Phoenix Contract: Part Two (Fallen Angel Watchers)

by Melissa Thomas

  Chapter Seven

  Aiden was lost in a vast empty place, indistinct but full of rosy light at the center. The light offered warmth and security, a safe haven, but also a sanctuary of lies and deceit. The harder she tried to bring the horizon into focus, the blurrier the distant images became, and the fainter the light grew. Gradually, the warm salmon light faded away, and the colors of the landscape dimmed to ashen gray.

  But she wasn’t alone. Her friends were with her.

  Father Matthew stood in front of her, Katsue and Troy to her right and left respectively. Their postures were rigid and their bodies posed like those of mannequins. In contrast, their faces were slack and free of all expression. No animation presented in their glassy eyes, no life.

  She sensed a presence behind her also, an unseen specter who stood outside of the circle. It emanated a sinister air. She wanted to turn around, but couldn’t. Fear held her imprisoned in an icy paralysis while chills traveled the length of her spine.

  The four of them rotated counter-clockwise, spinning in slow circles with the alien landscape in the background. The motion disconcerted her, made it even more difficult for Aiden to get her bearings in this obscure place. Instead of looking past her friends to the horizon, Aiden tried to focus on their faces.

  Abruptly, the ennui vanished from their expressions, and they manifested menacing expressions. With malevolent intent, the three of them glared at her. An icy whip of fear struck a crippling blow to her self-control. Aiden teetered on the verge of panic, paralyzed in the grips of a true nightmare.

  “I will turn on you,” Father Matthew hissed as blood red spittle bubbled past his lips and ran down his chin. His long limbs contorted in unnatural angles, and his complexion had taken on a jaundiced tinge.

  “I am your betrayer,” Katsue said, her tone remote and sad. Her eyes were full of vicious greed, an overpowering lust for power.

  “I eat souls.” Troy laughed, an empty, cavernous sound that echoed with a roar like thunder, a thousand voices joining the chorus. A formless fiend, he exuded pure and vile evil, and he scared her witless.

  Hands settled on her shoulders. Aiden screamed and struggled to escape, but couldn’t escape the tight grip. She’d forgotten the lurker standing behind her.

  “This is what you must face,” he said. “Everyone you trust will turn on you. There is no escape, and before this is over, you will die alone.”

  Abruptly, Aiden froze. She reached up and laid her hands atop Magnus’. Her nails gouged the backs of his hands until blood ran down her arms and torso. He made no sound of pain or protest.

  “Let go,” Aiden hissed. She looked over her shoulder and up into the face of a grinning skull.

  A sharp scream rent the quiet of the apartment. Arms and legs flailing frantically, Aiden nearly flew out of her bed. Upon realizing her wakeful state, the red head collapsed onto the mattress, panting hard.

  It was only a dream only a dream only a dream...

  The dream haunted her as she showered and dressed. Aiden grabbed a bagel for breakfast on the way out the door and made her way across campus with a firm resolution forming in her mind. She had to confront Matthew about the many unresolved mysteries of the past several weeks. Perhaps the priest could provide some explanation that would shed light on her bad dreams.

  Three weeks had sped past since the fateful heart attack that had landed Matthew in the hospital. He had spent much of that stay heavily sedated. When awake, he was weak and groggy and seemed to harbor no memory of his cannibalistic affliction. Fearful for her mentor’s life and sanity, Aiden hadn’t reminded him.

  She didn’t see Magnus again, but she frequently imagined that she could feel the Celt nearby. She’d spin swiftly, expecting to catch him lurking behind her in the shadows, only to confront an empty corridor or room. Paranoia, she’d think and shake her head, then move on.

  July had turned to August, and classes had begun. The campus once again bustled with students and staff. Matthew returned home and to campus but did not resume any active teaching duties. Still, Aiden pussy-footed around the sensitive subjects that never fully vacated her thoughts.

  Aiden had deliberately avoided a confrontation because of his poor health, but she’d spent the last week stewing in worry. She neglected class work and conjured wild theories to explain Matthew’s rift with Daniel Adams, his friendship with Magnus, and the priest’s mysterious illness. It created an unbearable amount of stress, made her tense and strung out, and induced insomnia. When she did manage to sleep, she dreamed—terrifying and troubling visions that were too vivid to be dismissed as mere bad dream.

  Some of the dreams clearly presented Magnus as a threat—and as Father Matthew’s murderer—adding to Aiden’s innate distrust of the Celt. Others seemed to suggest that every single friend she had would turn on her. Try as she might to call them ludicrous or absurd or chalk them up as a bi-product of stress, her dreams were too strong to be ignored. They filled her with suspicion and uneasy paranoia, making her increasingly jumpy and distrustful.

  The fifth floor of the Archeology building doubled as Father Matthew’s study and sanctuary. Full of the combined scents of burning pine and musty vellum, the large main room mirrored the priest’s personality. Both masculine and austere, he’d furnished it with heavy antiques made exclusively of hardwoods. At times the indulgence in luxury caused him guilt, but he loved his hand-carved tables and towering bookcases full of leather bound volumes too much to consider giving them up.

  A massive fireplace, built of cobbled river stone, centered the main room. The priest preferred natural light to electric and often switched off hard fluorescent lighting in favor of lanterns and firelight which cast cheery tones of orange, yellow, and red over the entire room.

  In a leather armchair before the hearth, the priest cradled an untouched decanter of dark red wine in his uninjured hand. He held it more for the comfort of the feel of something in his hand, rather than the actual alcohol which wasn’t safe to consume with the prescription medication the doctors had put him on.

  Matthew’s bandaged hand and head ached. His entire body hurt in spite of the medicine which dulled the pain and his mental acuity. He took half the daily dosage and coped with grim determination, so tired before noon that he could do little more than sit and wallow in weary exhaustion.

  From his place in front of the hearth, Matthew sensed a change in the room, a subtle stir in the sounds and shadow play of the flickering firelight. For a second he believed the new arrival to be Magnus, but a softly exhaled feminine sigh told him otherwise.

  “Aiden,” he said without turning, then gestured for his apprentice to join him. “Come in.”

  With soft shuffling footsteps, she moved nearer to the fireplace and stood on the edge of the hand-woven Persian rug that defined the sitting area.

  “How are you feeling?” Aiden asked, her voice riddled with worry, her green eyes bright with curiosity. From her expression, she had a great many questions and didn’t appear to know what to ask first.

  “We’re long overdue to talk. I can tell you’re wondering about what happened in the parking lot and at the hospital, and about Magnus and Daniel,” Matthew said, adopting bluntness as the best tactic.

  Aiden gasped. Her gaze leapt to his bandaged hand. “I thought you didn’t remember the hospital.”

  “I don’t,” he replied. “However, Magnus told me what I did, and I really must offer my sincerest apologies.” He could offer no excuses for his behavior which had been completely beyond his control.

  “It’s okay,” Aiden replied, dismissing the need for apology between them.

  A faint flush turned her cheeks rosy, and she was unable to conceal her pity and fear. He’d frightened and worried her badly, committed terrible crimes that weighed heavily on his conscience.

  “I need to explain,” he continued. “There are things I should have told you long ago, but as time passes it becomes harder and harder to provide explanations, especially when add
ressing my lies and omissions.” He knew his sins only too well and carried dread in his heart that the hard truths would drive a wedge between him and his beloved daughter.

  “Why don’t you sit,” he suggested, but she shook her head in denial. He accepted her decision without argument.

  “I’m dying,” Matthew said with simple acceptance. No denial, no anger, no hope, nothing but fatalistic resignation.

  Threatening to topple, Aiden staggered, and Matthew wished fervently that she’d taken a seat as he bid. Shocked, she stepped toward him and issued a fierce, fast denial. “Don’t be ridiculous! You had a close call but that’s no reason—”

  “Aiden.”

  “Is this Magnus’ fault?” she demanded. “At the hospital, he gave you that drug, and then there was the thing in the parking lot that night...”

  “Aiden, no.” Matthew held up a hand.

  “You can’t die,” she concluded with a soft whimper. Her eyes were wide and wounded, and the look in them broke Matthew’s heart to see her so frightened.

  His dear, sweet child...

  “This has nothing to do with Magnus,” he said firmly. “I know what happened. He told me. My heart stopped, and he started it again. He infused me with some of his power. He’s given me time, for which I’m grateful, but you have to understand that I’m living—”

  “On borrowed time,” she finished.

  On borrowed power. Father Matthew nodded his head in slow, complete agreement. Magnus had been unable—or unwilling—to explain how it worked. Often, the Celt refused to provide an explanation for his actions and abilities, and Matthew had long ago grown accustomed to his friend’s cagey ways.

  However, the Celt’s revelation of the ability to give as well as take life had left Matthew stunned. Never before in forty years of knowing one another, had Magnus demonstrated a talent for resurrection. It left Matthew in a spiritual quandary, because he had no knowledge of the ramifications to his immortal soul. Had he been tainted with arcane power? Was he damned?

  “I’m dying,” Matthew said, because it was the only certainty he had left. “That’s why I returned so suddenly from England. The doctor told me I have very little time left. That’s why I came home. I wished to spend my final days with those I love, to pass away in my own bed and not in a foreign land.”

  He fell silent, taking in Aiden’s shock and denial with an aching heart. The girl's green eyes were brimming with unshed tears, and her lower lip quivered.

  “Don’t blame Magnus,” Matthew continued. “If anything, thank him. His power is probably all that’s keeping me alive right now. My heart is failing and has been for almost two years. Nothing can be done for it.”

  Fighting tears, Aiden looked down, and Matthew gave her a moment. In his long lifetime, he had been so much more than just a father to her. He was a priest and a scholar, a watcher and a warrior, and a hardened veteran in the war against evil.

  Over the course of his life, it had grown increasingly difficult to distinguish between the good and evil. When he’d been young, it had been simple. He knew light and dark. Right and wrong. Black and white. Over time, they’d blended, and once the two were mixed, white could never be extracted from black again. Lately, all Matthew perceived were shades of gray, and that had taken a toll on his faith.

  He’d grown old, so old that he could no longer remember a time when he’d been anything but. He’d lost even the fond memories of youth, and worse, the conviction of faith. He shifted, and the aged leather chair creaked beneath him, moaning a protest that mirrored his aching bones.

  Aiden’s head bowed, her face hidden beneath a nimbus of flame-hued hair. She sank to her knees on the braided rug before the fire, fingers digging into the textured cloth.

  “Aiden, it happens to all of us sooner or later. I’m an old man, and I’ve lived my life. I have no regrets,” he said in a soothing tone. No regrets. Oh, he had a great many regrets. The lie filled him with a chilly bitterness that turned his blood to ice—the venomous caress of regret. He’d lived his life. He’d loved and he’d lost. And oh, what he wouldn’t give to do it all over again...

  He thought there was no harm in telling another white lie. After all, he’d already offered so many other falsehoods. What was one more? She was too young to burden with such harsh truths so he lied to protect her. He lied to assuage Aiden’s pain and to alleviate her grief and guilt, because in spite of his many great failings, he loved her. He loved her more than anything in heaven or on earth. She was the most important thing to him.

  Even though it had been over a decade since he’d possessed the spiritual clarity necessary to act as a minister to a flock, Matthew knew just what to say. Like an actor playing a priest, he had his lines all memorized and knew exactly what to say when given the right cue.

  A muffled sob escaped Aiden. Matthew extended a trembling hand toward her bent head, but she stood just out of reach. He knew his daughter well, sensed her feisty desire to argue, to fight, and to deny the inevitable. He could tell from the set of her shoulders and the implacable force of her will which radiated from her like a crown of exclamation points. He felt her denial, frustration, and grief, and he hurt for her, because she had never suffered great loss.

  “All right. Suppose we don’t discuss the inevitable nature of death and taxes for the moment,” Aiden grated out, struggling to form words through the pain. She rubbed hard at her eyes, trying to erase the tears. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? I want to know everything about Daniel Adams, about what happened at the hospital, and especially about that pushy know-it-all.”

  Matthew smiled, gently amused. “Magnus isn’t so bad.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “That’s obvious, Aiden.”

  “I don’t trust him either.” Her unrelenting expression suggested Aiden wasn’t about to forgive or accept Magnus’ many flaws.

  Matthew sighed. “Give him a chance. He’s a lot older than you, so I’m not surprised there’s a generation gap.”

  Her brow furrowed. “How old?”

  The priest waved an absent hand. “Old. Old enough to make most of my antiques look new.”

  “And how old is that?” Aiden asked.

  “Older than the hills and twice as dusty,” Matthew quipped. His feeble attempt at humor was rewarded with a scowl rather than a smile. Seeing that he wasn’t going to distract or discourage her curiosity about Magnus, Matthew finally capitulated. “Fine, you win. His people were the Averni, a Celtic tribe that once occupied Gaul in the 1st century B.C.”

  “By people, you mean his ancestors?” Aiden asked.

  “By people, I mean his contemporaries. His Father’s name was Vercingetorix, a Averni chieftain, and his mother was Alea, a slave. Vercingetorix united and led the Gauls against the Roman troops of Julius Caesar. Their final battle is still an epic tale. Vercingetorix and his Celts took refuge in the city of Alesia. Caesar laid siege, erecting not one wall, but two around Alesia. The inner wall protected his front, the outer his flank, and both were riddled with ditches and traps.”

  Familiar with the course of history if not the specific battle, Aiden asked, “I take it that Caesar won?”

  “In a word, yes.” The historian in him found the concise summary to be unpalatable. Matthew preferred an embellished and grandiose story. However, to save time, he reluctantly stuck to the basics.

  Aiden's eyes widened. She touched her throat and then dropped her hand quickly. She managed a speechless nod, so Matthew continued to recount what little he knew of Magnus’ mortal life.

  “Following their defeat and his father’s capture, Magnus headed north into Germany. Since then he’s lived as inconspicuously as possible as far as I can tell, not taking any active part in history.”

  “He’s immortal,” Aiden said, disbelief in her voice.

  Father Matthew nodded.

  “How is that?” Aiden asked. “How can it be?”

  “That I don’t know,” Matthew said.

&nb
sp; Skepticism crossed his daughter’s lovely face, causing her features to harden, but the priest lifted his hand to stave off her protest. Aiden might want specifics, but because of the nature of his friendship with Magnus, Matthew could not provide them. The best of friends, they kept and respected each other’s secrets.

  “No, it’s the truth. Magnus keeps his secrets and guards them well. I can tell you much of his character, but very little of his past. He despises the Romans with a passion, and he is in love with the cinema, particularly those atrocious science fiction movies. He’s vain, arrogant, prideful, and an unparalleled warrior. He suffers from extreme claustrophobia. His word is his bond. I’ve never seen him break a promise. He’s my best friend, and I trust him.”

  His recitation ended, and silence settled upon them. Matthew stared across that short gulf of distance to his daughter, noting how she struggled to absorb what she’d been told. It made him feel old and small and ashamed to have kept such a momentous secret from her.

  “This is not the end of what I need to tell you,” Matthew continued. “I have secrets too, a confession to make concerning my health, which isn’t easy. But before I begin, I must ask one thing of you.”

  “Go ahead,” Aiden encouraged with a knit brow.

  “I will do my best to provide complete explanations to your questions with one exception. Whatever else we discuss, my past involvement with Daniel Adams and Niall Talcott is off-limits,” the priest said. “This is non-negotiable, and it’s for your own good.”

  The prohibition did not go over well at all. Aiden’s entire countenance hardened, her jaw and fists clenched, and she leaned forward to glare at him through narrowed eyes.

  “Fine,” she said irritably, not really agreeing but willing to put the matter off until later.

  Matthew knew that she’d ask him about it again, and he knew that his answer would still be the same. No.

  “Where to start?” Matthew mused. What he had to tell her was momentous and horrific. There was no easy, simple way to just come out and say it.