Veiled (23 page)

“
So you are not
perfect?”

“
No…” she laughed.
“Immortal beings are not perfect. Not by a long shot, but some of
us have been proven worthy to keep evolving. We use eternity to
perfect ourselves.” She sighed. “It takes a long, long time to be
perfect. You see…every stage of your existence is a little test. If
you pass the test of that particular part of your existence, you
get to continue with your evolution.”

I nodded and thought about
that for a while. “Do you have any children?” I asked curiously,
but she seemed to freeze at my question. Her aura, all her
thoughts, seemed to freeze and turn to ice so that they were
impossible to discern. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like a
tactic, a way to avoid other Discerners from reading her
thoughts.

“
I never got married,”
Dayspring answered coolly. “Truth is, in mortality my brother and I
were too busy fighting in wars to devote much time to
relationships. So we formed none. Since then, my brother found a
mate, but I haven’t. I have actually become quite a novelty among
my people because of this.”

“
I had no idea the Seraphs
had wars. I thought you were a peaceful race.”

“
We became a peace loving
race, but we were not always so. When my brother and I lived,
Seraphs were ignorant and quarrelsome. My brother and I were heirs
to the dominating kingdom of our planet. Our world was one huge
land mass and the boundaries of the two kingdoms were always under
constant change. Initially our war was against some tyrants, but
then my own father became the tyrant. When Daystar and I defied our
father, he declared war on us too. We fought all our
lives.

“
Then everything changed
when the Cherubs arrived. They were more advanced in technology
then, and when the threat of their dominion became apparent, all
Seraphs united under the rule of my brother and me to fight the
invaders. The war was very devastating for both sides. They were
more advanced, but we had fought all our lives and would not give
up.

“
After Daystar’s death, I
managed to work out a peace agreement and after I saw that a
lasting peace had been established I died of old age.” She
smiled—the irony seemed funny to her.

“
You must be quite revered
among your people.”

She rolled her eyes. “Who
cares about that! It makes no difference in the long scheme of
things. I serve the Eternals as part of their personal guard. That
is the greatest honor that I have ever hoped to
achieve.”

I watched her with awe. She
was such an enigmatic character, so easy to get along with at
times, yet so guarded and complicated at others. She was a
princess, a warrior, a personal guard for the Eternals—I longed to
hear more stories, to know what it was like to be a Seraph and
dwell with the Eternals.

“
Come on. I really have to
be getting you back. Your first mission as an Angel awaits.” She
lowered her hind legs and motioned for me to climb on her back. She
then took a few steps back and lunged herself off the cliff,
spreading her leathery wings.

Dayspring was such a beautiful
creature. She was tough yet feminine, even her wings were graceful,
pointy at the tips and slightly curved upward. I noticed that
Daystar’s wife was not as impressive as Dayspring—so once more I
fell to wondering why Dayspring was alone.

* * * * *

Chapter 20

She placed me safely on the
steps of the Angelic Missions building, gave me a few
recommendations, and left me with the assurance that I would soon
be told what to do. My pendant started glowing the moment that she
was gone. The thin golden letters read “Archives and Records.
Angelic Missions Building, Reubium.”

I found a billboard inside
the Angelic Missions building that had up to date information on
the whereabouts of every angel and trainer in heaven. I took this
opportunity to not only find Reubium, but also get information on
some of my clan members. Those who were Sentinels or Heralds were
listed as “Undercover” which meant you could not reach them until
further notice. Russell was apparently “Undercover” and Dorian too.
Alex was somewhere on Earth being a Scribe. I looked up my own name
and it simply stated that I was in the Angelic Missions building,
as indeed I was. Reubium, however, was not undercover, but rather,
underground.

The Archives and Records
room was not what I expected. This room was huge. I felt dwarfed by
the size of it. The ceiling was at least ten times the size of a
human, and the walls were filled with scrolls all neatly stored in
little diamond shaped slots. Each slot was perfectly sized to the
scroll occupying it. Some scrolls were large and some so small that
the ends were touching each other.

The room was lit by a
massive candelabrum that hung from the center. Right below it was a
huge table, thick and rough hewn, with several scrolls scattered on
it, waiting to be filed, I surmised. Among all the scrolls was a
long scroll that seemed to have no end. It hung from the table at
either end and both ends were resting on the floor. Next to this
huge scroll, on the table, were an equally large plume and a red
ink stand.

“
Reubium?” I called
tentatively, and got no answer. Then I called again, louder this
time, and I was rewarded with a gruff, “What!”

“
I was sent to find
Reubium.” My voice made a strange echoing sound as I
spoke.

“
Here,” the gruff voice
replied from somewhere above and behind me.

As I turned I saw that the
voice belonged to the small Cherub from the presentation. He had to
be the smallest, chubbiest Cherub that I had ever seen, and I
stifled a giggle.

He must have suspected my
thoughts, or maybe even read them, because he grunted loudly then
turned his attention back toward his filing.

“
I’ll be with you in one
moment. One has to be organized in this job, wouldn’t want to put
the wrong life in the wrong slot.” He said this and snickered at
some inside joke. His wings batted quickly to keep him afloat as he
filed the scrolls away. Then he added, “So you were sent were
you?”

“
Yes, by the
pendant.”

“
I see.” He finished
putting away the last of the scrolls that he was holding, and
started his descent. “Filing lives…a meticulous job,” he mumbled as
he came down. “You are meticulous, I hope?”

“
Oh…um…I wasn’t sent to
help file lives,” I told him.

He grunted and mumbled
something as he lightly touched down on the floor.

I looked around the huge
room, noticed that, even though many niches had been filled, many,
many more remained empty, but not for long. Inevitably, someone’s
life would end and their scroll would take its place in one of
those slots, until this room was filled and this heaven became
completely empty.

Reubium was now at his
desk, with plume in hand, jotting down some things on the big
scroll. It dawned on me now that the hugeness of the table and all
the items on it had to do with the fact that it was Cherub
size—normal Cherub size—but Reubium was so small, that the items
dwarfed him even further. The plume was so long that it curved over
his back, and the table was so tall that the Cherub had to stand on
a stool to comfortably reach the top.

“
Your name?” he said
tartly.

“
Tess.”

“
Mmm…Tess…here we go,
Scribe. You will join the Scribes in…England. You’ll take over
for…Luz. She will tell you who to take record of.”

“
Luz! Oh, she’s there!” I
said with enthusiasm, but it was soon quenched by Reubium’s
irritated look.

“
Don’t get so excited,
little miss. We don’t go on Angelic Missions to socialize. As a
Scribe you will have to remain silent at all times.”

I nodded
somberly.

“
OK, be off.” He peered at
me to make sure I was taking his admonition seriously, then
signaled with his free hand for me to go, then looked back at the
scroll and made a quick annotation.

“
But…”

“
No buts, you want to
serve, now go do it,” he reprimanded without looking up.

“
I have no problem
serving, Sir. I just don’t know how to get there. Is there a window
I can walk through? Or should I just fly there?”

He stopped what he was
doing and looked over at me. “New?” he asked in that same gruff
voice.

“
Yes, I am
new.”

He mumbled something to
himself, finished his writing, put the plume down and continued his
mumbling as he grabbed my elbow and led me out of the
room.

“
Window…new angels…have to
do everything myself,” he mumbled. “This is the door.” He pointed
to the door with an exaggerated gesture. “It works much like a
window, but it’s a door—see Heaven’s Door—the only one on this side
of the Veil. The difference between this door and a window is that
it has no pad to enter coordinates. The door is voice activated.
You just tell it where you are going and you open it. Then you walk
right through where you told it to take you.” He released me and I
was about to do as he said, when he quickly grabbed my arm again
and drew me back.

“
Now coming back is a bit
trickier. There is no knob on the other side. So to come back you
have to call it back—no matter where you are on Earth—and it will
appear. Do you understand?” He said this slowly, much in the same
way the young Seraphs had been.

“
Yes, but if there is no
knob, how will it open?”

“
Didn’t I say?”

“
No”

“
Oh…well you knock, and it
will open,” he said.

“
Got it.”

Reubium grunted and turned
to leave, but stopped mid stride and turned abruptly. “Remember,
when you are on the other side there will be no speaking.” He shook
his finger accusatorially. “This mission requires you to be silent
at all times.” He turned in a huff and fluffed his wings as he
went.

On the other side I found
myself in a very different looking Earth than its spiritual
replica. The real Earth had not matured yet, the cities were still
too primitive and mostly agrarian. Our spiritual Earth was
different in many ways. For instance, the colors were all muted by
the sheer fact that everything was spiritual in nature. The
vegetation that we had was in its paradisaical state, no weeds or
thorns, all fruiting and flowering when they were supposed
to—everything was and looked the way it was meant to be. The third
difference was that on our spiritual world all of Earth’s creations
were mixed together, the latest and most modern discoveries that
our civilizations would be able to achieve were mixed with the old
and primitive, thus giving spirit Earth a different look
altogether.

I found myself in
thirteenth century England, on a farm of sorts. In looking around I
spotted some spirits hovering together. Each was holding a scroll
and was writing in it with a plume as they saw fit. One of those
spirits was Alex, who looked up at me the moment I came into view.
He beamed at me for a moment, and then his outer aura changed and
looked very depressed.

Next to him was Luz, who
smiled with her usual giggly smile. She handed me her scroll and
pointed to the girl whose life she was making a record of. Before
she knocked on Heaven’s door, she looked at us and smiled one last
time, then stepped through an unseen opening in the fabric of the
scenery around us. Alex looked longingly after her.

“
What’s wrong?” I asked
him.

“
Shhh,” an irritated
spirit said from a ways off.

Alex looked extremely
irritated by him, but said nothing.

“
Alex, can you hear
me?”
I said in my head, as I tried to
establish a link with him.

“
Not so loud, Tess!”
he grimaced.

“
Sorry, is that
better?”

“
Much,”
he smiled. “
I’m so glad you are here
now. I am dying a slow, boring death.”

“
I can see
that.”

The spirit who was a little
way off shot a glance in our direction and looked as if he
suspected foul play between us. But upon finding no apparent reason
for chastisement, he resumed his work.

“
What exactly are you
supposed to write?”
I asked
Alex.

“
Every decision they make
that shapes their life and character.”

“
So what happens if you
miss something?”

“
Well, there is another
spirit assigned to the same person so if I miss something that
spirit over there, no doubt will get it.”
He pointed to our punishing angel.
“Then the two versions are compiled into one, and it gets
filed away until they are needed.”

“
When will they be
needed?”

“
When we are judged, no
doubt.”

I nodded and the spirit
quickly turned his face hoping to have caught us in conversation,
but we made no sound, so he remained disappointed.

“
Your aura looks
terrible,”
I told him as I picked up my
quill and pretended to write.