Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3) (9 page)

Yellow tape blocked the wooden doors at the top of a
set of short, concrete steps, and a sticker posted between them announced that the church had been closed indefinitely pending a criminal investigation.  The Soldiers of the Divine Trinity Church had been declared a crime scene.  He’d known that much, and about the investigation.  The local newspaper reported weeks earlier that the police department and the FBI had unearthed the charred remains of Kane’s men.  While most would have been deterred by their destination being declared a crime scene, Desmond was encouraged by it.  Cleared of congregants and staff, as well as the possibility of anyone arriving, the threat of being discovered was eliminated.  He would be free to search for what he’d come for. 

Desmond closed his eyes and envisioned himself inside the building, envisioned his body passing effortlessly through stone and wood, through plaster and paint. 
As he did so, his body felt weightless and white light filled his field of vision for the briefest of moments.  When he opened his eyes again, he stood inside the vestibule.  Unlit candles sat on an iron rack to his left along the wall and a large empty vat that had once held holy water sat in the center of the passageway.  Ahead was another set of wooden doors.  They opened to the congregational seating area where rows of pews faced a sanctuary.  Desmond walked down the center aisle.  He needed to get to the presbytery, the place where Kane had both worked and lived.  In his office and living space, he was certain he’d find some kind of documentation that had distorted the truth of the Sola’s purpose so much so that it had driven Kane and his people, as well as the man in the drainage system. 

He stopped at the altar and looked off to his left and saw the sacristy. 
Typically, only Bibles and vestments were kept inside, but he looked anyway.  He stepped into the small storage area and scanned the few titles that were not Bibles.  Nothing of interest caught his attention.  He walked back out to the sanctuary and past the altar.  On the right was a small area with statues of saints and another rack of unlit candles.  Beyond them, however, was a door.  Desmond opened the door and found that on the other side of it was a hallway.  He quickly strode down it, his need for clarity pounding against his ribcage in time with his heartbeat.  He needed to find something,
anything
, that would shine light on the robed man’s words; on the destruction he continued to be drawn to, and to end the ceaseless grumblings of his brain. 

At the end of the hallway, a single door awaited
him.  He turned the handle and pushed the door forward.  An ornate cherry wood desk and floor-to-ceiling shelves in a matching wood that gleamed as though it had just been polished occupied one-half of the space.  The other half was a living quarter decorated with furniture in an identical finish.  His eyes went immediately to the bookshelf.  Dozens of leather-bound volumes had been neatly arranged on each shelf.  Most of the titles involved witchcraft in some way or another.  Some were against it; some were reference books, while others were veritable how-to manuals. 

He closed his eyes and searched with his entire being for any book of use. 
He opened them and his gaze zeroed in on a particular one.  His heart nearly stopped when he noticed the title of the one he focused on, and that its spine protruded from the shelf, away from the others, as if beckoning him.  Distinctive in coloring, its leather was worn and the gold lettering on its spine had been scuffed so that the words along it were no longer legible.  He reached out and slid it from its place. 

With the heavy book in his hands, the title on the cover
became visible.  Desmond nearly dropped the fragile looking volume when he saw that it was the Tome of Ares, written by Asus, one of the most powerful warlocks in history.  How could Kane possibly have such a sacred book in his possession?  His father had read to him from The Tome of Ares long ago, when he was a child.  That is how he came to know of the prophecy, of the Sola. 

The bo
ok looked too old, too tattered to be a replica.  The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose, as though a warning had been whispered with tempting lips up the length of his neck, while his hand slid beneath the leather cover.  He turned the first page and saw that it had been handwritten.  It was the original.  Kane had somehow procured the original Tome of Ares.  He began thumbing through the fragile, yellowed pages and read line after line of horrific text that foretold of the Sola leading the whole of her kind against humanity.

The prophecy he was reading, the words in Kane’s book
, did not gel with all he’d been taught, though.  Kane’s Tome stated that the rise of the Sola was to unite the witches of the world to destroy humanity in an effort to claim the planet for themselves. 

Desmond’s mouth went dry and his hands began to tremble.  He knew Arianna would never do what the
book predicted she’d do.  He knew her, had known her for her entire life.  She wasn’t capable of orchestrating the global annihilation of humankind.  Yet, the Tome said otherwise.  None of it made sense. 

He was about to slam the book shut and sift to Arianna’s house when
he noticed another difference in Kane’s Tome: there was another chapter.  Written after the one he’d just read, the handwriting in the chapter was different and obviously penned by someone other than Asus.  He leaned against Kane’s desk, certain he’d need the support, and read.  A chill settled over Desmond as he read in disturbing detail how the Sola had been born and given a protector,
him
.  A furious tremor racked his body when he reached the final page and found that the author had signed his name.  Agnon, the chapter had been written by Agnon, Desmond’s father. 

The Tome fell from his hands and landed against the tiled floor with a loud thud. 
Desmond’s head began to swirl with more questions than his mind could process at once.  But two among them stood out and bored into his brain like a drill.  Could the predictions in Kane’s Tome possibly be the truth?  Had his father known the truth and lied to him his entire life?  None of it made sense.  What he had just read contradicted a lifetime of teachings.  Desmond needed answers.  He needed to leave.  He needed to find his father.

Chapter 7

For the seco
nd day in a row, Arianna woke without an alarm clock.  Certain it was a personal record she ought to relish in, she lay in bed for several minutes, enjoying the feel of her warm, down comforter. The sun had just begun its ascent over the horizon line and crept over the treetops behind brilliant hues of orange and pink as it slowly edged out the navy night sky.  Her new bed with its new covering in her new cabin with its spectacular new view of a new day was nearly as inspiring as her experience the day before at her new school. 

Her first day at Hallowed Hills High School had been her best ever
, another record as far as she was concerned.  To date, she’d never used the words
best
and
school
, or anything remotely related, in the same sentence.  Yet, lying in her bed with another school day ahead of her, she could honestly say it had been her best first day ever. Moreover, she wasn’t dreading going back.  She was hoping for another just like it.

Her first
day had moved at warp speed and had been filled with fantastic teachers and friendly students.  She’d surprised herself by taking Scott and Meg up on their lunch offer and had sat with them in the cafeteria.  Never before had she been part of an “in” crowd; not even for a day, yet yesterday, she had eaten a meal with them, laughed at their jokes and even cracked a few of her own.  Afterward, they’d hung around together in the gym on the bleachers, just talking and laughing.  In all honesty, she hadn’t wanted her lunch period to end.  She’d been having such a good time, she’d managed to forget about smoking after she’d eaten.  She’d gone the entire school day without smoking.  It wasn’t until she had reached her car that her need for nicotine had become bothersome. 

Arianna smiled as she recalled the day before.  She swung her legs over th
e side of the bed and hurried to the bathroom, eager to get to school.  She readied herself quickly and ate breakfast before leaving. 

She’d been so busy thinking about her classes, teachers and, dare she
dream,
friends
, that thoughts of her mother, Luke and Desmond only darted into her mind intermittently as opposed to remaining a constant presence in her brain.  She knew those thoughts would invariably return, that once the novelty of her arrival wore off, she’d be alone again, alone with all the pain and loss, the embarrassment and confusion.  But for now, she was determined to enjoy whatever happiness that came her way for as long as it lasted.

She pulled i
nto the parking lot in front of the school and stubbed out the cigarette she’d been smoking while she drove.  She glimpsed Jess getting out of a dented Honda Accord across from her and popped a piece of gum in her mouth before getting out and clearing her throat loudly.

“Oh hey Arianna!” Jess called to her.

Normally, Arianna wouldn’t have been so needy, or transparent for that matter.  She would have ignored Jess altogether and waited for her to approach inside.  But forging friendships had never been her forte.  In the past, at times, she knew she had been standoffish.  Life and experience had hardened her.  She had never had time for the courtship and games associated with joining groups and making friends.  Now, it seemed all she had was time, and the idea of experimenting with group-joining tactics did not seem beneath her any longer.  Still, the prospect of putting herself out there, of making herself vulnerable, was as terrifying as it was foreign.  She was treading in uncharted waters.

“Oh Jess,” she replied and feigned surprise.  “You scared me.  I didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry,” Jess apologized and her entire face puckered as if she genuinely regretted startling her.

“Don’t be,” she said and worried she’d overacted a bit.  She hadn’t wanted to make Jess feel bad; just make herself seem less pathetic.  “
How are you?” Arianna heard herself ask awkwardly. 

“Good,” Jess replied and didn’t seem to notice.  “How was your first day here?”

“I have to say it was pretty good,” she admitted.  “Better than some of the others I’ve had.”

“Others?” Jess asked.  “How many new schools have you started?”

“This is my third,” she said.

“This is your third new school,” Jess said with wide-eyed surprise.  “Wow that sucks.”

“I know,” Arianna agreed and felt a pang of guilt for lying.  Hallowed Hills was not the third school she’d transferred to.  In truth, she did not know what number it was.  She’d lost count.

“It must be hard to make friends moving from school to school.”

“No, it’s not too bad.  I keep in touch with quite a few people,” she lied again.

She wasn’t sure why she’d felt compelled to lie, but felt ashamed of the fact that she had never made a real friend at any of the schools she’d been to, save for Lily.  And Lily was gone. 
In reality, she had no one.  Not one single person existed on the plant that she could call an acquaintance, much less a friend.  Over the course of her school career, she’d switched schools on more than a dozen occasions and was a powerful witch who could incinerate anyone she so damn well chose.  And she did not scare easily, least of all by a teenage girl.  She wasn’t sure why the lies were just rolling off her tongue, why she felt the need to conceal who she was from Jess.  She’d always been comfortable with who she was.  Perhaps that had been her biggest problem.  No one ever liked her for who she was.  Now that she was the Sola and in a transitional place in her life, she wondered whether changing other parts of her would be beneficial as well.

“Well, your old friends are going to have to learn to share you,” Jess warned
and draped an arm over Arianna’s shoulder.  “‘Cause we like to get together a lot on the weekends and after school.”

“Do you?”
she asked and felt a little flutter in her belly at the implication of an invite.

“Yep,” Jess began
, but was distracted by a Jeep Cherokee backing in to a parking spot ahead.  Her arm fell from Arianna’s shoulders and she said, “Oh look, there’s Scott and George.  Let’s catch up with them.”

Jess
sped her pace and Arianna struggled to keep up.  Jess was like metal being drawn to a magnet, seemingly powerless to keep from going to him.

“Hey Scott!” Jess called out as Scott climbed out of his SUV.

“Hi Jess.  Hi Arianna,” Scott said but his eyes remained on Arianna the entire time.  “Glad to see you.”

Jess, buoy
ed by his words and oblivious of the fact he had not even so much as glanced her way, nearly lifted the hem of her skirt and twirled in a circle like a schoolgirl.  Scott seemed to have that effect on many girls at Hallowed Hills High School.  She’d heard as much when she’d listened in on several conversations a day earlier.  Scott was cute, by high school boy standards.  Tall and rakish with intentionally mussed short brown hair, brown eyes and wearing skinny jeans, he had a boy-band-singer look to him that was pleasant enough. Arianna had generally made a point of avoiding guys who wore skinny jeans, but she had made an exception with Scott.  Somehow, he managed to make them look neither dorky nor effeminate.