Rapture Falls (21 page)

             
“He has the book” Gabriel spoke over his shoulder.

             
“We cannot track him whilst he holds it my liege”
Michael
offered, “It increases his power and enables an invisibility to us”

             
“He cannot realise his own potential, not yet” Raphael ventured
this
more as a question.

             
Gabriel slammed his fists hard into the solid mahogany instantly breaking both, he fought
desperately
to swallow his temper,
“It is only a matter of time, as long as we are chained to these” he slapped his own che
st hard, “He may move beyond us, don’t you understand you dumbfucks”

             
Michael looked toward
Raphael,
over the centuries they had moved through this world shedding their meat suits as and when necessary many times over. The 11
^th
Order had provided ample willing recruits only too eager to open themselves up to possession in the holy cause, they were obviously never told that their reward would be intangible and short lived as the Archangels power was significantly diminished, they still burned through the fragile human forms in record time. The seeping of the
human emotions had been kept at bay through willpower and concentration but Michael
had seen Gabriel’s’ gradual descent over the last few
years
, he was obviously struggling
to contain himself within his
latest
shell and his n
ature was bursting at its seams.
It seemed that the closer they came to reaching the book the more Gabriel appeared to be slipping.
There were growing flashing glimpses of emotions, just the occasional fleeting glance, annoyance here and there, momentary confusions, just split seconds, imperceptible to most
but not to Michael. Gabriel had always been their leader, their General, he had commanded their army with calm and serenity
, his orders were never questioned and never seconded guessed. Michael was starting to realise that
there may come a time when his orders could not be trusted to follow their best interests forward.

GROWING UP

“
And if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:

for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish,

and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee,

cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members

should perish, and not that thy whole
body should be cast into hell”.

Matthew 5:29-30

McCullum sat lost and lonely, he was a man with a drive and a purpose to pursue life on a predetermined path of career and success, leaving behind a life that he no longer acknowledged, now he found himself
spiralling
outside of his comfort zone
,
feeling control wrenched from his grasp and cast asunder. He had the unwanted blood of two young men on his hands and however hard he
tried
;
the stain would not wash off. H
is colleagues
had
arrived at the derelict building at
his calling, they found him sitting
broken on the floor
,
with the body of Justin Marsh cooling in his
crusting
blood. There would obviously have to be an internal enquiry, he was a Detective Inspector and the only witness at two suicides inside a matter of days, one a fellow police officer and one a suspect in two serious assaults at a church. He had read Marsh’s journal which instead of clearing his sight had only muddied the waters further, the diary had told of the Kni
ghts Templar and their origins and
of Father Andrew Jacobs
’
real name being one Hugues de Payens who
apparently
was over 900
years
old
. It also told of the church holding a sacred book
of some kind
that gave the priest enhanced powers and abilities
and it made mention of Baine, who was some kind of wind up toy that the priest took out of his box any time he felt like offing anyone who pissed him off. One such man apparently was Sinclair who had angered de Payens by making inroads into the property market around the St Paul’s parish, buying up houses and business’ by bullying and threatening those who were not keen on moving. The journal also spoke rather incoherently of Archangels and wars fought on earth and in the heavens, of those who fell and those who rose, unfortunately for McCullum the diary was not a text book and the author was somewhat unbalanced.
He had secreted the journal
before the paramedics and uniformed officers had shown up at the scene,
all of the information contained within the rambling pages seemed
on the surface to be the work of an unbalanced and overactive imagination, something at the back of his mind nagged and gnawed. None of this could be true, could it he pondered, he had always possessed an analytical and ordered mind, he should have been able to dismiss these ravings in a heartbeat but the one thing that he could not dismiss was the look in both of the two dead men’s eyes. The journal would have been the source of much mirth and derision amongst his fellow detectives, but they had not seen the fear and fervor in the two sets of shark black eyes
in the moment of absolute truthful clarity before death.

H
e had been taken in a separate ambulance to the hospital suffering from shock, he was not
quite
of course
, his sense of self ran deeper than that,
but it just seemed more prudent to play the card whilst he cemented just what he would say and do next.
Superintendent Irving had arrived at the hospital in a grandiose show of unity and authority sweeping the press aside who had begun to gather in earnest with a flash of the standardised no comment
badge;
he headed into the empty chapel where McCullum aptly waited.

             
“How are you Mac?”
the Superintendent gently probed

             
After everything that he had seen in the last few days McCullum’s bullshit detector was cranked
up
high and working well, he was not fooled by his bosses tone only curious at the deception.

“I’m alright Sir” he replied, “It
’
s just been a hell of a week, first Thomas taking a swan dive now this dumbass kid chews through his own wrists
and spills his life across the floor”

             
“Yes, yes it’s a terrible
business;
I understand that he was a very disturbed young man, quite suicidal for some time by all accounts”

             
Irving’s tone was sympathetic but McCullum felt that he was being told a back story to fill in the blanks and answer questions before
he had even asked them
, he knew that in the movies he was supposed to explode in an indignant manner, throw accusations into faces and storm out demanding to seek the truth, unfortunately this was real life and he had a mortgage to pay, he could not very well offer his bank
manager
good intentions and principles instead of
mortgage repayments
. For now he had to play his part,
on the ambulance drive he had sunk deep into his mind and began the rapid processing of information, whilst he knew that he would forever see the two dead men in the darkest parts of the waking nights
he felt sure that he could live with it.
H
e would keep his head down and put in for transfer in a couple of months, he would be exonerated of any culpability in the two deaths and he was
not about to start
playing
a type of off the books Nancy Drew. N
o-one would blame him for wanting to leave
,
after al
l
the city was now tainted for him
, whatever nagging notions he may harbor, his experiences with the Priest had thrown enough self preservation concern into his works. He had no illusions of his calling in life, he made a damn fine police officer and an even better detective, but he was no selfless hero, he would lock away any suspicions and put a harness on his deductive skills
.
Despite this promise to himself
Irving’s attitude was interesting and suspicious to say the least, the death of DC Arwel Thomas was already on the fast track to being laid to rest, rumors of his mental instability were rife and spreading fast and apparently a suicide note had been found on his desk which McCullum knew for a fact to not have existed, whatever the note was it had not come from Thomas’ own hand. Next in line was the beginnings no doubt of Marsh’s much publisised problems that had suddenly materialized out of thin air, well fuck it though McCullum to himself, whatever all of this was it was certainly not his problem any more.