by S. J. West
Kindred
The Watcher Chronicles
Book 2
By
S.J. West
©2013 S.J. West. All Rights Reserved
Chapter 1
As I stare speechlessly at my father standing on my porch, I feel like the world has become a surreal place where my greatest wish is colliding with my worst nightmare. The familiar golden glow of his aura surrounds him like a halo of warmth, and I instantly feel like a child again yearning to be comforted by the love only a father can give to their daughter.
My dad stands with his hands clenched at his sides staring at me with an uncertain look on his face like he isn't sure if I'm going to hit him or hug him.
I propel myself into his arms not caring in that moment where he's been the last fifteen years just thankful that he's with me now when I need him the most. My heart feels like a battleground trying to survive dueling emotions: the joy I feel being in my father's arms versus the utter devastation I feel from Mason's departure from my life. Just as I've lost one man I love, I regain another.
My dad holds me so tight I feel as though he never intends to let me go and that suits me just fine. I'm not sure how long we stand there just holding each other, thankful our exile from one another is finally over. Eventually, I force myself to pull away because more than anything else I want to see if his eyes still hold the kindness and love I remember as a child.
His gleaming hazel eyes tell me everything. He’s missed me. He loves me. And he wants to help me. As I look at him, I’m amazed to find that time hasn’t touched him. He's even dressed in the same black coat and grey scarf he wore the night the Tear first appeared, like he's been preserved in a capsule for the last fifteen years. His wavy brown hair is neatly combed and a day's growth of hair covers the lower portion of his face. My father isn't classically handsome. I suppose to some he appears rather normal looking but he's always been the standard by which I've judged all other men. To me, he's still the most handsome man I know.
"Where have you been?" I ask, a question which is long overdue for an answer.
"Why don't we go inside," he suggests. "I'll answer all of your questions but we should probably talk about what’s made you so upset first."
I take my dad by the hand and lead him inside my home. Once we reach the living room, I sit down on the couch and reluctantly let his hand go so he can take his coat and scarf off. He sits down beside me and reaches for one of my hands again, seeming to need the close contact as much as I do.
"Now," he says, looking me in the eyes, "why were you so upset when you answered the door. It looked like you were expecting someone in particular to be there."
With the reminder of Mason's goodbye to me, a fresh set of warm tears blur my vision. My dad pulls me to him and I rest my head on his shoulder like I used to when I was a child needing his comfort and strength.
"The man I love left me," I say.
"Why?"
"Because he's a noble idiot."
My father chuckles quietly. "Well, he left you. So I know he's an idiot,” he agrees wholeheartedly, “but why do you say noble?"
I pull away from my father and ask, "How much of my life do you know about?"
I watch as his eyebrows knit together. "I know almost everything, Jessi,” he says and I can tell by his expression that he didn’t like all that he saw. “I was shown before I came so I can help you work through things."
"Shown?"
"God showed me what you've been through between the time I left up until you and Chandler killed Baruch tonight. So, I take it Mason left you because he didn't want you to be placed in danger because of him?"
I nod.
"You understand it's not you he left, right?"
I shake my head, listening intently for my father's wisdom.
"Jessi, he loves you enough to leave you so his enemies can't use you or hurt the other people in your life who you love. If anything, that should show you how much he truly does care about you. I've watched the two of you together and there were times when you weren't looking that he allowed himself to look at you with so much love I knew he would never hurt you."
"But he has hurt me."
"He loves you. And you love him, right?"
I nod.
"I didn't make you to be someone who stands on the sidelines and watches things happen. I made you to be a fighter, someone who doesn't let anything stand in her way when she knows what needs to be done. Fight for him, Jessi. If you truly do love him, make him see that leaving you isn't the answer. If there is anyone in this world who can make him stop using his guilt as a shield to hide behind, it's you."
"But what if he's right?" I ask. "What if I'm being selfish by placing our relationship ahead of the safety of the other people in my life?"
"You're making your own enemies," my father tells me, his tone ominous. "If anything, the two of you need to stay by each others side because you're stronger together than you are apart."
"Don't suppose you could talk to him for me?" I ask, not really thinking my dad will, but silently hoping.
My father shakes his head. "No, that's a talk you need to have with him personally. I don’t think Mason will listen to anyone but you."
I take in a deep breath because I know he's right. I feel a new determination to make Mason see how his plan does nothing but hurt us both.
"Now that that's settled," my dad says. "I should answer your question about where I've been."
I feel myself holding my breath awaiting his answer.
"I've been in Heaven since the Tear first opened."
I feel my face scrunch up in confusion. Had Nick been right in his first assessment of my dad?
"Are you a ghost?" I ask.
My dad smiles like what I've said is funny. "No, I'm not even human, Jessi."
Now I'm really confused.
"What are you?" I ask, realizing I'm asking him the same question Mason asked me when we first met. Am I about to learn the answer to that very important question?
My dad sighs heavily like the answer will be a long one.
"First off, I want you to know I love you very much."
I sit up straight and stare at my dad. "You're scaring me," I tell him. "I feel like you're preparing to tell me something I'm not going to like hearing."
My dad smiles. "Still a smart cookie I see."
"Are you about to tell me something bad?"
"No, I don't think so, just unexpected." He tightens his hold on my hand and his eyes wander down to look at our joined hands. His eyes focus on the arm with the cast.
“I forgot about your wrist," he says, taking my injured wrist in both his hands.
The natural golden glow which surrounds him suddenly grows brighter around his hands. I feel a warm tingly sensation surround my broken wrist and the pain there slowly ebbs away. I hear my cast crack and realize my dad has just broken it in half down the middle. He pulls the cast off my arm and sets it on the coffee table.
"Try moving it," he suggests.
I lift my hand up and down testing my wrist's ability to perform the simple action. I have free movement and no pain.
"How did you heal me?" I ask.
"It's because of the special connection we share," he says, taking both my hands into his again, “and because of what I am.”
"Which is?" I ask cautiously, bracing myself for the answer.
"I'm a Guardian from the Treasury of Souls, the Guf. I believe Michael told you about the Guf when you first talked to one another."
"Yes, he told me about going there to find volunteers to meld with the archangel souls. But, you being an angel doesn't make any sense. I don't have any angel DNA. Allan and Angela teste
d me when I first joined Mason's group."
"No, you don't have any angel DNA, Jessi."
I stare at my dad waiting for him to explain further but he doesn't. He looks at me expectantly like he’s waiting for the information to sink in so I can form my own conclusion.
"You're not my real father, are you?" I finally say, the realization of what my dad isn’t saying finally unfolding in my mind.
"I'm not your biological father but I did help create you."
I feel totally confused and upset by what he's trying to tell me, but apparently I don't have to tell him that because he continues to explain.
"The Guardians of the Guf are charged with making new souls. Every once in a while God will ask us to make a special soul for a particular purpose. He came to a hundred of us and asked us to mold the most perfect souls we could. Out of those hundred souls, seven of you volunteered to meld with the archangels' souls. But, your soul was a special case."
"What do you mean?"
"God allowed me to do something with your soul no other Guardian had been allowed to do before then or since. I was asked to infuse your soul with part of my own. He didn't tell me at the time why I needed to create a soul like yours. But, I've come to my own conclusion about that. I think he knew your soul needed to be strong enough to endure everything you've had to deal with so far in your life and one that can stand up to Lucifer and do what needs to be done to defeat him. So, I may not be the father who gave you half your chromosomes to make your physical body but you do have part of my soul inside you."
"So where is my biological father?"
"He died years ago, before you were even born."
"How?"
My dad, at least that's the way I still think of him even with the information he's just given me, shifts nervously where he sits.
"Your father and mother were troubled teenagers, Jessi. When your mom met your dad, she was just coming out of the foster care system, still a kid really, and he was the son of a wealthy man who gave her anything she wanted. They each had demons to work through and them being together was just an accident waiting to happen. Your father was a drug user and your mother found it to be a good way to run away from her past. He ended up dying from an overdose leaving your mother pregnant with you and basically by herself. That's when I was sent to her."
"Sent to her?"
"I was allowed to help your mother, give her a descent life while she was pregnant with you. Those years with your mom and you are still the happiest of my life. I wanted to stay with you but knew that was just me being selfish."
"Selfish?” I ask, not understanding. “If you wanted to stay with me, why didn't you?"
"That's a complicated answer," my dad says. "First, you should know that even before your and Michael's souls melded in the Guf, God came there to have a talk with you."
I’m brought up short by this revelation. "What did we have to talk about?"
"I don't know the specifics, but I do know he warned you what would happen when the Tear appeared because he told me that part too."
"So you always knew you would be going back to Heaven that night?"
"Yes."
"Did you know he would take my mother too?"
"Yes."
I pull my hands out of my father's grasp because I suddenly feel the sting of betrayal.
"How could you do that to me?" I ask, not hiding my growing resentment. "How could the two of you just agree to abandon me like that?"
My father looks hurt by my choice of words, but how else am I supposed to see it?
"It was something you agreed to let happen, Jessi," my dad says, not using the information as an excuse, just stating fact. "There wasn't anything I could do to change the path your life was supposed to take. We had to leave in order for you to become obsessed with finding us. That night was the catalyst for everything that followed and what brought you to this point in your life. If we hadn't, you would have never joined the Watcher Agency. It's something that had to happen in order to set you on the correct path."
My destiny.
My destiny could take a flying leap over a high cliff for all I cared.
"Where is she? Where is my mother?" I demand.
"I don't know."
"You don't know or you're just not allowed to say?" I ask, letting my irritation show.
"I swear to you, Jessi. I don't know. If I did, I would tell you whether I was allowed to or not."
"Do you know what happened to her? Do you know anything?"
"The only thing I was told was that she would be given another life."
"Did she agree to leave me or was she just taken away?"
I see my Dad's jaw tense like he doesn't want to say his next words. "She agreed to go."
I close my eyes and feel the ache of my heart burn inside my chest as the realization of my abandonment hits home. Lucifer had it right all along. My parents did abandon me. My father may not have had a choice because of God’s involvement but my mother willingly left.
"So she agreed to leave me," I say, letting the words hang in the air as my tears fall freely.
"Your mother had a hard life," my dad says. "I can't tell you why she agreed to leave because she never told me. I asked her once but she refused to say. But during the time I was allowed to stay with you both, I got the feeling she didn't feel like she could be a good enough mother to you because of her past. That's why she chose Mama Lynn to be your mother."
I open my eyes and stare at my dad.
"What do you mean she chose Mama Lynn?"
"God came to her and showed her a few people he knew would become foster parents to the Tear children. As soon as your mother met Mama Lynn, she knew you would have a good mother to raise you. Your mom had a hard life growing up. It was important to her for you to have someone you could rely on. I don’t think she ever felt like she was strong enough to raise someone who would end up saving the world one day."
"Why does it seem like the people who supposedly love me never want to stay with me? Why do they keep leaving me because they think it's the best thing for me when it's the complete opposite?"
"People are complicated, Jessi. We all do the best we can but that doesn't mean we don't make mistakes. But you should never doubt that your mother loved you. She just wanted you to have a better life than she did. She didn't feel like she could raise you the way you deserved to be."
I stand up and start to pace out my agitation in front of the unlit fireplace.
"It's just like Mason," I say. "He left to protect me. Mom left because she didn't think she could be a good enough mother to me. You left because you wanted me to reach my destiny. Who's going to be next? Mama Lynn? Faison?"
My dad remains silent, letting me work through the information he's just given me on my own because it's the only way I'll ever come to terms with it.
I stop pacing and turn to face my dad. "So why are you here now? Why did He let you come back?"
"Because you're set on the path to your destiny and He felt you needed my comfort tonight. Let me help you," my dad begs. “I love you, Jessi.”
I feel my agitation and anger fade away as I look at the earnest expression on my dad’s face. I do need him tonight. Of all the nights in my life, this is the one when only the comfort of my father will help heal my heart. I walk back to the couch and let him fold me back into his arms.
"How long can you stay?" I ask.
"Until you fall asleep."
"What if I stay awake forever?"
He chuckles and I know he's pleased with my suggestion. "Don't worry, Jessi. You can call me to come to you anytime you want."
"How?"
"All you have to do is say my angel name when you need me."
I pull away and look into his kind hazel eyes. "What's your angel name?"
"Zeruel. If you need me, just close your eyes, picture my face in your mind and say my name out loud. I'll hear you."
"You promise you'll come?" I ask, my voice sounding like that of
a child.
"I promise, Jessi. I'll come."
I sit there silently, enjoying the warmth emanating from my dad.
"Were you the only Guardian allowed to come to Earth?" I ask.
"No, the seven of us who made the vessel souls were allowed to stay with each of you for the first seven years of your life. After that time, we were ordered to return to Heaven. We all did except for one of us. We just assumed God sent Remiel on another mission somewhere else. The seven of us were responsible for hiding your crowns so you could find them when the time was right."
I pull away from my dad and ask, "Do you know where the other crowns are?"
"No, I was only in charge of the one you were supposed to find. None of us told the others where the crowns were hidden. It was against the rules."
"What about the talismans? Do you know what Chandler's is supposed to be and where it is?"
My dad shakes his head. "No, I'm sorry. I don't know. But you'll figure it out."
I lay my head on my dad's chest, smiling faintly when he tightens his arms around me.
The slow beating of his heart lulls my troubled mind and his warmth relaxes my body to a point where sleep is inevitable.
I find myself once again in my father's study. Michael is standing by the only window in the room with the sun shining through the sheer curtains behind him giving him an ethereal glow.
"I wasn't sure you were going to speak to me again," he says.
"Me either," I admit.
"Have you forgiven me yet?"
"There was never anything to forgive." I sigh. "Apparently my soul knew what it was asking for. It wasn't your fault."
"I'm glad to see Zeruel was allowed to come back when you needed him."
"Me too."
There's an awkward silence between us now that I know the truth of things.
"I can come to you now," he tells me.
"What do you mean?"
"The neural connections I told you about have been made. If you want to see me when you're awake, just think about me and if I need to tell you something, I can come to you too."
"Will I be the only one who can see you?"
"Yes," a lopsided grin appears on Michael's face. "I'm still inside your head, not physically real."