Page 29 of Revelations

Oh for heaven’s sake, cut it out! You can’t think of him that way.

After the call, she stood at the kitchen window, overlooking an untended garden. Jasper was busy studying schematics to the tunnels that made up the underground of the nation’s capital city. How he could make out anything on the tiny screen of his phone was a miracle in itself.

Greylyn reflected on how the dagger had come to be in her possession in the first place:

For over a year after she’d risen from the grave, they had hidden out in an abandoned English manor close to the border of Scotland. That had been where Jasper had taught her to fight and to access her inner guardian power and intuition. It had been a difficult time, but he had been kind and patient. After a vigorous training session, he had made a big show of bestowing her with the weapon. Up until that point, he had only allowed her to train with wooden practice weapons.

She had been delighted with the dagger. It’d shone like pale moonlight off a glacial lake and had, at first, chilled her hand. As she’d continued to hold the intricate handle, tingling warmth had spread from her palm up to the rest of her body. A soft humming had resounded in her ears. Holding the dagger had felt like it had been an extension of herself.

She had questioned him about the weapon, but he had merely said that another guardian angel had given it to him—one that had died soon thereafter at the hands of a fallen archangel. Before his death, the guardian had insisted that the dagger’s rightful owner would need the weapon more than he. Since it had not felt right in his own hands, Jasper had known he was meant to pass it on.

“Darling, I knew as soon as you crawled out of the ground, that dagger was yours.”

Greylyn twirled the dagger in her hands. The light from the window reflected off its shaft. For just a moment, she felt the same awe that she hadexperienced when she had first beheld the weapon. Its weight was comforting in her hand. Had the previous owner known of the prophecy? Was the weapon the one thing that connected her to the prophecy? Like Excalibur choosing its king, had the dagger chosen her for this?

When she walked back into the kitchen, Sofia was busy at the stove making some canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for her guests. Jasper stomped in to raid the fridge for the last gulp of orange juice. Both women stared at him in disbelief.

“Ah, sorry, Sofia. I’ll run out and pick up some groceries for you before I leave. I promise.” Jasper flashed his signature smile, making the elderly woman blush.

How did he do that? No one was safe.

“No. No. I’m not so old that I can’t get my own groceries. As a matter of fact, I need to run to the liquor store to replace all of the vodka you two consumed the last time you were here.” She cackled as a blush now rose up Jasper’s neck to his cheeks.

“Sorry, Sof…” He did not finish, as she tsked at them to have a seat at the table.

Greylyn barely touched her food. The images she hadseen under hypnosis raged through her mind. The tree—what was it about the tree? The seed? The Celtic crest? The mysterious image embedded in the symbol? None of it made sense.

Without her asking the question out loud, Sofia answered, “Something invisible compelled you to salvage the seed pod from the vampire’s nest, right? Can I see it?”

Pulling it out of her pants’ pocket, Greylyn handed it over to Sofia. The psychic’s faded eyes lit up, and the wrinkles around her eyes smoothed to give her the countenance of a much younger woman.

“You sayin the vision that the seed looked more like a jewel? Well, that’s because it is. Look at your dagger.” Sofia bounced softly in her chair.

“Yes, I did notice that,” Greylyn admitted.

Both women spoke at the same time. “Just like the Yowah Nut.”

“A nut?” Jasper asked, one eyebrow arched quizzically.

Sofia explained, “Oh, it’s not a real nut. It just looks like one on the outside. Actually, it looks more like a small brown rock. Once the shell cracked open, it revealed a unique opal. One half is darker, much like a black opal. The other half is lighter and similar to a white opal, with a display of various colors. It’s the only one of its kind ever found. It is quite extraordinary!”

“That’s exactly what I saw,” Greylyn said, as she took a large bite of her sandwich.

Jasper concluded with a chuckle. “So we’re breaking into a national monument to steal a nut?”

***

The National Mall, the apex of the nation’s capital, was a magnificent sight, even in the dead of night. The dome of the Capitol Building shone from interior lights that showcased the Roman columns holding up the ceiling of the basilica. At the other end of the mall, Abraham Lincoln’s stoic statue gazed down into the reflecting pool that shimmered in the pale moonlight. Midway between the two stood the famous obelisk that pierced the sky—the Washington Monument.

Greylyn had been in the city a few times over the years. She had even seenit in its infancy when it really had been just a swamp. But she was still amazed every time she took in its landscape; so much beauty, so much history. All amidst so much greed, sloth, and avarice.

Greylyn and Jasper sheltered in the shadow of the great pillar to assess their entry and exit plans for the smaller, rectangular building on the edge of the grassy mall.

She sighed looking at the seemingly impenetrable fortress. “Please tell me that you have a plan.”

This could all be so much easier if she and Jasper could just poof into the museum and poof back out again with their quarry, like she imagined a pure-blooded angel could do. Not that she had ever met one, but it sounded like something one of them could do. But Olivier, being a fallen archangel, had stormed away much like an F-5 tornado—no poofing.

There were rumors as to what powers angels had. If teleportation was one of them, she wanted in. Jasper claimed that he had met one centuries earlier, and the being had appeared one second and was gone instantly after giving him some much-needed advice. He’d never revealed to Greylyn what that advice had been, but she was just impressed that he had met one.

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