We walked side by side in silence. There wasn’t much heat in the air, and I had the feeling that a rainstorm was imminent. The traffic on the street was dense but moving. Upon hearing a loud bang, I jerked to attention, but it was just a backfire. Moments later, a taxi accelerated past, billowing smoke. Its acrid smell burned my nostrils, and I brought my hand to my face to cover my mouth and nose.
Gabriel, in contrast, puffed out his chest as he sucked in a lungful of smoke. “Exhilarating,” he said.
“You enjoy the smell of pollution?” I asked, confused.
He smiled. “There’s a richness to the aroma. It packs so many flavors. I enjoy new experiences, new sensations.”
“Is this all so new to you?” I asked. “The city? Diesel-scented smoke?”
He gave me a playful punch in the shoulder. “You’ve lost the deer-in-the-headlights look. Good. We’re getting somewhere. As for your question… I’ve walked the world in every era, including the latest one, so little is new to me. Skyscrapers, battleships, the pyramids of Giza, I’ve seen them all. But for someone who has existed for billions of years—a hundred, two hundred, even two thousand years are an eye blink. The last few millennia have featured so much change, so much to marvel at, it’s just incredible.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t even begin to understand the viewpoint of a god. An entity who was alive at the time of creation.
“Look at all these people.” Gabriel made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the pedestrians all around him. “I see it too often. Downcast eyes. Drab clothing. Living lives full of complaint and sorrow, appreciating so little of what is around them, so little of the vast leaps of humankind.”
“I suppose so.” I remembered my earlier less-than-impressed thoughts about the city when I’d arrived, comparing it to a termite mound. “I prefer the countryside. Nature.”
Gabriel grinned. “Nature is marvelous too. But I have had much longer to appreciate that. It hasn’t changed in the same way.”
We stopped in front of a small restaurant with outdoor red benches underneath a white canopy roof. Pat’s King of Steaks, a prominent overhead sign topped with a yellow crown proclaimed. “Here we go,” Gabriel said. “Pat’s. The first place to serve cheesesteaks and still the best. Its famous rival, the only other establishment with the claim to the best cheesesteaks, happens to be just across the street.” Gabriel pointed out a place called Geno’s Steaks just down the road. Both places were brimming with customers. “Take a seat and I’ll get us a pair of steaks. It’s self-service.”
I sat down mechanically on one of the outdoor benches, feeling a twinge in my stomach as the smell of food woke my hunger. It also woke someone else. A small body squirmed inside my pocket, then climbed up the inside of my jacket to poke his head out of the top. I ignored him. My elbow hit the table, and my head sunk into my hand. I was still struggling to process what had happened; thoughts melted away before they could fully form, turning the inside of my mind into mush.
“Hey.”
I jerked, looking up to see Gabriel had immediately returned. “What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to say one more thing before I get the food,” Gabriel said. “The rest of the team, everyone else in the city, in fact, thinks I’m just a mage, and I’d like to keep it that way. So, I need you acting normal around me.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “So get it together, okay?” He rejoined the queue for food.
Yeah, get it together, Slate, you big dope, you, Harps thought.
Thanks, buddy, you always have my back.
Harps chittered, the sound and even the facial expressions similar to a person sniggering. Then he jumped out of my coat and onto the seat, and from there to the ground. Save some food for me, Harps thought, then scampered across the road.
Careful! I leaned out of my seat, ready to spring after him, but he seemed to know what he was doing, staying clear of the traffic and climbing a fence on the other side of the road. I settled back down. Beyond the fence was an empty baseball diamond. Harps had clearly needed some greenery to run through. I knew how he felt.
At the counter, Gabriel was joking with the guy taking his order. His aura still looked dazzling and brilliant, but I had to stop thinking about him as a god. I had to help him pass himself off as a normal mage. Clearly the mission was much more important than I had imagined, and I would have to work closely with Gabriel and the rest of the mage team to make sure we succeeded. I couldn’t avoid seeing the blue aura, but I had grown up with people around me having green auras. I couldn’t forget what Gabriel was, but surely I could figure out how to act normally around him. I had to.
Gabriel returned with the two cheesesteaks and sat down opposite. We both took a big bite.
“Divine,” Gabriel said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Sure.”
“Are you not enjoying it?” Gabriel asked.
“It’s nice.”
“Nice. That’s it? A native of Philly would be within his rights to have you killed for such a lukewarm reaction to the pride of his city.”
I took another bite. Though my stomach craved food, my taste buds didn’t care what I was eating. “I’m sure it’s great. I’m just too distracted to savor it right now.”
Gabriel clicked his fingers. “Answers. That’s right. I promised you answers. You must have many questions.”
“I certainly should have.” My mind went blank.
“Not any meaning of life bullshit, right? We are men of action; leave that crap to philosophers and navel grazers.”
I skittered away from asking the earlier question I had about why he had created vampires; it seemed too much like criticism. The problem was that I couldn’t think of much else.
“Anything?” Gabriel prompted.
I spit out the next thing that popped into my head. “You are one of the three dragongods?” Of course, start with the stupid questions, I thought. You are invited to learn the mysteries of the universe and you ask something you already know.
Gabriel nodded. “I am.”
“Riva, Xia, or Siba?” I asked. In some of our stories, the dragongods had names. Siba ruled the heavens, Riva walked the earth, and Xia dwelled in the underworld.
“I am sometimes called Riva,” he said.
The one who walked the earth. Made sense. Even so… “Shouldn’t you look more dragon-like?”
“I can change shape.” In an eye-blink, Gabriel was gone and in his place sat a beautiful blonde with a smear of cheesesteak sauce on her upper lip. An instant later, Gabriel had replaced her, the same smear on his face.
I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but it appeared no one had. I was barely sure I had seen it myself.
“My brother of the sky prefers to stick with our more natural dragon shape.” There was nothing in the tone of Gabriel voice or in his expression to indicate that he had done the impossible twice within a second. “He’s slept through the last several centuries. Once, a dragon would cause everyone who beheld it to prostrate themselves in worship. These days, he would be greeted by fighter planes and missiles.”
“So, you’re immortal.” Stupidity continued to spew from my mouth. I already knew Gabriel had been around since the start of time.
“Immortal is the wrong word.” Gabriel showed remarkable patience. “Vampires are immortal, so they won’t age but they can still die. I’m eternal.”
“Why are you here?” I asked, then quickly clarified. “I don’t mean on Earth, I mean here in Philadelphia.” Actually talking to me.
“To stop the swirl key from falling into the wrong hands.”
“So Lionel and the others were right. It is that important?”
Gabriel smiled. “As I was entering the apartment, I got the impression you were a doubting Thomas.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who you were then. It won’t happen again.” I no longer had to wonder why the helsing kings had me sent. No helsing would have denied a request f
rom a dragongod.
“Doubting is fine. I prefer that to having you fall to your knees in front of me.”
“You’re a god, though.” After I said that, I looked around to make sure no one had overheard. It appeared not. I lowered my voice. “You’re a god. Why would you need anyone to get what you want? Surely you can just take it.”
“I’m not all-powerful. I can’t just click my fingers and make the swirl key appear in my hand. And I’ve always enjoyed working through and with others. Just so much more fun that way, I’ve found.”
“Fun? The necromancer wants to open a portal with the underworld to allow demons into our world.”
“Well, that part wouldn’t be fun for humans. Which is why I’m determined to stop it from happening.”
“So you formed… How did you end up with a bunch like you have? They don’t seem…” I ran through them in my mind. Danielle, a hood mage who couldn’t defeat a single zombie. Alessa, a creature of darkness. Lionel, thrown out by his family, shameless and perverted enough to be in love with a vampire. “The mage team isn’t exactly brimming with powerful individuals.” Gabriel could command any helsing warrior he wanted to. He could have had Dagger, Flint, and Crystal brought to the city to help.
Gabriel chuckled. “You were too shy to say boo to me earlier, and already you are criticizing who I select to help me.”
“I didn’t mean it that way…” The dragongods had created vampires, so Gabriel might consider having a vampire on the team to be a good thing. There was something that Gabriel might not know, though. “There’s a traitor in the team,” I blurted.
“What?” That got Gabriel’s attention. “Who? How?”
“I don’t know who. All I know is what the tarot cards revealed.” I felt foolish but at the same time relieved to get it off my chest. Since I’d left Dagger, slithering uncertainty twisted within me at every choice I’d faced. By telling Gabriel what the cards told me, I could let him decide what should be done.
“Tarot cards? I’d heard stories of the ability of helsing warriors to occasionally see into the future, but no one has seen any evidence of it. Are you saying you can do that?”
“I’m not certain,” I said. “When an old helsing turned cards for me yesterday, a voice inside me knew what they meant. Then this morning, I tried again, and the pattern repeated, though I only turned the first two cards.”
“Now that I’d like to see,” Gabriel said. “Could you show me?”
I hesitated, then reached into my pocket and pulled out the tarot deck. I was going to feel like such an idiot when a random combination of cards came up that meant nothing. I slowly shuffled, then placed the deck face up on the table in front of us. My fingers drifted across the back of the top card, feeling the grainy texture, and then I let my hand fall to my side.
“Go on,” Gabriel urged.
Twice in a row was unlikely, three times was surely impossible. I grabbed the top card, and snapped it over. “The Chariot,” I said with obvious relief in my voice. “I came across the deck yesterday, and, by coincidence or otherwise, the person on the card bears a remarkable resemblance to me.”
Gabriel picked up the card, examined it, then looked at me. “Fascinating.” He replaced the card on the table. “Please proceed.”
I shifted uncomfortably, glancing around. Reading the future via tarot cards was something that should be done in dark corners rather than in daylight in the full view of the city on a fast food table. But no one paid us any attention. I turned the next card. “The—” It wasn’t the same card. “It’s changed. This isn’t what happened before.”
“What were the second and third card the first time?”
“The Lovers and The Devil. The Lovers referred to the team I was joining, and The Devil told of the traitor among us.”
I didn’t know how to explain how I knew the meaning, so I was glad not to be asked. Gabriel peered closer at the card on the table. “This time the second card is… What is that?”
The picture was of a naked woman draped in a serpentine purple cloth, surrounded by a green wreath. “The World,” I said. I turned the third card, which showed a yellow-haired angel blowing a trumpet. “And Judgment.” Once again, I knew the meaning of the three-card combination. “And it means… Shit!”
“It means shit?”
“No.” I hesitated. “Maybe it doesn’t mean what I think it does. Maybe I’m going insane.” Hopefully I was going insane. Better that than…
“Just tell me,” Gabriel said.
“It means… I’m the chariot, you see. It means… It means I will stand judgment over the fate of the world.”
“In a vague metaphorical sense?”
“I hope so.”
“But you don’t think so.” Gabriel rubbed his hands together. “This is wonderful.”
“Really?” A traitor, a dark necromancer, and a clueless young warrior with the fate of the world in their hands. It sounded like the start of a joke, and not one that ended well. “When the time comes, what if I make the wrong decision?”
“Surfing the knife edge between success and failure with the fate of the entire world at stake. What could be more…? What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Terrifying?”
“Exhilarating.” Gabriel rubbed his hands together. “I’m more confident than ever we’ll succeed.”
I picked up the three cards and shuffled them back into the deck. “So you think what the cards show is real?”
“We’ll find out,” Gabriel said. “Listen. Don’t tell the others what you saw in the cards. If one of them is a traitor, we don’t want to let them know we are watching out for them. As for the second prophecy, well, it does sound rather ominous.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re strong enough to handle the pressure.”
“I am?”
“We should start back. We have plenty to do, and time is getting ever shorter.” Gabriel stood. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, then squashed the cheesesteak wrapping and napkin into a ball and performed a jump shot, aiming for a bin. It missed. “Denied,” he said.
I didn’t know what was more bizarre—that a god would jump-shoot balled-up garbage or that he would miss. Stop thinking of him as a god, I reminded myself. Gabriel picked the balled-up wrapper from the side of the bin and dropped it inside the rim. “You ready?”
I stood and walked to the edge of the curb. “I have to wait for Harps,” I said. Seeing no sign of him inside the diamond, I scanned up and down the street, finally spotting him opposite Geno’s. He was facing off against a scrawny cat with patchy fur and only one eye. Harps dashed at the cat, and it turned and fled, hiding behind a pair of green bins. Harps ran after it, circling the bins, then got a shock when the cat turned and leaped at him, snarling and spitting.
Harps reversed rapidly, his turn to flee, and the little cat bounded after him. Harps grabbed hold of the wire fence and scrambled up. The cat swung a claw, which just missed Harps’s tail. Harps climbed higher out of reach. The cat hissed up at Harps, then it stalked away.
Harps saw me watching, and he jumped off the fence and ran across the street. With cars speeding past, it was my turn to be scared, but Harps bounded between the traffic without incident. He climbed up my pants leg and coat, settling on my shoulder.
A valiant battle, old friend, I thought.
Cats are the worst, Harps thought. Except for maybe dogs. No, that’s right, terriers are the absolute worst.
Still haven’t found an animal that is scared of you?
That cat was feral, Harps thought. Likely rabid. It’s just lucky I was fast enough to avoid a bite or scratch.
It was a rather small and sickly thing to flee from, don’t you think?
Harps stuck his tongue out at me, then he disappeared inside my hunting coat.
Are you sure you knew what you were doing, crossing the road like that? I asked him.
I’m smarter than the average monkey, Slate. I can take care of myself.
Gabriel
was further up the road, waiting for me, and I hurried to catch up. As I did so, I realized we hadn’t talked about what had happened the previous night. “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “About the necromancer. And Danielle. It was stupid. We should have waited for you.” If I’d known who Gabriel really was, I’d have gone along with those who had wanted to wait for word from him before acting.
“You mean about what happened in the Dulane Building with Grimstar getting the magtroller, followed by Danielle being kept at Cress House? I know all about that,” Gabriel said.
“You’re not mad?” I imagined how furious Dagger would be at such a botched mission. And gods were renowned for their wrath. “How do you even know?”
“I have my sources. I said I’m not all-powerful, not that I am totally useless.” Gabriel chuckled. “Actually, I’m impressed at the team’s initiative, despite how it turned out. You did the right thing. I’ve been considering the situation this morning, and I’ve come up with a way to turn this to our advantage.”
“You have?”
Gabriel looked me up and down, nodding. “You’ll fill out a tuxedo nicely.”
Chapter 13
Three auras of different colors swirled inside the dark van as it wound its way through Chestnut Hill, one of the posher districts of Philadelphia. I sat in the passenger seat with Harps on my lap, wrapped in my own familiar green aura. Gabriel drove, and the windshield glinted with sparks of blue and green as it reflected both our auras. Lionel and Alessa sat in the back, Alessa’s red aura giving her face a menacing touch as always. Given a chance to study her, though, I could see why Lionel called her beautiful. Her black shoulder-length hair framed a diamond-shaped face with alabaster-white skin and high, chiseled cheekbones.
The auras didn’t provide enough light to banish the darkness; rather, the darkness augmented the brightness of the glow that surrounded each of us. A fourth color was also present, a faint white gleam surrounding Lionel—not a true aura, just a sign of his many years working with white magic. Which meant that four of the colors of the swirl were represented—all we needed was a necromancer or zombie or demon to round out all five. The atmosphere was so uncomfortable that I almost wished for a creature of black power to turn up and complete the set. A new arrival might break the tension.
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