by JL Rothstein
Tom groaned. “You took the sheathing the book was in?”
“Well of course I did,” Kelly huffed. “You want me to get dirt and dust all over it?” It was a rhetorical question left appropriately unanswered.
Kelly pointed to the book while turning to Gen. “Here, this is where I think you were.” Her sister stepped to the side retrieving her cup from the counter. Gen stepped forward and leaned down to examine the pages more carefully. Displayed in full color across both pages of the open book was a watercolor drawing of a garden. The scene a near replica to what Gen had walked through, right down to the gated entrance, willow tree courtyard, and ivy-covered stone steps of the bridge.
“That’s it. That’s exactly where I found Gabriel last night,” Gen told them.
Tom was sitting across from where Gen was standing, reading the Aramaic text that surrounded the painting. Gen looked up as he sighed. “This cannot be where you were. And even if it were, how could it look exactly like this? You must have seen this before.”
“I have never seen this book, I promise you. My Aramaic is more than rusty, what does it say?” Gen asked.
“The translation of the text is debatable, especially between Tom and me,” Kelly said. “It’s much too long a philosophical conversation for us to get into right now.” Kelly paused before continuing. “In a nutshell, the depiction is supposed to be the entrance to the afterlife, the place where your soul is reaped based on the weight of its nature. If you are infinitely wise and good, you are sent to the light half. If you are troubled, selfish, sinful, etc., the dark half tugs at you, welcoming you to enter.”
Gen stood up from the table and began to pace between the white board and the table. “What is your understanding of the depiction and surrounding text Tom?”
Tom rolled his eyes at Kelly before turning his attention to Gen. “Kelly and I agree in part. I believe it is a place where you are judged, but who makes that judgement is what we argue over. It could be, that in the end, we are the best judge of what we have done during our lives. That each human is the one that knows all. That each person is their harshest critic, and therefore the best arbiters of where they truly belong. It is a choice, not a reaping.”
Kelly groaned. “Let’s agree to disagree.” Before Tom could argue further, she asked, “How can Gen have described, to a T mind you, a park she’s never been in and never read about?”
“She would have to have experienced it to know that kind of detail,” Dan remarked from the whiteboard.
As Gen stared at the notations on the whiteboard all she saw were the gaps. “We need more. We need the information Gabriel put inside my head, the rest of what he told me.”
Gen faced Greg. “I’m apparently well rested, my bruises from the fight are healed, and we’re all together. One cannot ask for a more opportune time to do this.”
Greg sighed, his shoulders were tense, he didn’t want to say yes, but Gen knew she had made a sound argument. “Ok, let’s do this then,” Greg said. “God help us if this goes horribly wrong.”
“Before we do this,” Dan chimed in, “I think we need to agree on some assumptions, so we can move forward. Since neither me, nor our brothers, has seen these giant demons without one of you present, can we agree, through process of elimination, that these two eight-foot, green-eyed demons, are following the girls and not the rest of us?”
Gen watched all in the room nod in affirmation. “Good, so the three of you,” Dan pointed to his sisters, “let’s list your charges on the board. We might need to increase security on them if they are being stalked. Maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to catch Schlosser or at least start following him instead of the other way around.”
“You want all our charges? It would take another board,” Gen told him.
“Not all your charges, as you said it would be too long a list,” Dan agreed. “The three of you tell me which one you feel a particular connection with? There has to be something about those three connections you are leaving behind, a strong essence perhaps, something Schlosser is able to trace long after you’ve gone.”
Gen watched Dan write Becky’s name on the board. “I think it’s obvious this one would be yours Gen.”
“I bet mine is Sophia,” Deb told him. Dan wrote the name underneath Becky, along with some additional notes about the two Angels from Deb’s meeting with Marcus the night before.
Gen looked over at Kelly who was writing a list of names in the notebook. “I don’t know who mine would be,” Kelly told them.
“How about the last one you saved, just before the fire?” Tom asked. “I think it’s safe to say our world started to tilt sideways that night.”
“That was more than six months ago,” Kelly argued. “There have been dozens since then.”
“I know,” Tom said. “But think about it? Everything, out of the ordinary for our world, traces back to the night of that fire.”
Kelly reviewed her list and then looked at Gen. “Gerry Wilson, from South Boston. He’s a firefighter nearing retirement, likes to work on his boat in the shipyard on his days off. He’s a widow, his wife died of cancer two years ago, his two grown children recently moved out of state.”
Tom followed up. “Did all three of your marks light up? Was that what sent you to these particular charges? Or was there something different about them?”
“My mark lit up for Becky.” Gen remembered. “I told you guys that night, the night I went to save her. Tom you brought a pizza over for Kelly.” Gen looked at Kelly. “It was the night you had dinner with the priests who didn’t want to accept your opinion on the possession case.”
“That’s the night my mark went off for Gerry,” Kelly said. “Remember, you asked me why I was eating again? I told you I had to leave dinner early because my mark went off.”
Deb then added, “I couldn’t go to dinner that night with Kelly because my mark had already gone off, for Sophia. She collapsed at her cousin Stella’s house and she was brought to the hospital. It was the night her doctor told her the cancer was back.”
Dan marked on the board. “Ok, well there’s the link,” Dan told them. “All three charges were saved the night of Schlosser’s vanquishing.”
Gen was struggling to follow. “What does that mean?”
“It depends on what you believe happens to a demon the night he’s thrust back to Hell,” Xavier answered.
Gen asked the obvious question, “How in the world would we know what happens to a demon thrust back to Hell?”
Tom stood and walked to the front of the room. “What Dan and Xavier are referring to is undocumented. There have been some verbal accounts of Hell sanctioning the return of demons killed during battle with Heaven.” He paused and then looked at Gen. “The demons in question are able to trace their executioner with the power of reprisal being near ten-fold.
Xavier clarified. “Meaning, it’s not an eye for eye. It’s more like five bodies for an eye.”
“Oh my God!” Kelly exclaimed “You guys are not seriously talking about avenging spirits as real. It’s fiction, it’s lore, the stuff of Hollywood!”
“What is?” Gen asked.
“Long ago, when Heaven and Hell finalized the Compact, the one that keeps this delicate dance of ours from blowing up into chaos,” Kelly said animating with her hands for effect. “Supposedly both sides agreed that if any being was killed unjustly, breaking the Accord, that an avenging punishment would hunt down the rule breaker. The knowledge of who the killer was, the brethren they associated with, and the charges they watched over, were eligible as retribution for the disobedient act.”
Gen felt the room fill with tension, she had never heard of such a thing. “Is it true? Did my killing Schlosser bring revenge down upon all of us? Did Hell send Schlosser back to take us all out?”
“Hold on,” Tom said calmly while holding up his hands “We can’t know anything for sure, but we can’t deny the connection between your three charges.”
“I think it’s pur
e fiction,” Kelly told Gen. “How many times has Hell killed outside the quote–unquote rules?”
“Many,” Gen answered.
“Exactly!” Kelly said theatrically. “Yet, we’ve never seen Angels, Watchers, or Guardians return from Heaven with an edict of wrath against their killers.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not,” Tom announced. “Actions do have consequences, we’ll deal with them, together, as we always do.”
Gen could not find relief in Tom’s words. What if punishment isn’t just coming for her, what if it’s coming for them all?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gen sat quietly at the large table while several of her brothers moved furniture around the room. Greg motioned for Gen to sit in a chair in front of the patio doors, her back would be to the view of the garden that lay just beyond. Greg pulled a chair in front of her and sat down while Dan moved the large whiteboard into a corner of the room.
When the rest of her siblings settled around the large dining table, someone shut the light off, so they were now awash in shadow. Greg pulled his seat closer to Gen, nothing sat between them, their knees were nearly touching. He took Gen through several breathing exercises before he started.
“I don’t know if I’m going to need Frankie’s help,” Greg told her. “It will depend on how deep the memory has fallen. I’m going to start, if you need to stop, just say so. The most helpful thing to try and do is relax, do not resist.”
“I will try,” Gen told him.
“Good, because resisting hurts us both,” Greg reiterated. “Close your eyes and think back to last night. What did you see, smell, and hear? Don’t speak, just bring those thoughts forward and re-live the moment you first saw Gabriel.”
Gen shut her eyes and focused on the magnificence of the park. The aroma of coffee and muffins from the kitchen was soon replaced by the lilacs and roses. The sweeping warmth of sunshine accompanied by the sounds of rustling willow branches swirled in her mind. She felt the soft grass slip between her toes and then the rough terrain of dirt and pebbles as she walked under the curving trees that lead to the bridge.
The images were as vivid as they were the night before, but they were faster than when she experienced it last night. She felt something move inside her head and moaned. Greg placed his hand on her knee reassuring her that it was alright, so she moved forward. Suddenly, Gabriel was standing before her, they were arguing. She had turned away from him, he was pleading with her to stay calm. Gen felt cold air around her, as if trying to separate her from Gabriel. She reached out and felt Greg take her hand and place it back upon her lap.
Her face was cold from the chilly air, something didn’t seem right, she didn’t remember being this cold the night before. Despite wearing a tank top and not having socks or shoes on she didn’t remember being uncomfortable. She heard Greg’s voice in her head. “Stop resisting, Gen. Focus on Gabriel, what is he telling you?”
I’m hurting him, I don’t want to relive this, Gen thought.
“Keep going Gen, we’re nearly there.” Greg’s voice revealed a tremor of exhaustion, the toll this exercise was beginning to take on him.
“Gabriel don’t go!” Gen yelled. She felt a wave of pain but kept attempting to reach out to the image of Gabriel before her. Then she heard Gabriel’s voice and paraphrased what he was saying out loud. “He’s telling me that I’m in danger, but not just from Schlosser, from the allies of the demon he stole powers from. Gabriel is pleading for me to remain calm, but I’m struggling, I can’t seem to control my emotions. He tells me about demons taunting him about me, but I don’t understand. Gabriel says he and Jared think what’s coming is serious and that we should be prepared. I tell him we need Michael, he says he has Michael and Harry. I get angry. He’s carrying me now, he says he doesn’t have time to explain and touches my forehead.”
Gen felt a rush of emotion as the scene dissolved in front of her. Somehow it was like losing Gabriel all over again. No, please stay, I want to hold on to this, to you, she pleaded.
She thought she was coming back to her siblings, but instead she heard the screams of war. Looking beyond the bridge she saw a fiery red sky. Off in the distance Gabriel had crested a hillside and disappeared to the other side. Gen raced forward, each step brought her closer to the thunderous roar of battle. When she reached the summit and peered over, she fell to her knees and screamed.
In the valley below were thousands of Heavenly soldiers, Gabriel among them, fighting an onslaught of Hell’s worst. The ground was caked in blood and venom, the clanging sounds of weapons smashing against each other rang like bells through the air. On each end of the hillside were camps of wounded entities accompanied by thousands more preparing to enter the fray. It was chaos as far as the eye could see, a battle to end all battles. There were no distinguishing lines, each clash seemed to push and pull the enemies across the uneven landscape of the dead.
“Is this where you’ve been the whole time, Gabriel?” she asked.
She watched her husband savagely slice in half the demon he faced off against, then he turned and looked up at her. “You’re the only thing keeping me alive,” he told her.
Gen shut her eyes tight trying to purge the scene from her mind. When she opened her eyes, she saw perspiration on Greg’s furrowed brow and felt the memory retreating once more to the far corners of her mind. “Did you see that?” Gen asked Greg “Did you hear me? I was telling you what he said.” She looked over at her siblings who were just getting up from the table.
“No, sorry Gen, you didn’t say anything,” Deb told her “You cried, and moaned a lot, but no words we could make sense of.”
Gen stood up as Dan pulled the white board back out from the corner. Someone took away the chair she was just sitting on. Everyone was moving around, but Gen stood still watching Greg walk to the board and pick up a marker. He wrote on the board.
The demon that fought his way out of Hell to come for you. Jared and I think he stole a powerful demon’s essence to escape. He’s coming for you, and anyone else who gets in his way. You’re in Danger Gen, not just from him, but from the allies of the demon he stole the powers from to get back to earth.
Gen read the words and knew that was exactly what Gabriel had told her last night. She launched herself forward and hugged her brother. “Thank you.”
“It’s all good Gen, now I need some sleep,” Greg whispered. Turning to the others he told them, “I’m heading home, I need to recover before I can go out. That memory was extremely intense.” He looked over at her. “You may continue to get images, even when you’re awake, as your mind works through the trauma and intrusion.”
Gen watched Greg use his powers to leave the kitchen. The rest of them focused on Gen.
“I saw flashes of where Gabriel’s been,” Gen told them. “I think Greg did too. If he didn’t see, at a minimum he felt the horror of it.”
Kelly grabbed Gen’s hand and held it tight. “Tell me Gen, where have they been all this time?”
Gen’s eyes welled up before she could stop them, tears streaked down her face. “I didn’t see Jared, I just saw Gabriel. He was in the Pit.”
“Oh no,” Deb whispered in anguished disbelief and hugged her.
Gen heard the legs of a chair scratch across the floor as Kelly’s legs gave out and she slumped down into a chair. Dan laid a hand of reassurance on Kelly’s shoulder, but didn’t say anything.
What can they say right now? Gen thought, there are no reassurances to keep us from worrying about the Pit.
The Pit wasn’t a place you freed yourself from, it was a penance of sorts. Gen knew it was the front lines of the infinite war against Hell. She had never seen it before, it looked so much more gruesome and violent than any painting had ever depicted. The sights and sounds of intense battle were more horrific than any text had ever described. If Gabriel and Jared were there, it wasn’t of their own volition, and there was no telling when they’d be released.
“That bas
tard isn’t back with a proclamation from anyone,” Kelly announced. “Schlosser stole some upper demon’s powers to get here. We can’t do anything to help Gabriel, but we can do something about that.”
“That makes sense,” Tom added. “Gen said he was a Roamer Demon, they not only have the ability to absorb powers, but they have no allegiance. He wouldn’t care who or what he stole from.”
Gen’s eyes fell on Tom. “Now what? This is when Michael would normally dole out marching orders.”
“Look,” Tom pronounced. “I know there’s a lot to process right now, and I’m not Michael, but he’d be pissed if we wallowed. The whole point of his training sessions was so that we would be independent, prepared, and not reliant on him. We know what we need to do now. We know how to go out there and hunt down leads, send a message, and make our presence felt. Now let’s get out there and do what we’ve been trained to do,” he told them.
Dan asked him, “Are you sure Tom? You want us hunting the green-eyed demons or at least someone who can get a message to them?”
“That’s right,” Tom replied. “Let’s throw a noose around Schlosser’s neck. The green-eyed demons want their brother, let’s tell them who stole his powers and probably left him for dead somewhere.”
An hour after her brothers left the house to chase down leads and look for new ones, Gen was back in the kitchen with Deb and Kelly. They had reverted to their corners of the house trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Now they were dressed and ready to head out to tackle some of their own demon hunting.
Kelly rummaged through one of the bakery boxes left on the table. “We never took you for breakfast,” Gen said apologetically.