Raziel had picked up a spoon and was currently stirring an empty cup of tea. A moment later, there was dark brown liquid in both their cups. The angel’s heart was pounding, and their mind racing. They’d barely ever been with anyone, much less a god from another faith. The truth was, it had been the most amazing thing the angel had ever felt, almost a spiritual experience. Hot blood ran to Raziel’s face at the memory and the blasphemy. The powers that be would never sanction it, but they didn’t care. Loki had brought a smile to their face, made them feel things they hadn’t felt in so long that they didn’t think it would ever be possible again. Between that and their newfound friendship with Katha, it seemed that life was worth living again.
“Angel?” they heard Loki say.
“Oh, um, yes.” Raziel blushed, which made the Norse god laugh and lean in closer. The angel took a deep breath, though, and was about to say something very serious when Loki leaned back again.
“So, why are we going to Skye?” he asked.
“I think I have an idea of what’s really going on.”
It was early evening by the time they reached the Isle of Skye off of Britain’s west coast. David was tired and perturbed, being the only member of the group actually capable of driving. He spent much of the trip from Inverness to the coast complaining that someone else in the group was going to have to learn, which in turn, left everyone else annoyed as well. Once they’d crossed the bridge from the mainland to Skye, though, much of the talking stopped. Even though the entire journey had become progressively more beautiful, none of it compared to the large island of Skye. Skye was a mixture of tall, craggy rock formations, brilliant green glens, little lakes and rivers, and mysterious mists. It was easy to see why Loki had adopted it as his new home.
The group found a guest house in the port town of Portree, not far from where Loki had been drawn to before, with a family room to hold Raziel and the guys, and a single for Katha. As the angel had predicted, none of them were particularly happy with the arrangements.
“Look,” Raziel said as they settled in and put their stuff away, “most of us don’t even need sleep. Feel free to spend the night doing whatever you want. It’s better than simply sitting in the SUV all night, though. Get a little rest, take showers, whatever you need to do, and meet me in the dining room for dinner,” they finished, and then headed downstairs.
Before Raziel could get far, Jack caught their arm, and followed them into the hall. “What’s going on?” the Greek god demanded. “Katha said something about this having to do with the Book?”
Raziel sighed and nodded. “I’ll tell everyone everything at dinner.”
Jack let the angel go and watched them walk down the hall before stepping back into the guest room. He shook his head at the others, and then went back to unpacking his fancy travel bag. No one followed Raziel and thought it better not to bother them until dinner. Even Jack or Loki who may have followed the angel just to be cheeky, seemed to sense that it was best to leave them alone.
Raziel went down to the dining room of the guest house. There was no one there, yet, but the room was open to the guests, and had an attached sitting room with a large glass door looking out over the garden and bay beyond. The angel stood at it and looked out. The mists had come together, getting heavier and thicker, and now rain began to fall, streaking down the windows. The sun had disappeared long ago, and the landscape took on an eerie feeling, looking very much like something out of a dark fairy tale. Raziel didn’t mind, finding the rolling gray clouds and mysterious mists beautiful. It suited his personality, melancholic, yet necessary for life to continue, for the brilliant green grasses and trees to grow. The angel had always been mysterious, had never had a choice, really. It was in their nature as the Keeper of God’s Secrets. They were the Angel of Mysteries, after all.
For a while, the angel simply stood and stared out of the window, enjoying the view and the peace and quiet, but then their mind slowly turned toward the inevitable, the discussion the team would have to have. Raziel truly hoped that they had nothing more than a theory that would prove untrue, but then again, if it did, they were all back at square one. After a while, the angel sensed that they were no longer alone. They slowly turned to see Loki standing behind them, a jumper in his hand.
“I thought you might be cold,” he said. “That weather, it really turned, didn’t it?”
Raziel chuckled. “You know we aren’t really British, right?”
“Well, I didn’t want to intrude with anything too important. You were doing that thing,” he added, stepping closer.
“What thing?”
Loki mimicked Raziel’s stance, with one arm across his chest, holding up his elbow, and the other hand holding up his chin. Then he made a very serious face, knitting his eyebrows and looking out the window like something very important was going to reveal itself out in the garden.
This time Raziel laughed, and then snatched the jumper from him. “Have you been going through my things?” they asked, looking the jumper over with a raised eyebrow.
“Actually, it’s Jack’s.”
The angel shook their head. “I’m pretty sure this is mine. I probably leant it to him, and he never returned it. Doesn’t really look his style, though.”
“Okay, it’s mine.”
Raziel’s head lifted from the jumper in surprise. Then they held up the jumper and looked it over, before looking down at his own, much plumper frame.
“Oh, stop it,” Loki hissed. “I...magicked it for you. I would have bought it properly but I’ve kind of been locked up in a mansion, haven’t I?”
A slow grin crossed the angel’s face, and they put the jumper over their waistcoat and dress shirt. It matched perfectly, but there was a thread running through it that looked different from the others. They looked up at Loki quizzically.
“It brings out the amber in your eyes,” he said, trying and failing to sound unabashed. “Um, anyway, the others are on their way down.”
“Is it dinner time already?” Raziel asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, you’ve been staring out that window a couple of hours.”
The angel took a deep breath and nodded, before picking up the old leather messenger bag and walking with Loki back into the dining room. Not only were the others on their way down, they were all already there. Raziel hated feeling like they were making a dramatic entrance, but it couldn’t be helped; everyone immediately fell silent and looked over at them.
“Is that a new jumper?” Katha asked.
Jack chuckled softly at the blush that came to the angel’s cheek but coughed it away at a look from his old friend. Loki, on the other hand, gave a proud smirk and nod of the head until it was clear to everyone in the room where the jumper had come from. Raziel went about opening their bag and pulling out files, trying to ignore the silliness in the room. When the files were set on the table and opened, everyone turned their attention to them, and the room very quickly became serious.
“So, you may be wondering why I thought we should come to Skye,” Raziel started.
“Well, you said you were trying to lure out the culprit,” Jack replied.
The angel nodded, slipping their hands in their pocket. “We know this is about Loki. Someone is intent on getting him to help these people. Either they simply want to try and catch him, or they have some other motive for enticing him around the world. But since this is his new sacred space, I thought it best that we come here and get ahead of the game.”
“Lure the lurer, so to speak,” Loki added.
Raziel nodded, and then took a hand out of their pocket to rub their chin. “I don’t know why we had two attacks back to back in York, other than maybe the culprit was on to us. I’m hoping that’s the case, and will have followed us.”
“Are we safe?” Katha asked.
“Probably not.”
“It’s best to assume, in our line of work, dear, that you’re never truly safe except at the Guild mansion,” Jack added.
&nb
sp; “Oh.”
“But knowing all this allows us to be one step ahead. Which is why I brought these,” Raziel said, putting a hand on the stack of files. “A while back, I began to think that something about this case seemed familiar. I got sidetracked, but then the realisation came to me. I think I know how our culprit is doing what they’re doing.” The angel slowly opened one of the files and thumbed a document with a photograph of an ancient piece of papyrus on it. “Now, luring Loki is probably a matter of energy transference, or even knowing the right incantations. I doubt it took much to figure out.”
“People try it every day,” Loki pointed out. “It rarely works because it’s rarely as interesting as this.”
“Messing with the fabric of reality though, manipulating the energies required to shape existence in a way that even humans notice...I can only imagine what these beings’ fate would have been if Loki hadn’t intervened...That kind of power takes a much greater form of magic.”
“Like what?” David asked.
Raziel glanced at Jack, whose face was a mask of realisation and horror. Then the angel frowned and took a breath. “Something like this,” they answered and passed the first page to David.
“What is this?” the lycan asked.
“It’s from the Sefer Raziel HaMalach, or Liber Razielis Archangeli; they all mean the same thing, The Book of Raziel.”
For a moment, the room fell silent. Then Loki said, “You have your own book?”
“Yes,” Raziel said softly. “It’s a grimoire, a book of magic.”
“Well, look at you,” Loki said with a proud, cocky smile.
“Magic?” Katha repeated.
“All the secrets of the universe that God would let me repeat...and probably some I shouldn’t have,” Raziel replied, and then feeling deflated, sat down at the head of the table. They handed a file to Loki, who passed out more papers and pictures from within it.
“Where is this book?” Katha asked.
“It’s been lost in time,” Raziel said.
“They gave it away,” Jack said as further explanation.
“Gave it away?” Loki chuckled.
“Yes, but I recovered it multiple times, gave it away again, and finally, had it stolen from me by my fellow angels. They didn’t care for humans being told the secrets of the universe, especially not the ones that would give them power and ways of gaining more knowledge.”
“But there are pictures of it,” Katha said, holding up a page. “It looks like someone’s found it.”
“Parts of it, yes, or more than likely, recreations. These pages have their uses, but only the complete, original book, could give someone this kind of power.”
Once they’d looked everything over, the team ordered some dinner, and tried chatting about things unrelated to the case. It worked, sort of, with Jack and Katha laughing at one end of the table, while David watched, and Loki observing everyone. Raziel, on the other hand, was still deep in thought, going over their plan again and again. Finally, Loki turned away from the scene at the other end of the table, where Jack was demonstrating elaborate magic tricks, and gave his attention to Raziel.
“Why don’t you let it go, angel?” he suggested. “Whatever happens happens. You should try seeing things from a Norse point of view.”
“Which point of view is that?” the angel asked.
“That time is not a linear thing. It’s cyclical. Whatever happens has already happened and will happen again. There’s a lot less worry that way.”
Raziel’s forehead furrowed and they thought about the idea. “What about free will?”
“It exists. But whatever choice you make, the universe already knew about it, and developments happen accordingly. Whatever fate has in store for us here, it’s going to happen. Just...go with the flow.”
Raziel snorted, having come from a very different belief system. Their God was divine, and everything was sorted by Him. Of course, learning about the Conclave and joining The Veritas Guild had given the angel a very different insight into the realities of what they believed, but still, it was difficult to imagine just letting go of everything and letting it fall into whatever place it was going to fall into. Still, it’s what they decided to try and do.
That night there was a bit of a tussle over who would sleep where. There was a queen-sized bed and two singles. In the end, Raziel decided that they were much too prudish to sleep with anyone they didn’t know that well and definitely too prudish to sleep with anyone they did know that well with other people in the room. So, they and Loki took the singles, and Jack and David took the queen bed. Not that it really mattered, they spent the majority of the night staring at the ceiling, except for Loki, who tried to stay awake in solidarity with Raziel, and to try and keep them from overthinking, but eventually he fell asleep.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, the sky was still dim, the mists and heavy clouds having stuck around overnight. After picking at their breakfasts, David drove them north to The Storr. It was only a few miles outside of Portree, and they parked in the carpark at the head of the walking trail. There were a few other people out and about, but for the most part, the weather was keeping the tourists away. The team looked around at the angry skies, and green fields beneath it.
“Where are we going?” Jack asked.
Loki pointed ahead. “The Old Man of Storr.”
“Of course,” Jack quipped. “The most popular place on the Isle.”
“Why not? Besides a place with a name like that benefits from having an actual religious figure, don’t you think? I am the Old Man of Storr now.”
The walk up to the Old Man of Storr led them through a grassy, mossy trail, and the remnants of a forest. Before long, the way became rockier and steeper until there was barely a trail at all. All the while, the gigantic rock figure loomed before them. As they walked, the weather worsened until, by the time they reached the landmark, fat droplets were pouring, and the trail had become almost impassable with mud.
Jack gestured for David and Katha behind him to stop, as Raziel and Loki continued on toward the base of the tall, silicate rock formation. It was a scramble through the mud and rain, and before long, they had disappeared into the mists.
“Why have we stopped?” Katha asked.
“This is more about the two of them. They will know how to handle it. The last thing we need to do is get in the way,” Jack answered through the torrent.
The Valkyrie brushed her wet hair away from her face, and started to shiver in the dropping temperatures. “How will Raziel know what to do? Don’t they need the book?”
Jack chuckled and shook his head, wishing he’d thought to magic up a parasol. “No, my dear. Raziel is an angel of the lord. They do not need a book of spells to conjure up powerful magic. No, the book was written mostly for...” He turned back and looked at Raziel and Loki’s disappearing backs before uttering, “...humans.” Before he could say anymore, he heard a small shout of alarm and turned back to his charges.
“Katha!” David yelled as the young Valkyrie tripped in the mud and slipped from the side of the trail.
“Raziel!” Jack yelled before joining David and rushing after Katha as she tumbled down the hill.
“Was that Jack?” Loki asked, and turned to see the rest of the team gone. “Where is he? I can’t see a thing in this.”
Raziel had heard the call too, and their senses went into immediate alarm. “Something’s wrong,” they said and the two of them rushed back down the trail. The angel could just make out David, lifting a soaked and muddy Katha from the ground at the bottom of the hill. “Come on.”
“Katha, are you alright?” David pleaded as Loki and Raziel reached them. He brushed the muddy, matted hair from her face, and then smiled through his tears when she opened her eyes.
“Not sure I’m cut out for this field work,” she quipped weakly and returned his smile.
“You’re doing fine, my dear,” Jack said.
“I think we should head b
ack to the lodge,” Raziel suggested. “We’ll come back when the storm’s passed.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Loki agreed. His dark hair was now plastered around his head, and his frown was so comical that Raziel had to restrain from laughing.
David drove them back to Portree as fast as he could, considering the weather, and as soon as they got to the lodge, everyone except Raziel put on dry clothes. In the meantime, the angel got ahold of the lodgekeeper, and had them build a fire in the sitting room and get everyone extra blankets. Raziel thanked him and gave him a generous tip which the man refused to take, at first. Once everyone was dry and changed, they joined the angel in the sitting room.
Raziel sat at a table in the dining room, still damp, and watched as David and Katha snuggled together under a blanket, next to the fire. The lodgekeeper had broken out a bottle of scotch as well, and the angel was nursing a tumbler as they watched their flock. Conflicting emotions welled up inside of them, and they shook their head, looking away. It was then they realised someone had sat down next to them.
“Hi,” Loki said, resting his head on his hand.
Raziel gave him a weak smile and took another sip of their scotch. “Hi.”
Loki glanced over toward the fire. “It must have been pretty serious...you know that relationship you didn’t actually have with him,” he added with a nod toward David.
Raziel frowned. “How do you know...”
“Well, I know the two of you were never a thing, you pine way too much for just a crush, and he’s a lycan so...I just figure you must have had a thing with the last host.”
Raziel sighed and put their drink down. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Of course it does. How long were you together?”
“Eighty years.”
“Pfft. That’s a long time, especially for a human.”
“Not even Jack knew about it. Now, apparently everyone knows,” Raziel said and downed the rest of their drink.
“They know about us already. See, progress?” Loki said mischievously.
The Veritas Guild Page 9