The Wanderer's Children

by L. G. O'Connor

  “Chamuel gave us strict instructions to remain unseen. I doubt he would be pleased if I told you my name,” she stated.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s just dumb.” Cara snapped. “I’ll take care of Chamuel. What’s your name?”

  The Guardian hesitated, finally answering, “Valeria.”

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Cara said.

  “That is very kind of you to say,” Valeria replied, followed by a tiny burst of caramel on Cara’s tongue indicating her pleasure at the compliment.

  They stopped a few blocks away, and Valeria set her down, keeping one hand on her shoulder. The moment Valeria released her, Cara would be outside of the veil and Valeria would remain invisible.

  Cara had never met a female Nephil, given their rarity—only one in twelve births. She wanted to see one.

  “I sensed two of you. Is my other Guardian here, too?” Cara asked to distract her already knowing the answer. In one deft movement, she clutched Valeria’s hand and turned around before the other woman could react. They both gasped as Cara stared up into the face of a beautiful woman sporting Amazonian proportions with high cheekbones and bright blue eyes, her hair held in a high, dark ponytail. Cara stood frozen staring with wide eyes, taking in her Guardian.

  Her uniform was standard-issue black like the males’, but rather than a T-shirt and cargos, she wore tight-fitting pants and a matching tank. The only thing that was the same was the weapons belt around her waist. Valeria must have left her duster home. Small breasted and standing over six feet tall, Cara could picture her as one of Sienna’s models sashaying down the catwalk during Fashion Week… until she looked at her arms. They were solid, carved muscle. Valeria looked like she could bench press a Volkswagon. Cara couldn’t help but wonder if she was staring at her future self.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Valeria said with a panicked look in her eye. “Chamuel will be angry that you’ve seen me.”

  Cara closed her slack jaw. “I won’t tell him. I promise.”

  Tension drained from Valeria’s bunched shoulders. “To answer your question: yes. She’s been traveling with us. But I can’t tell you her name. I’m sorry.”

  Two women! What the hell?! She wondered how Isaac and Simon had pulled that off with so few women in the Guardianship. They must’ve been transferred in from other units.

  A thought struck her and raised her ire. Didn’t Simon trust other men to guard her? Didn’t he trust her? No wonder he wouldn’t tell her their names! Did he really think she wouldn’t find out?

  “I understand. But you have to report this incident to him, correct?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” she replied.

  “Which was what exactly? A demon?”

  Valeria cleared her throat and shifted in her steel-toed boots. “No. Something worse… death. I felt death. I’m not sure… It’s only happened to me a few times in the last one hundred years.” She shook her head, and looked away. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you with my old Ukrainian superstitions.”

  Since Jonas had appeared flaunting “wing” within her ring of power, chances were high he couldn’t be seen by anyone but her. “Thou shalt not expose feather in public” was most likely as staunchly upheld as the noninterference rule he had berated her for. Still, she asked, “You didn’t happen to see anyone else standing nearby dressed in white, did you?”

  Valeria paled, her eyes once again reflecting fear. “Oh no, did I miss something?”

  Not really, she thought. Theoretically, Jonas was in fact an angel of death. But she would keep that nugget to herself until she had time talk it over with Michael and Simon. Cara pushed calming energy into Valeria. “No. It’s not important,” Cara said gently. “Everything’s fine.”

  She heard Valeria exhale slowly. “Okay, you can let go of my hand now. We’ll follow the taxi.”

  Cara released her and reappeared near the street corner. No one seemed to notice she hadn’t been there a second before. She stepped out into the street to hail a cab to Brooklyn when it occurred to her: Shit. She’d never gotten her Starbucks.

  Chapter 21

  CARA

  Brooklyn, New York. Rising Sun Dojo. Friday, May 24, 11:00 AM ET

  CARA WALKED INTO THE DOJO forty minutes late balancing three cups of coffee, her backpack, and a bag filled with four egg sandwiches. Two for her and only one for each of the guys since they’d already had breakfast.

  When she’d sent a text to Simon and Michael earlier, she’d let them know there had been a bit of an incident and she’d explain when she arrived. No doubt, Valeria had already reached Simon.

  No sooner had she opened the front door than Michael grabbed the food and Simon sweep her up into his arms. Michael looked on as he deposited breakfast onto a nearby table, wearing a look of concern.

  “Are you all right?” Simon whispered into her hair, holding her in a Nephilim death grip inside his arms, her feet dangling above the ground, his fear buzzing over her.

  “I’m fine,” she squeaked, “You’re suffocating me.” Startled, he promptly loosened his grip, allowing her lungs to fill with air and her feet to touch the ground.

  She gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I was never in danger. Honestly. I’ll fill you both in. But let me change first, so we can get started afterward, okay?”

  They only had until one o’clock before Michael’s first class, and she wanted to get in at least a sixty-minute session. Simon released her and she picked up her backpack, which had fallen to the floor when he’d pulled her into his embrace.

  Simon nodded without speaking, his fear ratcheting down a few notches.

  “I received the strangest vision.” Michael’s voice was tense. “So, I’m eager to hear your story.” The subtext in his statement was clear. Michael’s personal control didn’t usually extend to patience on investigating important information, so she was proud of him for keeping “radio silence” instead of grilling her using their telepathic link. It gave her some time to mull over her encounter with Jonas and try to make some sense of it.

  Cara turned and grabbed Michael’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thanks for not bombarding me on the way over.”

  He squeezed her hand back and smiled.

  “I’ll meet you both in the weapons area in five minutes.” She pointed to the food. “Don’t let that get cold. Just leave me two.”

  She headed to the locker room to put on her gi, and then met them back in the center of the floor with her breakfast.

  “Before I tell my story, maybe Michael should share his vision,” Cara suggested, easing herself down onto the mat and tucking into the bag.

  Simon and Michael sank to the floor to join her.

  Michael took a deep breath. “I saw you run to the accident and call down your ring of power. Then you dropped off the grid for a full five minutes. You came back on when the Guardian grabbed you and pulled you away from the scene.” There was no mistaking his distress or the taste of his guilt.

  Setting aside her sandwich, she grabbed his wrist and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, Michael. You can’t be in two places at once. That’s why I have a whole team of Guardians, remember?” Michael’s job as her Messenger wasn’t to protect her, but to provide a conduit of information between their Trinity and the Angelorum. Just because he could kick ass didn’t mean he was required to save hers.

  After draining her coffee cup to wash down her egg and cheese on a roll times two, she recounted her story of how she had saved the bicycle messenger and her encounter with Jonas—most of it.

  Simon’s eyes went wide at the mention of his name. “You met Jonas?”

  “You know him?” Cara asked, relieved and eager to learn more.

  “I know of him,” he replied with trepidation.

  Michael looked puzzled. “Not me. Never heard of the Transporters other than the common myths. It wasn’t part of my Angelorum training.”

  Simon shook his head. “It wouldn’t be. It’s Advanced
Angelology and required only for Guardians. The Transporters are a suborder of angels. Unless you’re about to die, you shouldn’t see them. Jonas is their leader.”

  A tingling sensation traveled down Cara’s spine. “So… why did I see him? He wasn’t there for me; he was there for the courier.”

  “And he was inside your ring of power?”

  “Yup,” she confirmed.

  Simon furrowed his brow. “And time stopped?”

  Cara shrugged. “Apparently. Except for me and Jonas. And possibly Michael, since he tracked me in elapsed time through our psychic link.”

  Michael’s brows furrowed in thought while Simon spoke slowly. “Yes, that part makes sense. The Transporters can only be seen by those individuals who have the sight to see the spirits of the dead. Jonas’s revealing himself is what I find puzzling.”

  A tingle spread across Cara’s scalp. “Do you think that I have the ability to see dead people?”

  “If you did, you would’ve known by now. I believe it could be a combination of things.”

  “Like what?” Michael asked.

  Simon let out a deep breath, his blue eyes flecked with worry. “He wanted to meet her, beyond admonishing her. There’s no other reason for the leader of the Transporters to work a common assignment. But he had to wait for the right opportunity, so he could manipulate time using her ring of power. The question is why? What does either of them have to gain from this exchange?”

  “I think I’ve gained something. He repeated the words to me that I’ve been hearing in my dreams,” Cara said.

  The furrow between Simon’s eyebrows grew deeper. “You’ve been hearing voices in your dreams? You never told me that.”

  Cara winced, finding it hard to miss the hurt in his voice. True, she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone. “Sorry,” she said, giving him an apologetic look. “I’ve been having dream fragments of the night we rescued Kai. Little bits have come back slowly, but this morning they flooded back all at once.”

  Then it clicked. “Wait! I have seen someone who died,” she blurted, evoking curious stares from Simon and Michael.

  “When was this?” Simon asked.

  “I remembered this morning that I died for those few minutes while Kai performed CPR. I saw my grandma Hannah at the gates of Heaven. Does that count?”

  Simon’s lips parted and Michael blinked before they exchanged a quizzical look. “Could be,” Simon said. “What are the words you’ve been hearing?”

  “I don’t know how to say them. They were spoken in the angelic language,” Cara said, her shoulders slumping. Identifying the language wasn’t a problem for her ear, but speaking it was another skill entirely.

  Michael piped up. “If you think of the dream, can you hear the words in your head?”

  “Yeah, but I just can’t make those sounds with my throat.”

  Michael gave her a Cheshire Cat grin then looked at Simon whose mouth formed a slow smile. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “You bet.”

  Cara looked at them like she’d been left out of a joke. “What?”

  “Hold hands,” Michael said, and then it hit her. Duh. They could link their gifts via the Trinity. Michael and Simon could speak the angelic language even though she couldn’t. Her hands disappeared inside theirs.

  “Just remember the dream the way you would speak to us telepathically,” Michael said.

  She remembered the words from the dream, and then for good measure pulled up a snippet of Jonas repeating them before dropping their hands.

  Michael and Simon sat pale faced with their mouths agape when she finished. Simon mumbled something in the angelic language then did something she’d never seen him do—he made the sign of the cross over himself.

  Michael’s eyes shifted from Simon to Cara.

  Her mouth went dry, their reactions sending a shiver over her skin. “You’re both scaring me. Jonas said it meant God’s Sacred Healer,” she said, panicked.

  “That’s not all it means,” Simon whispered while Michael just looked ill.

  Cara swallowed to wet her parched throat. “Tell me.”

  Simon took her hand in his, locking his gaze on her. “It means, God’s Sacred Healer, Mother of Souls, and Killer of the Morning Star. It means…” he paused and cleared his throat. “The last part means two things: you’re the warrior prophesied to kill the Morning Star, and in turn, the Morning Star is the only one who can kill you.”

  “But—”

  Simon held up a finger to signal for her to let him continue. “I’m sure that Le Feu wasn’t too pleased when you jumped in front of the knife to save Kai. Although he technically didn’t disobey the Morning Star’s order not to kill you, but if you had died… I can’t believe it would have gone well for him. It also explains why there haven’t been any attacks on you since San Francisco. It means they’ll focus on the rest of the Twelve, since you’re off limits.”

  Good and bad news. Fear coalesced in Cara’s stomach, hardening into a tight ball. “The first time I remember hearing those words was during my confrontation with Le Feu at the warehouse. They were whispered by the voice from my Calling,” Cara said. “I guess that’s why I wasn’t afraid.” And that must be why Brett was attacked, she thought. “But, wait. Does this mean I can’t be killed at all or it’s just the Dark Ones who aren’t permitted to kill me?”

  Simon’s eyes darkened. “Not sure. The prophecy’s unclear but my guess is the latter—you can still be killed, just not by them. As a Nephil, your powers to heal are greatly increased, but you can still be killed.”

  It didn’t make Cara feel any better. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than Lucifer himself coming after her. Unlike Simon, her Nephilim DNA hadn’t erased her ability to feel temperature. The chill of the air conditioning raised the hairs on her arms and she shuddered. “I don’t understand what this all means,” she whispered.

  Simon started to speak, but Michael put his hand on Simon’s arm to stop him. “The prophecy says that in the final battle, an avenging angel will engage the Morning Star and ultimately defeat him. The assumption has always been that the angel would be the Archangel Michael with Uriel and his order backing him. Almost like a rematch. Since the Archangel Michael cast him out during the Fall he was the logical assumption.”

  Cara eyes grew wide and her body felt limp. During her training with Constantina she’d learned all about the Great Fall, Michael, and Uriel’s role within the Angelorum. Uriel, in addition to leading the 9th Order of Angels, the Powers, was the angelic sponsor of the entire Angelorum protectorate. His order of angels provided the last defense against attack in Heaven, so they were the perfect choice to father the warrior Nephilim who made up the Guardianship.

  Simon took Cara’s hand. “If you’re the avenging angel then one point is clear. If any of the Dark Ones cause your death they forfeit the battle. The same is true of our side. No one but the avenging angel can engage the Morning Star.” The civilized rules of engagement strike again.

  “I’m only human with a little Nephilim DNA thrown in for good measure. I don’t even have wings.” Cara’s shoulders slumped, her voice reflecting a flash of despair.

  Simon gathered her up in his strong arms. “We’ll consult with Constantina and figure this all out. Don’t worry, love. The road ahead is still long, and there is much to learn. I’d never let you go into battle alone.”

  Michael placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Neither would I.”

  Conviction blazed in their eyes with a loving energy. It touched her heart.

  “Thank you.” She smiled. “I love you both. Enough self-pity,” she said, and wriggled out of Simon’s grasp. “We have some work to do. Let’s do a cleansing prayer and start our session. We’ll have time to think on this later,” she said, refusing to let this surreal revelation paralyze her.

  Bloody hell. What else I am going to have to deal with?

  They joined hands, and Cara did her thing, channeling t
he power down and bathing them in a bright, cleansing light that left them calm and invigorated.

  “I’ll get the knives,” Simon volunteered, heading over to the weapons cabinet.

  Her mind flashed back to Valeria, and riding atop a sudden surge of PMS-like moodiness, she remembered she had a bone to pick with Simon. “I have a question for you, darling.”

  His shoulders stiffened and he tried for nonchalance. “Yes?”

  “How come I have a female Guardian?” Cara asked with a tight smile, batting her eyelashes for emphasis. Not wanting to rat out Valeria, she didn’t let on that she knew that both of her Guardians were female.

  Michael looked at Simon and chuckled. “You didn’t.”

  Simon glared at Michael and then glanced back at Cara. “I thought it more appropriate.”

  Raising her eyebrow, she placed her hands on her hips. “Oh, really. Why’s that? By the way, I don’t remember Isaac having a female on his team. Where did he get her?”

  She’d struck a nerve.

  “Can we not talk about this here?” Simon asked, lowering his voice and meeting her gaze.

  “I can leave for a few minutes,” Michael offered, pointing toward the door.

  “No. Stay. It’s Trinity business.” Needling Simon hadn’t explicitly been in her plans, but his power play irked her. His age and Victorian sensibilities sometimes lent him to male-dominated decision making. She tilted her head. “You didn’t answer my question. Why?”

  Simon glared at her, pursing his lips. “Because I don’t feel comfortable having other men watch over you. There, I said it.”

  “Is it because you don’t trust me?” she asked. Self-admittedly, given her traitorous hormones, it might not be unwarranted.

  He looked at her like she’d slapped him. “What? No. Of course not.”

  “You sure?”

  His expression softened and he grabbed her in his muscled arms. “Cara,” he said, leaning down and placing his head against her forehead. “I love you and trust you. Selfishly, this is all about my comfort. I’m sorry.”