Broken (Book 1, The Watcher Chronicles, Paranormal Romance), page 6
“Is there nothing more you can add, Allan?” Mason gently prods, obviously used to Allan’s succinct way of speaking.
“No,” Allan says. “She’s a normal human. No type of angel DNA is present. I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
“And trust me,” Angela says with a yawn, “we examined every last detail. Jess is just a human.”
I hear Mason sigh beside me. “Disappointing but also interesting.”
“Why interesting?” I ask, relief flooding through my system at Allan’s discovery, or lack there of.
“Because whatever makes you unique is still a mystery. We need to figure out how you were able to kill that demon last night. If you had a hint of something different in your genetic code, we could try to follow up on it. But since you don’t, I’m not sure where that leaves us now.” Mason looks to Allan. “Is there anything else you can do? Any other tests you can run?”
“No,” Angela answers before her father gets a chance to. “Trust me. We ran every test imaginable. Nothing came up abnormal. And you’re perfectly healthy by the way,” Angela says to me. “We checked for disease markers and mutations while we were at it and everything was normal.”
“Ok, so now that we know Jess is just a human, can I please have a cinnamon roll?” Joshua whines.
Angela opens the lid and lets him pluck one of the oversized rolls dripping with white icing out of the box. For such a skinny kid, I stand in awe of how fast Joshua is able to wolf down the sugary confection. Angela takes her roll out and hands me back the box.
“You might want to hide the last one,” she suggests, shaking her head at Joshua.
The elevator doors, which seem to be the only way in or out of the basement for regular mortals, opens up and Nick walks into the room with a manila folder in his hands.
“So, did I miss the unveiling?” He asks, coming to stand by us. “Did you find out anything interesting about our newest member?”
“No,” Mason answers. “Did you?” He asks, looking pointedly at the folder in Nick’s hands.
“No,” Nick says, clearly disappointed, “there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about her. But, I did find out some things that were interesting about her parents.”
Even though I don’t like Nick that much, I am instantly intrigued by what his paranoia may have uncovered about my parents’ past. I know virtually nothing about them. I didn’t even have family photos of them because we never took pictures.
“What did you find out?” I ask, desperate for any information about where I came from and who exactly my parents are.
“Your mother, Sally Jane Riley was orphaned when she was five years old. She was shuffled from one foster home to another through the years until she turned eighteen. After that she disappeared from public records until she was admitted into the hospital to give birth to you. Your father was a ghost.”
I have to assume Nick isn’t speaking literally so I ask, “What do you mean by a ghost?”
“There’s absolutely no record of a Peter Riley until your birth. I couldn’t even find a marriage certificate for your parents. The only time his name appears on anything official is your birth certificate. Even after that, everything your parents owned was placed in your mother’s name. Nothing legally belonged to your father. That’s all I was able to uncover. I wasn’t able to find photos of them: no driver’s license, no passports, no school pictures, nothing. It’s like their existence has been completely wiped. I called a few of the people your mother stayed with while she was in the foster care program to see if they could give me any information. For whatever reason, none of them seem to have any recollection of even having your mother in their care. It’s like someone went in and deliberately erased your mother’s history, even from the minds of the people who knew her.”
I stand there, not really knowing what to say. All my life I wanted to know more about my parents. Now, I had to face the truth that there wasn’t anything beyond what I already knew myself from just living with them the first seven years of my life. If there had been anything else to discover about their past, I felt sure Nick would have dug it up. He didn’t seem like someone who would be incompetent at his job.
“So, now what?” I ask, not knowing where to go from here since we seem to have hit dead ends on all fronts where I am concerned.
“Well, I’ve found something interesting,” Joshua says, licking the last of the white icing from the tips of his fingers.
Joshua returns to his chair in front of the touch screen panel and pulls up a video of Lucifer standing outside my house the night before.
“After Mason came back and told us about your visitor last night, Jess, I ran his new face through the facial recognition software to see where he went after he left you. He did his usual scouting of new tearers but one thing he did out of the ordinary was meet with one of them twice.”
“Twice?” Mason says, obviously hearing this new bit of information for the first time. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because I didn’t realize it until after you went to get Jess this morning,” Joshua says. “He met the tearer at the Watcher station in Rochester, NY last night and then again this morning at the temporary housing apartment complex there.”
Joshua pulls up a video on the holographic display showing Lucifer walking out of the apartment complex where the newly deposited tearers are sent on their first night on our planet. The man walking beside Lucifer is handsome in a gritty sort of way. He looks like a man who would play the villain in a movie with his sharp bone structure and slicked back brown hair. He’s wearing a brown wool tweed coat with a burnt orange scarf tied around his neck. I watch as Lucifer takes hold of the man’s arm and phases them both out of the picture.
“How long ago did that happen?” Mason asks urgently, like someone watching the last grains of sand drop from the top of an hourglass.
“Maybe fifteen minutes ago,” Joshua answers.
Mason turns to me. “We need to go before the trail fades completely.”
I look down at the box in my hands and mourn the loss of my breakfast before shoving it into Nick’s hands.
“Merry Christmas,” I say to Nick, just before Mason puts his hand on my shoulder and phases us away.
Chapter 6 I suddenly find myself standing across the street from where Lucifer was last seen on Joshua’s video replay. The apartment building which houses the tearers stands five stories tall and is made out of blue brick with the Watcher logo, a melding of a W on top of an A, on the side forever marking it as belonging to the Watcher Agency.
Mason quickly walks across the deserted street towards the spot where Lucifer and the tearer he came to get phased from. I watch as Mason frowns at something only he can see at eye level.
“Give me your hand,” he tells me holding out one of his. “Let’s see how far we can follow them.”
I place my hand in Mason’s and suddenly find myself standing in the middle of what looks like a Turkish market place. The warm aroma of mingled spices and sweet meats reminds me just how hungry I am. Colorful shopping stalls surround us offering a kaleidoscope of edible foods. The late afternoon sun beckons to the shoppers around us that supper time is approaching.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Istanbul spice market,” Mason answers absently, his eyes searching for the trail from Lucifer’s phasing.
Not letting go of my hand, Mason phases us and I instantly find myself on a nondescript street with strange symbols which look oriental in origin on the side of buildings and street signs. In quick succession, Mason phases us from one point to another forcing me to close my eyes in order to stop my empty stomach from churning uncontrollably.
After a few minutes, I hear Mason say, “Jess?”
Cautiously, I open my eyes only to find three Mason’s swimming in front of me. My legs feel like jelly, and I know I can’t prevent my knees from buckling underneath me.
Mason pulls my body in close to his before I am able to fall, acting as my center since my body has completely decided to betray me.
“Sorry,” I say, grabbing the lapels of his wool coat with my hands and resting my forehead against his chest, trying to make my body stop quivering.
“No,” Mason says, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have phased you so many times in a row. The human body isn’t made to withstand travelling like that. I should have known better.”
I close my eyes to keep the world from spinning out of control and take deep breaths to calm my nerves. Mason’s scent, woody with a hint of cinnamon, fills my senses and I feel more at ease. One of Mason’s hands begins to rub my back in a soothing circular pattern which coaxes my body to relax against him. The heat emanating from Mason’s body surrounds me like a warm blanket against my skin, making me feel something I’ve never felt in the arms of a man before: comfortable.
I pull away, slowly releasing my death grip on his coat and raising my head off his chest. When I look up at his face, I see confusion in Mason’s eyes and worry creasing his brow giving him a brooding look. I slowly push away from him finding my legs are once again able to support me on their own.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling embarrassed for needing his help in the first place. Needing or asking for help from other people is something I don’t do very often. After the disappearance of my parents, I quickly developed the philosophy that if you couldn’t do something yourself, perhaps it was something you shouldn’t be doing. You couldn’t always count on other people to be there when you needed them. The more you let yourself rely on others the more dependant you became on their help. It was just a fact of life.
I look around me and notice we are standing in an open field with nothing but grass and trees surrounding us.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“In the middle of nowhere, basically,” Mason says, clearly disappointed. “Lucifer had his people help him cover his phase trail. There were too many trails to follow so I chose some at random on the off chance we would hit the right one.”
“What do you mean by his people?”
“The angels who rebelled with him. They were all sent here with Lucifer after the war in Heaven. I believe my father hoped forcing them to live among humans would teach them why you’re so important to Him. Unfortunately, I only know of one rebellion angel who actually learned that lesson.”
“How was he able to learn not to hate us anymore?”
“He fell in love with a human and made close bonds with others.”
“Where is he?” I ask. “Do you think he can help us?”
“No, Will was allowed back into Heaven after he sacrificed himself in the last battle with Lucifer. He gave up his life to give Lilly a chance to live.”
“This Lilly must be someone special to have someone willingly die for her.”
Mason’s eyes light up with joy, telling me Lilly is someone important to him too. “She’s special to all of the Watchers. We watch over her and would lay down our lives to protect her and her family if it came to that. I doubt Lucifer will try to harm them since he knows Lilly is in direct contact with God, but sometimes Lucifer doesn’t think very clearly and lets his pride and jealousy rule his actions.”
“So what do you guys do? Take turns being with her?”
“Not exactly. There is only one of us who stays with her constantly. His name is Malcolm. Malcolm’s family life allows him to be more naturally integrated with Lilly’s. He’s part of her family so his presence is expected by her and Brand’s children. He’s almost like a second father to them.”
“Will I ever be able to meet her?”
“I don’t know yet. We don’t allow many people to bother her.” The protective tone in Mason’s voice tells me it might be easier to get into Heaven than be granted an audience with Lilly.
“You almost make her sound like someone you worship.”
“No, we don’t worship her,” Mason says. “But she is precious to us. She helped bring all of the Watchers back together and allowed us to earn forgiveness from our father for not only us but our children. She keeps our hopes up when we feel like we’ll never find a way to seal the Tear. I guess you could say she’s like our little sister, mother, and councilor all wrapped up into one person.”
I look around at the empty field, not seeing much of anything significant.
“How exactly were you following Lucifer? You said something about a trail?”
“Each time an angel phases, they leave a connecting trail to the spot they travelled to. It can only be seen by another angel.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s like looking at a hole in space. I can see the place they travel to through it.”
“So you said Lucifer had some help in hiding his phase trail. How many trails do you see in this one spot?”
Mason looks around like he’s doing a mental count. “Forty-four,” he finally answers. “There are too many. We’ll never be able to pick the right one. Let’s go back to headquarters. Maybe they’ve been able to find out something useful since we’ve been gone.”
When we phase back to headquarters, I’m faced with watching Nick lick off the last bit of icing from the cinnamon roll off his fingers. It instantly reminds me I still haven’t eaten breakfast yet, causing my stomach to grumble its discontent.
“We couldn’t find him,” Mason tells the others. “Have you been able to discover anything else which might be helpful, Joshua?”
“Maybe,” Joshua says, scratching his head like he’s confused. “I noticed it last night when I was scanning the area where Jess lives but didn’t think too much of it until I started looking through the file Nick brought in this morning about Jess’s parents.”
Joshua turns back around to his touch screen control panel and brings up a satellite image of my parents’ house. After a few more waves of his hand on the control panel, the picture takes on a blue hue with a red pulsating dot directly over the house.
“What is that?” I ask.
“It’s gamma radiation, but you see that sometimes just from underground mineral deposits. That’s why I didn’t pay it much mind last night,” Joshua tells me. “But when I went back and took a closer look at it this morning,” he says zooming in on the circle of red, “I noticed it doing this.”
As we watch, the dot blinks on and off in a pattern.
“Is that an SOS signal?” Nick asks, sounding completely sure he has to be wrong.
“Yeah, weird uh?” Joshua says.
“We should go there to see if we can find the source,” Mason tells me.
“Take me back to my house,” I say. “I’ll drive us there.”
In no time at all, Mason and I are in my car heading to my parents’ home. I make a quick stop back at Beau’s store on the way out and find one cinnamon roll left like destiny took pity on me. When I get back into the car, I open the box and turn to Mason.
“This is a one time offer to share the best cinnamon roll you’ll ever eat in your life,” I say to him. “I’m willing to split it with you if you would like to try it.”
Mason smiles and I feel my heart make an involuntary lurch in my chest at how it transforms his usually austere expression, strangely finding myself wanting to make him smile more often.
“No, I couldn’t deprive you of something you’ve obviously been wanting for a while now. But, I do appreciate the offer.”
I pick the roll up. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” I say as I take my first bite of the soft yeasty goodness in my hands. The silky texture of the melted sugar coats my tongue making me feel like I’ve taken a bite out of Heaven itself. In a time which probably rivals Joshua’s, I have the roll eaten and the growling monster living in the pit of my belly finally seems satisfied.
“Do you feel better now?” Mason asks me, a hint of amusement in his voice as he watches me devour my breakfast.
I lick the last sweet traces of frosting from the tips of my fingers and nod, “You have no idea. I’ll probably be on a sugar high for the rest of the day.”
I hop out of the car and place the now empty box in the trash.
As we’re driving down Hwy 1, I turn the radio on to a station which only plays Christmas music this time of year. One of my favorite songs comes on: Mannheim Steamroller’s The Holly and The Ivy.
“Do you have any plans for Christmas?” Mason asks me.
“Faison and I usually stay over at Mama Lynn’s Christmas Eve night. Then we do what we’ve always done and wake up early Christmas morning to open gifts and eat Mama Lynn’s sausage-egg-cheese casserole. This will probably be the last Christmas we get to do that though.”
“Why is that?”
“Faison is getting married next April. I’m sure she and John Austin will want to start their own family traditions.”
“Do you have someone special in your life? Any plans to get married?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t date.”
A pregnant silence hangs in the air before Mason says, “Mind if I ask why?”
I glance over at Mason and see that he’s seriously interested in my answer.
“I guess I’ve just been too focused on finding a way to get my parents back. Most guys my age are only interested in having a good time and that’s not me. Faison’s been trying to set me up with John Austin’s brother for forever but I keep finding ways to put her off.”
“Why?”
“I have a hard time letting people in,” I confess, not exactly knowing why I’m telling Mason something I haven’t actually verbalized to either Faison or Mama Lynn, though I have a feeling they already know what I’m about to tell Mason. “I don’t think I could handle falling in love and having him sucked up through a wormhole like my parents. I can’t afford to lose someone I care about like that again. It’s just not worth the risk to me.”
“But don’t you want to have a family of your own one day?”
“Not until the Tear is sealed,” I say with finality. “The less people I care about the less risk there is of losing someone else I love.”
“We’ll find a way to seal it,” Mason says like a promise. “I have a feeling we’re getting closer to solving the problem. I was meant to find you, Jess. There’s no doubt in my mind you’re the clue I’ve been waiting for.”
