“She sent her love,” Celeste said. “Oh…she was so sad, Tess, it was terrible.”
“Why?” I asked. “Did something happen or she was just sad to leave and start her life? Was she scared?” I looked from face to face trying to get a straight answer, from minds or voices, but got only jumbled bits and pieces of information.
Then Valerie came forward. “I’ll explain!” she said, assuming a strong commanding attitude. “It all comes down to Henry,” she began. “Remember how I told you about that premonition I had about him?”
“Yes.”
“Well…apparently I was right!” she said haughtily. “While Estelle and I were at the choir, a spirit came over to tell Estelle that he had seen Henry hanging out with Eros. Estelle didn’t know who Eros was, so she didn’t understand what that spirit meant by that comment, but I understood.”
Instinctively I looked over at Max and he looked mournfully down, not meeting my eyes.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” I said.
“Eros has been rumored to be hanging out with a group of spirits who call themselves the Fallen Angels. The rumor is that Agatha is their new leader and she has them busy with all kinds of secret work aimed to undermine our current state of preparation,” Valerie said significantly and raised one eyebrow high above the other.
“OK, so Henry was hanging out with Eros, a presumed Fallen Angel,” I summed up. “They’ve known each other for a long time, what would make this meeting so extraordinary?”
“The fact that it was no transient meeting,” Russell interjected. “They have been meeting in secret at a remote area of the Tech district and have been exchanging things.”
“Gadgets of some sort,” Alex added.
“So?” I said, slightly annoyed. None of these things seemed that far out of the ordinary for Henry. He was always playing with gadgets, and doing shady things with them. Didn’t he get to smuggle an explosive out of a spirit world, only to save Celeste and Max? I couldn’t understand why, all of a sudden, we were getting all upset about this instance, when he had been doing these things all along. I told my clan this and they all seemed annoyed by my lack of concern.
“This is different, Tess,” Alex began with fresh patience. “He refuses to take any classes and spends all his preparation time working on some mysterious gadget that he doesn’t want to show to anyone.”
Now that was odd. Henry couldn’t keep himself quiet about anything that he was excited about. If he was working on some new cool toy, he would have come to us all and bored us to death with every single detail.
Alex continued, “And to top it off, Henry has been elusive for a long time. he hasn’t even kept in touch with Estelle.”
“Besides, Tess, it’s not just hearsay. I saw him,” Russell said in a subdued tone. “That’s where I went when I had to leave Herald training. I shadowed him for a while, and I can attest to what the rumors say. The only problem was that I couldn’t get a good look at what they were exchanging. It was a small device, but that’s all I saw.” Russell shook his head, angry with himself, and Nancy compassionately looped her arm around his.
“And I’ve been having premonitions about Henry, and they all pointed in one direction. Trouble,” Valerie added with gloom.
“Where is Henry now?” I asked.
“Gone,” Max spoke up for the first time. “He left before Estelle, and he didn’t even say goodbye. In fact, he told no one of his departure, and it was only by chance that I happened to be passing by the entrance to the Veil when I saw him step through.”
“So…” I started to say.
“So there is no way to know exactly what he was doing or why,” Alex finished.
“He did seem to be a little edgy when I ran into him last. He told me that he had been working on something that was secret, and undercover. And when I asked him for details, he got upset and left,” I told them.
“So he did say that he was working on an undercover mission?” Russell asked with sudden interest.
“Yeah…he said that we were not the only ones who got to do undercover missions.” And as I said that I also remembered how his aura looked—he was definitely having an internal struggle about something.
Could this be true? Could Henry have joined the Fallen Angels in some sort of venture that would put our training in jeopardy? I shook my head. “I refuse to believe that he would simply join the Fallen Angels, I would have seen it in his aura,” I said firmly. “He looked like he was struggling, but he had not willingly joined the Fallen Angels—at least not when I saw him.”
“None of us wants to believe that, Tess,” Nancy said caressingly, “Estelle most of all, but the evidence says that he did something for the Fallen Angels.”
“He may not have known what he was doing,” Dorian spoke up. “He may have thought that he was just doing Eros a favor of sorts.”
None of us really believed that. Eros had a reputation and Henry couldn’t have been so gullible.
“At some point he would have had to have known that what he was doing was not good. And he should have exposed Eros, or said something, but he didn’t. Instead he left without even saying goodbye to his friends,” Russell said with a tinge of anger now. “He just slinked away taking whatever information he had with him.”
Right then, Alex’s pendant started glowing, and a good many others did as well. It seemed that duty called once more. Our little get together was dismantled and I watched as, one by one, all my clan members answered their call of duty.
“How was Machupichu?” I asked Alex before he took off.
“Fun! Really fun! And England?”
“Interesting,” I told him. “Where to now?”
He looked down at the pendant in his hand for a moment, then closed his hand over it. “To get answers,” he said with determination and blocked all other information from me.
I smiled, respecting his privacy and then kissed him on the cheek. My own pendant was glowing too, sending me to class.
I found it hard to concentrate on classes after this last revelation about Henry. Invariably, any and all topics brought me back to this same issue. What was Henry up to and why didn’t he confide in us?
After a long string of classes, I was relieved to see my pendant glow once more. Another Ministering mission! I thought as I read the instructions. I wonder when I’ll get to be a Guardian Angel? Not that I was complaining, this assignment looked perfect! I was to be a Ministering Angel to Estelle, to whom I didn’t get to say goodbye. Besides, I was dying to see how her life developed and if I could assist her in any way.
I landed where the pendant instructed me, but it didn’t seem like the right place. It was a tavern, with drunken cursing men all around. One of the men was playing the piano and another one who was sitting at a table near it, shouted, “Henry, where is that pretty wife of yours! Tell her to come out and sing!”
“Estelle!” a long haired, bearded, and gruff looking man shouted. “They want you to sing!”
I came closer to get a better look at the man, and it was Henry, buried underneath a lot of wiry hair and a hard expression. Estelle came out of a small door behind the bar and walked straight to the piano with a broken look on her face. I followed her and she seemed to twitch a little when I got close to her.
She then started to sing, and her voice was as lovely as ever. She seemed like an angel stuck in hell. Singing did her good, she relaxed and her aura shone brighter with every note. She looked like she was about twenty, and still had managed to retain a childlike, innocent look. Her eyes were a lustrous dark brown, set against the backdrop of milky white skin and framed by long eyelashes and dark red hair. Her clothes were simple, but she looked radiant.
Instinctively I came closer to her, drawn by her voice, like I had been back in Heaven. As I got closer I could see that her perfect skin was marred only by the slightest shade of green and blue, right in the corner of her mouth.
I peered in closer to the mark, and she swished her hand ri
ght through me, as if trying to whoosh a fly away. I moved away a little, and then came in closer, and she did it once more. I moved again a ways away, wondering why she did this every time I got close, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted Alex.
He was slouching on a chair, his form sinking through the mass of it in some places and floating just above it in others. Then a man came over with a drink and sat right on top of Alex and shivered, spilling some of his beer in the process.
“Damn!” the man yelled.
Irritated, Alex got up and moved away, but not without giving the man a piece of his mind. “That will be you, you idiot, if you don’t change your ways!” he scolded.
“Alex! Why are you cursing people?” I reprimanded as I came to his side.
Alex shot me a warning look, and then softened a bit before throwing himself on me, half hugging me, half fainting.
“Did we finally get a mission together, one where we can actually talk without getting in trouble?” He smiled weakly.
“Yes. I’m here for Estelle, on a temporary Ministering Mission,” I said, turning back to Estelle, who seemed happy…for the moment.
Alex grunted something and went over to the bar, where there were a couple of empty seats. He took one and motioned for me to take another. He then turned back to the bar and looked at Henry with dismay.
“Are you here for him?” I asked.
“I’m a terrible Guardian, Tess. He’s done nothing but ignore me and my advice ever since he was born. It’s like…like…he knows I’m here and on purpose he is doing the exact opposite of what I tell him to.”
“Do you think he can see you?” I asked as I leaned across the bar and peered in Henry’s face, but he gave no sign of seeing me.
“No. He can’t see us,” he said with disgust. “He is just stubborn! I mean, could he have been this way all along and we never saw it? Did he really betray us all to become a Fallen Angel? This…this is not the Henry I thought I knew. This is a monster.”
“Alex…” I pleaded.
“He is, Tess, he is—trust me.” He shook his head, ashamed of the deeds that he had witnessed. “And up there somewhere,” he flung his hand in the air moving it back and forth, “there are Scribes writing it all down.”
Once more Alex’s aura was darkening, not like last time, but it was dark with disappointment. He was also afraid of what might lie hidden inside him, the part that hadn’t been tested yet. I knew that soothing him on this point would not do any good. I could see how the conversation might go, from beginning to end, and nothing would change this fear.
I realized now that I knew something about the way these missions worked. And they are as much for our benefit as they are for those whom we are sent to help. So with that in mind I decided that I would let things take their course and see what happened.
“How did he get to this point?” I asked instead.
“A million wrong choices, and this.” He pointed to a small glass filled with some sort of clear liquid that I understood to be intoxicating. “He started drinking this stuff early on, and as of late, he has added a new vice…as if one wasn’t enough.”
“What vice?”
“It’s called Opium. I’m not sure what happens to him exactly, but it knocks him out and he hallucinates too.”
“What does he do when he is on that stuff?”
Alex shook his head, not wanting to repeat or relive those memories.
“I’m glad they sent you. Estelle needs you, and she needs to leave him. It’s getting worse, he might…do something he will regret and never be forgiven for.”
“It’s my business, Tristan. It doesn’t hurt anyone but me, so…leave me alone!” Estelle said through gritted teeth at the man sitting at the piano.
“It just kills me to see you waste your life on that scum of a man,” the man named Tristan replied in hushed tones.
Alex winced. He agreed with the assessment, but it still hurt him to hear others speaking of Henry that way.
Estelle stormed out of the saloon and went back to where she had been before. Henry scarcely noticed that she was no longer singing or that she had walked right past him sobbing. Alex and I followed her. She had thrown herself onto a bed and was crying. We watched her and felt utterly helpless. I wanted to comfort her, but nothing came to mind.
After a while she composed herself and with a shaky hand walked over to a little pot and proceeded to make herself some tea.
I studied her for a while, and something in the way she was moving made me wonder.
“Alex, do you think she can see us?”
“Oh…I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Go home!” Henry shouted as he stormed in the room and passed through both of us. Estelle obeyed and Henry followed her.
I started after them, but Alex held my forearm. “I don’t think you want to go,” he said, somber.
“Why?”
“Trust me.”
I looked at him puzzled, but stayed. After some time, Alex suggested we go and check in on them. He poked his head in their cabin first and then signaled for me to come in.
Henry was lying in an awkward position on the bed. He had an empty look on his face, his eyes were open, red, and glazed over. I hovered over him, and there were no discernible thoughts, his mind was both numbed and jumbled. Then one thought floated free from the chaos inside—I’m sorry.—and then he passed out.
* * * * *
Chapter 25
Estelle staggered to a corner of the room. The dress she was wearing was ripped in places. She lifted one sleeve and tried to put it back where it once was.
“He’s an animal!” Alex said.
“He is not completely gone. I can’t understand it, the real Henry is still in there, but it’s buried deep.”
Alex shook his head, not believing me.
“STOP IT!” Estelle shouted, she was holding onto the corner of a cupboard, and then her knees gave out and she fell on the floor. She then scooted herself into a corner of the room, and stayed there in the fetal position, not moving, or even crying anymore. Her sudden request left us in complete silence, waiting to see what else she did. But she did nothing other than hug her legs, rock herself back and forth, and whimper.
“I think she’s losing it,” Alex surmised. “Not that I blame her.” He glided to a tiny window and looked out into the night.
Estelle looked up suddenly and followed him with her gaze, as if she could see him.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Leave, Leave!” she shouted. Then, more subdued, added, “Leave me alone…you are driving me mad.”
Alex and I exchanged surprised looks and then I glided to her side. I tried to pat her head and tell her that she would be OK, but as soon as I raised my hand, she flinched. I turned to Alex and motioned for him to back away, and then we left the cabin.
“Alex, what was Estelle’s gift?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Didn’t Luz say something about Estelle being in her Gifts class? Could it be that she has the Gift of Beholding Spirits?”
Alex nodded his head. “Maybe. Wow, Tess do you think she can see us?” he asked, alarmed.
“And maybe hear us too,” I said in a whisper. “She was acting kind of funny every time I come close to her.”
“If she can see and hear us…” Alex began. “Oh! Tess, I may have lost my patience with Henry a time or two and she was present, I wonder what she made out of it all?”
“There’s only one way to find out, we have to talk to her.”
We glided back inside the cabin carefully so as not startle her. Estelle was now standing, nervously straightening up her cabin and making dinner for when Henry woke up. She must have seen us coming in because she stiffened up and dropped a pot on the floor.
With what seemed to take a great amount of courage, she turned to face us. Her eyes were trying to focus on us, like she couldn’t quite see us, but knew we were there.
“Well she can definitely see us,�
�� I told him telepathically.
“What now?” Alex responded.
“Talk to her.”
“Why me? You talk to her, you were sent to her!”
“Yes, but she has seen you the most,” I insisted.
Alex rolled his eyes and moved toward her just a little bit.
“Don’t hurt me!” Estelle warned, waving the pot in front of her.
Alex froze in place, not knowing what to say or do, and not wanting to scare her any further.
“Why are you haunting me? Leave me alone!” Estelle was at the point of tears again.
“We are not trying to haunt you, Estelle,” Alex stepped forward just an inch and Estelle began her pot waving as a means of exorcism.
“Estelle I’m an angel, Henry’s Guardian Angel, in fact.”
Estelle looked puzzled and shot a quizzical glance in my direction, and then she let out a bitter laugh.
“You are his guardian angels, boy you two must be really bad.” She laughed some more. “Interesting too, how he gets two angels to protect him and I…get none.” Her eyes glistened and I could tell she was fighting back the tears, not of fear now, but anger.
“You are wrong, Estelle, I was sent to you. I am your angel.”
She turned her head to me and squinted, trying to get a better look.
“And I’ve been trying to get Henry to make better choices, but he won’t listen,” Alex said, in an attempt to redeem his reputation as a Guardian Angel.
“Yes, I’ve heard you,” Estelle said. Her voice was strained from fear and disbelief at the fact that she was having a conversation with two angels.
The moon shone through the open window and Estelle’s face seemed paler than ever, her frame was so slender and fragile-looking in the moonlight, that she looked more like a spirit than we did.
“She is with child, she must be saved. Time is of the essence. Tell her to leave now.” The instructions from the Eternals came through the link.
Alex and I exchanged looks, Estelle shivered, and she leaned back on the wooden table and gripped the edge of it so tightly that her fingertips turned white.
Veiled Page 20
