by J. L. Sutton
I nodded, not trusting myself enough not say something stupid.
“As I was saying, we leave everything behind. There really are no other options, but there was something I could not let go of because it was given to me. My name, the last unbreakable link to my past—my humanity. There are few things on this earth that could cause me harm, or even give me pause. My name is one of them. If anybody, seraphim or human, knew my real name they would have power over me. It is our most closely guarded secret.”
“Why Dawn though?” I asked, wondering what I would change my name to.
“I was just beginning my new life, for lack of a better term. Somehow it seemed appropriate.”
“Would it be impolite to ask how old you are?” Seraphim or not, she was still a woman.
“No, it would not,” she replied, toying with her braid nervously. “I do not think you will like the answer though.”
I smiled reassuringly. “I won’t mind.”
Dawn looked into my eyes, biting her lip in deliberation. It really didn’t matter to me, though it was very enlightening. Somehow despite all her talents, immortality, and the stunning form she wore, Dawn was still unbelievably shy. She truly was a unique creature.
“I am three hundred and eleven years old,” Dawn said in a small voice, barely a whisper over the rain.
Three hundred. I did the math in my head—Dawn was twelve times my age, yet she didn’t look a day older than I was. “You don’t sound that old, the way you speak I mean.”
She cocked her head to the side, her eyebrow rising ever so slightly. “What exactly did you expect? I would use archaic language, unnecessarily vibrant adjectives and speak in iambic pentameter like some Shakespearean actor?”
“Uh . . . a little.” I shrugged helplessly.
“You speak differently than ten years ago, do you not?” Dawn asked. “We adapt—same as you. Besides, only the wealthy and very well educated spoke that way, and to be honest it was absolutely exhausting.”
“Fair enough.” I nodded. “Is that . . . old for your kind?”
“Aye, by today’s standards.”
“Today’s standards?”
“We do not know why we are chosen,” she answered, seeming relieved I took the news so well, “but there is a pattern. There are a few of us who have always been here, since the very beginning, and as the world grew out of its infancy and the human population began to grow, so did ours. Until only a century or two ago there was not all that many of us, but the exponential boom of the planet’s inhabitants gave rise to a swelling of new seraphim. It has been a very difficult time in our history, having so many young ones on our hands.”
I sort of lost focus towards the end, my mind still stuck on seraphim that were as ancient as humanity itself. How could I even begin to fathom that amount of time? To have watched the human race develop from before they had fire, the immeasurable wisdom they must possess was beyond me. Compared to them, my life was nothing more than a miniscule spec on the endless passage of time. Dawn quietly watched as the internal struggle to grasp this newfound information raged inside me, never once growing bored or impatient.
In a bid to take my mind off just how insignificant I felt right now I tried turning the conversation back to her. “Where were you from, originally?”
“I was born in a small farming village in Ireland,” she replied as her gaze grew distant, almost as if she was a thousand miles away. “It was all I ever knew really. There are more people on this block than I ever met while alive.”
“How did you land up all the way here?”
“As a general rule we do not linger where we lived, it is not easy being so close to the people we knew. Around that time a lot of European settlers were moving to the new world, and so naturally some of my kind went with them.”
“Do you ever miss it?”
“Yes and no. I do get homesick from time to time. It has been decades since I have been back, but there is nothing left for me there but ancient memories. You must see it sometime though. There is no other place on earth quite like it.”
Dawn stretched against the bed, sliding onto her side so that her head was propped up against her hand. I liked the fact that she was comfortable enough to be herself around me. The earlier tension between us had all but evaporated. “So where is home for you now?”
“I have no home.”
I raised my eyebrow skeptically. “You don’t have a place to live?”
“When you no longer need a place to sleep, keeping a permanent residence loses a lot of its charm. And there is little someone like me needs in the way of personal possessions, so I have no need to keep them anyway. Besides, it is not exactly easy owning property when you are technically dead.” She smiled, enjoying my stunned expression immensely. Did Dawn just make a joke? Why did I never have a camera ready when I needed one?
“You need some things though,” I said, pointing to her clothes. “Where do you get the money from?”
“There are always ways. Mostly we trade amongst each other for the things we need, or make them ourselves when we can. We have the time after all. Some seraphim specialize in dealing with humans who know about us, though it is monitored very carefully. Back in the fifties I used to deliver overnight packages. And it is detestable . . . but sometimes we take small amounts that would go unnoticed from the deceased.”
Dawn obviously didn’t like the idea of petty theft, even if it was from someone who no longer needed it. That was one of the reasons I didn’t see her as the monster she expected me to. Human laws clearly no longer applied to her, but she still followed them when she could.
“Why only small amounts?” I asked.
“We are not supposed to interact with the human world, remember? If we emptied someone’s wallet the police might think it is a robbery, following the wrong leads.”
“Good point.” They really did have to worry about everything.
The look in her eyes told me that right now we were thinking along the same lines—how would all the time I spent with Dawn affect me? I knew she was concerned, but I didn’t really mind. One way or another she had become a part of my life. My little dark eyed shadow.
As Dawn’s lips parted to speak again her eyes became unfocused, flitting around the room like she was seeing something entirely different from my tiny bedroom. I had seen that look before. A few seconds passed in silence before she blinked, looking up at me with a pained expression.
“I’ll be here,” I said, forcing a weak smile. Dawn nodded tersely, easing herself off my bed in a fluid motion before carefully stepping around me so we wouldn’t touch. She was already in the living room when I called over my shoulder. “Dawn?”
“Yes?” Dawn was beside me before I finished the sentence, looking up at me cautiously.
“Don’t ever sit outside in the rain again,” I said sternly. “You’re welcome here for as long as you want to be.”
She exhaled slowly before giving me a small, graceful curtsey. “You will regret saying that.”
As she sped off her musical laugh trailed behind her, echoing through the room before fading away as my front door snapped shut. I stared, smiling in bewilderment at the empty spot she occupied only a moment ago, fighting the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.
13. Facet
The hours passed slowly while I waited for Dawn to return, and I began to wonder at what point my regular life became so inconsequentially dull. Okay, maybe that was overstating things, but I had to admit it was certainly less interesting.
Now that I knew Dawn’s age I couldn’t stop myself from trying to imagine the things she must’ve seen. The living, breathing histories she witnessed. What did someone with so much time on her hands do to keep herself busy when she wasn’t with me? Then I smiled to myself, knowing I’d have the chance to ask her.
After a short workout session I jumped into the shower, taking my time to ease out the knots in my neck from last night’s restless sleep. I was drying myself when I heard my
front door open, announcing Dawn’s arrival with a low creak. Rummaging through my cupboard I found a dark shirt and clean jeans and quickly changed, all the while chiding myself for hurrying when she of all people could afford to be patient. I crept to the edge of my room and leaned my head out, trying to catch a glimpse of her before she saw me. Dawn was waiting in the living room, standing perfectly still on the tips of her bare feet as she admired one of Claire’s paintings. It was a somber oil of a little girl tying a pair of powder blue ballet shoes that were constructed of flowing, stitched silk ribbons.
“Sorry I took so long,” Dawn said, pivoting smartly on her toes to face me. Of course she knew I was watching—she always did.
“Don’t sweat it. Did you have any plans tonight?” The weather had cleared up for the moment, and I was planning to take full advantage of the clear skies while I could.
“Whatever you are doing, I guess,” she said. I liked that answer.
“You’ve told me a lot about your world, more than I could’ve hoped for. I thought maybe tonight you’d like to see mine?”
“Okay,” Dawn answered, sounding cautiously eager.
She followed two steps behind me all the way to my car, not once asking where we were heading. I couldn’t decide if she was always this patient, or if she was secretly working on a guess. Her footsteps halted behind me as I passed the driver’s side and opened the car door for her, stepping aside to give her room.
“Thank you,” Dawn mumbled in surprise before climbing in. She clearly hadn’t expected that from me, apparently tonight was my night to catch her off guard.
We didn’t speak much, both content to let the road carry us to our destination. I didn’t fail to notice the irony either. This all started with her fears of interrupting the course of my fate, something I knew she still blamed herself for. Yet here I was, happily flouting the rules any and every chance I got. I knew I was too far gone to walk away from this. Strange as it seemed, the few short weeks of knowing the no longer living woman next to me was the most alive I felt in a long time. Still, I couldn’t help wondering what changed for her that my wellbeing took second place to her giving in to my every wish.
Dawn’s head swayed gently from side to side, following the rhythm of a nineties alternative rock number playing softly in the background from my trusty cassette player. “I never thought to ask, what music do you like?”
“A little bit of everything I suppose, depending on my mood.” She smiled. “When you have been around long enough to have heard it all, you tend to develop an eclectic taste. Of course things were a lot better for us when music was on vinyl. The digital recordings they use today are useless to us.”
“Why is that?” I asked, slightly puzzled.
“Enhanced senses,” Dawn replied, lightly tapping her temple. “When the sound gets converted electronically the information gets scrambled, and it just does not translate back the same way for us as it does for you. I cannot hear compact disks, watch television or use a cell phone. It is all static, scratchy and distorted beyond recognition. In a way it is sad really. As the world progresses into this new age of technological enlightenment, my kind become increasingly left behind.”
No nineties sitcom reruns, first man on the moon, funny internet clips, The Breakfast Club, or pretty much every pop culture reference ever? No Pac Man? What was the point of living forever if you missed out on all the good stuff? “No wonder you’re so fascinated with me. You must be bored out of your mind half the time.”
“People got on just fine for thousands of years before electricity,” she retorted.
Just ahead The Red Motel came into view, it’s blinking neon sign easily visible from the side of the street. The seedy spot was just a few miles outside the city, its remote location and cheap rates making it an ideal location for more morally questionable activities.
“What now?” she asked quietly when I made no move to get out.
I smiled, reaching for my duffel bag on the back seat. “Now, we wait.”
We were a few minutes early, and I was in no hurry for my mark to arrive so I took my time setting up my equipment. Dawn swiveled her body around so that she was leaning against the door again, her arms folded around her knees. She was watching me with rapt attention, though I was also sure it was to increase the physical distance between us. I hummed as I worked, failing to imagine how being on a stake out with her would be anything other than an interesting evening.
“If you can’t use a cell phone, how do you keep in contact with other seraphim?” I asked when I was finished.
Dawn reached behind her neck, revealing the pendant on the same thin silver chain she always seemed to be wearing. “Every seraph is given one of these when they accept their roles and take their oaths. Think of it as an amplifier. It has its limitations, even sending the most basic message requires practice and concentration, but they are useful. It also allows me to concentrate enough to find the people I am meant to take. Without it, I would not be able to get the visions, to feel where I am needed.”
Holding the necklace gingerly by the end of the chain she slid it into my open palm. The large, uncut pale green gem gleamed unnaturally under the red glow of the motel’s sign. The light it threw off shifted around ever so slightly, almost as if the stone had a pulse. I turned the gem over, running the tips of my fingers over the rough edges before handing it back to her. “That’s something.”
“It is quite a trinket,” she agreed, and as she worked on refastening the chain around her neck I felt the urge to hold her hair up for her.
My gaze was torn from Dawn to the rear view mirror as a pair of headlights came into view, following the gentle curve of the road. A black SUV rolled into the lot, coming to a stop in the vacant space in front of number eight. The engine was still running as I grabbed the camera, using the zoom to check the license plate. My mark had arrived.
Dawn straightened, peeking vigilantly over the dashboard to see what caught my interest. Almost thirty seconds passed as the car idled before the door of number eight creaked open. I smiled, readying my focus. “Here we go.”
The shutter clicked furiously, painting a frame by frame account as a man in an expensive grey suit stepped out of the car. He cut across the driver’s side, and I sighed under my breath as my mark disappeared. I had a clean shot of the man, but all I captured of the woman in eight was a pair of scarlet fingernails closing the door behind him.
I swapped the camera for my audio booster on the dashboard. The drawn curtains may have blocked my view, but they offered little protection from my other equipment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dawn perk her head a fraction to the side. She wouldn’t need an earpiece to catch what was happening behind those doors. For a long moment there was only static as I tweaked the device to get the best positioning.
. . . Yourself comfortable . . .
. . . Glasses are on the . . . she won’t find . . .
I tapped the microphone in my ear in frustration. Trying to get some useable audio wasn’t going to be as easy as I planned. I was hoping this would be a one night gig, in and out with everyone involved none the wiser.
“I could tell you what they are saying,” Dawn offered.
“Thanks, but I need tangible proof of the deed.”
With no way of getting a lens through those curtains the only options I had was to try and catch a shot of them lingering in the doorway as they left, or coming back another night. The clipped conversation dragged on for almost five minutes as we waited, and just when I was about to give up on the microphone the lights in the room dimmed. Hushed words began to flow into soft moans as the secret lovers found their way to the bed, and before long it was all that could be heard. I rolled my eyes as I stretched lazily, settling in for what could be a long while.
I did jobs like these a hundred times before, always tedious and rarely surprising. What I hadn’t accounted for was the atmosphere building right here in the car. When I planned this in my head I thought nothing o
f bringing Dawn along. After all I was a professional, and this was just another night at the office for me. She always acted just strangely enough that I couldn’t easily forget she wasn’t human, even though she once was. There was so much about her still alien to me, a solid line drawn between us that couldn’t be ignored. The dull stab of pressure in my head was ample evidence of that.
Dawn was truly a vision though. As different as she was, everything about her was still distractingly feminine. Looking at her now, the way I did tonight in this confined space, the line I drew in my head began to blur.
It also came as a surprise that my pulse picked up, and I felt noticeably flustered.
The logical part of my brain began rattling off a long warning list specifying just how insane the direction my thoughts were turning. It wanted me to be sickened by the very idea. She isn’t human, she isn’t alive, that isn’t even her you’re looking at you fool. In the back of my mind I also began to fear she was reading my raging emotions like an open book. I could only imagine what she would think of me if that were true, but perhaps the most surprising thing of all was I think I wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable right now.
Dawn’s expression was unreadable as she stared out of the window, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. She didn’t look as guarded as she usually was, which could only mean she wasn’t concentrating as much on her proximity to me. Right now I was definitely noticing the proximity. I couldn’t be sure, but her unnecessary breathing looked unusually shallow—something that hadn’t happened seconds after her climbing my building. The car had become noticeably colder, and we both seemed to be trying very hard not to look at each other. That, or . . . or I was just noticing what I wanted to.
I tried to marshal the muddled thoughts running wild through my mind, counting backwards from one hundred in an attempt to focus on the job at hand. When I reached one I cracked open the car door, the tense atmosphere evaporating almost instantaneously.