The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (8 page)

I was on my beach in Mexico, again, but as I lay there listening to the waves lapping against the warm shores, I was aware of somebody standing by me. I was always alone during these periods of deep sleep, so to have someone with me was a bit of a surprise. I sat up, shielding my eyes from the sun and the man sat down by my side.

‘Eve, good to meet you,’ he held out a hand to shake mine. I hesitated before taking his hand. I knew I was dreaming, if I’d inadvertently slid somewhere, Seth or Lucas would have realised and would have followed me. But what was a man I’d never seen before doing in my dream? And was he about to turn into a Reaper or a Putarian and try to kill me. My dreams when I wasn’t here were always horrible, so my wariness was understandable.

But as I stared at him I realised I did know him. I’d seen him once before, but I couldn’t remember when. He had longish blond hair, golden eyes and a scar down his left cheek.

‘I’m Cain by the way,’ he said, smiling warmly as he shook my wary hand. ‘We…sort of met the night of the coach crash.’

It suddenly came back to me with glaring clarity, how I’d been lying there panicking about why the Guardians had saved me and Cain had appeared and forced me into unconsciousness.

‘Yeah sorry about that, it seemed the right thing to do at the time, especially as we were trying to maintain the secret.’

‘You can read minds?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re one of the Oraculum.’

He nodded. But none of this was real.

‘Are you a manifestation of my subconscious or something?’

He laughed. ‘If you like, if it will help, but actually no, I have the ability to enter someone’s dreams. We’ll meet properly soon, and it won’t be under the best circumstances. You should know that I’m loyal to you, so are Nereus and Helez. I wanted to introduce myself now, I want to help.’

Ok, I was dreaming. Someone entering my dream wasn’t as weird as some other dreams I’d had, and at least he wasn’t trying to kill me.

‘Alright, I’m buying. You want to help me?’

He grinned. ‘Are you always this suspicious?’

‘There are a lot of people who want me dead, so lately yes I am.’

‘I wanted to explain about the plane crash and why you can’t interfere like you did. That’s not your place, it’s not what you were created for. So you can forget the idea of wearing red pants over your tights and flying around the world to save everyone.’

‘I… can’t fly.’

‘Yes you can, we both know you can, you just don’t know how yet. But regardless of that, you’re not superwoman, you can’t save everyone. There are approximately one hundred and seven people who die every minute, you must realise that you can’t save them all, that you can’t make a difference?’

I looked out to sea, at the waves lapping on the shore. ‘Saving one life or a few hundred out of the billions in the world may not seem like making a difference, but I have made a difference to those I saved, and their families.’

Cain shook his head, grimly. ‘Let’s look at Steve, at the difference you made there.’

I bit my lip nervously. I didn’t like where this was leading.

Cain pointed to the sky, and like a film projected onto the clouds I could suddenly see a man walking down a dark alley.

‘That’s Steve, the man sitting in 37C. This is two weeks from now.’

I watched Steve as he walked and as he suddenly ran to catch up with another man. Steve grabbed him and threw him against a wall, thrusting a knife against his throat.

‘Give me your wallet?’ Steve said, gruffly.

The man struggled against him, and Steve fought back. Then somehow, maybe accidentally, maybe purposefully, the man suddenly slumped to the floor with a knife wound to the stomach. Steve stood over him aghast, looking at the blood stained knife in his hand. Then he ran, leaving the innocent man to breathe his last, alone in a dark, squalid alley, surrounded by rubbish, filth and his own blood.

I gasped, tears of pain and guilt flooded my eyes. If I hadn’t saved Steve, it would never happen, that man would still be alive. I had made a difference, I had made it worse by saving someone that never deserved to be saved. I had saved a murderer. I felt sick.

‘And Callum, the little boy sitting in 12A, let’s look at his future.’

I looked at the sky again, with a sense of dread, like watching a car crash unfold and being powerless to do anything about it, being powerless to look away. I knew this was not going to be good.

I watched a smartly dressed man kiss his wife and children goodbye as he headed out to work. He got in his car and drove off down the road.

‘Is that Callum?’

Cain nodded. ‘Twenty three years from now.’

Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, Callum looked like he led a good life.

As Callum drove he leant over to the passenger seat and opened his briefcase, he fiddled round inside and pulled out a CD and pushed it into the stereo. As he played with the buttons, a child suddenly ran out in front of his car. With his eyes on the stereo he didn’t even see her. She hit the bonnet so hard, shattered the windscreen and bounced off onto the road, where she lay still.

Callum slammed the brakes on but the car was going so fast that it bumped over the girl before it came to a stop. Callum got out the car, and hurried to her side. He felt for a pulse, and gasped, falling to his knees in horror, his face a mask of pain and terror.

I assumed my face had the same mask of pain as the tears ran down my cheeks. What had I done? Though Callum’s was an accident, it still ended with the same result, someone dying because I had interfered, someone who shouldn’t have died.

I let my head fall into my hands.

‘That little girl was destined to be prime minister one day, she was going to be a great leader. The man who becomes prime minister instead of her raises so many taxes that the country goes into a deep recession. Many people are made unemployed and the suicide rate escalates higher than the country has ever seen it before.’

‘Stop, please stop,’ I whispered, tears streaming down my face.

Cain looked at me kindly, his face softening. ‘We’re going to try to rectify it, both of these cases and any other damage that you have caused. We have already tasked Guardians with stopping this.’

‘I just couldn’t stand by and let them die,’ I said, quietly.

‘I know Eve, trust me I know. Years ago I tried to do the same thing, but that’s why we don’t interfere. There are only nine of us and a hundred and seven people dying every minute, we can’t be everywhere at once, so we have to choose who we save. Do we save the baby or the grandma…?’

‘The baby, the grandma has already had a long life, the baby is at the start of his.’

‘Ok, do we save the baby or the mother of three children, do we save the doctor or the teacher, the policeman or the fireman, the English man or the French man, the American soldier or the Iraqi soldier, an Australian or a Korean, do we save a girl of nine or a boy of twelve. Who are we to choose who lives or dies, and how do we know that stepping in like you did doesn’t have the same effect. We could be killing the person who cures cancer or saving the next Hitler.’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered, bitterly, wiping the tears from my eyes.

‘Eve, I’m not saying that everyone you have saved goes on to kill people, in fact one of the girls you saved ends up raising millions of pounds for charities in Africa.’

I sniffed. That was something at least.

‘You will make the greatest difference to this little world, more so than anyone else ever has or ever will. You will save billions and billions of lives, you will save women, children, babies who won’t even have been born then, animals, homes, towns, cities, and countries. You are the single most important person in this world now, don’t underestimate that.’

I looked away from him sadly. I knew he was right. I was playing God deciding who lived or died. Before my world changed to encompass my destiny I was always reading in the paper how the world was vastly over populated. People dying was the natural order of things, it was the world’s way of keeping the population down.

But could I really stand by and watch people die even if it was their time?

‘Saving the world is what you were born to do, not saving a few hundred people.’

‘I don’t even know how the world ends, how I can prepare for it. You have so much faith in me and I’m not even sure you’ve got the right person.’

‘No one knows how the end will come, or even when it will happen. But the one thing I know for sure is that you are the only one who will be able to stop it.’

I sighed, letting the sand run through my fingers and for a while there was silence but I sensed Cain had more to say.

‘The Oraculum is on the verge of splitting.’

Talk about a change of subject. I looked round at Cain again but he was staring out over the sea. ‘Four hundred years the Oraculum has stood and you come along and tear us apart.’

There was no venom in his voice, he was merely stating a fact.

‘Me? How can I… I’ve never even met most of them.’

‘The Prophecies. There have been many involving you lately and some of them are not good.’

‘What do you mean they’re not good, what happens?’

‘The Oraculum will break within the next month, though I can’t see when exactly. By May 1
^st
, however, it will have happened and Samuel and Nereus will be dead. There will be a divide with those who stand with you on one side and those who stand against you on the other. I cannot say whether those who stand against you will truly mean you harm but life will not be easy without the full support of the Oraculum on your side.

‘But how is all this my fault, what do I do to cause it?’

‘If I tell you then it interferes in fate.’

‘If you tell me then maybe we can stop it.’

‘If it’s supposed to happen then we should let it happen.’

This was just getting worse and worse. I had saved lives that I shouldn’t have saved and I was responsible for the dissolution of the Oraculum.

‘Now, as I’ve cheered you up immensely, let me show you something else.’ He stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. We walked up the beach towards a path lined on both sides by palm trees, all lit up with tiny golden lights. The sun was setting over the sea, leaving purple, scarlet and gold swirls over the water. I could see a girl, about my age walking through the path, dressed in a pretty white sundress, lined with blue flowers at the hem. She was barefoot as she walked over the warm sand. As we got closer, I stopped in shock as I realised with a jolt that the girl was me.

‘Come on,’ Cain took my hand. ‘You’ll miss the best bit.’ He pulled me forward. I watched as the other me, suddenly ran forward to meet Seth. Seth took her in his arms and kissed her intensely. A polite cough from nearby, made her pull away.

‘It’s normally customary to wait till after the ceremony to kiss the bride,’ said an elderly man, his eyes twinkling warmly.

‘Yeah sorry.’ Seth blushed. ‘But she just looks so beautiful.’

I smiled, my heart soaring with love for him.

‘Shall we?’ Seth said, holding his hand out for her and she nodded.

We followed them to a flowered arch, also lit up with tiny lights. The man turned back to Seth and the other me. I watched, as an observer, rather than a participant, as the man married me and Seth, watched Seth slide the ring onto my finger and then how he kissed me for the first time as his wife. My heart pounded furiously, filled with such joy.

I turned back to Cain with tears in my eyes and he was smiling, broadly.

‘That’s your future Eve and it’s not as bleak as you think it will be, in fact it will be a very long and happy one.’

I looked back at the blissfully happy other me, wrapped in the arms of her husband.

‘But she doesn’t look any older than I am now?’

‘That’s not true, she’s a good few weeks older than you are now.’

My heart leapt. ‘A few weeks?’

‘Eve, you’re stronger than you think, a lot stronger. Now I must go. Just promise me, wherever you go, you must take your Guardians with you, at all times.’

I nodded, barely able to take my eyes off the loving couple and Cain squeezed my shoulder then vanished.

The beach faded taking with it my hopes and dreams and I woke up to darkness. But where I had fallen asleep alone, I was now wrapped tightly in strong, protective arms.

I fumbled around in the dark to find Seth’s lips then kissed him, just briefly. I was aware that we still had an audience.

‘
You were crying in your sleep baby, are you ok?’
Seth said in my head as he softly kissed me back.

‘Yes I am now,’
I snuggled into his neck. ‘
Seth, I saw our wedding, we’re going to get married.

Seth pulled me tighter against him.
‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘Evie, I love you, I’m never going to let you go. Of course we’re going to get married.’

I smiled against him. If that dream had been true there was a whole load of crap that I needed to deal with tomorrow, but right then, wrapped in the arms of the man I loved, it all seemed very far away.

‘What do you mean, I can’t practise my powers?’ I said, drying my hair after my run in the rain.

‘Exactly what I said, I’m not sure what part you are having trouble understanding,’ Eli said.

Lucas stepped forward, always much kinder about enforcing the rules than Eli. ‘Persia will be back in a few days, you can practise when she returns to help you.’

Mason turned from looking out the window. ‘We just think that you’ve been tired lately, you’ve had hallucinations…’

‘Prophecies,’ I corrected.

‘Or prophecies. You’ve twice slid somewhere in your sleep without really knowing that you’d done it, the rest will do you good.’

‘Last night, saving the plane like you did,’ Alexandria said, peeling an apple with her huge knife. ‘That must have taken a great amount of power.’

‘And you’ve been getting a bit careless with your powers of late. I think, based on our little visit from Matthias last night, it might be best to keep your head down and not do anything silly for the next few days,’ Caleb said.