Sentinels of Creation: A Power Renewed

by Robert W. Ross

  “Shouldn’t the girl head home to her parents? I am not sure if she should be exposed to what we have to discuss.”

  Juliet gently closed the door again, smiling at Micah.

  “Uh oh,” said Kellan.

  “The girl,” said Juliet, “has a name. Her name is Juliet and she hates being talked about like she’s some potted plant. In addition, the girl, still has a .45 caliber handgun and now that she knows it won’t kill you, isn’t afraid to use it again.”

  Micah raised his hands in surrender, “I apologize and, for the record, I could most certainly be killed by that weapon. Really, I just didn’t want to expose you to—”

  “What? Skin-walkers that tried to kill my friend. Archangels that rip their stolen skin from their bodies or decapitate them?”

  Micah turned accusingly toward Kellan.

  “Don’t you dare look at me that way! I thought I was going insane and Juliet asked me why I wouldn’t leave a little scraped circle in the cement. So, you can just put away that look of disdain, Sontaran. If you had done your job right, I wouldn’t have had monster assassins on my ass before you arrived.”

  Micah sighed, “Sentinel…”

  “What?”

  “Sentinel, not Sontaran. You said Sontaran”

  “Oh,” Kellan laughed. “Sorry about that; you don’t look anything like a Sontaran.”

  Juliet shook her head. “He’s from the 13th century, boss, they don’t have TV—let alone Doctor Who. He’s not going to get your clever Sontaran reference. I’ll get the glasses and meet you guys in the reading room.”

  “Is she always like that,” asked Raphael?

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “I like her,” said Micah. “She reminds me of someone from back home.”

  “Really?” said Kellan walking past them and out the door, “If that’s so, I’d like to meet her.

  “You will.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s wait for the glasses,” said Micah as Kellan led them to the chairs.

  “No, I have not had enough,” Kellan said wiggling the empty Scotch bottle at Juliet.

  She frowned, turning to the old Sentinel for support, “Micah, talk sense to him.”

  He shrugged. “Actually, I’d like some more too. It’s likely the last time I’ll ever have it and the last time it will affect Kellan the way it is now.”

  “Hold your horses right there. I haven’t agreed to anything—not one damn thing. Well, except to drinking more Scotch. Juliet, if you please.”

  The young woman gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine.” She headed back toward Kellan’s office.

  He raised his hand to stop her. “No, would you get the bottle from the front case?”

  “Uh, Kellan, you want me to get the 1943 Single Malt?”

  “Yep, that’s the one. You’re gonna love this Micah. It’s to die for.” He laughed. “Quite literally in your case, eh?”

  Juliet hadn’t moved. “Kellan, I thought you were saving that for—”

  “—For today, Juliet. Now please fetch it.”

  Kellan watched her head towards the front of the store, one hand pressed against her stomach as if she felt ill. Well, that made sense. The only thing keeping me from doing the same was the four glasses of Scotch I’ve just drunk.

  Kellan turned back to Micah and gestured to the dozens of books scattered amongst the chairs.

  “Your stories?”

  The old man spread his hands, “So it would appear.”

  “Let’s recap, shall we,” said Kellan, picking a large leather bound book up from the floor.

  “The Bible. Evidently a pretty big chapter is missing where the Devil and God hang out and play let’s make a deal while Angel McWeepy there cries to the Flaming-Sword-Angel who, it just so happens, hates me.”

  “He does not hate you,” interjected Raphael, “He just does not—”

  “Bup. Bup. Bup,” Kellan said, silencing Raphael with his hand. “You weren’t there. He looked at me and trust me…the dude doesn’t like me.”

  “That is probably true, but dislike is not hate.”

  “Whatever.” Kellan set the Bible down on a side table and tapped it while staring at both men.

  “Jericho—and the walls came tumbling down, 1400 BC. Joshua’s priests spoke of a young man with eyes of emerald who could command the earth and did so at the last blowing of their horns.”

  “Micah is not in the Bible,” said Raphael.

  “No, probably because he smacks too much of magic,” said Kellan, “but I read an apocryphal account once years ago and dismissed it at the time. That was you they were referring to Micah. Nice job killing everyone in a city, well except Rhab. A bit excessive don’t you think?”

  Raphael glared at Kellan. “You are not one to judge what is or is not excessive. That city was a—”

  Micah saw the look on Kellan’s face and tried to intervene. “Raphael, it is perfectly reasonable for Kellan to ask whether—”

  “I’m not one to judge?” Kellan yelled rounding on Raphael. “That’s some bullshit right there. I am exactly the one to judge, because I’m not going to be a puppet on some celestial string, Raphael. I was perfectly happy with my little mundane life before you brought all kinds of hell into it. So, yeah, I’m going to ask all sorts of uncomfortable questions, and you two are going to answer every bloody one of them. Or you can make with your fancy glowing portals and get the hell out.”

  Raphael stared, clearly shocked by the outburst and then rose, turning to Micah. “This may have been a mistake; this is what Michael warned me about, but I wouldn’t listen.”

  Kellan closed the distance between them and said very softly, “Always good to recognize mistakes early. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”

  “Stop. Both of you, just stop,” said Micah. “Now sit down!”

  Neither of them moved.

  “Sit. Down.”

  Raphael sat down.

  “Fine,” said Kellan taking, the other chair. “Juliet! What are you doing? I asked you to bring me the Scotch not distill it and smoke it over peat.”

  He noticed her standing between two bookshelves holding the bottle with two hands and looking more frightened than she had while blasting away at Raphael earlier.

  Kellan’s voice immediately softened. “Juliet? What is it? Are you ok? Come here. Please, sit down.”

  She did as he asked, passing the bottle to him as she sat and looked from Micah to Raphael, then finally back to Kellan.

  “Really? What is it? Am I ok? You think this guy was knocking down city walls and murdering people almost thirty five hundred years ago, and that’s what you ask me?”

  Kellan actually smiled at the absurdity of it all. “Well, when you put it that way, it makes me seem like an idiot.”

  Juliet arched an eyebrow clearly communicating an “if the shoe fits—” message.

  “I can’t believe you are actually considering this,” Juliet said.

  “Considering what? There’s nothing to consider,” replied Kellan as he first filled Micah’s glass, then his own.

  Kellan swirled the amber liquid around in the glass and lifted it to his nose, inhaling. He closed his eyes and took a long pull from the glass, feeling the liquor glide smoothly over his tongue.

  “Oh man. That is just heaven in a glass. Where have you been all my life?”

  “In a bottle waiting to be opened the day your book got published, that’s where it’s been. Since I don’t think that miraculously happened in the last twelve hours, I’d definitely say you were considering something. I was done with my Coke an hour ago. Give me a glass of that.”

  “What? No. You’re a kid.”

  “Shut up. I’m almost nineteen, sitting in a room with a 3,500 year old guy and an Archangel, who I shot thirteen times in the chest and face. Do you really think I’m going to do a whole lot more growing up in the next two years than I did in the last two hours?”

  “She has a point,” said Micah sm
iling behind his glass. I told you that you should have sent her home.

  “Fine,” said Kellan, “If there’s still Coke sloshing around in that glass go get another one; I’m not going to have 70 year old Scotch mixing with sugar water.”

  Juliet held out her glass defiantly. “It’s been bone dry for an hour and, given the trauma of the day, I’ll let your blasphemy against Coca-Cola go—this time.”

  Kellan gave an exasperated sigh and poured a short finger of Scotch into her glass.

  “More.”

  “No. You aren’t even going to like it.”

  Juliet pulled the glass back and drained it in a swallow. “You’re right—that’s horrible. More.”

  “What the hell, Juliet? That’s not Jaegermeister. You don’t shoot it. God’s sake you shouldn’t be shooting anything.”

  “Except Angels,” she said toasting Raphael with her empty glass. “Now give me an adult portion and I’ll sip it like a lady.”

  Raphael was watching the entire exchange silently and turned to Micah. “I really don’t understand any of this.”

  Micah lowered his voice to give the illusion of privacy, “I know, but it’s alright. They are just worried about each other. Let them be.”

  Kellan and Juliet ignored the exchange as she settled back in her chair, snuggling deep into the overstuffed leather with her now half full glass of Scotch.

  “Ok, gentlemen, you may continue.”

  Kellan laughed, gifting her with a seated bow complete with a flourish. “Why thank you, m’lady.”

  “Micah,” he began, “Let’s talk Homer 700 BC. He wrote a poem entitled Sentalus.”

  “Wait,” interrupted the Sentinel, “I want to linger on your last example for just a moment. You mentioned my killing a city full of people. That’s not what happened.”

  “OK, well, maybe you didn’t kill them directly but blowing down their walls for someone else to kill them is pretty much the same thing. I get it, war is hell or some other cliche’. I don’t have all the facts. There were mitigating circumstances, but aren’t there always?

  “No,” said Micah firmly. “When I said it didn’t happen that way, I mean all those people didn’t die. Yes, I was there. Yes, I was the one referred to in the account you referenced. Yes, I was the tool used to bring down the walls.”

  “I’ll never be anyone’s tool,” growled Kellan, but Micah ignored him.

  “War histories are written by the victors and to the victors’ ends. There were deaths in that conflict to be sure, but not wholesale slaughter although rumors of it prevented future conflicts for centuries.”

  “Not to mention the atrocities that were taking place behind those walls; no one wrote of those either,” said Raphael.

  “True,” replied Micah “but I don’t think Kellan is interested in hearing justifications for past actions.”

  “Quite right” Kellan said, “now back to Homer.”

  “Kellan,” Juliet interjected, “Micah just gave you a darn good explanation despite you pretty much calling him a mass murderer. Don’t you think that’s worth some kind of acknowledgment?”

  Kellan looked over at Juliet, now sitting cross legged in the leather club chair holding her glass in both hands and peering over its rim.

  He sighed. “You know I hate it when you use your ‘Mother’ voice on me. I’m almost twice your age”

  “And a man so almost half as smart.” She made a pointed glance in Micah’s direction.

  “Fine. Micah, assuming what you say is true, I’m sorry I implied you supported mass homicide almost four thousand years ago.”

  He looked back to Juliet. “Happy?”

  “That was pathetic,” she said, dismissing him with a wave.

  “For the love of all that’s holy, I’m trying to get through half a dozen pretty serious questions here. Can we all just stay focused? Damn it, Homer 700 BC. The poem Sentalus that described—”

  “Me,” interrupted Micah. “Next question.”

  Kellan opened his mouth to respond, but then just shrugged and set the small volume of Homeric poetry on the side table. He picked up another book from the floor.

  “Plague of Justinian, 541 AD, nearly half of Constantinople wiped out until the initiation of what was then described as a blood-grasp spread throughout the city. Seems someone meeting your general description: out of place garments, glowing eyes, the whole schtick, started the practice because he was immune to the plague. He cut a gash along his palm and had the infected person do likewise and then they’d grasp hands, mingling the blood. The infected person got better and could then heal others the same way.”

  Micah nodded, his expression distant. “So many dead. Young, old, men, women, children. Stacked up like cordwood burned outside the city. Raphael told me my blood was special and that I could not get sick so I figured if I could give it to someone else, it might help. It did.”

  “You’re immune to the Bubonic Plague?” Kellan asked incredulously.

  Micah shrugged, “I don’t know what that is? But I didn’t get sick. I never get sick.”

  “The Sentinel is immune to all pestilence,” Raphael stated matter of factly.

  “Really? Bacterial and viral?”

  “Of course. Metabolic too.”

  “No cancer,” murmured Juliet thinking of her own mother’s successful struggle against the disease. “That’s a handy ability to have.”

  Micah shrugged again, “I’m feeling the full weight of my being displaced in time. I don’t understand what you three are saying. As I stated. I have not gotten sick since the day I accepted Raphael’s request and became the Sentinel. My blood can help some things but not others and I don’t know why.”

  “You know why, don’t you Raphael?”

  The Angel nodded.

  “Then why didn’t you tell him?”

  “It is not my place.”

  “That’s bullshit too. I hope you realize if I end up doing this thing, I’m going stick my blood in a petri dish and start figuring out what the hell’s up with it.”

  Raphael smiled for the first time in hours. “Yes. I suspect you will and much more. That is one of the positive aspects of my gambit in selecting you. The negative aspects are much more apparent.”

  Kellan gave Raphael a flat stare. “Impressive back hand there. Moving on.” He dropped the last book atop the other two and picked up a fourth.

  “Mayan civilization had a bit of a problem between 1020 and 1100. You know anything about that, Micah?”

  The Sentinel’s eyes widened. “How in heavens name could you have known about that?”

  Kellan tapped his temple. “I’m brilliant, remember? I remember everything.”

  “He’s not kidding,” interjected Juliet, “He really does, quite literally, remember everything he reads or sees. The brilliant part is open for considerable debate though.” She flashed her teeth at Kellan.

  He squinted at her glass, which was still mostly full, and turned back to Micah. “I pieced some things together from a few hundred disparate accounts I’ve run across over the years but this engraving of Ajaw Yaxun B’alam is the clincher. Ajaw is, of course, their word for king. So this engraving has the king meeting with, hey, someone that looks like you. Beams shooting out of the eyes and everything.”

  Kellan turned the page around and showed it to Micah then to Raphael.

  Juliet reached over and grabbed the book. “Holy crap, that actually does look like you, Micah.”

  “They were sacrificing people. Continually and in great numbers. I was there for other reasons and,” he paused, “I found myself in a rather difficult predicament. A young woman saved my life and I asked her how I could repay her. She asked me to stop the sacrifices. So I did”

  “Woah,” said Kellan, “that is one packed statement you just made.”

  “She saved your life? What happened to the whole immortal Sentinel thing.”

  “He is not immortal,” said Raphael.

  “Yeah, I just picked tha
t up, so what happened?”

  Micah waved his hand. “It really is a long story and, in all honesty, not a particularly interesting one. The important thing is that, yes, I can be killed and, yes, I did something rather dramatic to repay that woman.”

  “Which you should not have done,” Raphael said sourly.

  “Well, now we are getting somewhere,” exclaimed Kellan. “So, you trashed an entire civilization by creating an 80 year long drought. And apparently pissed off Raphael in the process. Well done.”

  “I’m not proud of it, Kellan. It was a mistake and Raphael didn’t speak to me for nearly 100 years.”

  “That seems a bit excessive and petulant,” Kellan said—giving Raphael a pointed look. “You are going to have to be a bit more chill about things, or we won’t be talking very much.”

  The Angel nodded, “Another of the aforementioned negatives.”

  Kellan smiled, “See, we are starting to understand each other already.” He drained what little Scotch remained in his glass and filled it again, this time only half way.

  Juliet glared at him.

  “Last one, I promise.”

  “And speaking of last one. This is my last reference and, I have to admit it’s my favorite. It refers to Vlad Tepes who was killed in 1447 and his head sent on to Constantinople”

  Kellan stopped. “You sure have a thing for Constantinople don’t you?”

  “Anyway, the dominator of the principality of Walachia wrote a very interesting account of Vlad’s death.”

  “Wait,” said Juliet, “We’re talking Vlad the Impaler—as in Stoker’s Dracula?”

  “Yeah, isn’t it cool? Now you see why I saved the best for last.”

  “You were doing them in chronological order, Kellan.”

  “I was? Oh, wow, I was.”

  “Yeah, you’re brilliant. Just not observant,” she said with a smirk. “Dish on the Dracula story.”

  “Ok, well, according to Basarab Laiota, Vlad had bathed in so much blood that he had become a real live, well, undead, monster. Now, everyone figured that Basarab was completely full of it, because, after all, he was Vlad’s rival. But, maybe he was on to something. What do you think, Micah?”

  “He was a vampire. He made lots of other vampires and I killed them all.”