It came at me then but it never touched me.
The influx of sensory perception when a Fallen One was present had now been controlled. Using it, I watched its attacks, diverting them, sweeping, hurling, and ducking out of its way.
It nicked my ear and slammed against my elbow but never came any closer.
Then it was on the ground, tumbling. Another body was on top of it, this one with white wings.
In one fluid motion, my savior rose up and sliced my attacker across the chest.
Blood spewed, it bent in pain only to snap back and spring towards the sky. Its wings flapping wildly, it disappeared a second later.
The one left on the ground, my guardian, turned to me. “Are you harmed?”
“No, Eran,” I said quietly in awe of him.
He bent his knees then and launched himself upwards, his wings carrying him rapidly in the direction my attacker had gone.
Campion was beside me then, his own wings out and ready.
“Stay,” Eran commanded with a holler over his shoulder and Campion’s wings settled.
Campion and I watched the sky without a word spoken.
Minutes passed.
Everything was silent.
Then, in the distance…movement.
I held my breath, unblinking, watching the being approach.
It floated through the clouds, descending towards us, for what felt like hours until it was just beyond the tree tops.
“Eran,” I breathed in relief.
He landed directly in front of us and stepped forward once, allowing his wings to settle against his back.
“I lost it in the lake,” he said, all of us understanding that to be Lake Pontchartrain.
“I didn’t know Elsics could swim,” I replied.
Eran’s head snapped in my direction. “Is that what you saw? An Elsic?”
“I’m-I’m really not sure,” I admitted. “It was pretty dark out here.”
Eran’s eyes fell to the ground. “It definitely flew like one.”
Campion, having remained silent this entire time, cut between us and headed for the shed. He stopped and dropped to one knee just outside it, picking up something from the ground. Carrying it back, he held it up for Eran and me to see.
“An Elsic feather?” Campion asked.
Eran’s face tensed. “Magdalene, please go inside. Wait for me in the kitchen.”
I was about to reject that idea until I realized I could simply listen to them through the door. Apparently, Eran knew this too because he spoke too low for me to hear, even with my ear to the door.
They entered a few minutes later, solemn. Campion left the kitchen almost immediately.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked.
“Was that an Elsic feather?” I countered.
He stared at me clearly not interested in playing a game of who could ask more questions before the other one caved.
“I believe so,” he finally acknowledged.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” he repeated, unwavering now.
He’d answered me so I acquiesced to him. “Ms. Beedinwigg, of course.”
He tilted his head forward, blinking. “Ms. Beedinwigg? Our biochemistry teacher?”
“Yes,” I answered confused. “My nightly sessions…training with her…”
His brow creased. “Nightly sessions?”
“Yes,” I stated. “Campion told you about it that morning on the balcony.”
Eran brought his head back, perplexed and struggling to recall. Then his face loosened as understanding came over him. “That,” he chuckled, “That was not a discussion about your training with Ms. Beedinwigg. He informed me that morning that you worry about my missions and that you’ve ask at times to be put to sleep for the night.”
“What?”
“He never informed me-”
“I heard you.”
We stared at each other for a moment and then I chuckled. “I wondered why you never asked about them…”
“Because I never knew about them to begin with…” he stated, not smiling but not upset. I figured his thoughts were still partly on the Elsic feather, which he held in his hand. “So…you’re in training with Ms. Beedinwigg. Evidently she’s training you to conquer Fallen Ones and has been doing so for a while now.”
“Several days,” I confirmed.
“Well, she’s certainly good with her disguises.” His shoulders lifted after a quick half-laugh. “I had no idea she was from the human families you hired to train you…” He stared back at me proudly. “She’s taught you well.”
“Re-taught…retrained…whatever…” I shrugged, not knowing how to convey that I’d known it all before until I returned as a reborn and forgotten it. “She’s a good teacher.”
We were silent for a moment, an awkward silence, until I asked the question we both knew I would.
“You believe that was an Elsic out there tonight?”
He did not look like he wanted to answer. “I can’t tell you one way or another, but I’m going to do my best to find out.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ll be meeting with Magnus tonight and we’ll need to determine who will go to the prison to ensure it hasn’t been compromised.”
“Not you,” I nearly shouted.
There was no way I would go along with Eran stopping in at the place that held captive the Fallen Ones he had imprisoned, especially when the security could have been compromised.
Eran knew this and did the only thing he could at that moment.
“Magdalene, my love,” he stated, “Forgive me for this.” He then called out towards the living room. “Campion.”
He came around the corner.
I began to oppose.
Even as I opened my mouth, the room slowly went black around the edges of my sight, closing in until the darkness consumed me.
The last thing I felt before waking up in the Hall of Records was Eran’s arms coming around me, catching me as I collapsed in sleep.
Immediately upon waking up, I went looking for Gershom.
If Eran was going to the prison, on a reconnaissance mission unparalleled in the level of danger he’d already been facing, I needed all the training I could get.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: MISSING
Gershom’s training was just as perilous and tiring as Ms. Beedinwigg’s, I learned. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as disciplined in his constructive criticism.
“Do it again, Maggie.”
“Faster, Maggie.”
“Better, Maggie.”
Setting all that aside, I trained hard in the afterlife. Knowing Eran could very well be on his way to the prison, I was going to exhaust myself in preparing to intervene if needed.
Being in the afterlife, I thought, might make training easier.
I was wrong.
Somehow, my training area was designed to be harder on the other side. My body felt weighted down, the temperatures were more extreme, and the terrain was more challenging than even Ms. Beedinwigg’s obstacle courses.
The Fallen Ones – just figments that I had created to train against – were even tougher. They fought with more strength, screamed louder, and moved quicker.
I figured my logic had been to create an environment that was more demanding than what I would experience in a real fight against a Fallen One, to make it easier on me when I did encounter one.
After all the strenuous effort, I hoped I was right.
Gershom didn’t show a single bead of perspiration or gasp for a deep breath once. He wouldn’t. Having come here through the process of death, he was held to a different standard. As for me…I was simply visiting which lent me to a set of distinct limitations.
By the end of the practice, sweat dripped down my body and I was bent over in exhaustion, my palms braced against my shaking knees. Gershom stood beside me, waiting for me to recover.
“It’s about time for me to go back,” I said, glad for it.
“Then you’ll be learning whether the prison has been compromised,” he stated.
“I expect to.”
“I truly hope that is not the case,” he said warily, looking off in the distance.
“What are you remembering, Gershom?” I asked with the distinct feeling it had happened once before.
He was shaken from his thoughts then and turned to answer me, his expression ominous. “It happened during the 1300’s. Only one Elsic escaped but that is a minor detail in comparison to the amount of damage, the number of deaths it caused. The destruction was almost incalculable. It was one of the first prisoners so there was no longer a single shred of humanity or human characteristics in it. It started in Germany and worked its way through Europe until it reached London. It fed off the dead, who were dying at an alarming rate due to a plague-”
“The Black Plague,” I muttered.
He glanced at me with a quirky expression. “That’s correct. Because of the plague, bodies were easy to find and still fresh. But then it became…bored, for lack of a better explanation, and it began to prey on the living. They, the Fallen Ones or the Elsics, don’t need to eat. They enjoy it…the tearing of flesh.” He shivered in memory of it. “And then it was killed on a London street by a single guardian.”
I nodded. “Eran…”
Gershom’s eyebrows lifted. “Eran was the guardian?”
“I saw it during a visit to my past life. The Elsic was hunting me in the streets and Eran intervened just before it attacked.”
“I’m not surprised.” He laughed to himself. “I always wondered which guardian had the technical aptitude to kill an Elsic on his own. Should have known it was Eran. No one else has ability equal to the task.”
The very sound of his name made me wish for morning so I could see his striking face again. As if the universe had heard my wish, still harboring this longing, I felt the familiar tug back to my body on earth.
When I awoke, I noticed that a thick fog had rolled through the streets of downtown New Orleans. The peaks of rooftops across the street were gone. The tree tops had disappeared. In their place was a wall of grey mist.
Immediately, I sat up in bed looking for Eran.
“He’s not back yet,” informed Campion, tightlipped and irritable. He was slouched in my wingback chair; his elbow bent on the arm to prop his chin. He looked tired but far more worried.
I got up and went to the French doors, pulling them open.
“He’s been late before,” I called back attempting to be optimistic but my voice gave away my fears.
Campion was beside me in less than a second. Not bothering to answer, he simply stared across at the grey embankment surrounding our house.
Quietly then, he leaned forward, tilting his head so that one ear faced the fog in front of us. “I hear something,” he stated quietly.
Then I heard it too.
Fluttering.
More importantly, I felt it: The hair rising up on the back of my neck.
Slowly, steadily the now familiar flap of wings grew louder.
Then Campion said the very words that I was thinking. “That’s more than one set of wings.”
“And Eran isn’t with them.”
Campion’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes wide and alert. A second later he was back facing the fog.
The flapping grew closer and then slowed.
Out in the fog the moist air began to churn and the outline of dark figures appeared. There were a dozen of them, lingering just beyond the point of visibility. Careful to avoid stirring the fog further and clearing their concealment, their wing movements were so slight they were almost unnoticeable.
I wanted to tell them that their attempt at obscurity was unnecessary. It had failed. I already knew they were our enemies. The hair on the back of my neck told me so.
“Maggie, inside the house,” Campion ordered.
I remained in place.
Instead, I squinted, peering in to the fog for a better look.
“Maggie,” Campion warned.
Still, I didn’t move.
In unison then, as if on command, their wings bolted to their full length. They were preparing to attack.
“MAGGIE,” Campion shouted furiously, his own wings snapping out, tearing the shirt from his body, and preparing for flight.
He crouched and raised his arms, hands facing our attackers.
It was then that I noticed the change in me. While my radar, the hair at the base of my neck, danced in reaction to the attack now coming, the panic that usually accompanied it was dismal. I barely noticed it.
My training had paid off. I was no longer consumed by my fears and was now able to focus on handling the danger in front of me.
I was ready to fight.
Stepping forward, everything moved in slow motion then. Campion’s head turned towards me, his mouth moving at a sluggish pace as he called for me to cower behind him; the beings in the mist curved forward in to a hunch and prepared to fulfill their attack; and then suddenly, without any warning, bright white lights fled in from every angle, the fog slowly swirling around them.
The figures scattered, darting off in varying directions, the white lights in pursuit. In an instant, I knew this was Eran’s army leaving their posts to protect us.
Campion stepped back, now at a normal pace, his arms lowering and extending behind him to come around me as a form of shelter.
The fog was empty now, the morning quiet again, eerily quiet.
We waited, listening.
The fluttering returned.
Campion’s wings stretched farther, forming a wall between me and the fog while again preparing for an assault.
I struggled to see over his massive wings, while hearing the other set approach.
A muffled sound and slight vibration told me that it had landed on the balcony.
The hair at the back of my neck was still bristled but was now slowly lying down. I couldn’t be certain whether this was due to my ability to control my panic or because I no longer felt threatened by them.
Either way, I was already prepared for the attack.
Then Campion’s wings fell, his defenses folding, and Eran stood on the other side.
“Eran,” I sighed and raced around the tip of Campion’s wing to launch myself into his arms. But it wasn’t fear driving me there. It was relief.
“You didn’t go,” I stated enthusiastic.
“To the prison?” he said his chin on the top of my head, his arms around me. “No, I didn’t get the chance.”