all it took before the dam broke.
Ed went to his weeping eldest daughter and folded her into his arms. Donna clung back fiercely to her father and Ed sensed a want and need for him that he hadn’t felt from her in a long time.
Around midday they were all sitting around in the living room, not really knowing what to do and all afraid to go outside. There had been two phone calls since they’d arrived home, one from Doc Parker and the other from Dave Morris. Both men, like themselves, had been detained and questioned throughout the night and both were sorry for their part in having the blade fall, although it wasn’t really their fault. They were also both jubilant to discover their mutual patient had yet again escaped the clutches of his pursuers.
Feeling guilt and remorse for having dragged him into all this, Donna rang Billy’s house to see if he’d turned up yet. His mother answered the phone and coolly told her that he hadn’t, and no they didn’t know where he was, didn’t she? They didn’t know what the trouble was but the grey suited men were looking for her son now and that somehow she, Donna, had something to do with it and why couldn’t she have found some other boy to get into trouble with her? At that Mrs. Kennedy hung up leaving Donna holding a buzzing receiver.
Donna returned to the living room more miserable than ever and sat quietly down on the sofa. Ed gave her a questioning look and she shook her head in response. ‘Where could they have gone?’, she wondered.
The TV was on but Ninah was the only one even remotely paying attention to it. Donna and her parents merely sat in silent contemplation of the past week’s events. It was then that the doorbell sounded, rousing them from their personal reveries, and Felicity shot Ed a worried look.
“I’ll get it,” he said softly and, with an expression on his face that he hoped looked unconcerned, but didn’t, he headed down the hall. Ed opened the door to see an attractive woman with long brown hair and casual clothes, he guessed her age to be mid thirties. Beside her was a younger man, early twenties say, with short dark hair and spectacles, and he too was dressed casually though in a neat way. In one hand he held a battered looking briefcase.
“Mr. Edward Blair?” the woman asked.
“Yes, that’s me,” Ed replied, a little more flatly than he’d intended.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair, I’m Doctor Jennifer Hatfield from Berkley and this is my assistant Marko Wright.” The young man nodded. “We wondered if we might speak with you, and if possible, your family?”
“Why?” Ed asked shortly, although he undoubtedly knew the reason.
“Well, we understand you’ve come into contact with, well for lack of a better word, an angel if you like,” Dr Hatfield said.
“You mean the A1?” Ed asked icily.
“Some people call him that,” Dr Hatfield said softly. When Ed said nothing she continued. “We’re very interested in locating him, and also learning anything you can tell us, we understand you interacted with him for several days.”
“Look, Miss Hatfield or Dr Hatfield or whatever, myself and my whole family just spent all last night in the company of some very charming representatives of our government, telling them everything they wanted to know about him just so we’d be allowed to return home. If you want information, go ask them. Hell, you probably all work together anyway,” Ed said. By now Felicity had joined him at the door and was staring coldly down at the two strangers.
“Mr. Blair, if you’re referring to the DSS, our illustrious Department for Scientific Security,” Dr Hatfield began with obvious sarcasm, “I can assure we have no connection with them at all. Indeed we feel as much disdain for their methods as no doubt you do yourselves. They want nothing to do with us and naturally they won’t tell us anything because our interests lie down different paths. If we could have, we’d have tried to reach you first but they’re always one step ahead of us, understandable really, with the manpower and resources they have to draw on. Basically they follow him and we follow them.”
Ed shrugged indifferently. “Even if you don’t work for them, why should we help you, what makes you think your finding him will do him any good? Who knows, assholes as they may be, Carlisle and his cronies may be right.”
“Mr. Blair, Carlisle and his Nazi try-hards are as wrong in their attitudes as they can be, and you know it. In helping that creature to escape, you and your family did the best thing possible. If you’d please just hear us out; listen to what we have to tell you, then you’ll know our intentions are honorable. Just give us a chance.” Dr Hatfield pleaded.
Ed looked at his wife and then back to the two visitors on the porch.
“There’s more at stake here than you know about,” Marko said, speaking for the first time. “If you help us, we can all help him.” He looked pleadingly at Ed and his wife.
Finally Ed gave a barely perceptible nod. “Alright, I guess you’d better come inside then.” They led the pair into the living room and offered them seats.
“These are our daughters, Donna and Ninah,” Ed said woodenly, feeling he had to be polite and make introductions. He settled himself down in his chair. “Now Dr Hatfield, suppose you tell us what your stake in this matter is then?”
Jennifer Hatfield looked at them all as if trying to decide where to begin. “First, let me set the record straight. It’s indirectly due to us that the DSS is after our mutual friend.” She hastened to go on, seeing their hostile expressions. “But it was nothing we could have stopped or prevented, or for that matter, even known to prevent. You see we knew of his existence well before anyone else and we’re pretty sure they found out through hacking into our, supposedly secure, Internet access line. Their hackers are good, I doubt there was much we could have done to keep them out.”
“So thanks to you, they know,” Ed said.
“Yes,” Jennifer said flatly.
“You say you’ve known about him for a lot longer than they have. Do you know what he is exactly, where he came from?” Ed asked.
“No, we discovered him by accident. We’re with the ecology department at Berkley, well sort of, we work in liaison now, and one of our camera hides, set up to observe a pair of wedge tailed eagles, picked him up. We’re fairly sure he’s not an angel though, at least not in the Biblical sense,” Jennifer said.
“Well, we’re fairly sure of that ourselves now,” Ed said. “Carlisle spared nothing in telling us how dangerous he thought the creature was.”
Jennifer and Marko both smirked. “Oh, he’s dangerous alright, if provoked, just as we are, but no more so,” she said.
“Carlisle thinks differently, he showed us a video of the angel picking up a baby goat and dropping it from high in the air,” Ed pressed on.
Marko laughed. “Did it have sound?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“I didn’t think it would, otherwise you would have heard my narrated explanation for his actions. I was the one who shot the film.”
“You took that film?” Ed asked, surprised.
“Of course, and that kind of behavior is nothing new. Large terrestrial birds of prey do it all the time, but there are more specific reasons motivating him which we’ll come to soon,” Jennifer said.
“Carlisle said he also killed two men doing the same thing,” Ed said.
“Same thing, my ass!” Marko snarled then, remembering Ninah, immediately apologized before continuing in a more sedate tone. “They weren’t just men, they were Carlisle’s agents, and he pulled them out of a helicopter with damn good reason.”
Ed cocked his head, deeply interested now.
“Mr. Blair, you only know a little of what’s going on here. This is the reason your angel killed those men,” Jennifer Hatfield said seriously before turning to her companion. “Marko?”
Marko opened his case and extracted what looked like a large photo then handed it to Ed. Ed looked at it, his eyes going wide before turning to Jennifer. “My God, it’s a female!”
“What?” Donn
a snapped, unable to keep the sudden jealousy out of her voice, and causing the others to glance at her briefly.
Ed looked at the picture again. It showed the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. She was very young, no more than sixteen, perfectly formed from head to toe, with lightly tanned skin, not as dark as the male’s, and long straight golden blonde hair that hung half way down her back. Her eyes, though it was hard to tell, looked to have the same silver speckles as the male’s.
She was standing, totally naked, at ankle depth, bent over the water of a rock pool in what looked like a rocky desert canyon. Her wings, smaller than the males and plain white, lacking the coloring around the tips, were stretched out and straight up, her hands were cupping a handful of water and she was looking at the camera as though she had been startled.
‘She’s younger than Donna,’ Ed thought. “Is she his mate?” he asked.
“Yes, they’re a mated pair,” Jennifer said, smiling.
“How can you be sure?” Donna asked, perhaps a little too forcefully.
“We’re sure,” Marko said. “We’ve been observing them for ten months now.”
“You caged them?” Felicity gasped.
“No of course not, we’ve been studying them in the wild,” Jennifer put in. “That was until three weeks ago.”
“What happened then?” Ed asked.
“The DSS snatched her, and they’ve been after him ever since,” Jennifer said.
Ed felt his
Fallen Angel Page 17
