The Veritas Guild

by Spring Horton

  “As I’m sure you know,” Raziel was saying, “this area is strictly off limits to those who don’t work here or haven’t been invited in. Most of the secrets of the Conclave are kept in this room.”

  “The Conclave?” she repeated in a whisper. “I’ve never even met the Conclave.”

  Raziel stopped and looked her over. “Almost no one has.” With that, the angel turned and walked on, nodding here and there at different parts of the room. “Case files are kept in the first reading room. The other two act more like mine and Jack’s offices, though you’re free to use them as well.”

  “As long as you don’t touch anything without permission,” Jack pointed out, seeming to materialise out of nowhere.

  Katha nodded at the campy, yet incredibly well-dressed man. Then her eyes slid over toward Raziel’s back, noticing that the angel had their hands clasped firmly there. She took in the dark curls, and hint of sadness in the corner of their eyes. She couldn’t imagine what in the world an angel had to be sad about. Then, it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what Jack’s species was. She was about to ask, when it dawned on her that it might not be polite. It wasn’t as if he’d offered, only introduced himself as Jack Dynos.

  Eventually, as the tour wound down, Katha took a deep breath, steadying her nerves, and said, “This is all very wonderful, but what exactly do we do here?”

  Chapter Two

  Raziel and Jack turned to her, flabbergasted at just how sheltered in Asgard she must have been. Before they could say anything, though, someone else answered for them.

  “We’re the last line of defense, sweetheart.”

  The three of them looked over as the outer door closed, and another man came walking through to the inner library. At least, he looked like a man; Katha was quickly learning not to assume. She gave Raziel and Jack a quizzical look but Raziel wasn’t paying attention. They were watching the new guy with what looked to be a mixture of trepidation and relief.

  “Who’s that?”

  “That, my dear, is David Talbot, formerly the rookie around here,” Jack replied.

  Katha looked back at the man, who was shorter than the others, and thinner, much thinner. There seemed to be something different about him, like something was missing, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She shook her head and filed it away as something to think about later.

  “What does he mean, the last line of defense? I mean, I know the Veritas Guild is where we...”

  “Supernatural beings,” David interjected.

  “Yes...where we oversee the ethereal world. We watch our own, make sure humans are relatively unaware of our presence...am I right?”

  Jack looked over at Raziel, and then gave the angel’s arm a gentle slap. Then he nodded down at Katha.

  “Oh, right, yes,” Raziel said, clearing their throat. “The Veritas Guild was created millennia ago by the Roman goddess of truth...”

  “Veritas,” Katha interrupted. “I know this part. But...what am I here for? What does the Investigations wing do?”

  Raziel watched as David came closer, looking the new girl over a bit too overtly for the angel’s tastes. A bit of blush came to their cheeks, and Raziel said, “It’s pretty much as the name on the door says.”

  “We investigate the mysteries of the universe,” David said, making it sound like the most exciting thing ever. He pushed back a strand of blond hair and smiled down at Katha, who smiled back.

  Jack and Raziel let out simultaneous sighs. “Actually, that’s a completely different branch of the Guild. No, Miss Katha, welcome to the Spectres.”

  “The Spectris,” Jack corrected.

  “Spectris?”

  “We’re not the most popular of wings,” Raziel explained. “You see, we investigate our own...crimes against ethereal beings, crimes against humans...”

  “Crime in general,” David finished for the angel.

  At this point, Raziel was getting very tired of their sentences being finished for them. They glared over at David, who at least had the decency to look a fraction afraid, though Raziel knew he probably wasn’t. They’d known each other a very long time, and the angel hadn’t smote anyone yet, at least not in his presence. Raziel tried to keep the regret out of their eyes and glanced back toward Katha.

  “Most of the other Guild members don’t trust us because we have dominion over all of them.”

  “So, we can investigate anyone?” she asked.

  “Just about, as long as it’s warranted,” Raziel answered.

  Katha grinned up at the angel. “Wow, I had no idea I’d been chosen for such an important job.”

  Raziel smiled back, a sincere, toothy grin. For the first time in a long time, they had no desire to check it though. The angel decided that they were going to like this young Valkyrie and nodded. “You won’t be popular.”

  “Who cares? We’ll be helping people, and we have each other, right?”

  Raziel’s smile faltered in confusion at Katha’s enthusiasm and quick acceptance of the rag tag group she’d only just met. The angel glanced at the others to see similar looks on their faces.

  “Uh, right,” David said first, putting a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder. “We’re glad to have you.”

  “So, Spectres because...we haunt the place?” Katha asked.

  “Right,” David answered. “And because people are afraid we might come after them.”

  Katha’s eyebrows raised, but she nodded, as if alright with the disparaging moniker.

  Raziel left Jack and David to give Katha the rest of the tour and retired to their office. Technically, Jack was the oldest member of the team, though very few knew just how old he truly was, and normally, this would put him in a position of seniority. However, since Raziel had been there since the beginning of the Guild, they were in charge of the Investigative wing. This suited Jack, who was much more interested in the investigations than the paperwork, and in getting off work earlier. Raziel sighed as they sat down at the ancient wooden desk and went over notes from recent cases. The angel put on reading glasses, just for show, and flipped through a file on a case very similar to Jack the Ripper’s back in Victorian London. It had been mostly solved except for one victim that fit the profile but had never been found.

  The Guild was equipped with all of the latest technology, and a quick tour of the third reading room where David did most of his work, would find quite a lot of it, but Raziel was old-fashioned. The oldest of old-fashioned. They kept an ink and quill on their desk but had given in to ball point pens a few years back, simply because it was quicker and could be carried around. The angel had yet to touch a computer, and when one had to be dealt with, they simply miracled the information out of it.

  After a while, they heard a bit of laughter through the open door and looked up to see David walking by with Katha. Raziel took off the glasses and closed their eyes. After taking a deep breath, they opened them again, and watched the two young people. Well, that’s the perception they gave anyway. Apparently, Katha was truly young, something Raziel found astonishing. The angel had never met anyone that wasn’t human that was truly young. David, of course, only looked that way, at least, it was only his body that was young.

  As per usual, Raziel had no idea what Jack was doing, but the angel hoped it was at least something useful. They glanced around the office with a sigh, looking the ancient books and artefacts over. Raziel turned their head toward a stained glass window in the back corner of the room. It was of the founder of the Guild, the goddess Veritas, along with a myriad of ethereal symbols. As they turned their head back to the papers on the desk, light shown through the window, causing a rainbow of colours to splash on the files.

  “Do you remember that case we had last month?” Jack asked from the doorway, startling Raziel out of their reverie.

  “Which one?” they asked.

  “The one with the vampires in Soho.”

  Raziel smirked. “Isn’t that your department?”

 
; “Very funny,” Jack sassed back. “Help me find a find a book, will you? I have a hunch.”

  “Fine,” Raziel grumbled, as if they had something much more important to do.

  After what seemed like an eternity helping Jack find a specific book about vampires that he couldn’t remember the name of, or of the author or year it was written, Raziel headed back to the office. The library had grown quiet, and they thought maybe, that David and Katha had gone to lunch, or maybe even dinner, from the look of the light coming through the windows. The angel wasn’t a hundred percent certain about Katha, but David was the only one among the rest of them that actually had to take in nourishment. Raziel’s footsteps echoed in the large, open room, causing tiny particles of dust to float up toward the ceiling. They parted as the angel walked through them, as if somehow sensing their holiness. Time seemed to slow in these moments alone, and Raziel felt peace descend, until they rounded the corner of one of the bookshelves and saw that their office wasn’t empty.

  Katha stood at the desk, eagerly devouring the contents of a stack of files. Raziel felt a twinge of possessiveness and stepped closer to see which files the young Valkyrie was looking at. The angel’s eyes widened and they quickly stepped in and snatched up the files.

  “This is fascinating,” Katha exclaimed, oblivious to Raziel’s distress.

  “What are you doing in here?” the angel demanded.

  Katha’s expression finally changed to one of confusion, her eyes searching the older being’s face. “You said I was free to use the offices.”

  “We also said to not touch anything without permission.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just...well, David was showing me some of the other case files, so I thought...”

  “These aren’t case files,” Raziel cut in, and then grabbed up the papers from the file she’d been going through. “These are my private files.”

  “I didn’t realise. It looked like another case, a really interesting one.”

  Raziel sighed, salt and pepper curls falling into their face. The angel brushed them back and then said, “Well, it’s not. Nothing to concern yourself with.”

  Katha frowned again. “If you’re trying to find something you should let me help. I’m really good at finding things.”

  “Young lady, what I’ve been looking for has been missing for thousands of years.”

  Katha shrugged. “Another set of eyes is all I’m saying.”

  Raziel’s mouth opened. No one aside from Jack had ever had the power to exasperate them this much. Finally, the angel simply shook their head, and was about to usher the young woman out when Jack and David stepped in.

  “Look, there’s nothing going on here, why don’t we cut out early?” Jack suggested, a hopeful, mischievous look on his face.

  “Dinner at the pub?” David added. “We can grab some pub grub.

  Raziel made a slightly disgusted face and shook their head. “We cannot subject Miss Katha to ‘pub grub’ on her first day here.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Katha suggested, leaving Raziel to simply sigh in reply.

  Chapter Three

  An hour later, the four of them sat around a table in the middle of a bustling pub. It was close to the Guild estate, and was an eclectic mix of small village front room public house, and modern American bar. The music all had energetic dance beats, which was currently making Jack a very happy boy. He sat close to Raziel, his enthusiastic motions practically pushing the angel out of their chair at times. David and Katha watched from the other side of the table, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh at the other two. Jack lip-synced through a slower part, as the song built to a crescendo, and then started chair dancing again, trying to pull an unwilling Raziel with him.

  “Come on,” David said and joined in too, causing Katha to laugh even more.

  Raziel’s head snapped in David’s direction, and they watched the seemingly young man display even more ridiculous moves than Jack. It looked very much like he was trying to impress the new recruit, but the angel couldn’t tell if it was working. She was definitely having fun, though, laughing too much to actually do any dancing herself. As before, in the library, time seemed to slow, colours became brighter, and the rest of the world fell away. Raziel let their gaze linger, until the angel suddenly realised that Katha was no longer watching David and Jack. At some point the young woman had looked over at Raziel. The angel tried to hold attention, tried to capture time in an almost infinite moment. It was possible for their people to do, stop time, but it was a very difficult task, requiring skill, concentration, and it took a lot of energy out of them.

  It was too late though, the young woman had broken Raziel’s concentration, so they looked down at her, meeting her gaze. The angel could tell that she was curious as to what had just happened but there was no way they were about to share their innermost thoughts with her. Raziel didn’t share their innermost thoughts with anyone, much less someone they had met earlier that day.

  The music changed, and Jack let out a whoop. “It’s your favourite song!” he cried.

  Raziel rolled his eyes. “This is not my favourite song.” When David laughed, they insisted, “It’s not my favourite song.”

  “Please. We all know you play it, late at night when you think no one’s up.”

  Jack snorted. “That’s what I said this morning when they got all huffy because I was playing it.”

  “It was the crack of dawn,” Raziel said.

  “That’s the only reason you minded.”

  The angel cocked their head to the side, on the verge of conceding, when Jack and David pointed at them and started howling. “Alright, fine, I like the song.”

  The other two got to their feet, and Katha quickly joined them. “Come on,” she said.

  “No, I...I do not dance,” Raziel insisted.

  “Everyone dances,” Katha countered.

  The angel snorted and shook their head. “No, they really don’t.”

  She took ahold of Raziel’s hand, and began pulling, making enough of a scene that the angel began to look around to see if anyone was watching. Fortunately, most of the patrons were watching Jack and David who were now making complete fools of themselves.

  “Alright, alright,” Raziel finally gave in, and got to their feet.

  “You probably don’t want this in the way,” Katha said and reached up to remove the angel’s suit coat.

  “Oh,” Raziel replied, not used to having people touch them, much less undressing them. The angel let the Valkyrie remove the coat, though, their eyebrows furrowing in confusion and frustration. “I um...”

  “Come on,” Katha said, pulling the angel over to the other two, completely ignoring the look of concern. Then she began dancing like it was the most wonderful thing in the world.

  Raziel watched all three of them for a moment. It wasn’t that they’d never danced, but certainly not to something like the song playing. They flinched as Katha took their hands, but then let her guide them.

  “See, it’s easy, just move your feet to the beat,” she encouraged.

  To the side, Jack and David slowed up their frenzied gyrations to watch Raziel as the angel began to hesitantly move their hips and feet. It wasn’t exactly enthusiastic or very good, but it was still a shock to see their old friend on the dance floor, much less dancing.

  “She’s a magician!” David muttered in Jack’s ear.

  “She’s certainly something, isn’t she?” Jack agreed.

  A little while later, when they’d all worn themselves out from dancing, except for Raziel, who’d still mostly watched, the four of them sat back down, and ordered another round of drinks. The angel refrained from any pub grub but the other three dug into a platter of fish and chips.

  “I’ve never seen humans before,” Katha leaned over the table and admitted.

  “Well, David’s human,” Jack pointed out.

  “Technically,” Raziel added.

  “I knew there was something different about you,”
Katha exclaimed and stared at David like she’d never seen him before.

  “Like Raziel said, I’m technically human,” David explained. “I’m part human.”

  “So, what’s the other part?”

  “Lycan.”

  She looked at him like what he’d said was a joke, and then looked at the other two for conformation. When they only nodded, she shook her head. “I thought those were myths?”

  “Well, the kind you see in movies are. I wasn’t bitten by a wolf on the full moon or anything. The lycan is a symbiotic creature, passed down from person to person. I’ve only had it for a few years. Sometimes it still takes some getting used to.”

  “Yes,” Raziel mumbled.

  “These two have known the lycan part of me for a thousand years.”

  “It never gets any easier, does it?” Jack said. “Getting used to the new face.”

  “It seems to get harder,” Raziel commented. The angel looked away from them as they continued their conversation.

  “But you still change, don’t you?” Katha asked.

  “Yeah,” David answered hesitantly, like he was trying not to frighten away someone on their first date. “It’s not as bad as the movies make it look.”

  “But, I thought Veritas was only for ethereal beings?”

  “Supernatural,” Jack corrected.

  “Yeah,” David added, “no one even knows what he really is.” He nodded toward Jack, who simply smiled mischievously and shrugged.

  David started to go on, when Raziel leaned and said, “There’s a text coming in.”

  “A text?” Katha asked, but before anyone could answer, Jack’s mobile phone started playing a silly tune.

  “You know we hate when you do that, right?” David said. “They do it all the time, ‘you’re about to get a call’ or ‘you have a text’.”

  Jack looked the text over while Katha said, “Do you read minds?”

  “No, I’m simply in tune with changes in the atmosphere, radio waves, things like that,” Raziel answered. “I mean, I could read your mind if I really wanted to, but angels aren’t in the business of doing things like that.”