Finally, he spoke again. “How do you know my name?”
“May I come in and explain everything? I’m a friend, I’m not here to hurt you.”
Slowly, the locks started to turn and the door swung open. Standing in just a robe with a thick beard was a man that had clearly aged prematurely. His hair was graying, large dark circles hung under his eyes. Whatever he had gone through in the recent past had a big impact on him. It was sad just looking at him.
He gestured for her to come inside. With one last look around at Jerome, she stepped through the threshold. Inside was even worse.
CHAPTER 15
Jason Bennett’s house was more of a nest than a home. Everything he did happened in that one room, from cooking to sleeping. The smell of mould and human waste was even worse than the visual assault to the eyes. It hit Leila as soon as she was inside. She tried to suppress her gagging reflex.
“So what do you want?” Jason demanded. They stayed close to the closed door, something Leila was grateful for. The smell was probably worse the closer you got to the nest.
“I wonder if you’ve heard of a prophet named Tiresias? He lived in Ancient Greece three thousand years ago,” she started softly, hoping for a look of recognition on his face.
“You’re selling religion? In the middle of all this?”
“No, not a religion. Tiresias wrote a prophecy about a human that would save the world-”
Jason cut her off. “My soul doesn’t need saving. I don’t care about your prophet and whatever you’re trying to sell. Get out of my house.”
“No, you don’t understand-”
He pushed her towards the door and opened it, refusing to listen. “Get out and don’t come back. Try peddling your beliefs to some other sucker.”
Leila didn’t have time to argue. She was unceremoniously shoved out into the street and the door slammed closed on her. She could only stare at Jerome, so surprised by the whole thing.
They walked away from the house, still processing the whole thing. “He thought I was talking about a religion.”
“I know, I heard it all.”
“What about if he was the right one and I’ve completely stuffed it up? What about if I didn’t say the right thing and now he’ll never stop the war?” Leila started hyperventilating, the thought of failure absolutely terrifying.
Jerome tried to calm her down. “Take a few breaths. If he was the right one, then he wouldn’t have acted that way. A part of him would have known what you were talking about, even if he didn’t completely understand why.”
“This a lost cause, Jerome. We can’t keep talking to random people. We need to narrow that list down.”
“We’ll go through the prophecy again then.”
They walked down the street to a park. It was deserted, people barely left their home anymore. A park was a wide open area that spelled trouble being so exposed. Jerome and Leila sat by a creek bed, the sound of the gently running water was actually calming.
Jerome pulled the prophecy out of his pocket and laid it between them. The piece of paper was starting to get tatty, with holes developing in the creases. If they didn’t solve the mystery soon, then they would have to make another copy. They went through it line by line.
Eternity is but a mere scale,
Only a slight shift causes a fall,
The time for the Protectors draws near,
When a war is waged to end them all.
One mortal shall have all the power,
If they choose to meet the final call.
The first verse was easy. The Protectors were the guardian angels and their war with the demons would surely end them all. Yet the one mortal could do something about it. There was nothing left to decipher there.
A person born to a beater of gold,
Yet an orphan they will be,
The Dark Night will valiantly fight,
After the miracle they shall see.
Marked by the creator’s touch,
An innocent will set them free.
They had already worked out that a beater of gold was going to be someone who worked with gold. That had narrowed down the professions, but it certainly didn’t help with their list. Not when the beater of gold would be the parent of the one they were looking for.
The miracle was equally as unhelpful. It was as vague as it was simple. They could only use it for questioning prospective humans and nothing more. The same went for the creator’s touch – they needed to find a person before they could determine whether they had a birthmark or not. At least they had determined their meaning.
From Cadmus’s hand a weapon was taken,
A sword forged from precious metal,
Buried deep within Hallow Gallows,
Between rocks, leaves, and nettle,
The battle to end all pain and sorrow,
For once and all will finally settle.
This verse had proven to be the most helpful of all. It guided them to the sword which was now in their possession.
From the shadows of the Warrior God,
They’ll emerge to fight the war,
Skyward Archers witnessed the birth,
And the world was changed forevermore.
As the end approaches,
Evil will come to their shore.
The Warrior God had been the first clue they had solved. It was easy when Leila had grown up hearing stories about the mountain range right next to their city. Skyward archers was easy too, it referred to astrology and the sign of Sagittarius – something very symbolic in ancient history.
The last two lines of the prophecy didn’t offer any clues, just a warning. Evil was definitely at their shores, it surrounded them everywhere. The previous night was enough proof of that. It could only mean one thing: the end was approaching. It wouldn’t be too long before it was too late to do anything about it.
“How about this line,” Leila said after they had been through each verse. “The Dark Night will valiantly fight. They didn’t spell knight with a ‘K’, is that how they spelt it back in Ancient Greece?”
“I don’t know if they even had knights back then,” Jerome read the line several times, trying to work out its meaning. “The Dark Night is capitalized too, like it’s the name of something.”
“They couldn’t just mean an ordinary night either, otherwise it would be In the dark night they will valiantly fight. Perhaps Tiresias got it wrong with his grammar?”
“Prophets don’t make mistakes like that. Everything that is here is there for a reason. We just need to figure it out.”
Leila was fresh out of ideas. “It would have been nice if they just told us the name of the person.”
“Perhaps they did, we just need to decipher it.”
Leila watched the water run through the creek, the sun was catching it as it cascaded through the stones underneath. It was beautiful, and so normal. The creek didn’t care they were in the middle of a war that would probably wipe out the human existence. It just babbled on through its course.
Her mind wandered to the one good thing that had happened since everything bad had started – Jerome. She stole a glance at him sitting at her side, his eyebrows furrowed while he stared at the prophecy. The kiss they had shared had been magical but it was like it never happened. They had both been too scared to bring it up again and yet that was all she thought about. If a miracle did happen and they found the human they were looking for, she would forever lose her chance of telling Jerome how she felt. She didn’t want to let that happen. It would be something she would regret for the rest of her life.
“Jerome, do you ever think about the time we kissed in Hallows Gallows?” She started gently, studying his face for a reaction.
“How could I forget?”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
He lowered the piece of paper to look her directly in the eyes. “The kiss itself was wonderful. But the act of kissing was a bad thing.”
Leila shook her head. “I don’
t understand. So you didn’t like kissing me? Is that why we never talk about it?”
“No, I enjoyed kissing you, that’s the problem,” he hesitated, waiting to see if she would give up. She wasn’t going to, he continued. “Do you know why humans aren’t meant to know about angels?”
“I guess we’re not meant to know about a lot of things.”
“It’s because once humans know they are under the protection of an angel, they are no longer responsible for their own destiny. They believe they can do anything stupid or dangerous and their guardian angel will save them. But that’s not how it works. We can only save them to a point, we can only do our best to keep them safe. We need humans to believe they are mortal so we can purely steer them in the right direction.”
“What’s any of that got to do with our kiss?” Leila wasn’t going to let him off the hook. She wasn’t going to be sidetracked by a whole story about humans and angels. Not again, that had happened in the forest. “My guardian angel is probably dead, killed by a demon. So I don’t feel the need to run around doing dangerous things just so I can be saved.”
“It means I have a job to do. One day I will have a human assigned to me that I have to watch over and protect. I can’t do that while on Earth kissing a woman. Even if I love that woman.”
“You love me?”
Jerome hadn’t meant to let that slip out, he wanted to hit himself for being so careless. The whole point of the conversation was to make it easier to leave soon, not the opposite. “Yes, I love you. But that doesn’t change anything.”
Leila smiled, her heart pounding in her chest. “I love you too. I think I have since you fell in the street that day. Jerome, we should stay together. I’ve never felt like this before.”
“We need to stop the demons otherwise we won’t have any world to stay together in.”
“But after…”
Jerome slowly shook his head. “You can’t come to the angel world with me. I’m sorry, Leila, it just can’t be that way.”
“You could find a way.”
“If I could, I would.”
“Promise me, you’ll try,” Leila begged. “That’s all I’m asking. Just promise me you’ll try to return to me.”
“I promise,” Jerome said sincerely. He meant it, but knew it would be impossible. The council would never allow it. But he wouldn’t take her hope away, not when there was very little of it left.
They stared at the creek in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts. Jerome picked up the prophecy again, determined to find something new in the words. The answer was there, he just needed to work it out.
Finally, a thought occurred to him. “What about if the Dark Night is the name of something? Like the person we are looking for?”
“Nobody is named Dark Night, I can tell you that now. There is definitely no Dark Night on our list,” Leila answered.
“No, their name means Dark Night. All names have a meaning, if we can find out what name has the meaning of dark night, then we can significantly narrow down the list,” Jerome said excitedly, ready to rush off and solve the riddle straight away. “We need to find a book or something about meanings of names.”
“A baby name book has a listing of meanings, they’d have one at the library,” Leila offered, catching on. She had no idea what her name meant, but she figured it would probably mean something. Her parents chose it because of a character in a movie they liked. But everything had to mean something, right?
“Let’s go to the library then,” Jerome stood, preparing himself for flight. He didn’t want to waste another moment. Leila trailed behind, anything was better than going home and facing the carnage in the streets. If they timed it well enough, they could get home in the dark so they couldn’t see the bodies lying on the ground.
Jerome flew them across town and into the heart of the city. He remembered the library from his previous visit, when they were only just starting their journey. It seemed like a decade ago since they were last there.
By the look of the building, it may as well have been a decade ago. The windows were all completely broken, glass and metal laying everywhere. Most of the bookcases were toppled over, books strewn across the floor. Leila gasped when she saw the state of the place. The library was once a refuge, somewhere she enjoyed both before and after the violence had started. To see everything destroyed and ruined pained her right through the heart.
“This is terrible,” she groaned. “All those books are destroyed. Even the really old ones.”
She wanted to cry it was so devastating. How people could be so cruel and careless was beyond her. It didn’t serve anyone any good by attacking the library, there was nothing there they could take and benefit from. Whoever had done it did it for the sheer pleasure of making a mess and destroying things. Nothing more and nothing less.
“It can be fixed,” Jerome offered some comfort. “The books can be replaced, many are just on the floor. This place can be restored again when it’s all over.”
“It’s just such a pity. Books never hurt anyone.”
“I know. Let’s focus on finding the book that will help us so we can end this thing.”
They started searching, starting with finding the section for parents. Once they were in the vicinity of the right area, they started going through the floor. Jerome was right, most of the books were just on the floor and largely undamaged. They wouldn’t be pristine anymore, but they were readable.
They sifted through the mess for almost an hour before finding a book on baby names. Leila held it up. “This books talks about baby names. It’s got one thousand and one names in it.”
“Perfect, let’s get out of here.”
Leila dusted off the book and handed it to Jerome. With over a thousand names in it, there had to be at least one that meant Dark Night. Leila took one last look at the library before they left, hoping she wouldn’t see it even worse next time she visited.
They decided to walk home, mainly because Leila thought for sure she would vomit if she had to take to the skies again. There were only so many takeoffs and landings a human could take. They took the old route, past the area she used to know so well.
When they reached Leila’s old apartment building, she stopped dead in her tracks. Jerome almost ran into her from the abrupt halt.
“A little warning next time,” he grumbled. “What’s wrong?”
She just pointed. There was nothing left of her old home. The entire building was lying in a large pile of rubble in the space where it used to stand. Everything was gone, crumbled to the ground like a paper doll in the rain.
“It’s ruined,” Leila gasped. “My apartment is completely destroyed.”
“Good thing we moved then.”
“It’s more than a good thing, it’s lucky.”
Leila could only stare are the gap in the skyline that used to be so familiar to her. The number of times she had entered the building and found comfort locking herself away in her apartment was countless. It was her home. It was difficult enough leaving it in the first place, but a part of her thought she might return one day. When it was safer. Now, there was nothing to return to.
Pushing away the horror of the loss, Leila did feel lucky. Whatever happened to the building could have happened when she was living there. The thought of what her neighbors experienced was terrifying. She hoped they had time to get out, she hoped they weren’t lying in the rubble with their lives extinguished. Nobody deserved that.
“Come on, we need to get home,” Jerome urged, giving her a little push on the back. They couldn’t dwell there all day, it would only make them even more depressed.
Leila allowed herself to be pushed along, finally tearing her eyes away from the debris. Everywhere they had visited that day was nothing but a tragedy. If they needed proof the world was descending deeper and deeper into a black hole they wouldn’t be able to return from, they needn’t look any further.
When they turned onto the street they now called
home, Leila stopped. She could already see the bodies in the distance, strewn everywhere. The houses were largely destroyed too. If they did take the time to meet their neighbors, it would have been a waste of time. If any of them survived, they would have fled by now. It was possible that Leila and Jerome were the only two people still breathing in the entire street.
“Jerome, I don’t think I can do this, I can’t walk through the street,” Leila looked up at him, hoping he wouldn’t make her. She would rather the awful feeling of another flight.
Jerome opened his arms. “Hop on the angel express then.”
She moved into his arms and he took off quickly. He didn’t look down, instead fixing his eyes on their house in the distance and keeping his gaze unwavering. He landed in the backyard, completely bypassing the street.
They spent the rest of the evening making sure the garage would be safe for the night. They locked and then barricaded themselves inside in case the rioters returned. There was only a small chance of them coming back, but there was still a chance. Most likely they had moved on to some other street where there were new victims to attack. It was a horrible thought.
The night was a restless one, despite how fatigued Jerome was he couldn’t completely settle down. His guard was still up, his ears on high alert for any noise outside. Leila managed to sleep beside him, but she was more restless than normal. Occasionally she would twitch with a nightmare, waking him up to check on her.
When morning came, Jerome had enough of trying to sleep. He crawled out of bed and picked up the baby name book he had taken from the library. He sat on the coffee table, letting his wings fall to the ground behind him. He studied the book, it was in two sections – one for girl’s names and one for boy’s. It listed every name imaginable in alphabetical order. Beside the name was a brief description of the meaning behind the moniker. Jerome found his own name, it meant holy. He figured it seemed kind of fitting.
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