Oblivion (The Watcher Chronicles #3) (16 page)

Bree hits her brother on the arm.  “Stop leering at her you git.  She’s Grandpa’s girlfriend.”

Bale looks over at Mason and the smile quickly vanishes from his face. 

Bale shrugs.  “Well she
is
beautiful, Grandpa.  Surely you can’t fault me for appreciating that.”

Mason sighs.  “No, I suppose I can’t.  But keep your eyes on her face.”

Bale blushes.

Bree laughs.  “Ha!”

Angela and Jonathan walk in the room with their other two children in tow.

Jonathan comes up to me and gives me a peck on the cheek.  “It’s so good to see you again, Jess.  We’ve been meaning to have the two of you over for ages but there never seemed to be a good time until now.”

I feel a tug on my shirt and look down to find little Emma standing there holding a small pink, slightly wilted flower in one of her hands.  I’m not sure what it is but she holds it up for me to take.

“I picked this for you,” Emma says shyly.

I kneel down and take the flower from her little outstretched hand.

“It’s beautiful,” I tell her, holding the flower to my nose and taking a whiff.  “And it smells nice too.”

Emma giggles and runs over to stand by her mother’s legs.

“She’s been waiting all day to give you that,” Angela tells me.

I stand back up.

Kyle comes up to me with no shyness at all and holds out his hand to me.

“I’m Kyle,” he says.

I shake his hand.  “I’m Jess.  It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kyle.”

Kyle goes to stand by his father and Jonathan puts a hand on his shoulder, smiling down with pride at his son.

“Supper is prepared.  Father is just setting the table to meet his requirements,” Angela says, reminding me of Allan’s odd OCD.

Everyone starts to leave the room.

“Jonathan,” I call out, gaining not only Mason’s son’s attention but everyone else’s as well.  “Could I speak with you alone for a moment?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mason look confused but I don’t acknowledge it.

“Of course,” Jonathan says, just as confused as his father.

I look over at Mason and wave my hand at him.  “Go on,” I tell him.  “I need to ask your son something without you around.”

Mason lifts an inquiring eyebrow at me.

“You’ll know soon enough,” I tell him.  “But that’s all you’re going to get out of me.  Now shoo!”

Once Jonathan and I are alone, I ask him a question which he immediately says yes to and tell him about my surprise for Mason planned for the next night.  Jonathan offers to help in anyway he can and we arrange for him to call Malcolm after Mason and I leave to fine tune the details.

“I thought my dad was happy now,” Jonathan tells me as we walk out of the living room.  “After tomorrow, he’ll be over the moon.”

“What’s happening tomorrow?” I hear Mason say.

He’s walking towards us down the hallway from the dining room.

“You’ll see tomorrow,” I tell Mason.  I see him begin to open his mouth and immediately hold up my hand.  “Don’t even ask,” I tell him.  “You’re not going to get another word out of me about it.  Except,” I say realizing I do need to say a few more words, “you can’t come over to my house tomorrow.  Not until I tell you to anyway.”

“And I don’t get any explanation for this exile?” He asks.

“Not until tomorrow night,” I tell him, looping an arm around one of his and walking down the hallway to the dining room.

Halfway through the meal, Mason gets a call from Isaiah letting us know that Rafe is refusing to leave his clinic.

“It looks like we’ll have to go to him,” Mason tells me.  “He doesn’t want to leave his patients.”

“Admirable,” I say, truly admiring the next member of our small club of archangels.

Mason and I finish eating quickly and say our goodbyes.

“See you soon,” Jonathan tells me, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

Mason and I phase back to my house to wait for Isaiah to take us to where Rafe is.

“So what is your devious little mind cooking up for me for tomorrow night?”  Mason asks.

“Like I said, you’ll have to wait until then to find out.  Now stop asking me questions.”

“Hmm,” I see a glint of mischief in Mason’s eyes.  “I bet I could get the answer out of you.”

“Oh really?” I ask skeptically.  “And just how do you intend to work that small miracle?  Or haven’t you noticed my stubborn streak?”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Mason says.  “I’ve noticed a lot of things about you lately, especially where your sensitive spots are.”   

“The promise of sexual pleasures will not get you an answer,” I tell him imperiously.

“That’s not the sort of sensitive I was talking about.”

I feel Mason’s hands creep up my sides and he begins to tickle me unmercifully over my ribs.

“Stop!” I beg, squirming against his hands, laughing.

But he doesn’t stop, he continues his torturous tickling and I do something unexpected.  I fly up to the ceiling. 

“Ha!” I say to him below me.  “Didn’t see that coming did you?”

I fold my arms across my chest and openly mock him.

“Hmm, do you really think that will work?”

Mason phases right in front of me in the air and grabs me.  Then he looks completely confused because we’re both floating in the air.

“Why aren’t we sinking?” He asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I can phase vertically but I don’t usually float.”

“Let go of me,” I suggest.

Mason does and he falls back to the floor landing on his feet.

“Phase back up here and grab me again,” I tell him.

He does as instructed and again he’s able to float while holding me.

“Ok, I’m going to completely rip off a Chandlerism but this is wicked cool!”  I say.

“I have to agree,” Mason says.  “Do you feel my weight at all?”

“No,” I admit.  “I mean I feel you of course but it doesn’t feel like I’m carrying you.  It just feels like you’re doing what you’re doing, holding me.”

Isaiah phases in below us.

“Jess?” He calls.  “Mason?”

I start to giggle.

Isaiah looks up.  His eyes grow wide as he sees us floating in the air above his head.  “How are you both doing that?”

I fly Mason and I back to the floor and we explain it to Isaiah.

“I’ve always wanted to fly,” Isaiah says, sounding slightly jealous of my ability.  “But that’s not why I’m here.  Rafe is waiting for us at his clinic.  Are you ready to go?”

I nod.  “Yes.  Just let me get my sword.”

I go to my bedroom and grab my sword, quickly placing it over my shoulders, onto my back and buckling the belt around my waist.

When I get back into the living room, Isaiah phases us to Seirra Leone.

Chapter 13

I find myself standing in a room that contains sixteen beds, eight against each side wall.  Each bed is canopied with a white mesh material which I assume to be mosquito netting.  The room itself is plain, nothing like what you would find in a modern hospital. 

Rafe is speaking to a woman sitting up in one of the beds using his stethoscope to listen to her breathing.  Sensing my presence, his eyes are drawn away from his patient and find me.  I see a smile play across his lips which he instantly tries to quell but can’t.  He says something to the woman and stands from her bed.

As he walks over to me, he starts to shake his head.

“Isaiah said I would feel connected to you when you arrived but,” he pauses trying to contain his emotions, “I never expected to feel this.”

I hold my hand out to Rafe and he takes it, no questions asked.

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” I ask.  “I’ll explain everything to you.”

Rafe nods and leads me through the clinic pass the beds with the sick and dying to a room which looks to be his office at one end of the building.  Mason and Isaiah stay back in the infirmary while I speak with Rafe.

I explain to him why he feels connected to me and what our mission is.

“So you don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing exactly?  What we’re meant to stop Lucifer from doing?” He asks.

“No.  Not yet.  We’re still working on that.  Lucifer keeps things well hidden.  I’m not even sure we’ll know what he’s doing until he actually does it.”

Rafe holds a fisted hand to his mouth and his eyes glaze over as he stares off into space, presumably thinking through everything I’ve said to him.

“What exactly do you need of me?” Rafe asks.  “I have a lot of people who require my help here.”

“You can stay here at your clinic, but we will need you to help us find the next vessel.  Plus, I think you could benefit from meeting with all of us.  The connection we share with one another magnifies exponentially the more of us there are in a room.”

“More?” Rafe asked amazed.  “When can I meet with the others?”

I smile at Rafe’s anxiousness.

I go speak with Isaiah and Mason and we agree we shouldn’t waste anytime.  We decide to immediately bring the five of us together and attempt to find the sixth member of our group.  Rafe agrees to leave the clinic for an hour while another doctor there looks after his patients while he is gone.

We decide to take everyone to Mason’s villa since neither Leah nor Rafe have been there yet.  It will be the place they go to when it’s time for them to fully connect with their archangels.  I figure it’s a good idea they spend some time there before hand.

Mason phases to go get Leah and JoJo.  Isaiah takes Rafe and me to Mason’s villa then he leaves to pick up Chandler.  In no time at all we’re all together in Mason’s living room.  The feeling in the room is electric and almost overwhelming.  We don’t immediately try to find the sixth vessel but instead just sit around and talk with one another.

I learn that Rafe has been with Doctors Without Borders for five years.   Oddly enough, Chandler, JoJo and I all have it as one of the charities we give to each year.  Leah opens up a bit more to all of us.  She tells us stories about how she and Remy used to move from sector to sector in the alternate Earth reality.  The hardships she faced were many: never knowing if they would have a safe place to sleep at night; not having food some nights and having to go hungry; running from Watcher agents who tried to capture her and make her play in the vicious game of Bait.

It makes me feel like my life has been a fairytale compared to hers.  I have no more pity left in me for the things I’ve gone through, especially now that I have Mason in my life.  There isn’t a moment I would change now.  If I did, I might not have ever met Mason and that is not a possibility I even want to think about.  No, my life went the way it was supposed to and now I have almost everything I could ever want.  There was only one thing missing.  One emotional tie that needed to be resolved: finding my mother.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to find her when my father first told me about her willingness to abandon me the night the Tear first opened.  But now I realize I need to know her side of the story.  If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it’s that there are always two sides to every story.  I don’t know her reasons for making the choice to leave me, but in my gut I feel as though it wasn’t an easy decision for her to make.  I can still remember the woman who home schooled me, bathed me, took me out for ice cream every Friday afternoon and read me bedtime stories.  That woman deserved to be heard out and I was determined to finally learn the truth.

We spend almost two hours with each other before we even realize it.  I finally tell everyone we should gather around and try to connect with our sixth member.  I know Rafe needs to get back to his clinic, even though he seems to be content in just staying with us.  It is different now that there are five us.  The bond feels stronger for some reason, like the more of us that are together the closer our bond with one another grows.  What God told Chandler and JoJo is right:  we are permanently connected.  When we finally do stop Lucifer from doing whatever it is he is planning, I feel confident we will always want to spend time together.  We are life long friends now and I know that friendship will carry over even into Heaven.

Before we start, Mason comes up to me and gives me a kiss.

“Good luck,” he tells me.  “Let me know if you need anything.”

I needed a lot of things from Mason.  None of which I could possibly get in front of present company. 

I shake off the effect of his kiss and try to concentrate on what needs to be done.

We stand in a circle together around the coffee table in Mason’s living room and hold hands.  Again, the vision is almost instantaneous.  Yet, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  We don’t actually see anything, only blackness.  I hear the sound of machines running in the background.  One sounds like a heart monitor but the other one is foreign to my ears.  There is someone crying softly in the background of it all.  As quickly as the vision comes, it goes.

We all open our eyes.

“Ok, what was that?” Chandler asks, voicing the question I feel sure we’re all thinking.

“There was a heart monitor right?” I ask Rafe, thinking he would know better than anyone the sounds we heard.

“Yes,” he answers.  “There was also an oxygen machine running.”

“Why couldn’t we see a face?” Leah asks.

I shake my head.  “I’m not sure.  But odds are they’re in a hospital somewhere.  Let’s try again and see if we can pick up anything else that might be helpful.”

We connect with the sixth vessel again but nothing is different.  The only clues we have are the heart monitor, oxygen machine and crying.  Not a lot to go on.

I tell Mason what we’ve ‘seen’.  He in turn calls Nick and sets him to work on trying to figure something out.

“My friends,” Rafe says to us, “I must leave now and return to my patients.  I’ve been gone longer than I told my fellow doctors I would be.”

“We should try to connect with the sixth vessel again soon,” I tell everyone.  “Maybe something will happen and we’ll hear or see something else to add in with the clues we already have.  Either way, let’s try again at my house tomorrow.”

“Have you figured out what I’m supposed to do about school?” Leah asks me.

I turn to Mason.  “I really don’t want to put her in public school if we don’t have to just yet.  Maybe after everything is over, but her schedule might be too erratic for it now.  Should we hire a tutor?”