Part 15 (2/2)

Raphael looked over at Patrice and frowned. He took Patrice's hand and, from the connection, a glow, warm as a fire, grew. Patrice felt his bitterness and anger slip away, replaced by love and forgiveness.

”Well, at least now I know where they get it from...”

”Patrice,” said Raphael. ”I loved Miriam from the moment I saw her... It was the Father's idea to strengthen your bloodline with the blood of the Seraphim, but I did and do love Miriam.”

Patrice and the children looked at Raphael.

”What bloodline?” asked Patrice.

Raphael smiled, took the pendants the children wore, and held them lightly in his giant hands.

”Have you never truly looked at these tokens? The age, the wear... Do they not look like something else, fas.h.i.+oned into a piece of jewelry?”

Sascha took the pendant in her fingers and turned it over and over. Then she looked up at her father.

”A nail... It looks like a giant nail,” she said.

The angel nodded.

”They held his hands in place as he died on the gibbet...then they were given to his widow for safekeeping-and to each generation...to guard from those like my brother, Va.s.sago. For if they were to fall into the hands of the Morning Star, a great darkness would descend on all humans.”

”Who is the Morning Star?” asked Sascha.

”Another brother of mine... He was favored above all others, but his pride caused the Father to cast him out of His Kingdom... He is still very angry with the Father for this.”

Patrice rubbed his head, his aged face scrunched into a confused squint as he tried to understand everything he had seen and everything he was being told. In awe, he looked at Raphael, the realization of his lineage now reflected in his eyes.

”You don't mean we are descendants of...?”

”Yes.” Raphael turned to his children and lightly touched their faces. ”You are the protectors of these relics, always keep them safe. You will do wondrous things and your mother and I will always be watching.”

Sascha began to cry.

”You won't come back?”

”Only once more, but not for a very long time,” Raphael said. ”I love you...always remember that. Patrice, please take the children away from this place. Take them far away... They must be kept safe.”

The angel grabbed the children into an embrace and kissed their foreheads one last time as they sobbed quietly. He took Patrice's hand and they stared at one another. Patrice nodded and smiled with understanding and acceptance. Raphael released the old man's hand and walked to the center of the clearing. He smiled. Unfurling his mighty wings, he beat them twice, and then shot straight up into the air with a flash of light, disappearing into the night.

”Come, my dears, we must go,” Patrice said.

”Where, Mapapa?” asked Eduard as he wiped his eyes.

”You will see soon enough, Eduard...soon enough.”

Sascha opened her eyes and allowed them to become familiar to the darkness of the room. She glanced over at the tiny round window and got up. Walking over to the pane, she looked out. The ocean looked black in the moonlight. The soft swoos.h.i.+ng of the waves against the ma.s.sive s.h.i.+p reminded her of a little creek not far from their home in France. She picked up the pendant and spun it around in her hand as she thought about what their new home in America might be like. Would there be a little house? Lavender at the gate? A little creek? Snow?

”Sascha...come back to sleep,” Eduard whined.

”Sorry.”

Sascha climbed back into bed and smiled. They were going to America. They were going to do wondrous things. She closed her eyes and slept.

Metronome.

Eaton Thomas Palmer.

Author Dedication.

To my love for the written word. The click of the keys as the story unfolds. And the telling of a good story.

About Eaton.

Eaton Thomas Palmer was born and raised in the Midwest, and entered the business world because it was the thing to do. It has never been satisfying to him. He has always been creative and finally realized that he is a storyteller. He began writing when he was fifty. Writing is a pa.s.sion for him and he want to share his stories with people.

Metronome.

In a building adjacent to the maximum-security prison, attached to the main facility by a corridor with five high security barriers, and manned twenty-four hours a day by twenty highly armed guards, a select group of ma.s.s murderers and various other psychopathic criminals resided in the isolation wing for the criminally insane.

The group was growing larger and the state needed to do something about it before they lost control. In their current state, these prisoners could not be allowed into the general population under any circ.u.mstances.

After twenty years of private practice dealing with severely troubled patients, Dr. Edgar Collins had a reputation for getting positive results. Having written two books followed by a brief touring circuit, the state approached him to design a special program in an effort to normalize some of their more delusional prisoners and return them safely to the prison's general population.

The plan was to relieve some of the pressure from the doctors and nurses who dealt with these people on a daily basis. Constant contact with these prisoners was causing a lot of burnout and turnovers among the medical staff.

Edgar was in his mid-fifties, bald, una.s.suming, and getting a little paunchy. He had been a.s.signed to test and evaluate these special prisoners and delve into their psyche. These types of cases were his life. He felt that anyone could experience reclamation of normalcy from wherever their disturbed minds had taken them.

Over time, he held true to his ideas and achieved a high degree of success with most of them. Twenty had already been returned to the general population without mishap. He was happy with the overall results except for that of one troublesome patient. Matthew was a particularly frustrating case and one of the more horrific of the murderers ensconced in the small cells that served as their permanent homes.

The sterile odor often a.s.sociated with a laboratory a.s.sailed Matthew's nostrils as he sluggishly opened his eyes, struggling for an eternity against the hated drugs. By sheer force of will, he regained consciousness ahead of schedule.

Fluorescent lighting forced him to squint as he listened to the collective noises that swirled disjointedly around him. There was a flurry of activity behind him. Judging from the sound that their shoes made against the terrazzo floor, there were only two other people in the room with him-the doctor and his faithful nurse. However, they were very busy, too busy to realize that he was almost fully awake.

Matthew's mind was jumbled with random thoughts. He strained to focus their clarity. Why do they persist in keeping me so heavily drugged? I'm not mad; I don't need this continual a.s.sault on my mental faculties. Before they discovered me, I was the perfect killing machine. I was like a spider... yes I remember now. I was tending my territory with ruthless efficiency.

But that seems so long ago... long before they brought me here... long before I met ”IT”.

”He's coming around, Doctor,” said the nurse anxiously as she turned and found him awake. The administered dosage should have caused him to sleep for at least another hour. She hastily checked her charts to confirm the proper dosage had been placed in the drip line.

Matthew smiled inwardly. The rustle of rapidly turning pages was but a small reward for him. These were the small victories that reinforced his sense of superiority over his captors. Still the perfect killing machine...the spider.

Removing a penlight from her uniform, she pulled back his eyelids and s.h.i.+ned the light directly in his left eye first, then the right. It was always the same routine.

She's a functionary, incapable of variation-a pathetic creature of habit. These were Matthew's last thoughts as the light seemed to pierce directly to his brain. It caused the acid to churn violently in his stomach. Nauseousness swept over him.

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