“Then good luck to you,” Ambriel said bitterly. “If you intend to tell their fathers what is going to happen, I do not, under any circumstance, want to be there!”
“I think it’s a bit late to have reservations about the Mistdreamers—they were who you decided were suitable, Ambriel! We also are unsure of the certainty of the outcome of this latest development. We,” he stressed, “are not the Creator. It is only He who knows what will happen.”
“And you are certain that The Conjurer has no knowledge of these developments?” Ambriel asked.
Omniel stretched his body to its full magnificent height. Just as quickly, he realigned his body and rubbed his chin, pondering, a flicker of doubt worrying his face. “How can we be assured of that?”
“Exactly!” Ambriel shouted. “We put our Mistdreamers in the dangerous position of discovering information for us, by sending them into the bowels of Hell.”
Omniel recognised Ambriel’s distress and attempted to calm him. “I understand, Ambriel,” he said gently. “They have been a necessity in the preservation of many worlds, and they are extremely important, to all of us, professionally as well as personally.” He continued, noting the look of astonishment and doubt on Ambriel’s face. “Yes, even I have become enchanted by these girls. However, before we can conclude this unfortunate episode, it is essential they must first find one of their fathers, do you not think?” Omniel paused, the reality of the Mistdreamers’ situation dawning, and for a fleeting moment, a frown crossed his beautiful face.
Standing ominously still, they gaped at each other, and the impossibility of the situation dragged on their hearts, until, together, they let out a loud breath, releasing their anguish.
Ambriel’s mouth curled into a thin line, and with a quick shake of his head, he then placed his fingers against his lips, as though by making the gesture he could prevent any words, or further sounds, that may emanate from his mouth. He could not stop the name from being uttered.
Omniel’s eyes widened, and his body became rigid. Their voices lowered to a hush and trembled with dread as they uttered it, together.
“Callum.”
*
The Party
“Look who arrived on my doorstep!” Lauren squealed, beaming as she hugged Mairi.
“We flew up, if you catch my drift.” Mairi laughed and winked at Lauren. Glancing around the castle, Mairi added, “This place is… amazing! I mean…” Mairi stopped and held her breath for a minute, before continuing sarcastically: “Are you going to start reconstruction soon? It could use a roof, a floor, pipes.” She giggled when she saw Lauren’s mouth open. “Going too far, am I?” she asked, and then laughed again as she squeezed her diminutive cousin.
“It burned down in 1715. I think it can withstand a few more years like this.” Lauren chuckled before reluctantly pulling herself from her cousin’s embrace and closely inspecting her. “Love the dress, Mairi! I take it you didn’t have time to change before coming here?”
Mairi checked the long, blue satin dress, wiping a stain from the bodice, and sighed. Why the director thought one of the strongest female characters, in any play, had to wear the most revealing of dresses, when the character herself was powerful enough to hold the attention of anyone, was beyond her understanding.
When the director had first shown her the dress, she had bitten her lower lip and kept her concerns to herself. Insecurities rose from her past and came far too readily to the fore. Had she been chosen for the part because of her body and not her talent? She had been assured the latter was true, and the director was clearly appalled she should think that of him. He insisted the dress was historically accurate, and, he had continued, she should feel lucky her breasts were covered at all. The fashion for some dresses in that era, was to reveal the breasts completely. Mairi had a suspicion that might have been the case elsewhere, but not Scotland, where her nipples would have fallen off with the freezing winds or the bitter cold weather. At that time the country was almost puritan in its religious outlook towards women, there were strict expectations in how they should dress, and the way in which they should behave.
Mairi inspected the dress, with its plunging neckline, which barely kept her breasts from falling out, and was grateful that they didn’t. Whenever she moved, they threatened to spill out, and yet the clever design, using neoprene inserts, kept them upright and taut, preventing it from actually happening.
Hoping to hide her body from lecherous gazes, she found herself constantly pulling on the matching chiffon blue coat, which floated airily behind her when she walked. It was held together with a bold tartan belt. The colours of blues, yellows, and purples tied in a bow and lay strategically just below her breasts, which again accentuated them, completely destroying the effect she was hoping to achieve!
She was still wearing the outfit she had worn on stage.
“What play is it you’re appearing in?” Valerie took a quick study of the tartan whilst doing her best to push the mountain that was Seere out of her path.
“Go away, you moron, I’m talking to my cousins,” she spat. Seere ignored Valerie and stood his ground, earning him an eyeful that would wither most people.
Mairi passed a veiled look at Appoloin and silently apologised for what she was about to say. With a slight indication of his head, he let her know to go ahead with her fabricated story. Now was not the time to worry her cousins, certainly not here at Lauren and Forcas’s housewarming party and the late celebration of their wedding. Whatever, or whoever, had been outside her dressing room door could be forgotten for a few hours.
“I didn’t have time to change—sorry, Lauren.” She jerked her head over her shoulder. “Appoloin,” she said, indicating the Angel standing behind her, “grabbed me, when I was removing my stage makeup. I was putting on tonight’s gloop when he whisked me away, hence the one eye made up and the other not!”
Valerie, always quick to notice anything, had seen the furtive glance passed between them but chose to say nothing. She had her own concerns at the moment and did not want to share them at the party. There would be time later. “Looks like you’re in Macbeth? Where’re you playing?” asked Valerie
“We’re near the Windmill Theatre, and I’m Lady Macbeth,” Mairi answered proudly.
“Wow! Not bad. Where’s your crown, and how many times have you said, ‘Out, out, damn spot’?”
“Quite a few times.” Mairi giggled. “And Appoloin has the crown,” she said pointing at Appoloin’s lumpy chest. Mairi unexpectedly felt light of heart. To be in the company of her closest friends, free from the danger of just a few moments earlier, was almost exhilarating. She was astounded to find herself not quaking in fear, or even frozen with shock. Instead, she was enjoying the moment, the surroundings, and the company. “More often than I can count, that’s for sure,” Mairi answered happily, allowing herself these few wonderful minutes.
“I have this gorgeous number I wanted to wear tonight, but looking around, maybe it was a bit over the top,” she said as she marvelled at everyone in the room.
“You? Over the top?” Valerie laughed and poured a glass of champagne. “Surely not you, Cuz! Wear what’s right for you is what I say.”
“Geez, you’d think these Angels could zap you into a new dress,” Lauren grumbled.
“Appoloin said we didn’t have time, that we had to get here urgently, and wham bam, we’re here.” She smiled at Lauren. “You’re right, of course. If they can zap us here in seconds, why couldn’t he have changed my dress, for heaven’s sake?
“What a lovely job you’ve made of this place,” Mairi said as she took a closer look at the room. Castle Tioram was a magnificent castle on the tidal island of Eileen Tioram in Loch Moidart, and had been a wedding gift to Lauren and Forcas, from the Angels. It had been given to them on the day they were married. Fairy lights hung from the castle walls. The courtyard was decked out with tables laden with food. Candles were placed all over the area, the floor, the tables, and they burned brig
htly. It had almost been transformed, but there was still so much work to be done in the castle. It had lain in ruins for centuries, but Lauren and Forcas intended to make it into a family home, a haven for lost Angels—a safe house.
Mairi noticed the reconstruction was clearly underway, or about to begin. Sandbags and cement bags were the ‘tables’ covered with tablecloths; bricks, strategically scattered around the courtyard, lay in preparation for new building work, and were arranged to hold candles and vases with Scottish thistles, roses, and berries, their shadows casting shapes that were more like Angel wings than flowers.
Mairi smiled when she saw her father chatting with her Uncle Alex as they stood beside one of the tables which was groaning with food. Both were equally handsome men, but with contrasting looks. Alexander, at six foot and one inch had black hair, though subtle streaks of grey now highlighted his thick locks, and her father, taller than Alex at six foot three, his thick sandy-coloured hair, made a striking vision. She ran towards him, readying herself for his steel-like arms to enfold her into the warmth of his chest.
Graeme opened his arms, knowing what she was about to do, and waited, arms wide, for his catapulting daughter to come thudding into him. When she landed against his chest he held her tightly, inhaling the sweet perfume of his daughter.
He gently stroked her long hair, and held her against his shoulder, feeling her tremours as she silently sobbed. Alexander nodded to his brother and moved away, giving Mairi and her father privacy. Alex acknowledged Seere, who had been standing at the end of another one of the food tables seconds earlier, but he didn’t stop, instead he walked by heading towards Valerie. When he was by her side, he casually laid a possessive arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and, as is the way with fathers held her close as he stretched the other to shake Seere’s hand, welcoming him into his family.
Graeme watched his brother’s gameplay, and smiled knowingly, before returning his attention to Mairi, asking, “What are all these tears for, bonnie lass?”
Mairi sniffed. “I’m not sure, Dad,” she answered, seriously. “I just feel as though I haven’t seen you in ages. I miss you.”
“And I you, Mairi, but you have a life to get on with, remember? One that’s away from all this,” he hissed, indicating her cousins.
“What do you mean?” she asked, pulling herself from his arms and looking at him, surprised to hear the venom in his voice.
“Away from all the Mistdreamer crap. We tried to keep you girls safe, and yet you’re all mixed up in their war. We didn’t want that for any of you.”
“Dad, we know why you did it! It doesn’t make it right, though—we can choose what we want and whom we want to help.”
“But why does it have to be bloody Angels?” He was becoming tetchy, and his voice raised. Mairi was confused. Her father was acting strangely.
“Dad, what’s going on? This isn’t like you.”
“Isn’t it? Do you really think I’m happy with you becoming embroiled in their problems? I want you to fly to the sky, use that gift you have to become the actress you always dreamed about becoming. How many other girls, of your age, do you know, get a part like the one you landed?”
Mairi did her best to remain calm, but couldn’t hold back the growl in her voice. “Firstly, we’re not embroiled in anything. They sort the problems out; we just let them know the facts before a conflict occurs. We know Lucias is out there, and that he’s looking for Valerie, I’m fairly sure Seere is more than capable of keeping her safe. Appoloin, I know, is definitely able to keep me out of harm’s way.”
“How can you say they’ve sorted their problems out!” he yelled, “The last I heard, you and your cousins were mistdreaming right into the middle of an Angel war! How is that sorting their problems out?”
Mairi considered her father’s point and that it did have some merit. She, Valerie, and Lauren had mistdreamed onto a battlefield, where Angels and Demons were in fierce combat. They walked, unseen, through the devastation of blood and gore to witness the end to one of the Demon Kings, Balam. Lucias, the demon hell-bent on the destruction of Mistdreamers, reacted by killing Kakabel, the Angel of the Moon. When the girls watched Lucias attempting to sneakily leave the battlefield, they followed him, only to be captured and chained in Hell’s cavernis by Angela and Lucias, a Demon who had developed a dangerous obsession with Valerie. When captured he had informed her of his plans to marry her!
Lauren had shared with Mairi the devastating news she had discovered, when mistdreaming, the facts that Lucias and his sister, Rachauden, were her half siblings and that her mother, Angela, who had disappeared when she was a baby, was the wife of the dead King Balam. Angela had spat venom at Mairi, screaming she wanted revenge for the death of her husband and attempted to kill her, but the girls managed to quickly escape from their mistdream, returning to Earth’s plane.
Yes, Mairi could understand her father’s concern. It was a very tangled web.
Graeme was shocked by his exasperation, taking a mental note of Mairi’s reaction. She was like an open book. Her thoughts easily read, and her heart, her beautiful heart, was right where she always wore it; on her sleeve. He studied her as she puzzled through the recent events, and he waited for her to respond. The soft lilt he had heard in her voice when she spoke of Appoloin had pained him. He wanted her as far from the Angels as possible. “You aren’t falling for him! That’s all we need, another bloody Angel in the family.”
Mairi pushed away from her father and backed into Appoloin’s arms, surprised to find he was standing close by. She hadn’t been aware of him crossing the room and relaxed immediately when he held her. “Is there a problem here?” he asked Graeme.
“No problem here—with my daughter and me, her father. The only problem I can see is you and the rest of your Angel cronies! Why don’t you bugger off and leave us alone?”
“Dad!” Mairi shouted. “Stop it. This is Lauren’s party, and you’re going to ruin it. Stop acting like a prat—what’s wrong with you?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me!” he shouted. “My daughter is in danger because of Angels, my wife left me for a Demon, your cousin married an ex-Angel, the wife of one of my brother’s is dead, while my other brother lies in some kind of supernatural coma. Do you need to hear any more?”
“I think, perhaps she has heard enough.” Omniel’s booming voice echoed across the castle walls. Kakabel, who had been an awkward, solitary figure, standing at the far end of the courtyard, jumped at the sound of the Archangel’s voice. He was unsure of whether he wanted to kill or thank the Angel for changing him into a mortal.
“Who the hell invited them?” shouted Graeme, when he saw Ambriel with Ramiel, the Angel of Thunder, standing alongside the Archangel.
Lauren and Valerie had changed places and were now standing beside Mairi, sharing their support, but, like Mairi, they were concerned for their uncle. Seere stood, as ever, the ominous presence, but shifted protectively to the rear of Valerie.
Lauren felt the need to break the tension closing in around them and suddenly grabbed Mairi, pulling her beautiful cousin into her arms. “I’m going to miss you,” she cried, turning to Valerie hugging her closely. “I don’t know how I’ll manage without you,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Mairi asked, confused.
Omniel glared at Graeme, who stood his ground angrily, awaiting the next words from the Angel and was surprised when, instead of reprimanding him, the Angel lifted his hands and began to cast a prayer of thanks over the castle.
“We come to bless the home of our Caretaker Forcas and his beautiful wife, Lauren.” Ambriel and Ramiel lowered their eyes to the ground, then spread their arms wide, invoking the same words, strengthening the benediction. “Their safety has been ingrained into the very ground you stand upon, by our brothers, the Fae.” He waited a moment. “But we ask you to understand what is about to pass. We have promised to keep the lives of your daughters from harm—it is them, and especiall
y them, we wish to make safe. I ask you all here to bid farewell to Mairi and Valerie.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mairi. “I’ve just opened in a new play!”
“And I’m not going anywhere either. My kids are expecting me in tomorrow. I’ve just got a new apartment!”
Forcas was immediately at Lauren’s side, knowing this was one of the most difficult things she had to do. Concerned for her health because of the secret living inside her womb, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her safe.
“It is time, my love,” he said sadly, and held his weeping wife close to his chest. Lauren could hear the strong beat of his heart and took strength from him.
Seere picked an astonished Valerie up into his arms, and blew softly into her eyes, chanting words only she could hear but did not fully understand. She fell into a deep sleep, and Seere cradled her securely. The party gaped in astonishment, when they both disappeared.
Mairi couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and was shocked when they vanished. She turned frightened eyes to her father, who had begun to run towards her. Appoloin gently moved her chin, so that her terrified eyes were gazing into his. He waved his index finger across her eyes, then flicked his wrist at her forehead. Mairi fell towards the ground in a dead faint, but he caught her before she hit the ground. His wings outstretched, he shot into the air just as Graeme grabbed a handful of his feathers.
“Get thee to The Veil, Ramiel,” Omniel whispered, and waited until he had disappeared before advancing towards Ambriel.
Ambriel glanced over at Forcas, who signalled he understood the problems that lay ahead, acknowledging their friendship, before he too disappeared.
“Where are they?” Graeme screamed at Omniel.
“Bring them back now!” Alexander yelled insistently.
Omniel surreptitiously flicked his small finger, and the feathers Graeme had been holding dissolved.
The Park Family: Mairi: Retribution Page 5
