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| >> Campfire Creative >> Other >> Supernatural >> ID #1662202 |   |
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| [Introduction]
Long ago--very, very long ago--Satan rebelled against God. What an absolute moron. There was only one foreseeable outcome of such a war: He Lost. Michael kicked his ass from here to eternity and God cast him from Heaven in punishment. His followers went with him and we thought that such idiocy would be done. We were wrong. For, when God finished damning Lucifer's army to the vast chasm of Hell, He turned on the rest of us. Those of us who had taken no side, thinking the war idiotic in the first place. Perhaps we felt sympathy for Satan's cause or the certainty of his defeat a little too keenly to bother fighting. Not all of us are meant to take the flaming sword into battle, giving ourselves over to the faceless masses of the host. And, between you and me, not all of us are big fans of Michael. And so we were punished for our indecision, cast from Heaven. But we hadn't gone so far as to defy God or to throw our lot in with the rebels, so we were spared Hell. Instead, we were forever banished to Earth. To live as humans for all eternity until such a time as we could prove our loyalty to Him. But, as Lucifer hasn't been crazy enough to try again, we've been stuck here a while. And, at this point, we're pretty sure we're never going back to Heaven. So, though hope still flares within, most of us have separated, living as normal a life as could be hoped. Fortunately for us (or unfortunately, depending upon your opinion), things are about to change. Now we've just got to make sure we do it right this time. This time, we can't fuck up. ***** They were once called the Nephilim, the unholy product of the unholy union between Fallen Angels and human women. But then God sent the flood, killing that name forever. Basically, they're immortal mortals. Neither Angel or Fallen, neither Divine or Demonic, they have lived in Earth since before Adam and Eve touched the apple, and most of them met the man called Christ (and, frankly, they didn't really like him). God's curse was this: they must fight for Him in a war, to make up for their lack of devotion the first time around. However, in the millennia since they Fell, they've mostly figured that it'll never happen. And moved on, attempting to live something akin to a normal life. In recent centuries, however, they've all been pushed together, coming in the last few decades to reside within a thousand miles of one another, all in the United States of America. The clever ones have seen the pattern. The faithful see God in it, the cynics simply see another letdown. But they've all been brought together. And no one, not even the staunchest of the faithless, can deny that there's something happening. But no one is sure what it is. And some of them aren't even sure they want it. ***** So the Rules: We are the 'Nephilim', for lack of a better word. Our characters fought neither for or against God and were cast down to Earth. So they've been there a while. They *were* perfect, but now that they've been cast from Heaven, they're just like humans...only immortal. No wings, no sword, no supernatural powers. Utterly mortal, except for the living forever part. All of us live somewhere in the western half of the United States. For some reason, each of our characters has been called there, whether they believe that it's Divine intervention or not. No perfect characters, no god modding, no all-knowing characters. The usual stuff. My typical rules are the same as y'all. Have fun, any questions just ask me. Quaddy Out. |
 Quaddy  How I abhor this place Its sweet and bitter taste Has left me wretched, retching on all fours Los Angeles, I’m yours. -The Decemberists The smell of the winds ravaged his nose, tearing it apart worse than the cheapest snuff of centuries past or, more recently, the crap cocaine he’d shoved up his nasal passages within the last few decades. No matter how many centuries he spent in this godforsaken hellhole of a town, he’d never get used to that blasted wind. It reminded him too much of the sirocco winds of Egypt, which he’d spend an eon trying to escape. Too bad for him, then, that so much history had occurred in that part of the world. Gabriel—no, not that Gabriel (and, yes, he’d gotten asked numerous times over the years)—sucked at a cigarette, feeling the smoke poison his lungs for just an instant before his immortal curse healed the damage, and scanned the bar. As far as he could tell, he was the only one of his kind living in Los Angeles, which was kind of ironic when one thought about it. You’d think more of them would have showed up by now. City of Angels it was called, and he was (or had been, at least) one of God’s Host for a while. Then fucking Lucifer had come and fucked it all up for him. Or, rather, Gabriel had to admit that he’d probably fucked it up for himself. But Michael had been such an asshat and Lucifer…well, Gabe could never fight against his brother. So he’d abstained, watching from the sidelines, not sure he wanted to see either side win, knowing that Lucifer had no chance. By the time Gabe had decided to make a decision—he had voted for the Morning Star’s expulsion in the end—it had been too late for him and God, anxious to see a purging of Heaven’s ranks, had cast him and all others who’d made his mistake down to earth. They were all doomed to live as humans for all eternity, never again to see Elysium, until the end of time, when God would have to decide what to do with them. That had been a bad time for them all. They didn’t know how to survive, weren’t smart enough to band together, too smart to try and mate with humankind. A fair few had jumped into the waters of the flood, taking advantage of God’s wrath to end their existence. Some had been lucky enough to die (Gabe wasn’t sure how that worked, but he hadn’t hated himself enough at the time to try and kill himself—still didn’t, if he really thought about it), but most had just found themselves a touch soggy and all the more desperate. Lucky for them, the Christ had come, though most of their kind weren’t smart enough to admit that Joshua had done them a service. They’d petitioned the Son to gain them reentry into Heaven, to extend the Father’s forgiveness to their kind, but even Josh hadn’t been able to do that. Some few, angered enough by this time to act against the Father, whispered into the ear of Caiaphas, demanding Christ’s blood. Gabriel, too smart (or, likely, too cowardly to take a position, though it had taken him some time to admit that he’d once again been a weak ass piece of shit) to give in to that crap, had sat back and watched disapprovingly. For that, he and the few who actually had taken a stand, were spared a culling as God once again opened the doors to Pandemonium. Gabriel was forced to watch once more as friends and compatriots fell, screaming and transforming as they went, into the flaming chasm. And again he wondered why the fuck it wasn’t him burning away down there. What did God have planned for him, the Angel too chicken to take a stand for once? But the Christ had done something for him—for all of the Immortals yet remaining on earth—on the cross; he brought God’s attention to their unending plight. And, better, he brought God’s eventual forgiveness. Not the way most might have wanted it, but Gabriel was not too picky after a few thousand years spent twiddling his thumbs in the middle of the desert. God decided, in His new-and-improved forgiving state, to give the Immortals another chance. Fight for Him in a war and they would be allowed back into Heaven. A chance to undo the mistake of their earlier cowardice, as Gabe had put it back then. He’d been in a Venereal temple somewhere in the notorious Suburra at the time, rutting in the straw with some disease-ridden whore, and more than a little drunk. The prostitute had ignored him, concentrating too much on moaning at the right time to earn her coin, but he’d thought it was pretty damn clever at the time. At the time, he still hadn’t been able to admit that it was the truth. He’d grown a little wiser over the years, or so he thought. Maybe not too much wiser, but a little bit was better than nothing. While he had to admit that he didn’t live the most ascetic life, Gabe was pretty sure he didn’t live as badly as some of the others, those who’d completely given up hope that God might one day provide them with an opportunity to prove themselves. And that was because, deep down inside, Gabriel still hoped, still believed in the Father. And not so deep down, he knew that he had made the wrong decision. Worse, he’d made no decision. But he supposed that God must have seen that somewhere and that was why he was spared damnation. God was all-knowing, something that Lucifer had forgotten. Something that it had taken eons for Gabe to remember. They’d all mostly stuck around Rome for a while, but he’d not seen any of the other Immortals for over six-hundred years since he left Italy, traveling first to England and then, when the Puritans got kicked out, to America. He was surprised none of the others had followed him, actually, but some of them were pretty old school. They obviously thought any wars would happen somewhere around the Holy Land. And they were probably right. But that fucking sirocco! And that fucking desert, never-ending, never changing. It was like being stuck listening to the same seven songs over and over again for all of eternity. No matter how great those songs were, it got fucking tiring. So Gabe had taken a shot, following the rise of power all the way to the Americas. He fucking loved America. Just not Los Angeles. But he figured that, if there was anywhere to be, it was in the City of Angels. So he’d been there since the earthquake had destroyed San Francisco, smoking too much and drinking too little, trying to find something to do with his time besides sleep around and play video games, occasionally selling one of the little trinkets he’d picked up over the years for some petty (ok, not petty) cash. Not sure why he had nightmares every time he tried to leave, always deciding to stay. Staying because something told him that this was the place to be. A little voice deep down in his ancient soul squeaking out a warning, a premonition that, whatever happened, it would happen in this one-time Spanish outpost that had become the breeding ground for American greed. A voice that he was pretty sure was something he should listen to, just this once, lest he make yet another mistake. “So, hun, whatcha drinkin’?” The bartender leaned against the bar, hoping her too-big breasts stuffed into a too-tight tank top would entice him to get another shot of whiskey. And, because Gabe had always been a boob man, it worked (which she had, undoubtedly, figured out during the three or four times they’d fucked in the alley behind the bar). Gabe grinned, sucked again at his ciggy, and held up his shotglass, picturing her tits bounding up and down as he plowed into her. Of all the benefits of being an Immortal, sex was his hands down favorite. But even that was beginning to wear off. “Shot of Jack, straight up.” His eyes, ice blue like all of his kind, darkened just slightly, the pupils dilating. “Tell you what, I’ll be content with a taste of Jack from those lips of yours.” “Gabe, you asshole, not until I’m off work.” She giggled and Gabe watched, fascinated, as her breasts jiggled in response. Truth be told, she was just one of any number of women he bedded on a nightly basis, but at least she wasn’t a strung out heroin addict who just lay there half the time, too stoned to do anything but stare off into space while he gave it to her. He’d laid off those back in the sixties, discovering that he preferred girls that screamed a little as they dug their nails into the skin of his back. Tits McGee was just one of those girls. And boy did she have a mouth on her. “When’s that, beautiful?” Gabe knocked back the Jack she sat in front of him. It tasted like nail polish remover, but it worked well enough for what he wanted. “Three a.m. today,” she replied in a soft purr. Gabe wondered if she did this for all of her clientele, but he doubted it. She couldn’t sleep with every asshole who walked in here thinking he was a Casanova or else she’d have died from something by now. So it was probably just him and one or two others. Gabe was fine with that, actually. He didn’t want her too attached to him. It had happened a few times over the years and Gabe sure as hell didn’t want to relive the consequences of those few occasions. Most of them had ended in death for someone or other and Gabe sneaking out of town until everyone was dead or too old to remember him. Like as not, the others had encountered similar problems. They were, after all, Angels, even if they were cast out. And that led to some interesting complications with humanity. Gabriel was a veritable Adonis, after all, if a bit dark from all those years along the Mediterranean. And he wasn’t even the best looking of them all. “Well then, we’ll have to meet up later then.” Sitting back against the chair, Gabe scanned the bar again, fingers absently twirling the shot glass in the Heavenly tongue. He hadn’t forgotten it, even after all this time. It was odd that he should be tracing the symbols now, when he hadn’t done so in… Six hundred years. Gabe sat up, looking around more carefully. There was another Immortal here! Not only in the goddamn hellhole that was L.A., but in the bar. How the fuck? Of all the gin joints in all the world, to quote that particularly famous movie. Gabriel was not a smart man, not if his past mistakes were anything to go on. But even he would have to be a moron to miss this and not recognize it as an opportunity. He hadn’t seen an Immortal since he abandoned Rome during the days of the anti-Pope. And now one had turned up in his city? Well, he’d always known the allure of the City of Angels would call to someone besides him. He just hadn’t realize how much he hadn’t wanted it to happen. Wenston Micah was a fighter. He always had been, he always would be. He was a fighter and a millennia of practice had made him damn good at it. He’d fought in so many wars around the world, in all different countries, wearing all different uniforms – in different armies and navies and rebellions. He liked to watch the evolution of war. Where it went from two men fighting with sticks to two countries fighting with computers. He liked the thrill of war, the heat of battle, and it never mattered what side he fought for because it was all pointless in the big scheme of things. No matter who won, in a couple hundred of years, another war would come along and be bigger and better than the last. He was a fighter and whenever there was a war, he always stepped in to fight, whether it was his war or not. Except once. And that was all it took. God cast him, and all those like him, from Heaven and cursed him to walk the earth ever-living and maybe that’s what turned him into such a damn good soldier. Maybe that’s why he sought out wars to fight in and battles to win – because the one time he hadn’t had been the one time when it really mattered. And maybe he thought that if he fought in the mortal wars, maybe one of them would turn out to be the war that would set him free. He knew it was bullshit every time he thought it, but he couldn’t help himself. There were just some things a person couldn’t forgive themselves from doing and not siding with God Fucking Almighty when he waged a war was one of those things. He thought he’d be dead by now. Immortality only went so far. Being immortal didn’t save you from explosions or poisonous gas or a fucking tank running you over or even a stray bullet shattering through your helmet and into your forehead and through your brain. He’d seen all of these deaths done to those around him. He’d witnessed countless mortals, God’s creations, destroy themselves over stupid philosophies and arguments. But it had never happened to him. And he wasn’t sure why. He wore his scars like he wore his medals. Maybe because in Heaven, you didn’t scar. But down here on earth, in the fucking trenches as he liked to call it, a phrase he’d picked up during one of the world wars – you got all kinds of scars. He had scars from modern wars, scars from ancient wars, scars from tribal wars, and scars from wars that couldn’t even be considered wars. Arrow wounds, metal shrapnel, bullet wounds, and his personal favorite, a knife wound that wound its way along his cheek, following his cheekbone. He liked that one the most because it was one people could see. It was one people would ask him about and he could tell them, in all seriousness, that a little Chinese fucker had sliced his face during the Tianbao Rebellion in the grand old year of 761. He was also missing his ring finger on his right hand. He’d been tortured in Vietnam and they’d started with his fingers. Luckily they only got one before his platoon had shown up. He didn’t think he could live for eternity without his fingers. Maybe Micah had been beautiful at one time. Maybe before all the scars and the wars and the fighting, when he was one of God’s chosen and favorites, maybe he had been gorgeous. But you couldn’t live among mortals and help them fight their wars without sacrifice. And beauty was what he sacrificed. He wondered, through all the years, if God would take that into consideration one day and give him a fucking break. He was helping God’s children. Maybe not always on the right side, but he fought for them. He tried to prove to God that he’d made a mistake in not choosing him over Lucifer, not fighting for him. God either wasn’t listening or didn’t give a fuck. Today, Micah needed a break from war. And by today he meant for the past twenty years. He’d helped America fight its war in Vietnam, and he’d given up a finger for the country, but after being tortured, he’d stopped. Because he wasn’t sure why the war was being fought in the first place. It wasn’t the most gruesome or even the most deadly, but it was the most pointless. It was just two armies fighting for reasons neither one of them knew. Most of the soldiers could probably have been friends with each other if they’d just stop and talk out their differences. And he’d seen that war do things to mortals that he’d not seen before. Innocent men turned into murderers and torturers and enjoyed watching each other bleed and suffer. He understand war enough to know that when it came down to that, it was pointless. So he took a break and wandered America for a while. It was still a young country and there was a lot of it he liked to see. It had grown over the years and it amused Micah how society grew with it. It was prosperous and rich and full of life. America was good, even though it fought wars that were pointless. He wound up in Los Angeles because he’d gone to the bus station one day, thinking he would go to New Orleans to see the aftermath of the hurricane, because he had always been fascinated with floods ever since the big one, but all of the tickets were sold out and he was antsy so he’d bought the only one that was still available. It happened to be Los Angeles. City of Angels. How fucking ironic. Sitting on the bus next to an old woman who was knitting a sweater, he listened to her talk about her grandchildren and how happy she was that she’d get to see them because surely her days were numbered. Micah was looked at her and could see the tired in her eyes. He watched people age and knew the signs and he had to agree with her. So he’d humored her and told her what Heaven was like. She called him a goofball but had offered him some of her cookies anyway. He’d flashed her a smile and she patted his hand and when they climbed off the bus he watched her go over to her family and hug her grandchildren and he had to look away because he was sad suddenly. He missed them. And he couldn’t quite place who the them was that he missed, he just knew that he missed them. His brothers and sisters. The Angels. God. All of them. He missed Heaven. There was a bar not too far from the bus stop and he walked into it with everything he owned in a backpack slung over his shoulder. It was dark inside and he got a few curious looks and he knew they were looking at the scar on his face and the missing finger. He looked tough and he liked it. He found it more amusing than looking beautiful. His blue eyes went to the busty lady behind the bar and she strode up to him and leaned over and tried to show him her cleavage but he had lost taste in women, and men for that matter, a long time ago. He placed a fifty on the counter and said, “Whiskey, on the rocks. Top shelf, toots. None of your fucking cheap stuff.” She laughed at him and grabbed and expensive looking bottle from the top shelf. She poured him a drink and he winked at her and went to go find a seat at a table in the corner. She called out to him. “Don’t you want your change?” “Think of it as a tip, sweetheart.” That must have made her day because she smiled and she meant it, he could tell by now when people meant it. He sat in the corner and drank his expensive whiskey and leaned his head back. Los Angeles. City of Angels. This city could go fuck itself because there sure as shit were no other angels here. Then the door clanged and he looked up at the newcomer and he raised a brow and watched as the man came in and flirted with the bartender and ordered a drink and scanned the room and the minute their eyes met, Micah grinned ear to ear. Because it had been six hundred years since he’d seen one of his brothers and sisters. Six hundred fucking years and one just happened to stroll into the bar where he was having his drunk. Who fucking would have thought it. The other man, Gabriel, and not that Gabriel, came over and stood next to the table. The two were smiling at each other because it had been a while. Micah watched Gabe look at his scars, the ones that were visible and Micah did the same, although Gabe was still the good looking sonofabitch that he remembered. He tried not to hold that against him. Then Micah stood and reached out and pulled the other man into a hug, clapping him roughly on the back. Micah had never been able to hide his enthusiasm. He pulled back and looked at Gabe, who looked somewhat amused. The other spoke first. “What the hell are you doing here?” He asked. Micah grinned. “Well I sure as shit hope hell has something to do with it.” .Wolfie. Raphael had always been a lover, not a fighter.She sat on the beach and watched the sun set over the ocean, a cigarette dangling from her lips and the board sitting on the sand next to her. She loved the ocean. She loved watching the sun set. Sometimes, when the light struck the waves just right and the water glittered like a thousand tiny diamonds, it reminded her of heaven, and she missed heaven. She missed it more every day, and she had lived quite a lot of those. Her hair hung in blonde and rainbow dreadlocks around her face, falling to her hips in twisting knot. She loved California, it felt like the end of the earth. She tried to stay out of their cities, because she had gotten sick of people a long time ago, but the beaches were unlike any other. She felt like maybe if she kept trying to swim against the currents, maybe if she just kept plunging into the cold waters over and over again, than someday she would come out on the other side. She hadn’t taken that chance the first time the flood came, but she figured if it happened again, this would be the place. She stood up, flicking her cigarette and blowing smoke out from between her lips. She was waiting for that moment, the one that felt like home when the sun splintered the world and she felt like she could see to the other side. It was the closest she got anymore, the closest she could hope to get. She was one of the cynics, and she didn’t believe in second chances. She almost didn’t care, because she wasn’t sorry, but she knew that attitude would never get her home. What was she supposed to do? She’d been a healer, a lover, a creature made up of light and laughter and she hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. She hadn’t wanted to kill her brothers and sisters anymore than she had wanted to turn against her God. So she’d sat the first one out. She hadn’t really cared who won, as long as the fighting stopped. It had, and then she’d been kicked out like the rest of them. She hadn’t understood it when it happened. She’d just wanted everything to be like it used to be, before Michael had carried that stupid flaming sword into battle and made himself a legend. She’d like Lucifer, quite a lot really, and he’d been one of her favorite brothers. She’d told him not to do it, but he’d just laughed and patted her on the head like the condescending prick he was, and told her that she better pick a side, little girl, because the winners weren’t going to be forgiving of the cowards. She hadn’t believed him at the time. She had been stupid and naïve. The sun hit the water and there was that perfect moment she’d been waiting for. The light hit her in the eyes, fracturing in all its prismatic glory and if she squinted than she could see that little piece of heaven she’d lost looking back at her. She picked up the board and then she was running into the waves. Maybe one of these days if she pushed hard enough that she could swim right into the light and somehow find her way back home. She knew it wouldn’t happen, but a girl could dream. She sat out most of the wars on earth. She knew there was the possibility that maybe one of them would be the one she had to help win to get out of this place and back into the clouds. She just didn’t believe in any of them. The last time she had fought in anything had been back in the Crusades and she had gotten tired of the hypocrisy and the bullshit early on. All of them, just arguing over what Christ had said when most of them had it wrong entirely. Raph felt the waves part under her fingers as she pulled herself out into the ocean. The sun was blazing in her eyes and she just closed the mismatched orbs, soaking in the rays. She felt the big one coming, the one big wave that was going to smash her into the water or the beach and maybe this would be the one that broke her but it didn’t matter. One way or another, she had the strangest sense that things would be ending soon, and maybe this would be the easy way out. Maybe if this one wave took her down now than she wouldn’t have to face the storm she felt was coming. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Maybe she was full of shit. Maybe a change was coming and she was just a coward. Then the wave hit and she barely managed to climb on top of her board in time. She braced herself on it, water spraying her face and salt water on her tongue. She grinned manically as the shadow rose over her and she could barely see the sun through the water anymore, but the afterimage stayed burned in her eyes just like heaven. The afterimage that had never left her, the one that would be forever branded in the back of her mind. The wave was folding over her and she felt herself starting to slip on the board. It was raining around her now and she was waiting for that final crash to come, the one that threw her down into the water and maybe she’d be able to swim back up and maybe she would drown this time, as she hadn’t the thousand other times before. The waves crashed over her and pushed her down into the sand. She felt water fill her lungs because she was yelling with wild abandon even as the water choked off the sound. Her body was thrown by the waves and she loved every second of it because there were some moments where she liked being almost mortal. Even when it got tough, even when it hurt and burned and scarred, she liked being able to feel. She liked being able to throw herself in the ocean and not have to worry about anyone but herself. Raph missed Heaven. She missed it every day, but she knew even if she got home it could never be the same. She washed up on the beach about a quarter mile from where she’d started. She coughed up salt water and then she started to laugh, slumping down into the sand and feeling it rough and warm under her cheek. Her lungs were burning and she was probably a little bruised because the waves today were brutal. The beach wavered and shone under her and then the last rays of the sun were gone and their brilliance faded to a dull glow under her fingers. With another cough and aching limbs, she pulled herself to her feet and started the trek back to her car. Along the way she found her board. It wasn’t broken, but it had a few more scratches in it. She heaved it under one arm, the other hand starting to pull down the zipper of her wetsuit. She jammed the board out the back of her little Volkswagen shit box and she had to prop the back window open just to fit it in. The wetsuit got thrown in the back next to her duffle bag full of clothes and the guitar she’d had for the last twenty years. That was her existence now. She was a modern day hippie, because she had always been a fan of peace and love over war and hate. Then again, look where it had gotten her. She sighed, pulling loose and battered jeans on and throwing flip flops down so she could slip into them. Another cigarette went between her lips and then she climbed in the car, wondering where she should go next. Her gaze traveled back to the ocean where the waves kept crashing into the shore. She wondered which wave was going to be the one that finally crushed her. She smiled, thinking of that stupid butterfly effect analogy and wondering if she should be asking which butterfly would be the one that finally crushed her. She sighed, flicking ash out of her window and pulling out of the sands. She could really use a drink. Matt - Nomad July 4th 2008 Dr. Grahame Nicander was awoken by an intern, Sally Mitchell, twenty minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. He’d fallen asleep on shift on one of the trolleys and the clock read half past two. “Problem?” he asked, croaking slightly as his confused eyes met hers and recognised a frantic look in her face. “Rescue Service helicopter coming in with a young man. He’s got a gunshot wound to his head apparently. We just got the radio call a moment ago.” A slight chill ran through him and he tried to shake the weariness from his groggy bones, “How long?” “Probably any minute now.” He felt heavy, having slept for a little under an hour. It was night shift in the Casualty ward of St Thomas’, London and it had been more than just a strenuous evening. He’d started at five that afternoon, having received a call from one of the surgeons asking for assistance after a nasty series of collisions on the Bayswater Road. They were sent the civilian casualties as the number of injured were dispersed among the London hospitals. After that he’d spent some time in the general, seeing to the case of a woman who’d had an iron placed on her calf by a difficult three year old and then treated an elderly man who was having his first diabetic seizure. By midnight things had been calming down but... apparently... not as much as they’d expected. Despite being on duty until the wee hours of the morning, he couldn’t help but feel a little resentful of the troublemaker that was supposedly being brought in with a bullet in his brain. No doubt the man was early to mid-twenties, probably in some sort of gang and if saved, probably just going to go off and cause more havoc on his release. Sighing, Nicander looked at the clock, that was the problem with youths these days. Intern Mitchell handed him a cup of tea, she knew no more about the case than she had already stated. Together, they took the stairs to the roof, not speaking but their thoughts both working through protocols. Mitchell was oddly excited about the potential surgery. He heard the sound of the chopper then and taking a hasty swallow of his tea, he set the cup down and they rushed to the door where the gurney staff waited for the elevator. From the looks of it the pilot was having trouble setting the machine down as a violent wind buffeted it sideways. Wincing, Nicander heard a thud as it finally touched-down. The rest of the arrival seemed to go in slow motion. Six paramedics rushed around the helicopter to help the two within the aircraft lift the spine board onto a trolley. Shouted orders were given. Nicander saw an elderly gentleman running from the craft as well, bloodied shirt sticking to his chest and the strands of white hair clinging to his face in pink clumps. “God, please help him, please help him sirs.” The man was muttering, ashen faced, old eyes red-rimmed and lips shaking. The injured man’s father? This was looking less like gang-crime. Mitchell went to the man, her brown eyes taking a swift, noticeable glance of the victim. Her horror was the thing that truly wakened Nicander. Finally moving with the gurney, tucking himself into the lift with the paramedics, he looked into the face of the man that had been brought in. His mouth dropped open and when he looked up into the grim eyes of the paras, he felt sick to his stomach. * Ben Chadley Nester, originally Nebuchadnezzar, was rich. Filthy rich to a degree that very few could comprehend. He had accumulated it over the years, although not deliberately. It was part of his angelic ‘charm’, he supposed, even whilst he’d resided in Heaven, he’d been in love with ideas. In Heaven he’d been attracted to the places where ideas were discussed, the forums and orchestras, he’d designed beautiful things with other angels at his side, things that the human imagination couldn’t fathom. Then he’d been banished, cast away from all that he loved, from the billowing, shimmering people with minds that could conceive of things that went beyond language. The angelic tongue was torn from him and only mortal poetry could come from his lips. The songs were wrenched from his throat so that a human voice was all that could be heard. The bright ideas that had been so tangible before became distant and vague as the mental capabilities of humanity tried to force themselves over the celestial. He could still think bigger, still imagine greater things, but the reality would forever fall short of his aspirations. More acutely, he felt the pain. The angelic memory, letting the experience remain trapped, like a shirt sleeve on barred wire; haunting him with such clarity that it hurt to think about. He’d believed the war of angels a stupid and trivial business. War was such a foolish thing and he thrived because he loved intelligence, to find beauty in the infinite, to manipulate it and make it better. War only destroyed and he saw no reason to take part. And he had suffered for it. Rather, he sometimes allowed himself to suffer for it. He could afford to let himself suffer for his ‘disobedience’, which he considered more of a minor neglect of an obscure duty. He could revel in it, he supposed, if he wanted. As he was, lying, draped across the plush, red sofas maid of the softest and most expensive red leather. He let the smell tickle his nose as he rolled over and pushed his face into the backrest, away from the four or five advisors that were sitting stiffly in high backed chairs that they deemed too comfortable to do real business in. “But sir –” “How many times must I tell you my name is Ben.” He drawled out without sounding at all sincere, “I had my heart set on this new endeavour so please, only speak favourably.” “What you’re asking for is spending of an unmitigated level. How do you actually propose to fund it?” He rolled over again as a hiss of intaken breath sharply passed through the air. He cracked open one eye. Of the five, it was five, not-so-young men, all were looking through sideways eyes at the outspoken gentleman on the far left of the circle. The man was probably in his forties, dark wavy hair that was peppered with age and with beady, green eyes that made him instantly distrust him. His ‘advisors’ were only meant to be a cover – he had reinvented himself as the wealthy heir of a late, obscure uncles estate. The ‘uncle’ had also been himself but he’d managed to suggest to the wide world that the ‘late’ Sir Nester had become somewhat of a recluse in the last thirty years of his life whilst the real Nester had fled from Britain to France and then to Morocco because he’d become close friends with the wonderful Yves Henri, aka Yves Saint Laurent. There he’d been involved in the design of the gardens in Marrakesh and had even become the man’s reported heir but that had been put straight when Ben came into his supposed ‘uncles’ inheritance and became one of the single most wealthy men in the world – and that was with only his public funds. His private and secreted monies put him several leagues over everyone else. He mused on Yves for a moment... he was glad that he’d managed to persuade the old man to marry Berges before the end... he had needed some small happiness. The silence had lingered in the room for far too long now and the employees were nervously shifting in their seats, trying to look unafraid when they knew that their jobs were expendable to this strange young man with the crystalline eyes. Unlike his uncle, this man was active, exuberant and ineffable. Being in a room with him was almost mesmeric; from the way he came up with ideas to the way that he proposed them to the way he offered them coffee and demanded that they call him Ben. He wasn’t at all like his quite, officious uncle that had merely funded the ideas of less powerful men. Junior, the forty-year old, outspoken fool that he was, obviously had much more to learn if he honestly thought that he couldn’t afford to build a simple tower in the heart of Chicago or New York or one of the big American cities. He had so little property in his current name that it was becoming annoying. “I want my tower. I can afford my tower. All I want is for you to point out the excess costs.” “Hiring almost every known artist and designer in the world to design a room in a hotel. A tad extravagant.” “Why? That’s the whole point of it. And half of them will probably offer to do it for free. They know that a recommendation with me and that’s all they’ll need to make their work immortal.” There was a murmur and a nod from a couple of the other men. “But to have these people come in every year to redo their room or-” “We wouldn’t want the hotel to go out of date.” “What about turning a profit?” “Trust me, that’ll be fine.” He didn’t actually know that, but he had enough money to splurge that it didn’t matter if profit wasn’t made. Breaking even would only leave a small nibble in the biscuit of his accounts. What a terrible metaphor. He really should try to hang out with more interesting people than this. “Sir.” Abruptly, he sat up, glaring at the arrogant mortal that was interfering in his plans, “Mr Bluntswick, isn’t it? Eddie Bluntswick?”His voice had dropped to a cold tenor that made his companions shudder, “I believe, out of all of these men here, you are the only one I hired myself, am I correct?” There was a pause that he didn’t like. “Of course I’m correct. You are the only man in this room that owes his job, his lifestyle, his late night visitations – oh yes I know all about Miss Coco Bux – and of course your further employment to me. The rest of these men know how this works because they worked with my uncle. Yes, he was a more temperate man and a recluse and none of you ever met him in person but he had the same sorts of ideas. You may criticise the expenditure but you may not addle with the idea.” He smiled sweetly, “I hired you because I felt your history in the City would have taught you to take interesting risks. This is your last warning.” He knew that the man didn’t know what he was or who he was. He knew that the man was as much an imbecile as any other man, which is to say, a great deal so long as his mind was filled with current bureaucracy. The fool could not know that he was special or that he knew what would work. How could he understand that here, on earth, it was like he could smell a good idea on the air as drifted, sweet and untainted in the breezes between people and when he smelt them he tracked them like a hunting dog, carefully tracing the fine, strands of zephyrs back to the source. So maybe that was a touch poetic for what was really a mere urge to go somewhere or help someone but... it had got him places. He’d helped build some of the most beautiful exhibits in the world including three of the Seven Wonders. The Hanging Baskets had been his pride and joy for centuries. In a way, he supposed, he was almost thankful to the Lord for giving him this chance to witness firsthand the ability of mankind. Even though he mourned the collapse of the magnanimous grandeur he’d created time and again. Eternity was a land of decay and despair and discontent; beauty bloomed, loomed like a black cloud over mortality, then collapsed like a star into itself in its own quiet storm. He’d come to realise that impermanence was more beautiful than permanence. A flower was more spectacular for its fleeting vibrancy, a song more luxurious in the small changes that occur in each rendition. Aa human life was just as impermanent but it was wonderful because of it. There had been a charming young man in his life once, a Canadian called Brian that he’d adored for a number of reasons. Brian had lain with him in the night, their arms entwined and their feet in the sand, a rare moment of peace... Neither had predicted this outcome and neither had any idea of what to think, it had made Ben nervous – of course Brian wasn’t to know about the wrath of God – but slowly, in a rough baritone that was punctuated with little fluttering kisses, Brain had whispered one of the most profound truths. ‘The beauty of uncertainty is that it motivates us to seek certainty.” He murmured, “We are compelled to replace doubt with conviction, to replace confusion with clarity. Nothing is more disparaged than the person who is lost, hesitant, and anxious.” “But...” “ Shhhh... you know, the true path to fulfilment comes from these conditions. Uncertainty becomes truly beautiful when connected with the certainty that there is a better life beyond the life that is known. The artist, scientist, entrepreneur, athlete, and traveller: all embrace uncertainty as their muse. What is going to happen next is more enticing than what is happening now. The thrill of anticipation, the mystery of the unknown, mistakes as portals of discovery, purpose from chaos, questions leading to answers, failure as the threshold of knowledge. This informs the human being who is engaged in becoming. Allows us the strength to deal with the freedom to choose. To willingly exchange the fear of uncertainty for the security of certainty is to admit defeat. Nothing moves forward except by the craving to seek certainty from uncertainty." It was people like Brian that had made him long to be human too. Drawing himself back to the glass room with the leather sofa and the smells of decadence, Ben tuned himself into the conversation again. “Well... you know, considering the spectacle you want to induce with this tower perhaps it would be better to build it somewhere with fewer buildings of a similar design. New York has it’s fair share of record breaking towers. Chicago is tall enough. Why not try somewhere like... Los Angeles. It’d be remarkable in LA.” Propping himself up on one elbow, the blond man began to smile, “Los Angeles.” He tasted the name on his tongue, “Yes, I like it.” It was a sweet word and the smell of success drifted by him in plush tendrils. “Los Angeles, sounds perfect.” * “He was leaving a meeting. He was leaving a perfectly normal meeting. There was only the advisors and him and me. I was there because I was bringing tea from the kitchen. He was only in London for the meeting. He wanted it at the office at home because he wanted to introduce a new plan and he always does those at home. But then we were leaving and I had readied the car. There was a woman with her son, a boy of about five or six maybe, she was coming round the corner and then there was a man running at them from the other direction. Mr Nester... Mr Nester... he... he threw himself in front of the woman and her son almost as soon as he saw what was happening. I’m meant to protect him. His uncle hired me. He’s never been a hard man. He’s always been fair, yes he has his enemies... You know all about him anyway I’m sure... I’ve been with the family and never failed but Mr Nester... That foolish boy!” The sound of sobbing crackled through the tape recorder. A woman’s voice: “That’ll be enough for now Mr Watts. Come, we’ll get you a cup of tea.” * July 10th 2008 Ben Chadly Nester. Dr Nicander had always thought that the young icon had been photo-shopped or air-brushed; his two young daughters both swooned over the man who had been on the front pages of too many magazines and he’d always shaken his head at their girlishness. His son had dozens of the inventions that were created by the Nester family – from the electronic cars that could be turned into electronic boats or planes, to a Game-Cube that was the first 3D video games consol on the market. The man was a revolutionary thinker, as his uncle was before him, but unlike his uncle this man had a face that made the name into something renown in every circle of western society. Nicander checked again on the man’s vitals. The thin, pale face was perfectly proportioned with a strong jaw that made the high cheekbones all the more striking. They’d had to shave off his ear length, feathery, blond hair for the operation that had removed the .44 bullet from his brain but even so, there was a distinctive attractiveness that couldn’t be denied. This man, the model, the mind, the mechanics of Nester.inc had gone from mere personality to a hero, yet he lay with the bleeping of machines and the whirring of medical equipment all around him. It had been six days and they still had no knowing when he would wake up. With a sigh, Nicander exited the room, noticing that Mitchell was watching through the glass window of the room and that the hunched form of Watts. What a broken world it seemed. * May 31st 2010 Not a lot had changed for Ben in the last two years. He had originally been housebound, unable to face going outside or being around people. Sounds had been terrifying, especially loud ones, but he’d managed to pull himself together after nearly six months in the Atlas Mountains in a Buddhist Temple. He’d had plenty of visitors on his return to the UK, too many and it had taken him a while to be able to deal with them all. The mother he’d saved and her now eight year old son had come to see him, thanking him time and time again, offering him more gratitude than he could stomach. Then there had been months of depression and pain where he’d put on a face so bold and so strong that he couldn’t maintain it in his new, weakened state and it and he, had collapsed into a dark, hellish pit from which he struggled to emerge. So, nearly eighteen months on, the ex-angel sat with his head bowed, bright eyes distant and unfocused and halo of golden hair being tousled by a weak breeze. Watts sat with him. As did his private doctor, Nicander, whose hands were softly folded in his lap. “I want to build my tower.” “And so you shall, sir, and so you shall.” ~AriadneEndaira~ Today was just like any other day in Los Angeles, California. Smog filled the air, the last of the rush hour traffic could be heard a couple of blocks away, and loud rap music thumped from cars as they drove by. On any other day, this would have bothered Olivia to no end. But today was a good day. Today she didn’t feel like screaming or throwing objects across the room. Today she wasn’t in one of her “moods”. In fact, Liv was perfectly content sitting out on her back porch, in her sweats with a glass of wine in one hand, watching the stars in the sky. Until she remembered,” SHIT, I have work!” The immortal quickly rose from her chair, and rushed into the kitchen. She downed the rest of her pinot and placed the empty glass in the sink. During her many a millennium in earth, she learned to enjoy the finer things in life. Sure she had her share of day old bread, gruel, and mutton. But when you had been alive as long as she had, Olivia felt she deserved a little wine now and again. While walking into her bedroom, she looked at the clock on her bedside table. She had just enough time to take a shower before work. Liv walked into the red colored bathroom and turned the faucet handle. She undressed and slowly let the hot water caress her skin. She grabbed her shampoo and lathered up her dark brown curls. While showering, she started to sing to herself quietly. She had always been singing, ever since she could remember. Everywhere, from jazz clubs in the roaring 20’s, to peace rallies in the 60’s, and even now at open-mic nights around LA. But she never once had she made it big. She knew living in the city of angels, where everyone was trying to pursue their dreams; her chances of ever making it big were slim to none. Needless to say, she never stopped trying. In the meantime, she made a living bartending. Many a night she had to break up menial fights, and get the cops to throw the losers out. She had drunken creeps every night slobbering out pick up lines at her and trying to cop a feel, but it was a living. Finishing her shower, she reached for her robe. Again she glanced at the clock, if she hurried she would have just enough time to make it to the bar without being cussed at. Olivia walked over to her closet, trying to figure out some bar-chic clothes to wear for the night. After some debate, she finally settled on a tight black tank, curve hugging dark wash jeans, and knee-high stiletto boots. She put on the locket she wore with everything and looked in the mirror. “Almost there,” she said aloud to herself. Even though she was cutting it close on time, she quickly sat down at her vanity to apply some makeup. After giving her ice-blue eyes a smokey look and dabbing her lips with clear gloss, she was finally ready to leave. She walked to the front door, putting on the leather jacket she left on the wooden console and picking up her leather handbag. She took one last look around the condo, took out her keys, and locked the door behind her. Driving to work, she took some time to think about the situation she was currently in. These people had it easy. Their biggest worries were mortgage payments or who they were going to marry. Olivia didn’t care about those things so much as her eternal salvation, or of the worlds for that matter. She didn’t blame him for what she had done, because she would’ve done the same thing. Liv didn’t know why she defied him, or she stood by the sidelines. She supposed she hated conflict, confrontation, things of that nature. This surprised her, she had been in plenty of fights over the years. In fact she had a mouth and a left hook like a sailor. But she did know one thing, one day she would have to prove herself to him. It surprised her how fast she made it to the bar, Olivia hopped out and clicked the alarm on her small ford. Her heels clicked on the asphalt as she made the way to the employee’s entrance. She placed her stuff in the back room and said hello to her boss as she walked out to the bar. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. “Gabriel? Micah?” Quaddy Gabe couldn't help but grin. Of all the fuckin' people to run into after six-hundred years, at least it was Micah. He couldn't say that he'd been close to the warrior during their time in Elysium, being a scholar and administrative entity at his very core, but Gabriel had gotten close to him during the thousands of years they spent as a group on Earth. They fit well together, as far as Gabe was concerned. Where Micah had a tendency to act first and think second, Gabriel spent so much time weighing the pros and cons it usually took a flaming sword up the ass to get him moving. The last time he'd seen Micah, they'd been sitting in some hovel of a tavern in Denmark, arguing over why Gabriel had to skip town yet again. It was, as always, over a girl. Whenever Gabe did spring into action, as it were, it was always over something stupid, like a dame. He'd told the story about it all to a playwright in England, oh, about two-hundred years later. William something or other, who was just leaving Stratford (the town Gabe had settled in for a while) to join the Lord Chamerlain's Men. It had been funny at the time he told the story, but being chased out of town by an angry brother with a poison sword was not enjoyable. But neither was accidentally driving to desperate suicide by killing her father. Rash. Whenever Gabe did something without thinking, it was rash. Only Micah'd been able to balance him out all those years. It had been Micah that had convinced Gabriel that it might not be a good idea to argue against Christ. And it had been Gabe who'd convinced Micah not to join Alric in bringing down Rome. Some of them had done that and it hadn't ended well for them. Evidently, picking the wrong war to fight in would cost them all big time. "What the hell are you doing here?" Gabe asked as Micah sauntered over to his table. He couldn't help but grin. All initial feelings of doubt and annoyance that another of their kind had found their way to LA were gone. Here was Micah, someone who actually understood what Gabe had gone through for aeons. What had driven him to near madness. What he continued to fight for, hope for. He'd never believed that Micah would be one of the faithful, not really, but here he was. And, for the most part, looking pretty good. Micah returned the grin and joined Gabe in sitting. "Well I sure as shit hope hell has something to do with it." Gabe nodded, sobering suddenly. "Why, have you heard something? Michael come screaming down with a flaming sword, Gabriel with a trumpet? Is it time to announce the end of the world?" "What makes you think it's going to be the end of the world that we have to wait for?" Micah poured himself another glass of whatever he was drinking and knocked it back, offering to fill Gabe's shot glass with the same. Gabriel nodded and saw that Micah still had the same, expensive taste that he'd always had. It was good to drink the good stuff for once. Gabe had grown pretty conservative in his economics over the years. He drew less attention that way, and it made it less likely that he'd try something stupid. "Satan isn't stupid. He never was, Micah. He's not just going to attack for the hell of it. When he finally tries to take on the Almighty, it'll be for the big prize, I think. And this world will be destroyed for the effort of it." Gabriel scanned the bar again, as he had done every day for five years. Now that Micah had shown up, Gabe felt as if it were likely that more would start sauntering their way into the bar. Maybe they'd hired a new girl, or maybe someone who just feel like having a beer. When they gathered, it was never just one or two; it was usually all of them. Not that there were many left, Gabe supposed. He was pretty convinced that there were maybe a dozen of them left, out of the thousands that had initially fallen. Only a dozen hopefulls still clamoring for the position of Angel, waiting for the day that God might just decide that they'd been in time out long enough. It hadn't been just six thousand years, despite what the religious believed. They'd been there before even Adam, before God had brought forth the ferns and the trees, the flowers and the bees. It had been far too long to wait, but yet they were still here. And Gabe believed that, if two of them had suddenly come together, something was happening. Six-hundred years with naught but his own guilt and here he was, sitting and drinking with Micah as if they were at a bar in Gomorrah. "You always were the ponderous type," Micah muttered, his lips just barely turned up at the edges. Gabe chuckled. It was a long-running 'argument' between the two of them. Gabriel would insist that Micah think before he act and Micah would retort that Gabriel did enough thinking for the both of them. Together, they were formiddable. But apart...Gabriel was sure that Micah hadn't had those scars when they'd last seen one another. "No wonder you're still such a good-looking sumbitch. You probably have sat around a library of some sort for six-hundred years." Gabe shook his head. "Americans didn't believe in libraries until Harvard opened up. And then it was only religious texts, which are impossible to read without wanting to completely re-write them. The Puritans were not a very accepting lot when it came to thinking outside the box." "So you came here with those religious whackjobs? What on earth possessed you?" "It had to be something on earth, I guess. God certainly didn't lead me here," Gabe spat out. "He hasn't done anything but knock us down one by one since we got here." Micah's eyes darkened. "Don't even start with me, Gabriel. You're the one with the faith here. If you start going rogue on me, what the hell are we going to do? God'll give us a chance. And if he doesn't, Satan will...by attacking." Gabe shrugged. "Probably. But, hey, what the fuck are we thinking about this depressing shti for? I'm sure you've got tons of stories to tell, judging by the scars and the fingers. What the fuck have you been up to?" Before Micah could answer, Gabe's suspicions were confirmed; a female voice rang out. "Gabriel? Micah?" Gabe and Micah looked up and then at each other. "When it rains, it pours," Gabe muttered. "And here you were worried nothign would ever happen," Micah replied, knocking back another shot. "Hello, Olivia. What brings you here to this fine city?" .Wolfie. Raphael kept the windows open as she drove through the city. It smelled like smog and the heat rose off the pavement in waves but she didn’t mind it. She kept her cigarette between her lips and hummed along with the radio as it played “Boys of Summer” through dying speakers because the song never failed to make her smile. Her eyes were lidded as she drove the jeep along the boulevard and even with all its faults the city was beautiful. It was flawed and sinful like every place she’d ever been but that was just one of those things that came with being human. She should know since she was close enough to it anymore.There was an orange glow behind her as the last of the sun’s rays slowly sunk down past the ocean’s edge. Already streetlights were coming on and the night crowd was starting to pour out onto the sidewalks. She saw a group of boys flipping skateboards on the side of the road and they made her smile because they were still young and innocent and she wished she were still that way. She didn’t like people. She had at first, because she’d thought they were interesting and full of that free will thing that had them making all kinds of interesting choices. Only they almost always chose the wrong one and after a while it started to wear on her. She didn’t like fighting. She didn’t like watching people die and she liked even less watching them kill each other. What was the point? This world was huge and beautiful and there was enough of it to go around for everyone. It wasn’t heaven but she’d been stuck here long enough that she managed to find beauty where she could. It still didn’t make any sense to her, not the human wars and not the one in heaven and maybe she always would just be that little girl that Lucifer had looked down. There were four girls walking down the street next to her and she glanced at them for a moment as she stopped at a red light. Her gaze lingered on a pale blonde with nice legs and then the light turned green and she looked away. She’d never had a preference on gender when it came to lovers. She found men and women beautiful and her type depended on what she wanted at the time. She hadn’t been with anyone in a while. It was too hard, falling for someone just to watch them die further on up the road. When Raphael fell, she fell hard, because she didn’t know how to not love someone with all of her heart. She was driving by the bar when her jeep abruptly spluttered and died. For a moment she sat in the seat, her hands resting on the steering wheel and staring in surprise at her vehicle. Not even the music was playing anymore and it took her a second to figure out that the battery must have died on her. A frown creased her brow because this was the first time a car had just up and died on her like this. She’d had a flat tire once, but that was her own fault because she hit a pothole doing seventy and it wasn’t surprised that she’d bent the wheel. Someone leaned on their horn behind her and she shot them a glare before she popped it into neutral and climbed out of the jeep. “It’s not my fault,” she yelled back at them. It didn’t stop her from getting a finger waved in her direction and exhaust in her face as the man whipped his car around him and sped off down the road. She sighed and then cranked the wheel to the right as far as it would go. By the time she got it pushed off the side of the road she was sweating and annoyed because she’d had more than a few nasty gestures and words flung in her direction. It wouldn’t have been so bad if anyone had stopped to help her but no one did. It reminded her why she didn’t like cities. It reminded her why she didn’t like people. She jammed it into park and yanked on her emergency brake to make sure it stayed where she put it and then she leaned against the hood to light herself a cigarette. The streets had gotten dark on her, the lights lining the sidewalk casting yellow halos against the cement. People walked by without even knowing she was there and that was fine but it reminded her of the lonely existence this could be. She was so removed anymore, not human, not an angel, not anything. She sucked in a lungful of smoke and then watched it puff from between her lips in a gray cloud. The door to the bar next to her opened and she heard music playing from inside. She glanced over at it and the couple stumbling drunkenly from the archway. Their hands roamed all over each other and she didn’t think they cared if anyone saw. She wondered if they were in love or if they were just desperate for companionship. It seemed to her that everything people did was in the pursuit of convincing themselves that they weren’t all alone and someone would remember them when they were gone. The open door reminded her of one thing anyway. It reminded her that her jeep was dead and she should probably call a tow or at least a taxi so she could pick up a battery or something. She could still remember when everyone traveled by horse. There was a busty woman tending the counter and she was laughing at something one of her customers had said when Raphael walked in. She was pretty and she exuded sex appeal, but she wasn’t Raph’s and if she had to guess by the look she was giving a man across the bar than she probably wasn’t the hers either. “Hey sugar,” Raph called, leaning on the bar. “You got a phone I can use?” The woman looked up at her and smiled. “Well sure honey,” she said. “But you have to buy a drink to use it.” Raphael smiled back and ran her tongue along her teeth. “Alright, get me a tequila sunrise then.” The woman laughed and she moved the phone up onto the counter for Raphael before she went to mix her drink. She didn’t ask how it was she didn’t have a cell phone in this day and age but it was probably because she looked like the beach bum she was. Her eyes roamed the bar as she took another drag from her slowly dying cigarette. She didn’t expect to see anyone she knew, so she was surprised when her eyes lit on a table in the back corner and recognized three of the faces sitting at it. A surprised cough pulled its way from her lips and it pushed smoke out her nose. She ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and hung up before she actually punched in any of the numbers. Suddenly a dead jeep didn’t seem so important or so coincidental. Something leapt in her chest, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She was nervous, or maybe hopeful, but probably a mix of the two. There were angels here, four of them at the same place in the same time and she wondered if that meant something. It had to, right? Thousands of years without a year and now this, it had to mean something. She needed it to. She paused just next to the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “What, we’re having a reunion and nobody invites me?” Raphael said. Her lip stuck out in a pout but she couldn’t hold it on her face when three sets of ice blue eyes lifted to hers. “Well you’re here, aren’t you?” Gabe said. He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her and she couldn’t help but laugh. Her eyes roamed the table and she took in the three of them, her heart beating loudly in her chest as she did. She landed on Micah first because he was the one sitting closest to her and he looked the most changed from the last time she saw him. There were scars all over his skin and his face and he was missing his ring finger on his right hand. Her eyes traced the one along his cheekbone and he just looked back at her with one eyebrow raised. She smiled at him anyway even if he’d always been a little scary to her. “Damn,” she said. “You looked a lot prettier last time I saw you, Micah,” she told him. He smirked and leaned back in his chair to look at her. “I can’t say the same about you,” he told her. She laughed and shot him a wink. “Well, since I can’t tell if that’s a weak insult or a backhanded compliment so I’ll just say thanks, sugar.” Her gaze moved past him to the angel next to him and she had her nails resting on the tray to her right. She smiled and wondered if she would get in trouble for sitting down on the job or if she cared. “You, however,” Raph said, pointing at Olivia with a smile on her face. “You look prettier every time I see you.” “And what about me?” Gabe asked next to her. He was grinning and she returned it as she pulled a chair from the next table and straddled it. “Do I look prettier?” He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed quietly and shook her head. “Nope, sorry sugar,” she told him. “You look exactly the same as I remember you.” Matt - Nomad There were four of them, two men and two women – some scarred, some edged with darkness as if they’d seen too much or lived too long, but all beautiful. Aiden had been hired because he saw things that nobody else did. He was the best, not-so-young these days but still brilliant, born in the knife box as his mother used to say. Snapping several face shots of the group, he sent them to his home database, knowing in his gut that this was it. He was about to complete half a decades worth of work in this god forsaken bar. Their voices lulled over to him, cheerful, surprised, tinged with something that tasted like bitterness and yet, even their voices were enchanting. There was something special here. No wonder his boss had had him searching for ‘Gabe’ for so long. His phone vibrated and he smirked, taking a sip of the single malt on the table. This had to be it. Flicking through the information he’d managed to discover using the free wi-fi on his smart phone, he knew that the girls were Raphael and Olivia, sexiest ladies he’d seen in a while, and the scarred man was Micah. And they’d all been lured towards his mark, his pretty boy: Gabrial. At first he’d wondered if it had been some kind of creepy love-story-gone-wrong. He weren’t the smartest guy but he’d rarely followed someone that pretty and been asked by someone that rich, without it being to do with sex. But he’d been put straight, literally. And this was what his boss had been waiting for, he was certain. This was it, the time to extend the invitation that he’d memorised nearly five years ago. Standing, downing the last of his bourbon, he moved towards them, fluidly donning his beige trench coat. He took one last photo, noticing with wry amusement when Micah’s flashing eyes darted up to find his steady gaze. He sent the image to his boss’ number. Silence fell. Lowering his baseball cap, he saw Micah call for his companions’ attention. Aiden noted their wary eyed expressions as he greeted them. In front of their table now, he let a lazy smile crawl across his face. Satisfaction was going to taste sweet alongside the lump sum he’d been promised. When he spoke his voice was gravelly, a soft growl in his throat. “My boss has requested that I offer you an invitation. I hope you’ll accept.” * It would stand, timeless, imposing, a shard of pure imagination in the fast moving city of Los Angeles. Ben smiled, a self-satisfied curling of his lips, reminding Watts of the man he’d known before that fateful day in 2008. The creation of the boy’s ‘tower’, his most recent footprint in the world, was bringing him slowly back to life. Watching him in the rear-view mirror as they approached the city, he couldn’t help but feel a small amount of satisfaction. Things had been going well for a long time now. If any man on the earth could do what his master did then he was sure they would have to be somewhat otherworldly. How else could such a challenge be met? The city was rising before them, their new home from home. It was the city built on outlandish dreams. But none so outlandish as the project that Ben had started. Watts saw the young man watching as the skyscrapers as they arose from the horizon; the flatness of the highway, the orange of the sunset, the shadows cast along the land reflected in the bright blue eyes. “The city of Angels, covered in smog. How fitting.” Ben mused, although Watts pretended not to hear. Ben, on the other hand, was smirking slightly. The symbolism of this city; the city of fancy, fantasy and falsehoods, the Mecca for those who lived for wishful thinking – none of this was lost on him. Watts had been going on about how wonderful the plans were becoming, how it would create a new aesthetic across the world. The old man was an idealist, loving the beautiful lies that surrounded LA. The city that sprawled outwards despite there being no natural source of clean water when it was first founded, the city that was ravaged by earthquakes – it was almost a social experiment. Can people find a habitable space in the uninhabitable landscape? Ben was no fool; he knew the stark contrast between beauty and glamour. The extremities of the world lay in the urban spread of the City of Angels. And it was covered in a loose halo of smog. How fitting. His phone vibrated. His ‘uncle’ had put out an APB worldwide on several characters: angels that he wanted to know about. He wanted to know if they were alive. If they’d escaped, had a chance to prove themselves. He wanted to know if there was ever a Call, a sign from God that things were about to start happening. Several agencies had followed up on the requests he’d made, keeping tabs on particulars over the years. There weren’t many of them left. He’d met the Twins – Aziz and Alim in his wanderings after the Second World War. They’d been in Israel and they’d smoked imported cigars in Beirut... they’d told him of at least forty angels that had been killed in war, most either torn apart in the Crusades or blown apart in the Great Wars. He shuddered at a particular memory of one of their stories, of how Richard the Lion Heart had mistaken Haytham for a Saracen, had murdered and had him cooked up for the meat rations of his army. The king had called their flesh ‘delectable’. He’d met Becka before that, she’d been a consort for men throughout history, an eternal beauty and an eternal whore. She claimed she didn’t want forgiveness and he’d looked accusingly at her, secretly understanding, and then he’d told her that she was a fool. He’d found out that she’d become a nurse in France in 1915 and been hit by a stray shell only month later. Over the years, there had been many more occasional run-ins, although in the last fifty he’d all but avoided true confrontation with any of them. Despite that, he’d followed them, using contacts his ‘uncle’ had made during the course of the Cold War. And now, suddenly, as he’d imagined there would one day be – there were four all-too-familiar faces, animated with years and years of experience, on the screen of his iPhone. Gabe, Micah, Olivia, Raphael... Things were about to become interesting. And he was suddenly glad that he’d bought the Mediterranean styled house on the hill rather than just the penthouse in the city. “Watts, we should expect guests in the next few days.” Watts glanced into the mirror again. Ben was grinning. Now that was a good sign. Yes, the City of Angels was a good place already. © Copyright 2010 Quaddy, Wenston, .Wolfie., Matt - Nomad, ~AriadneEndaira~, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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