Micah, wanting to keep the mood light, pressed on, “Great, now you can’t break it and you can’t lose it.”
“I won’t,” replied Kellan seriously.
“No, no, I mean you really can’t break it or lose it.” With that, Micah pulled the crystal from Kellan’s hand and, in a fluid motion, threw it off the hill and far into the distance.
Kellan jumped up alarmed. “Oh my god, what the hell?” he shouted as he ran to the edge of the precipice, trying to make out where the crystal had fallen.
“Relax, Kellan. Do you really think I would have spent the time I did and trust you not to lose or break something that could be lost or broken. You are so distractible, I’m sure you’ll end up leaving it somewhere. Oh, and I know your magic brain will remember where you left it, but it might not be there when you get back, so, I fixed that problem before it became a problem. Call it back.”
“Huh?”
“Call it back. Use a trickle of power and just call it back.”
Kellan opened his palm and closed his eyes, felt the familiar warmth in them as he drew on his power willing the fetish to return. He immediately felt weight in his palm and opened his eyes to find it resting there completely unmarred and glowing softly.
“Holy shit…”
“Yes, holy shit indeed.” Micah said gravely but with a grin.
The two men said nothing for a time, both content to enjoy the silence and each other’s presence, neither wanting to be the one to break the moment.
Finally, Micah shuffled his feet a bit and spoke, “Seems this is it—graduation day.”
Kellan’s stomach wrenched and flipped at the words, but he nodded slowly, angrily wiping tears that sprang unbidden and unwanted.
The two men embraced, and Kellan felt Micah channel the power causing the blue glowing portal to spring into being. He could see the bookstore’s small reading room on the other side. Kellan squeezed tighter, not wanting to let go.
“I don’t know what to say,” Kellan whispered.
“You don’t have to say anything. I know. Time out there hasn’t changed, but we have and we’ll have this time forever.” Micah pulled back holding Kellan firmly by the shoulders staring at him intently. “I love you as if you were my own son, and, in a way you are. You will do great things, Kellan. You will, indeed, shine light into dark places where Angels fear to tread. You will succeed, fail, fall, and rise again. Through all that remember you were chosen by those who exist outside of time and can see eternity laid out like a quilt. You are ready, and so am I.”
Micah finished speaking, eyes moist and gave Kellan’s shoulder’s one more reassuring squeeze, then turned and walked through the portal. He didn’t look back, but knew that the Sentinel followed him.
Chapter 6
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
The world snapped into focus with scents and sounds hitting Kellan like an assault. He had forgotten how loud the world was and how sharp the smells were of a living place. The dust, the old leather, the myriad of smells filled his nose as the sounds of life filled his ears: clocks ticking, cars moving about, an airplane overhead. He was home.
Kellan spun around and his heart caught in his throat. Micah sat in the overstuffed leather chair, head leaning against one side of the large shoulder-back. He looked asleep, but Kellan knew.
A sob broke from his mouth as he moved toward his friend kneeling before the chair. His hand was warm but there was no life within. He held the old man’s hand as the tears streamed down his cheeks and Kellan let the full sense of loss wash over and through him.
After long minutes Kellan wiped his face and started to rise when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Greetings, Sentinel,” came the commanding voice.
Kellan stood and turned towards the voice. Raphael stood before him smiling. “You have grown much since last I saw you. How fare you?”
“My friend is dead. Leave me alone.”
Raphael cocked his head, then looked to Micah’s body. “That,” he said, pointing, “is nothing. Our friend is free of the limitations of that body and the responsibilities you now bear.” Raphael paused. “Perhaps you knew that. Were you weeping for yourself or for him.”
“Dear God, Raphael, you are such an ass. I was weeping for my friend being gone. I can’t see him. I can’t hear him. I miss him already. Just go away and let me deal with this on my own.”
The Angel seemed completely unaffected by the insult and simply nodded. “Very well. I will collect the husk and depart.”
“The…what?”
“The husk. The body that held Micah. Like few others before him, corruption will not take this body. I will take it with me.”
Raphael walked to the chair and picked Micah up, cradling the body without any discernible effort. He turned as a portal opened before him and stepped towards it.
“Wait!” called Kellan. Raphael stopped, turning back to the Sentinel. “Will you see him? Will you talk to him?”
“I do not know, Kellan Thorne. If he wishes it, then I will see and speak with him. If he does not, then I will not.”
“Will you tell him something? If you see him, I mean.”
Raphael stared at Kellan for a long moment eyes ablaze, “Probably not. He is done with this world and its troubles are now yours, but perhaps. What is your message?”
“Just tell him ‘Thank you and that I love him, too’”,
Raphael’s features seemed somehow to soften, almost imperceptibly, and he smiled slightly, “He knows, but yes, that is one message I can promise to impart. Remember young Sentinel, in all you two shared there was love and words were the faintest shadow of how you communicated that during your times together.”
Kellan nodded as Raphael turned again, walked through the portal, and vanished. He looked down at the end table and spied the bottle of Scotch from what felt like an eternity ago. He picked it, examining it. It was empty.
“Shit!” said the Sentinel. “I definitely need more Scotch.”
Kellan heard his office door slam from the back of the shop and the sound of running feet.
“You’re back!” Juliet yelled as she ran into the room, throwing herself at Kellan and hugging him tightly. A moment later, she drew back a little with a quizzical look on her face, eyes red and swollen. She placed one hand on Kellan’s chest and pressed, then grabbed his upper arm and squeezed first one and then the other, eyes widening.
“Um, Juliet, what the hell are you doing? You are kinda grossing me out here.”
“Dude, what in the seven hells have you been up to? You’re, well, you’re totally buffed up.”
“Huh, I’m what?” said Kellan pulling open his shirt and reaching for the belt of his jeans.
Juliet turned around, “Stop right there mister. Now I’m grossed out.”
“Holy crap, Juliet, I’m built like the dude from Arrow. This is awesome.”
“Totally awesome. Get yourself back to being dressed.”
No response.
“What are you doing?”
No response.
“Oh my God. Are you flexing or something.”
“Uh, no.”
“Ew, you were! You totally were. Can you actually be serious for one minute? I kinda thought you were burned up and dead and have been crying in your office for the better part of an hour.”
“Burned up? Why on earth did you think I was burned up? Wait. What? You’ve been crying for an hour?”
“Yes, dammit. And I’d still have been in there blubbering for god knows how long if I hadn’t heard something going on out here.”
“An hour…”, Kellan said again, shaking his head. “I guess that makes sense, but…”
Juliet watched him and made the connection. “How long was it for you?”
“Months, Juliet, many months, at least.”
“Well, that at least explains your Arrow’ness. Are you fully dressed yet?”
“Yeah, I’m good”
Juliet turned around and gave
Kellan another big hug, kissing his cheek as well.
“Oh, Kel, I am so glad you aren’t dead. You started screaming after you put that ring on and then your whole body glowed like The Doctor regenerating, only green. Then, then you just went poof!”
“Poof?”
“Yes—fucking Poof!”
“Language…”
“Fucking! Poof! Kel!”
Kellan laughed and grabbed Juliet by the shoulders lifting her effortlessly off the floor. “Language, young lady. Kellan Smash!”
Juliet was laughing now too. “Put me down and dish on the 411.”
He did and they both collapsed into reading chairs where Kellan relayed his time in the workroom with Micah.
Kellan glanced down through the rows of books at the gathering darkness exposed by the shop’s front window. He knew they’d been talking for quite sometime and glanced at his phone. 6:30. Juliet needed to get home soon or her parents would be calling.
“So, he’s really gone, then” said Juliet sadly. “He had such a kind face, like an old weathered sailor or something. You seem to have really taken to him, Kel. I’m so sorry.”
“Huh? Yeah. I’m sure it seems weird given your frame of reference, but from my perspective, I just spent every day of the past I don’t know how many months with a guy I came to love and respect. And he’s dead. And I’m left with all this,” he finished gesturing around himself.
The room fell into silence for several long moments when Juliet brightened.
“Well, Sentinel,” she began enunciating the honorific with as much snark as she could, “Show me something.”
Kellan smiled, “I’m not a carnival freak and I will not use these powers for parlor tricks.”
She cocked her head and smirked at him.
“Ok, I kinda am, and I totally will,” he said laughing. “What do you want to see?”
“I have no idea. You described so much.” She paused. “Let’s build up to something grand, but start small. Fire up those peepers.”
“Good idea, but I have to have the environment right for it to work, so I’ll need your help.”
“Cool, what do I need to do?”
“Just get to the side of that chair and pray like you were saying your nighttime prayers, but in this case just pray that I’m worthy to call forth this awesome power.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Juliet slipped out of her chair, kneeling before it, interlaced her hands, and closed her eyes. “I have to admit, Kel, I’m out of practice at this; don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
Kellan could see her lips start to move silently and then stop. Still with her eyes closed, Juliet said, “Umm…what happens if there’s no one to do this when you need to clobber some baddy?”
“Now, that’s an excellent question, Miss Herrick,” he replied and she heard the laughter in his voice.
Juliet opened an eye to see Kellan smiling broadly, clearly about to break into open laughter.
“Ass! Ass! Double ass!” she yelled getting up and punching him on the arm as hard as she possibly could.”
“Ow!,” she yelled.
“Yes, ow indeed—didn’t hurt me one bit though”
She glared at him, and then her mouth dropped open as Kellan’s eyes burst to life glowing with the same brilliant green as did Raphael’s.
“Let’s have some fun. We’ve earned it.”
With that he grabbed Juliet firmly about the waist, and concentrated for a moment while gesturing with his free hand. A bright blue line appeared in the shop and revolved into an oval sphere through which they could both see a rocky coast from high above.
“Here we go,” Kellan said with a laugh as he jumped through the open portal, Juliet gripping him tightly.
“Kellan! Oh my god, we’re falling,” Juliet yelled.
“Why are we falling?” Kellan yelled back.
“Because you are an idiot and did something wrong. Fix it…fix it!”
“Relax, I got this,” and Juliet instantly felt them slow, their decent becoming that of a gently falling feather.
“Oh, wow, what did you do?”
“Look carefully around us—see anything?”
She looked and could make out the barest ripple of distortion and then looked all around them.
“Are we in some kind of bubble?”
“Sort of. Watch.” Kellan reached into a pocket and pulled out some change, then threw it directly in front of them. The coins seemed to tumble lazily for about a foot and then suddenly streaked down toward the ground.
She looked at him, “Gravity bubble?”
“Ding ding ding! Give the girl a cee’gar. Simple thing, really. Mass creates attraction, so I’ve just changed the amount of attraction that the Earth can exert on us by separating us from everything else by way of this little bubble. Pretty simple really.”
“Yeah, sounds it,” Juliet said as she continued to look down, feeling her feet gently touch the ground, her ears popping slightly, “Bubble gone?”
“Yep, all gone.”
“But, how exactly did you make that work? Did you actually change the mass of the Earth?”
She watched as Kellan’s brow furrowed, “Hmm, good question. I don’t think so, that would have required a lot more energy than I used, and it probably would have done some pretty horrible things to the planet.” He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m sure I couldn’t have done that if I tried. Anyway, I’m not exactly sure how it worked. It’s mostly like I understand what has to happen, in that the relative gravitational attraction needed to change and then it sort of just happens.”
With that, Kellan turned and started walking along the grassy cliff towards its edge.
Juliet hadn’t moved when he looked over his shoulder, “Come on, let’s try some stuff.”
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘sort of just happens’?”
Kellan walked back to her. “It’s like this. I have to understand at least the fundamentals of what I’m trying to do. If I understand more than the fundamentals, then I can do more or be more effective with what I’m doing. Beyond that, I’m not sure of the exact physics associated with what I’m doing, some of it seems highly improbable.”
Juliet looked baffled.
“Ok, let’s take an example that I haven’t tried and, honestly, won’t be trying because I’d likely end up dead.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“C’mon, walk with me. You know I think better walking.”
She did.
“So, suppose I want to go to the moon, how do I do that?”
“Well, I suspect you would just make one of those portal thingies that opened on the moon,” she said rather matter-of-factly.
“Huh,” he responded, “Yeah, you’re right. So, for the sake of argument, let’s say I want to get there the old fashioned way: directly, non-stop from good ol’ planet Earth.”
“Okay,” she said again.
He nodded. “There are steps between here and there. I have to escape earth’s gravity, survive a vacuum, and survive really cold or hot temperatures.”
“Don’t forget finding the moon. Your sense of direction is crappy on Earth, I doubt you could even find the moon. You know it moves right?”
“Very funny. Let’s just stipulate that I’m looking at it the whole time and just keep heading in the right direction.”
“Unrealistic for you,” Juliet said with a snicker, “but stipulated.”
Kellan ignored her.
“Step one: escape gravity. Pretty easy—just do the opposite of what I did when we were falling. I could also change my relationship to Earth’s mass relative to that of the moon, sort of making the moon, ‘down,’ if you will. Anchoring me to it rather than Earth, then I would sort of fall to the moon, which means I couldn’t really get lost. So there, Ha!”
“Yeah, that doesn’t explain how at all, Kel.”
“Wait, you are missing the point I’m trying to make. It’s not about the specific how, it’s
about a solid understanding of what’s involved; in this case, gravity. Anyway, now about the vacuum and temperature. I’d have to insulate myself from both, right? Or alter my actual body so that it could withstand those extremes.”
Kellan paused, his eyes losing focus. “Hey, that’s an idea. I wonder if I could actually change something that fundamental about my own physiology. I suppose it would…”
Juliet started snapping her fingers in Kellan’s face, “Hey! Stay focused. Vacuum, temperature…”
He looked at her, “Right, right, so, insulated. That would just require a simple shield that kept temperature controlled air in and everything else out. See, simple.” He smiled.
“You are insane, really. That makes no sense at all and is anything but simple.”
Kellan ignored her and held up a finger. “Now, what would be hard is building a campfire on the moon. I mean I could make one if it were inside the bubble, but just on the surface of the moon, no idea how to make that work. No fuel, no oxygen, no fire. You see what I’m getting at, Juliet, I apparently can manipulate some of the basic constructs that hold,” he gestured in a wide arc, “all this together, but there are rules to creation and I can’t simply ignore them. I have to work around them, bend them, trick them maybe.”
“You are saying there are rules?” She asked.
He pointed at her, “Yes!”
“And some rules can be bent?”
“Yes!”
“And some rules can be broken?”
“Yes! Wait. Dammit, you totally just Morpheus’ed me. By the way, did you know that Morpheus was real and was a demon?”
“Um, no?”
“Yeah, apparently a serious douche-canoe; Micah killed him. Anyway, just a bit of trivia for you to sock away. C’mon.”
Kellan walked toward the cliff and this time Juliet followed, shaking her head slowly. He paused leaning against one of the large rocks that dotted the cliff and pointed up smiling, “Pretty cool, huh?”
“What?”
He frowned and pointed again, “Seriously?”
Juliet walked a little closer to get a better angle at the rock Kellan kept pointing to and the profile came into view. She looked to her left and saw the other rock, too, had a human profile.
Sentinels of Creation: A Power Renewed Page 12
