Chapter Twelve

The Fallen Nun

“Every night, I live the same nightmare… And with that nightmare, my faith died… Then it came to slap me in my face…”

 “I am sorry Sister, but they are gone. They suffered horribly, but I am going to lie to you and tell you they felt nothing. Your family, and reason for living died in a car accident on their way to visit you at your new church during an ice storm. No matter what anybody says it will always be your fault.” The man in the white coat was telling her.

 Jennifer sat up with a gasp from the nightmare. The same one she had been having every night since her family was killed in a car accident on a winter night a year ago. She closed her eyes tight and took deep breaths. She reached over and grabbed the bottle of water, taking a long draw before laying down and looking at the clock. 

Three in the morning. The devil’s hour, that is the superstition. She wondered how it came to be that three in the morning was the devil’s hour. Why not midnight, or why not two in the morning? It was strange. She probably should know, considering when she was a nun, before she left the church, they could never pray or hold services between three and four in the morning. 

Devil’s hour. 

She snorted. She turned over. She had to get a bit more sleep. She had things to do in the morning. Namely think about getting a job. It had been a year since her brother, his wife and their three kids had been killed in that car accident, and four months since she left the church. She needed a job. She turned over again and closed her eyes, and prayed for no more nightmares. 

She left the sisterhood, she no longer believed that God or whoever was in charge cared, but old habits were hard to break, she had always sent a prayer up to God or Jesus or Mary her whole life. She frowned and turned on her back. “God isn’t real. God has forsaken this Earth.” She stated out loud. She closed her eyes and forced herself to fall asleep. She did not know in just a few short hours her world would be turned upside down.

 Jennifer sighed as she looked at the counselor the church had assigned for her, they had not fully let her leave the sisterhood yet, they wanted to make sure it was not just grief. She was on sabbatical. She looked at the young man who went through college to be a therapist and then decided he wanted to be a priest and had just started at the seminary. 

“I just want to get a job. I want to see if leaving the sisterhood truly is for me. My faith hasn’t been rocked completely. I am still a very devote Catholic.” She lied. “I need help finding a job. I only got a basic history degree before I devoted my life to the sisterhood. I would like to work with children. I am extremely intelligent. I have taken online courses and got a certificate to teach.”

 “We will have to look into it, sister. For now why don’t you just rest? You have your apartment paid for by the church and your insurance, just rest and heal.” 

 Jennifer sighed but nodded and left. They never changed their mind. They do not really have the numbers to lose any nuns. But Jennifer just did not believe anymore. She had to leave. She went to the library. Since the accident she had been reading anything and everything about everything and anything. She was not lying when she said she was intelligent, if she had not joined the convent she would have probably had many doctorate degrees by now. She regretted that now. She walked in and smiled to the lady behind the counter and went over to the non-fiction section and pulled a book down on the Civil War. She was soon lost in the views of both sides and the stories of the soldiers who fought for their beliefs.

 Joseph was on his new computer, oh how he loved being able to drop the credit card Abby had on a counter and watch as the people fell over themselves to give him the best. “Hey, Angel, what was the name of our second Guide again?”

 “Jennifer Bradly. Why?”

 “This her?” He flipped the laptop around so Abby could see the news articles he pulled up. 

 Abby looked at the photos and the details. The test her Guide had gone through was staring her in the face. It was one thing to know of it, but to see it in stark black and white, turned something in her stomach. Her parents murdered, her and her brother used as slave labor, their escape when her brother Mica Bradly turned eighteen and took her with him. Then the car accident a year ago that cost her everything, her brother, her sister-in-law Shana, her two nephews, Mica Junior and Ryan, and her niece Maya, but most of all her faith. But she was still a good person, still deep down she believed. She was just mad. She still passed her test. No matter how much she denied it she believed and loved. “Yes.” Abby stared at the page.

 “There is a really good chance she will come with us. She loves knowledge it seems based upon her library history and online buy history.” Joseph stated having taken back the laptop after Abby confirmed it was their Jennifer.

 “Do I want to know, Joseph?” Abby asked with a sigh. Would not be the first time on of her Keepers hacked anything and everything since computers became the all that.

 August was intrigued. “So you can hack anything?” He looked over Joseph’s shoulder.

 “Nope Abby, you don’t, and yep, Auggie, anything. I don’t know how, but I just get tech and computer code.”

 August nodded, having giving up protesting the nickname, “your mind was made for it, like mine was made for languages.” 

 “That is right kid. You have a mind for languages and I have a mind for this.” Joseph typed a few more lines of code into what he was doing. “So what languages do you know?”

 August was excited to talk about his talents; nobody had wanted to know before! Most people would say he was a know it all, or they would mock him for being passionate about languages. But he loved them. Loved how people have evolved, loved the fact that languages come and go, that languages, just like traditions and religions, can fall from power. How languages evolved, how they came to be a minor language or how they became the primary language of a country. To him the history of the language was just as fascinating as the language itself. Honestly people in general were fascinating. His favorite pastime was people watching after all. He blinked his eyes from his space out of thought and turned to Joseph who still was smiling and not upset he spaced out. “Sorry, I tend to get lost in my mind.”

“We all do, Auggie.” Joseph waved it off. “So what languages?”

August smiled. “Akkadian, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, Middle English, I want to learn Sanskrit, Ancient Egyptian, Old Norse, Latin, ancient Greek, I am learning Eteocypriot, Gothic, Sicel, Umbrian, Norn, Livonian, Old Britonic, Merya, Apalachee, Etchemin, Iowa-Oto, Kitsai, Twana, Kore, Kubi, Ancient Nubian, Coptic, Arwi, Di, Nahuatl, Chimaricko, Eskimo-Aleut, Choctaw, Cherokee, Dakhota, Lakota, Ojibwe, English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili, Spanish, Portuguese, Sign Language, and Italian. I learn them fast. And I can just read people. It is like something switches on in my brain and I can read them like I can read a book. Of course, having an eidetic memory doesn’t hurt. I mean most of you probably have one; it is just that our brains are wired to want to know different things. I also am good a Psychology. But I have been studying languages since I was like three.”

 “Whoa, kid, that is a lot! We shouldn’t have a problem wherever we go with you kid!” Joseph knew that he was not that much older than August, none of them were, but August already was falling into the little brother role for all of them. Except Kevin, Kevin was already starting to worry about him like a father figure and it had not even been a day yet. “That is amazing you know all those languages. You will have to teach us some words as we go along.”

 August nodded. He was super excited that they were not making fun of him for his excitement. This mission, job, whatever one wanted to call it, was the best thing to ever happen to him. “You teach me code, I will teach you any language I know.”

 Joseph laughed. “Deal, Auggie.” He shook August’s hand and turned the computer so he could see it.

 Abby smiled. They really were getting along well. Oh, she knew like any family they would have their fights, and others would not understand another’s ways, but they were family and the bonding had already started. She sat back and smiled as they continued to rest a bit before they went and collected Jennifer.

 It was not long before they decided that it was time to go collect Jennifer. It was late in the afternoon, early evening, and they knew she was at the library. Abby also knew the library she was at, had some really nice meeting rooms. She took the time to just look around Boston as they made their way there; she was not driving so she could. It had been a long time since she was at Boston. It was full of people and one of the most Catholic cities in the United States. She let out a yawn, as her body filled with more and more magic it wanted her to either release it in an explosion similar to an atomic bomb or it wanted to put her in a deep sleep to regulate it. She could not afford the deep sleep. She had to open the Catacombs and Mines first. Then she could sleep for a day before forcing herself awake. She knew she needed to rest her life force and her body; after all just because she was not mortal did not mean she did not tire. She closed her eyes and check her last set of Keepers, Protectors, and Guides. She gave a sad smile, most of them had moved on already, only Jesse was sitting in this limbo between choices, she hoped he moved on, she would grant him reincarnation, a second chance, if he stayed she was fearful he would become a vengeful spirit and she would have to destroy the soul. She shuddered at that thought; she did not like having to do that. Killing a soul was hard on her life force. They were all a part of her and it hurt her in more ways than one. She would have to watch that with Jesse’s soul. She pulled herself back when the SUV jolted to a stop.

They looked at the apartment building with some raised eyebrows. Others shrugged having lived at worse places. Abby, of course, took the lead. She learned her lesson not having everybody come, they came anyways, and it would be easier to convince Jennifer if she had the group with her. Martin jumped out and checked the perimeter of the apartment to make sure the Sisters of Lilith were not around. He gave the thumbs up and jumped back in. To the library they went.

Jennifer was sitting there with her book when she was delivered a letter by the library. “What is this?”

“A lovely group of people would like to speak with you dear.” The librarian smiled and walked back to continue stacking her section of shelves. 

Jennifer opened the letter. “Please meet us in the meeting room to discuss an employment opportunity.” Jennifer read it out loud. She bit her lip in thought. It was strange, and was not signed, but the librarian knew them and checked out the room to them. She stood with her book and went to the meeting room. She knocked. “Hello.” She stated sticking her head in.

Abby smiled. “Miss Bradly! Please take a seat and we will explain why we are here and about the job offer my note talked about.”

 Jennifer tried to give a smile, but did what was suggested and took a seat, but kept on her guard. She was not an idiot, her childhood instilled to many habits of self-protection to drop them now. “Please call me Jennifer.”

 “I am Abigail Eylondottir.” Abby stated. “Please call me Abby. These are my employees, Dean, Kevin, Kendra, George, Joseph, August, Daisy, Sakura, and Martin.”

 Jennifer nodded to each as they nodded or waved to her as they were named. She noticed Martin and George stood by the door and Daisy and Dean next to the only window in the room. She thought it was strange, but she saw her brother do much the same, especially after his time in the military. “How can I help you Abby?”

 “Well, I am in need of a second Guide. Kevin is the other Guide. And I would like to offer that job to you.”

 “What is a Guide?” Jennifer asked.

 “Exactly like it sounds. You guide our Keepers and Protectors. You see Keepers tend to sometimes forget to protect themselves and get caught up in the moment, so I had to hire my first Protectors a long time ago; but sometimes they need information they don’t know. So,” Abby clapped her hands. “We have the Guides which will look information up and relay it to them. So, do you know the myth of the ley lines right?”

“No. What are the ley lines?”

“Ley lines are alignments of a number of places of geographical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths. They are said to be full of magic, of power, of life.” Abby stated. “They often are sites of man-made structures, the pyramids, Stone hedge, etcetera. This phrase was first coined by a mortal named Alfred Watkins. I liked it and kept is since then, before that they were just tunnels of magic.” Alice stated.

“Wait for you to have liked it you would have to have been born in the twenties when he coined that phase.” Jennifer stated.

 Abby nodded. “I was alive then. You see I am an angel of creation.”

 “Bullshit.” Jennifer stated.

 “No it is all true.” Abby stated, she held up a hand to stop her boys from saying anything. They did not like it when she was insulted. “I will explain that in a moment.” She continued, “we are talking about the ley lines.”

 “So magic is real?”

 “Totally real, magic is fed to world through a series of catacombs and mines hidden from all mortals but select few. The five Keepers, Dean, Kendra, August, Sakura, and Joseph; the three Protectors, George, Martin and Daisy, and last but not least, there are two Guides, you and Kevin. The Guides help get the ‘ping’ so to say where there may be a magical artifact that needs to be investigated or some other event that may be an over stock of magic in the area, and yes that is why stone hedge and the pyramids were built, to help contain that magic. You and Kevin research where the magic is flowing, where weird events are popping up; research the people who have procession of the artifact to see if they are worthy to weld it, etcetera. They make sure that I never have to destroy the world, the world I created and sacrificed everything for it to remain whole.”

“And you are an angel?”

“Yes. I am one of the first nine. Created to be balance between the four angels of dark, evil, shadows, etcetera and the four angels of light, kindness, good, etcetera; the eight of them left, but I remained so we didn’t have to destroy this realm. Without us the realm would collapse and cease to exist.” 

Jennifer looked at the strange lady who said she was an angel. “Okay why is three in the morning the Devil’s hour?” It was a stupid question but it had been bothering her and she could have looked it up but she wanted an answer from somebody who would know the whole truth, not just the superstitions behind it. It was a silly way to test if the woman was telling the truth but she wanted some way to test her.

Abby laughed. “The Devil’s hour is a myth; in this case it is a term that refers to the time at which the dark forces, witches, demons, ghosts, Lucifer himself, is said to appear and are at their most powerful. Lucifer hasn’t been on this realm in a very, very long time. It goes on for one hour, and the Catholic Church as you know will not have any services, or say any prayers said during this time. Now they say that the exact moment that Lucifer’s power is the greatest is three in the morning, or more accurately, three fifteen in the morning, it is the inversion of the time in which Jesus died upon the cross.”

“So Jesus was real? Was he one of your brothers, you said you aren’t God, just the Angel actually one of nine, who made this realm.”

Abby tensed. “No, he wasn’t my brother. But he was real.” She took a breath. “No more will be said on that subject for now.” 

Jennifer looked at the woman, who had shut down that line of questioning. “And I am just supposed to believe you. You guys could be a cult!”

The boys growled but Abby stopped them again. “You want proof.”

“I want proof.”

She closed her eyes and stood up. She dropped her spells making her look human. She grew to about twelve foot tall, her wings ripped her shirt as they came out and a glow of gold surrounded them, the wings themselves were huge, at least six foot each and there were four sets of two wings. She opened her eyes and instead of the chocolate brown she kept them they glowed with the color of gold and silver. Her wings were a mix of gold, silver, black, white, red and blue. Her skin rippled with every skin color, she could change it at will, as she chose. Her hair highlighted with every color known to man and then some that have not even been discovered yet. She waved her hand to expand the room on the inside but never changing the outside look. It had been a while since she spread her wings, they were white, bright blue, black, red, green, yellow, sky blue purple, and orange. The colors of sin, the colors of life, and the colors of the virtues. She after all, was balance. She spread them and held out her hands. She bent and whispered. “Do you believe me now, Jennifer Bradly? Is this proof enough for you, and your hidden faith in a higher power?”

Jennifer gapped at the angel that stood before her. “Oh my God!” She gasped.

Abby smirked. “Yes?”

Jennifer swallowed. “Forgive me for not trusting blindly in you, my lord.” She bowed her head.

Abby moved a finger under her chin. “Jennifer, you have always believed in God and Jesus. You have always lived a good life. There is nothing to forgive. We are asking you to accept something that doesn’t make sense, though the truth. You needed proof. It was within your right. Now come on Jennifer, answer me this question. Will you be my Guide?”

“Yes, madam.” Jennifer whispered.

“My name is still Abby.” She stated as she pulled back on her magic and shrunk back to her glamoured self. 

“I get to go around calling the creator of our world by her name Abby.” Jennifer shook her head. “God, this is a lot to take in.”

The others laughed. Sakura and Kendra placed a hand on her shoulders. “You get used to it, sweetie.” Kendra stated. Kendra turned to Abby. “What now?”

“Now we open the Catacombs and Mines and prevent the world form exploding.” Abby stated as she accepted Dean’s jacket to cover her ripped shirt. She could make them grow with her but the wings always ripped them. “I really wished my wings didn’t ruin my shirts.” She pouted.

The others laughed. “So how do we get to the mine opening?” August asked.

“We get on a plane and go to Italy.”

“Italy? The main opening is in Italy?”

“It wasn’t always Italy.” Abby stated. “But, yes, so you all have to be on your best behavior as we go through the Vatican. Behave all of you.”

“Abby…” Jennifer started tentative, “my church…”

“All taken care of, I have a lot of main contacts in the Catholic Church, need to have them actually.”

Jennifer nodded. “Thank you…” She bit her lip she wanted to ask about her family.

Abby smiled. “Your brother, his wife and children, were all rewarded and they chose to be reincarnated at some point in the next thirty years.”

Jennifer hugged her. “Thank you! It is so…” She could not think of the right word. “It is a relief to know they are at peace.”

Abby hugged her back. “I understand that need.” She stated. “Now let’s get Jennifer home and packed. We have a bit of a plane ride and I want to stop and eat something first!” Abby laughed as they walked to the SUVs. But Abby sighed a breath of relief as they collected the last Guide. 

They would be returning to the catacombs and Mines now. And the relief she felt was letting her know soon she would be able to rest her magic and soul. She needed a lot of sleep to recharge herself and allow the magic of the mines and catacombs to settle. She sat back in the car and closed her eyes. It was time to go to Roma once more and reopen the Catacombs and Mines again, allowing the magic she had given the Earth to flow freely across the Ley Lines.