "I'd love a good pizza. What is the best pizza place in the city?"

  "Primo Luigiano's. It's the best damn pizza I've ever had," replied Deacon.

  "That's what I'd like to have," said Jake. He looked at Miranda. "Okay with you? We'll make it one meat lovers and one Hawaiian special, ham and pineapple and cheese only."