Broken Wings: Genesis (14 page)

The two Grigori exchanged glances.
Somehow, I was getting the feeling that they could communicate without
speaking. Or maybe that comes when you have known another person for several
millennia. Either way, I didn’t like being kept out of the loop.

Sariel was the one who finally
looked back to me, shaking her head. “No. By binding him to the host in the way
you did, it only dissipated his link to the web. He has a modicum of free will
now, but his connection to everything else isn’t at a level high enough to that
kind of damage.”

“All right, then how is this all
supposed to go down?”

“The pattern is repeating itself.”
Ke shrugged.

My patience was wearing thin. “How
about explaining what that’s supposed to mean for those of us who don’t
remember being around the last millennia or so ago that this happened?”

Ke looked frustrated. “If you
would let us help you to remember, we wouldn’t be wasting our time with––”

“It’s
my
time to waste.” I
snapped back.

“Do you really think––?”

Sariel grabbed Ke’s arm and
squeezed. “Enough. We have time. The signs are just now starting to present
themselves.”

“Signs?” Chaz frowned. “Are we
talking about the signs of the apocalypse, end-of-the-world-type of stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Like the trumpets blowing in the
Book of Revelations?” Chaz was speaking to her, but he looked at me.

“Yes.”

Damn. The trumpets. Why hadn’t I
made that connection? But they weren’t matching up with catastrophic world
events, so they didn’t count, right? Ke was watching me, and Sariel was
watching him watching me. I was trying to avoid looking at either of them.

Sariel raised her eyebrows. ‘What
am I missing here?”

“The trumpets have begun to
sound.” Ke said without taking his eyes from mine.

Her eyes darted back and forth
between us. “Explain.”

“Every time Yeshua and I have come
together in the dreamscape, the trumpets have sounded.”

The color drained from the face of
the female Grigori. “How many––?”

“Three.” I think we were swapping
rounds of confusion. It was my turn. “But there haven’t been any catastrophes
or any other stuff matching the predictions of the Bible, except in the
dreamscape.”

Sariel closed her eyes. “It
doesn’t always work like that. Tell me what happened each time the trumpets
sounded.”

I described each of the scenes
that I had witnessed, and added the part about the meteor shower on the night
of the coven initiation. Sariel listened without speaking, except to interrupt
and clarify a detail here and there. When I was done, she sank back into her
chair with a look of shock.

“We have less time than I
thought.”

I set my fork down on my plate and
looked at her with skepticism. “You really need to help me understand this,
because I am way out of my league.”

“The Crystal City
is more than just a staging area between the physical and non-physical realms.
It is a reflective tie-in to the entire web and all of the planes of existence.
That includes the dreamscape.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase
as
above, so below
?”

I nodded. “It’s a standard premise
in most belief systems. That which happens in the heavens is mirrored on earth
and vice versa.”

“Yes. Well, that is most true
where the Crystal
City is concerned. The Crystal City was created as a solid state of
awareness into the intricate patterns of the web. It is used as a symbolic
measuring stick for everything that happens everywhere––including in the
dreamscape. The dreamscape, for all intent and purpose, is a manifestation
layer for all connected consciousness.”

“Translation?”

She pointed to the bruises on my
wrists, throat and chin. “The dreamscape is not physical, but things that
happen in the world of dreams can be made manifest on the physical plane. The Crystal City is sort of an in-between state
between the dreamscape and the physical, but it is not physical at the level
where you could touch it without special assistance or abilities.”

I shrugged. It made sense, in a
bizarre kind of way.

“Things happen on the physical
plane in a very slow manner. Because the energy has solid form, it has a slower
moving frequency. The dreamscape, having no actual solid form, moves at a
higher frequency and things manifest more quickly.”

“And the Crystal City?”

“It varies, because it is both and
neither at the same time.”

“So what you’re saying,” I worked
my way through the thought, “is the trumpets blowing on the dreamscape with the
events happening there, could be signaling the start of the apocalypse?”

“The events will eventually
manifest in both the Crystal
City and on the earth.
Depending upon the magnitude of the event, they could happen now, or years from
now. They may or may not occur in the same order that they did in the
dreamscape, but they will happen. The chain of events has been initiated.”

“But it’s not happening like it
says in the Book of Revelations,” Chaz pointed out. “It’s all over the map as
far as religions go.”

Sariel raised her eyebrows. “Is
it? The first trumpet blows in Yeshua’s dream and the meteor shower happens.
According to Revelations, the first trumpet coincides with hail and fire that
will burn up a third of the flora on earth. The second trumpet sounds and she
sees Yggdrasil and the Urdh well spilling foul water that turns to blood and
kills the World-Tree. A Norse religious comparison, but Revelations speaks of
the seas turning to blood. The third trumpet sounds and she sees signs of the
Qiyaamah, the Islamic apocalypse. Revelations tells of a great star, burning as
a torch, falling to the earth. Humans tend to take their religious texts far
too literally. It is a mixture of religious symbology, but the underlying
pattern exists and is beginning to unfold.”

“And it’s all leading up to the
end of the world.” My voice was flat, but it held a note of disbelief that I
couldn’t have kept out of it if I’d tried.

“By the sound of the fifth
trumpet, Abaddon will be released from the pit.” Ke said quietly.

“Abaddon––that big, ugly black
thing I saw come through the Thirteenth Gate?”

“And the fifth angel sounded, and
I saw a star fall from heaven to earth, and unto him was given the key of the
bottomless pit––and the Fallen Hosts had a king over them, which is the angel
of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the
Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon–” Chaz was quoting Revelations.

“Apollyon. That means
Destroyer
in Greek.” I said automatically. Maybe I wasn’t the best at recall on biblical
verse, but I did have a knack for languages.

“But if Abaddon needs a key to get
out of the bottomless pit, which is where I’m going to assume is whatever place
it is Ithane locked him up at, then that would mean––” My forehead was
wrinkling, my eyebrows scrunched up in thought. The thought was there, I could
feel it. Then it came. I looked at Ke, who was watching, waiting for me to put
the pieces together. “You said only you or Ithane could open the place where
Abaddon was locked up. So why not choose
not
to open the pit? Or are you
guys on the side of the Fallen Ones?”

Sariel’s smile was sad. “It isn’t
that simple. The pattern repeats. If we put a knot in the pattern to prevent it
from going forward, then it sort of works like a kink in a water hose with the
tap open to full. The pressure will build and sooner or later burst. It may
just undo the kink and go forward the natural way, or it could explode at the
knot, starting to unravel the pattern of the web, regardless.”

“You want it to happen on your terms,
rather than wait to see what may or may not happen and try for damage control
after the fact.”

“Simply put, but yes.”

“And Ke can’t do whatever it is he
needs to do in his present form.”

“Yes. I can.” Ke said, his face
emotionless.

“Then what’s the big deal?”

“Yesh, they’re talking about
releasing the
Beast
from the pit.”

I looked at Chaz. “Yeah, I caught
that part. But they’re also not telling us everything, kid.”

Sariel was uncomfortable, as
though trying to decide what to tell me––or maybe it was how much to say? She
looked to Ke with concern, and he stared at me for a long moment before closing
his eyes and nodding.

“There are those who would do
everything in their power not to have Ke release Abaddon.”

My look was one of mock, sarcastic
surprise. “No––really? I can’t imagine why.”

Chaz scowled at me, but didn’t say
anything. Maybe I had gone a little over the top on that one. Sariel blushed,
but I couldn’t be certain whether it was from anger or embarrassment.

“Ke can die in his current state.
You have made him mortal.”

I didn’t comment on that. Chaz
gave me a warning look that I ignored. The opening was there, but even
I
wasn’t that heartless. I didn’t even bother pointing out that they were asking
for the same sacrifice from me. Why shouldn’t it be someone else’s turn to take
one for the team?

“If the others wanted to stop the
pattern from unfolding, they could find some way to make sure he never made it
to the site.”

“Didn’t you also say there are
only two of you capable of locking Abaddon back up again?” Chaz had his wheels
spinning again. It showed in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“But what happens if Abaddon is
released from the pit and turns around and kills Ke?”

A chill washed over me. Shit. Why
was the kid so much more on top of this than I was?

Sariel’s smile was tight. “Now you
start to see our dilemma.”

It was a nice trap, neatly set. I
had to give her that. She played the game a lot better than Ke did, without a
doubt. I toyed with the food on my plate, pushing it back and forth into messy
little piles. I was trying to find a loophole.

My voice was dry and without
emotion when I finally looked back up. “So where does my free will enter into
this?”

Ke shrugged. “As Sariel has said,
you can choose not to do anything. You have that choice.”

My eyes sparked with anger, though
the rest of my expression stayed hidden behind the mask. “Sure, let’s see––I
can do nothing and hope by some freak chance, the whole rest of existence will
stop its forward momentum, roll over and play nice. Even if I weren’t a cynic,
I’m not buying it as a viable scenario. Or I can let you try to handle it all
by yourself in mortal form, hoping you don’t die before you do what you have
to, or even the instant Abaddon pops out of his hidey hole. Oh wait––there’s
option number three. I can jump in with both feet, and since
I’m
in
mortal form, it pretty much cinches how the end will turn out for me. Door
number one, two, or three? Death, death, or maybe even death. Don’t try to feed
me any free will crap right now. I’m getting pretty full from your crap the way
that it is.”

The funny thing is that I wasn’t
sure what I was going to do at this point. None of it was real enough for me
yet. I was beginning to feel that everything they were telling me was true. I
just couldn’t accept it as
my
truth yet.

A reprieve from the confusion came
with a knock at the door. Chaz started to get up, but I needed the movement, so
I motioned for him to stay put. It only took me a few moments to get to the
door. I peered out the peephole to see the distorted face of Father David.
Damn. I was supposed to have called him yesterday.

The chain came off in a flash,
followed by me unbolting and opening the door. Father David stood there with a
light look of reprimand that didn’t last long once he spotted the bruises I was
sporting. My encounters with Black Wolf managed to help me stave off a solid
lecture from the good Padre.

“Yeshua, I was concerned when you
didn’t show, or didn’t even call yesterday.”

I winced. Okay, maybe I wasn’t
going to get a lecture, but he managed to get a dig in anyway. Let’s face hit.
Catholic priests held the secret recipe on guilt trips.

“I apologize, Father.” My best
contrite look slipped into place over my mask. I moved my hands up so the
sleeves of my robe fell back to show the bruises on my wrists, and tilted my
head up a little to give him a better view of my neck and jaw. I’d lived among
the priests for enough years to pick up a few secrets to guilt trips of my own.
“As you can see, my thoughts have been a little focused elsewhere. I didn’t
mean to let our meeting slip through the cracks.”

Father David raised a single
eyebrow in amusement. It was the twinkle in his blue eyes that gave him away.
He knew damned well that I was playing him. Just as he knew that I knew that he
was playing me.

A chuckle erupted, giving warmth
to his freckled, older face. His hair was white and thinning on the top of his
head, but I remember a time when it had been thick and full, and a deep Irish
red. I smiled in return and stepped aside to let him in.

Another figure entered behind the
priest. It was a man, a very tall man, with an older, aristocratic face
surrounded by a full mane of silver-white hair that fell past his shoulders.
His green eyes were super intense, taking in every inch of my appearance. I didn’t
like his superior attitude, and opened my mouth to make that clear. Then I
caught site of the mark on his neck. My eyes narrowed in angry suspicion. It
was another angel. Was there some kind of convention in town that I didn’t know
about?

Father David saw my look and
turned. He was almost embarrassed when he met my gaze with a sheepish one of
his won.

“Yeshua, this is the person that I
wanted you to meet–”

“An angel.” My voice was flat.

He looked surprised. “Yes. How did
you––?”