by Nic Widhalm
The night was still cold and silent, the fields empty, tall grass waving faintly in the frosty wind. They walked for a pace, and then the muscled man stopped, bringing Hunter to a halt as Mika’il swept past. Her five followers followed quickly, keeping at least twenty feet behind their leader. After a moment the muscled man resumed their pace.
They followed the group silently for several minutes before Hunter finally asked, “Where are we going?”
“Home, little acolyte,” his guard said. “We’re going home.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“No fucking way,” Jackie whispered under her breath as Hunter Friskin disappeared before her eyes. “No, every-loving-mother-fucking way.”
When she first saw him, tall, broad-shouldered, looking every inch the Greek god she’d seen in her photographs, Jackie assumed it was just wishful thinking. The long nights, stress-soaked days, and a little dose of good, old-fashioned Catholic guilt had finally combined to send her over the edge. That was, until she met his steel gray eyes and knew this was no apparition.
He had run, of course. They always did. And Jackie pursued—even if she was more than a few drinks in—chasing down the street like a madman, shouting Friskin’s name. But her mind was only partially focused on the chase. What she was really thinking was what to say when she finally caught him: Okay, buddy, you’re under arrest. Only, can you answer a few questions first? Like, I know this is weird and all, but, uh—you don’t happen to know any angels, do you?
She thought she saw two figures run between a parked car, and followed, praying it wasn’t just a couple of college kids feeling adventurous. As she turned the corner and passed the car, she saw the edge of Friskin’s coat disappear down a shadowed alley. “Freeze, asshole!”
She leapt around the side, smiling as she anticipated Friskin’s face—and that’s when she saw two figures, backs turned to her, blur into the distance with superhuman speed.
Okay, Riese, obviously it’s not superhuman. The angel stuff has you on edge, you’re just seeing things. Nobody can move that fast, and if they could Friskin would be starting for the Broncos, not working some crap job at a funeral home. See? Told ya’ you shouldn’t have touched that shitty bourbon.
It was all just illusion. A trick of the mind. Shadows playing on shadows, combined to create—
“Bullshit,” Jackie said, and turned to the cathedral towers rising in the distance, a black silhouette against the half moon. From where she stood the buttresses looked like long, skeletal hands.
Maybe it was the bourbon—hell, it’s definitely the bourbon—but Jackie was certain, certain, that this had something to do with the priest.
Valdis locked the church’s front door behind him, and headed for the lone car in the parking lot. He hadn’t signed out the old Ford truck, but didn’t think any of his brother’s would mind. Who else would use the communal vehicle this late on a wintry night?
As he reached the truck, the priest transferred his sheaf of papers to his other hand, trying to pull the keys from his oversized coat, and promptly dropped the stack. Mumbling curses in a long dead language, he knelt in the snow and reached under the truck, searching for his notes. The press of cold, heavy steel against the nape of his neck stopped him.
“I don’t have any money,” Valdis said, his voice trembling. Lord, if you’re there, please not now. Let me die somewhere warm. “But you can have the truck if you’d like. It’s not much, but you might be able to sell it.” Valdis held up the keys, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Get in,” a voice said, muffled and suspiciously high-pitched. Valdis wrinkled his eyes, took a gamble, and stood. Turning, he was both relieved and terrified to see the face of Detective Riese.
“Detective, this is completely unacceptable,” Valdis said in a level voice. He did his best to pass a convincing frown, but his heart was beating so fast he was afraid it would burst from his chest.
Riese motioned with her gun toward the truck. “I said get in.”
“Look, I’m sure we can work out whatever—”
“Now!” The detective took a step forward and Valdis leapt back. He turned and fumbled the keys into the lock. Climbing inside he cursed silently, looking at the moon and trying to gauge how much time he had left. He could still make it, but he would have to rid himself of the detective somehow.
“Now what?” the priest asked after Riese ran to the passenger side—the firearm trained through the windshield—and climbed in.
“Now we go wherever you were planning when I interrupted you.”
“The laundry? Not very exciting. My undergarments are quite plain.”
Jackie didn’t laugh. “Come on. I know you’re not a great liar, but seriously? Try bringing some clothes next time.”
Valdis’ shoulders fell. “Please,” he said. “Not now. Not tonight.”
“Why? You have somewhere else to be?”
“Just tell me what you want,” he pleaded. “I already told you, I don’t know where Hunter is.”
“’Hunter?’ You on a first name basis with murderers, Father?” Jackie flicked the gun. “Just drive. Go wherever you were planning originally, and I’ll sit here quietly. Cross my heart.”
Valdis closed his eyes, said a quiet prayer and started the engine. How much longer could he play this game? The detective was obviously not giving up, and the priest didn’t think there was anything he could say that would convince her to let the whole thing go. If she didn’t know who Hunter really was, she at least had some idea he wasn’t normal. Maybe the best course was to play this out and see where it took him.
“I should warn you,” Valdis said. “I don’t exactly know where I’m going. At the moment it’s just a hunch.”
“That’ll be enough,” replied Jackie. Then, in a whisper Valdis was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear: “It has to be.”
“Well shit. It’s a good thing I didn’t get my hopes up.” Jackie looked over the wide, empty prairie and sighed. They had driven for two hours through empty, snow-littered fields, finally stopping in the middle of nowhere. It was a hell of a disappointing finale. “I thought there’d at least be some hot chocolate at the end.”
Valdis said nothing, gazing from the side of the road toward a distant, invisible spot. His brow was knit, eyes narrowed behind hilariously large glasses. He kept scanning the field, looking for all the world like a dejected hound dog. Jackie half expected him to howl.
He wasn’t completely wrong, though; there was definitely something here. Tire tracks stood out in the moonlight. By Jackie’s count at least three different sets. It looked like the priest’s “hunch” was correct—Valdis wasn’t the only one interested in this spot.
“Those tire tracks look fresh,” Jackie said. The moonlight burned brightly against the fresh snow, giving the field an eerie glow. She wasn’t sure if Valdis was listening, but the silence was making her jumpy, so she continued, “Probably only missed em’ by an hour or so.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” The priest said quietly. “Even if we had been here an hour ago we wouldn’t have seen anything.”
Thank God. Old Man River is still alive. “I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you,” Jackie said. “There would have been at least two or three cars. Look, you can see the separate tracks. One goes toward the city, and at least two—”
“You said you were a woman of faith, Detective Riese,” Valdis interrupted her.
Jackie’s stomach flipped. She looked away from the priest. “No, not really. I mean, I used to go to church with my family and everything, but I never bought the religious stuff.”
“Not even when you were young?”
“Well…” Jackie twisted the sleeve of her coat, then stopped, realizing what she was doing. She hadn’t done that since she was six. “Okay…yeah, maybe. I guess when I was a kid it all seemed pretty real. I mean that literally, you know? I thought that picture of God you have at the church—the one in the stained-glass?—was actually the man himself. I thou
ght he hung out in that window and watched to make sure we didn’t fall asleep during Mass.”
The priest chuckled, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I don’t imagine you were the first child to believe that. God can appear quite…permanent to the young.”
Jackie nodded. Then said, awkwardly, “Look, I…about the gun. I didn’t mean it. I mean, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but...”
“Nevermind,” Valdis turned from the dark horizon and met Jackie’s eyes. “You’re in it now, regardless. I hope this is what you wanted.”
Jackie, lost in childhood memories, said nothing.
“You’re going to need faith to get through this,” Valdis said. “I have years of research to guide me, and Hunter has himself—which is empirically all the evidence you need—but you, Detective Riese, are going to need every ounce of child-like, God-is-in-the-window faith you can muster.”
Jackie turned from Valdis and examined the empty prairie, pretending to search for more tracks. It had been a long time since she felt comfortable talking about faith.
Valdis, seeming to sense her mood, kept silent and joined Jackie in watching the snowy field. In front of them were miles of open, flat prairie. It was dull, lifeless, the color bleached by snow and moonlight. Empty. The visage should have made Jackie feel calm, serene. It was the kind of image that would have been framed in a doctor’s office. Instead, she just felt tired and frustrated.
“Okay, enough,” she said, after a minute of silence. “Why are we here?”
“You’re the one doing the kidnapping,” the priest replied.
“Yeah, well, I might not have thought that—” But just then Valdis leapt forward, and Jackie’s words halted mid-stream as the little man bent over at the side of the road, his hand buried wrist-deep in the snow. He groped through the powder, his eyes screwed with concentration, then yanked his hand free and grinned. Years seemed to fall off his face. He walked over to Jackie, his fist held before him. Leaning close, she wondered what the priest could have found that would have elicited such excitement.
In his outstretched hand he held an iridescent egg shell.
After that, Jackie was forced to reassess her situation. Where once she had been the kidnapper, it was growing apparent she had become the kidnapped.
Jackie had fired question after question at the small priest as he pointed the decrepit truck at the mountains and drove for the next five hours. He finally began to slow as the sun rose behind them, illuminating the towering mountains with a faint, over-cast dawn. When he hadn’t ignored her questions outright he had given cryptic answers, and after two hours Jackie had given up and allowed Valdis to spend the rest of the trip in silence.
They stayed on paved roads for the initial part of the trip, but after penetrating the first few miles of the Rocky Mountains Valdis turned off the main road with the surety of someone who had driven this path before. He steered the rusted truck through road after dirt road, turning the vehicle down so many off-shoots that Jackie lost her sense of direction entirely. She might be the one holding the gun, but Valdis was no longer the timid thing she had confronted a few hours ago. Now, he drove like a man possessed; whatever that egg fragment had told him must have been profound.
Now, with the overcast sun rising over their shoulders, Jackie looked out on an image straight out of Lord of the Rings—a castle, nestled securely against the back of a tall, soaring mountain, hedged on both sides by rocky outcroppings and looking as hospitable as a maximum-security prison.
Valdis had been driving the last hour on a road that barely deserved the title, stopping every so often to clear debris out of the way, until suddenly and without warning he had hit the brakes and brought the old truck to a sharp stop. Climbing out of the driver side, Valdis had continued on foot, and Jackie had the choice of either staying behind or following. So, holstering the Beretta that was nestled in her lap, she stepped out of the car to join him. Twenty minutes later they found themselves here, the trees giving way suddenly and opening to the incredible view before her.
The castle still lay several miles away, but it was large enough that Jackie could make out each stunning detail. The arching towers and sharp granite features were beautiful, but she didn’t think this place had been designed for aesthetics—it was clearly military in nature. The towers soared upwards, as picturesque as a fairy tale, but the windows were tiny, hardly idle for taking in the view. They would be perfect for a ranged weapon, however. A Remington 700, Jackie thought. Or…a bow.
“Beautiful,” Valdis’ voice creaked. It was the first thing he had said in over two hours
She turned to him, frowning. “Oh, now we’re talking? Great. Nice of you to join me. Maybe, since you’re feeling so chatty, you can tell me what the hell is going on, why you shot your load about a fucking egg, and why I’m staring at the only fucking castle in North-fucking-America?”
Valdis took no notice of her language—at least, not that Jackie could see—and swept his hand at the fortress. “Consider yourself very, very privileged, Detective Riese. You’re witnessing one of the last genuine miracles of the modern world.” The priest lowered his arm and nodded toward the castle. “The stronghold of the Elohim, the chosen of Michael. Only a handful of humans have ever gazed upon it. It is…extremely difficult to find.” Valdis looked down at his right arm, still closed in a fist. Jackie would have bet dollars to donuts he was holding the egg fragment.
She went back to the castle, cocking her head. Chewing over the words in her mind, she picked out the bit about Michael, and experiencing a quick flash of childhood nostalgia, whispered: “The Great Prince?”
Valdis blinked, then nodded. “That is one of her names.”
“Her?”
“What? Only a man can be an angel? Not very progressive, Detective.”
Jackie eyed the priest, wondering if he was messing with her, but Valdis had already turned back to the castle. Jackie followed his gaze and watched as the sun broke through the clouds, casting its first rays on the fortress. She could see why the castle kept claiming the priest’s attention. It was a marvel.
The tall, soaring towers caught the first of the light, and Jackie watched spellbound as the rays ran down the stone, painting the edifice a shimmering gold. The castle seemed to bulge in the light, drinking in the first rays of ultraviolet, expanding until it filled Jackie’s vision.
She gasped, and a small part of her—the angry, confused teenage part that had strangled her childhood faith—faded for a moment. Again, she found herself in the cathedral, staring at the tall, stained-glass-windows, studying the soldered lines as the priest’s words filled her ears with a warm, comforting drone. The hazy morning light of the cathedral shone down through the glass, bathing the pews a soft rainbow hue, and Jackie felt every bit of her young, unblemished soul drink in the peace like a woman dying of thirst.
Jackie reached up and touched her fingers to her cheek. They came back wet. She looked at her fingertips in surprise, trying to remember the last time she had cried, and suddenly the vision disappeared. Dawn had passed, replaced by the fullness of the morning sun. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her shoulders. The sun might be out, but the morning was still bitterly cold.
“So,” Jackie said. “Are we going inside?”
Valdis gave her a puzzled look. “Of course,” he said. “But first we have to figure out how to break in.”
An hour later they were headed back to civilization. Jackie prayed silently that they would make it in one piece. Valdis had an…energetic way of driving.
“So, Lucifer failed?” Jackie asked, trying to process the story Valdis had relayed over the last half-hour.
“So it appears. Unless humanity managed to storm the gates of Heaven and we’re just blind to Paradise.” Valdis patted the steering wheel of the decrepit old truck affectionately. “What bliss.”
Jackie’s eyes narrowed. The priest gave a hesitant smile. “That was a joke,” he said.
&n
bsp; “Hilarious. So what’s the story with the castle, then? The ‘stronghold of the Elohim?’ The place is filled with—what? Wannabe angels?”
“Apkallu. They’re closer to a half-angel,” Valdis pulled his eyes from the road for a moment, and fixed Jackie with a friendly, I’m-not-crazy-at-all smile.
“Right. And they have Friskin?”
Valdis nodded, turning back to the road, his hands tightening on the wheel as they took a particularly sharp turn at a speed that would have given a Park Ranger apoplexy.
Who cares about angels? The way this guy is driving we’ll be greeting Saint Peter before lunchtime. Jackie tried not to look at the twisting, back-mountain roads, and asked, “You think they’re going to kill him?”
Valdis nodded again, his eyes tightening.
“And that’s because…?”
“Because of the Grigori, I suppose,” Valdis said.
“Look, if you’re trying to drive me crazy because I pointed a gun at you, I get it. I’m sorry, okay?”
Valdis laughed. “You think I was concerned about your firearm? Detective, you strike an imposing figure when you’re aiming a weapon at someone, but I’m well aware of your background—you would never harm a priest.”
Jackie squirmed in her seat, hoping the priest wouldn’t choose to elaborate.
“Besides, I recognized the look on your face when you took me prisoner. I’ve seen it too many times when I look in the mirror. You’re obsessed, Detective.”
“The fuck I am.”
Valdis shrugged. “It doesn’t make much difference; you’re here regardless of what you may or may not think about your mental state. I may not be the most spiritual of my brothers—I’ve been accused of “paper faith” on more than one occasion—but even I am forced to admit there are larger forces at work here.”
Jackie didn’t answer right away. She didn’t believe in destiny. But something had driven her to this point, something had forced her to go against all her training, her years of experience, to follow this white rabbit until she found herself arguing angels in a broken-down four-wheeler in the ass-end of nowhere with a lunatic priest.