by Greg Curtis
“Now some of you are speaking of retribution. Of causing harm to Armando Benedict even when he is not causing harm to them.”
Sadly that didn't come as a complete surprise to Garrick. He was sure people were saying those sorts of things. It was human nature. But saying things like that and actually doing them were two completely different things. Besides, while Benedict wasn't causing harm to them just then, they all knew that he would if and when he got the chance.
“It’s just talk,” Garrick told her, hoping he was right. “They’re angry right now. No one will do anything.”
He hoped. Because the Choir would go ballistic if they tried. There would be consequences and while he might not know what those consequences would be he knew that they wouldn't be anything as minor as a sore leg. He also knew that the Choir would not let it slide. But at the same time he understood the anger that his people felt for the man. He shared it. Two of their number were dead. Murdered. One was a child. And Benedict was directly responsible. He had sent armed men to the academy. He had expected them to shoot. But of course the angel didn't understand that. She understood only the rules.
“No they will not. Because you will be there to see to it that they do not.”
“Pardon?” Garrick's blood chilled a little when she said that. He didn't quite know what she was saying but he knew it would be bad.
“It has been decided. Other hunters will continue the hunting of Armando Benedict. They will be watched scrupulously as they do so. But you will return to Olmstead where you will watch over your brothers and sisters until this anger has passed.”
And how was he supposed to do that Garrick wondered? He didn't ask the question though as he knew he wouldn't get an answer. Instead, after a little reflection he asked the question that actually mattered.
“For how long?” He knew that was key – for him anyway. Cassie was an angel. She didn't consider human things like time. They probably didn't mean much to her. She could mean the rest of his life, and that would seem nothing more than completely reasonable to her.
“For as long as is needed. You will assist the sheriff in maintaining order. You will calm the children. And when time permits you will find other missing children. There will be no more of this indulging of your childish fancies as a government agent. You are old enough that you can make a proper decision. You can choose to use your gift for what it was intended. To help the lost. But you refuse to do so. And if you will not so decide then the decision will be made for you.”
Garrick sat there stunned, the pain of his wounds forgotten. She was talking about the end of his career as an FBI agent. And she wasn't making a suggestion.
“That's –.”
“Enough child! The decision has been made.”
With that she was gone and Garrick was left there, shocked and horrified and wondering what to do. But even as he wondered – as he felt the urge to scream and yell about the unfairness of it all – he knew there was no point. There was nothing he could do. Cassie had spoken. The Choir had spoken. And all the yelling and screaming in the world would make no difference. If he objected his objections would be ignored. If he tried to resist his resistance would be overcome. If he tried to run away he would be returned to his post. And if he refused to do as he was told he would be punished as any other disobedient child.
The others were silent, either because they didn't know what to say, or because they didn't know what to think. This wasn't the sort of thing that was done to grown men. But he wasn't a man – not to the Choir. He was a nephilim. And the old rule he had so long ago told to Katarinka applied to him as well. He was nephilim. He was screwed.
“Come on. Let's get out of here.”
He didn't know how long it had been since he or anyone else in the room had said anything. But he knew it was time to say something. To do something. To do anything but sit there and think about what had just happened. And to do it before one of the others spoke, because both of them were looking as though they wanted to say something.
And the one thing he knew just then was that he didn't want to talk about it.
But even getting out of the hospital proved more difficult than he'd expected. He discovered that when they reached the front doors to see a ring of press standing outside with their cameras ready. Obviously someone on the staff had told them where he was. And there was nothing he could do except try to force his way through them to get to the car.
For a day that had started out so well this had turned out to be a very bad one.
Chapter Twenty Three
Garrick sat in the front of the empty classroom with his eyes closed and wished the day would come to an end. But it wouldn't. There was still a very long way to go. The kids at least had left, but more would come to replace them in due course.
It was strange being in a classroom again. Stranger still having been up the front of it while the students sat in their seats in front of him and waited to hear words of wisdom fall from his lips. And strangest of all had been his having to talk to them about the law.
Not human law but divine. The stuff he wasn't trained to teach. And the stuff he didn't really believe in or even understand. But it wasn't a choice. Cassie had insisted he get a handle on the anger problem and this was the best way he could find to deal with it. To get the anger out in the open and then explain why they could never act on it.
But four classes down on day one and four more to go, and he didn't think he was getting anywhere with them. Of course, it didn’t help that he wasn't getting anywhere with himself either. The simple truth was that he didn't want to understand. He didn't know why the Choir demanded what they did of his people. All he really knew was that nephilim were forced to obey their rules. Garrick included.
It was wrong. He was an FBI agent not a grief counsellor – which was what much of the day had ended up being about. But still, it had to be done and he was the one chosen to do it. And strangely it seemed to be going a little better than he'd expected. Not well – there had never been any chance of that – but better. One class after another was turning out to be more understanding than he'd expected. He doubted it was due to his teaching. And probably not to do with what he was telling them either. Mostly, he suspected it was about the fact that he was providing an ear for them to pour their emotions into.
There was of course grief, although less so in the later classes. He had deliberately started with the classes that were closest to the pair who had died. If there was going to be anger anywhere he figured it was going to be among them.
As expected, among the later students the grief was less than before. But the anger was still there; very real and very strong. And of course the anger was based on fear. Armed gun men had come to the school. There had been a shooting in the middle of the night. And the students had been frightened. More than frightened, they had been truly terrified. Some of them had been hurt as well. There might only be two dead, but nearly a dozen had taken injuries. And as if to add salt to their wounds, the police were still around, taking samples, interviewing people, and generally making life difficult as they had to hide their gifts. The entire school was still a major crime scene.
So of course the students were upset. It was only to be expected, and it had to be handled with care. But then came the hard part. Explaining to them the Choir's law. A law he himself didn't understand – just obeyed like everyone else.
He could explain federal law and state law to them. He could even explain the concept of justice and how it differed from vengeance. He could tell them why you needed a justice system in order for society to function. On that he actually agreed with the Choir. It was just that the Choir had a very different standard of justice to human beings. An inhuman one.
Of course even explaining normal law to teenagers was difficult. Many believed in an eye for an eye, and the argument that in any place where that actually happened would result in everyone going blind didn’t go down well. But then they'd probably seen any number of films where
the good guy killed the bad guy and everyone lived happily ever after. Actual films where you got to see the grieving relatives of the dead convicts were few and far between. The chances were that they didn't get good ratings.
Still, he could tell them what he knew and hope that they understood. But explaining the law as set down by the Choir. Now that was a whole new ball game.
Everyone knew the rules of course. These were thirteen and fourteen year olds. They'd probably been told the rules from before they could ride a bike. They'd had at least ten years of living with them after all. But knowing them was one thing. Understanding why the Choir insisted on those laws was something else entirely. Especially given that the rules weren’t based purely on self protection and/or hiding what they were from the world. So he wasn't surprised when they kept asking him why. He was more surprised that the kids didn't ask him if he was stark raving mad. His explanations were terrible.
They came down to one of two things as far as he could tell. The first answer was always about power. The Choir had so much power that they had to have incredibly strict laws to make sure that they didn't harm people. And they applied the same laws to their children because they too had certain powers.
That explanation had never sat well with him. Not when it meant letting people be harmed by other people. It wasn't about power in his view. That was about cowardice. Particularly as often it seemed to cede moral responsibility to a rule book. Sometimes it was just plain wrong. And besides, the nephilim weren't that powerful. Most of their abilities were minor.
That though was better than the other explanation the Choir gave for their rules. That the nephilim must never be revealed as that would in turn reveal the Choir and take away the need for faith. And he had to admit they could be right. That might well happen.
But that had never sat well with him either. Not when the end result of that thinking meant that the nephilim couldn't defend themselves using their gifts against people trying to harm them. And especially when there was no other way. Did it really matter that much if people knew? Did it matter more than the life of a child?
In the end he figured, and he suspected many others did as well, it all came down to one simple question. Who the hell knew what an angel was? Other than that they had been put on the Earth simply to annoy the hell out of the nephilim that was.
Unfortunately, all he could tell each class was what he knew they weren't. That they weren't human. That they simply didn't see the world the same way people did.
And why should they? Given what they knew and where they came from, how could they possibly see the world the way normal people did?
But as an answer that didn't help them. It didn't help anyone. All it left him with was the stunningly useless explanation that the nephilim had to do what the Choir said for reasons they could never truly understand. It satisfied nobody, least of all him, and yet it was as close to the truth as he could come. Saying that to a bunch of upset kids seemed like a crime.
These kids had suffered. They had been scared and hurt. Terrified in a way that no children should ever be. Some of them had lost people they cared about. To simply tell them that they had to put all of that aside and do what they were told was wrong. It was almost abuse. But sadly it was what was expected. And if they didn't believe him they could believe their friends. Those who had used their gifts to harm the attackers even in self defence had all been punished. Even the kids. The Choir had not shirked what they thought of as their responsibility.
“So this is what American teachers look like these days.”
Garrick opened his eyes to see Maricia standing in the doorway, a wry smile on her face. She had a point he thought. Because he wasn't exactly dressed like a teacher. But then he couldn't dress like one. To accommodate his cast the only pants he could wear were jeans that were half a dozen sizes too large for him, and which he belted tightly to keep them up. He looked a little like a balloon someone had squeezed in the middle. He had topped it with a sweat shirt because most of his wardrobe was still back in his home in New York. He'd packed light to come to Olmstead – mostly just what he'd been living in as he moved from motel to motel. The press were still camped out on his doorstep so returning to his home had seemed like a bad idea. Unfortunately most of what he had was casual wear and stuff for the gym. It wasn't suitable for the classroom.
“I'm not a teacher.”
“No, but you're not a G man either. Not any more. And you don't seem to be fitting in to the role of sheriff's deputy either.”
He was very grateful for the last. Cassie had told him he could no longer be an agent, but she hadn't said that he had to become a deputy. And that was a job he absolutely didn't want. Especially not at the moment. The sheriff and his people were busy. Not just trying to keep the locals and the state police apart. But trying to keep the peace. There were a lot of very angry people in the town. There had been a lot of fights, and too much drinking. And there had been the occasional misuse of powers as well. All of which meant they were busy. Very busy. Teaching was an easy gig compared to that.
On the other hand if he had taken a job with them he could have got a weapon back. Maybe another Sig. As it was he was stuck with his back up piece and there was no gun shop in town. Meanwhile the sheriff had promised he would drag one out of the collections bin and issue it when he could, but he was far too busy to spend time on a minor matter like that. Besides, he had no idea what sort of weapons the station had. Probably only a few ancient handguns pulled off minor criminals during traffic stops in the region.
“Don't rub it in.”
Even five days later he was still hurting from what Cassie had done to him. Hurting badly. All his life he'd wanted nothing more than to be an agent with the FBI and hunt down criminals. And for ten wonderful years he had done just that. He had lived his dream. Now it was being taken away from him. And on a whim as far as he could tell.
But there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Cassie had turned up once when he'd called – but only long enough to tell him that her order stood. His career was over. Though of course she didn't see it that way. To her he was finally going to do what he was meant to do. Everything else had just been childishness. Whimsy. Since then he had had no answer from her when she'd called, and once another angel named Darious had turned up instead to tell him the same thing. Garrick had no idea how the Choir ranked themselves, but one thing he was certain of. Darious was a higher order angel. The meeting had been intimidating.
“I'm not rubbing it in. But it's been five days. Time enough to get out of this funk and start living again. You took a punch, roll with it!”
Garrick stared at her for a moment, wondering where this was coming from. He might be a little down, but he didn't think he'd been excessively morose. “You know, as pep talks go I'd have to say I've heard better.”
“I'm sure you have. This isn't a pep talk.” She put her hands on her hips and stared at him like a concerned mother. “Now on your feet, you have visitors.”
“Visitors? Please don't tell me it's the press!”
They were relentless lately. Ever since the shooting in the police station had been made public, and of course since the interview tape had mysteriously made its way on to the internet, as he'd guessed it would, he had been the top news story in the country. There wasn't a night that went by when he didn't get to look at himself bandaged up like a mummy, trying to force his way through their ranks. Late night comedy shows were laughing at him – in fact the standing joke was that as an agent he'd had extensive target practice training. Because of them he couldn't even go home to pick up some fresh clothes. Not when they were camped outside his front door. The only thing keeping them from hounding him to death was that they didn't know where he was. He hoped.
“It's not. It's the deputy director of the FBI.”
“Oh crap!”
That was not good. The deputy director was an important man. He didn't do home visits to agents unless something was really wrong. And all
Garrick could think was that something was really wrong. Maybe the constant media attacks on him had embarrassed the Bureau to the point where they needed to dismiss him? In which case Cassie's work was already done without her even needing to raise a finger.
Worried, Garrick got up and followed her out of the classroom and across the concourse leading to the principal's office. At least he had dispensed with the crutches and was able to keep up with her these days. Though he still needed the knitting needles.
Of course even if he no longer needed crutches, others did. The principal in particular. She had shot two men, or rather used her gift to get one man to shoot another and then himself. And the Choir had taken a dim view of that. Now she was hobbling on both legs and in a lot of pain, and Garrick had the horrible feeling she would be being taught her lesson for a long time to come.