THE SEVEN CHAIRS

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Authors note: before you read this I just want to say thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to keep writing no matter the odds.

"The fifth one ended up in France." Gabriel stated, "The archbishop sent word to us just days ago, but god knows how long ago he sent it. It could have been months." He leaned casually against the marble altar in Pope Leo XIII's private chamber.

Gabriel's cold blue eyes glanced over to Christine who stood by me, then across the other nuns and Vatican members Pope Leo had gathered.

I could never stand Gabriel, he was always pretentious, a try hard who served the Popes every qualm since he was taken in as a young boy with the rest of us. Everyone said that I was more near and dear to the Pope's heart as his arch nun - the youngest ever appointed - but anyone with two eyes could see the pope loved Gabriel like a son. He loved him long before he had become pope, he was his tutor when Gabriel was a boy. Perhaps the reason I felt such bitterness to Gabriel was because he was just about everything that I was not.

Pope Leo sat knelt in front of the very altar Gabriel leaned against. "It is true, we must act quickly to overcome the possibility of other parties trying to sweep up the chairs. The only one we have left to find yet is the fifth, correct?"

"Correct, your holiness." Alexander piped up, startling poor Loretta; god rest her soul. "We will leave at your request."

Pope Leo looked back at us, then up to Gabriel. "Leave as soon as possible. We must not waste a singular second, if even a single chair falls into Lucifer's hands we are doomed. We need them all together to protect them. Tonight meet at the gates and I will see you off. You are all dismissed."

We slowly trickled out of the room, all seven of us. One for each chair, one for each archangel.

While the other Nuns trickled off to the special quarters to pray and go about their duties I rounded a corner. Trailing silently up a winding staircase and down a long hallway until a reached a small chamber with nothing more than a cot.

Mere moments after I had sat down on the thin bedding the door swung open again and snapped shut again.

Raphael. He was tall with dark hair and dark blue eyes like the water by the shore. He approached me with a smile, kneeling down, touching my chin, and kissing me.

"What do you think of what Pope Leo said?" He asked, staying knelt at my feet. "Leaving tonight seems a bit rushed."

I pulled off my coif, letting my hair down. "That's what we want, we need those chairs as soon as possible, remember?'

He chewed on his lip, looking out the window behind me. "I suppose that is true, the sooner we have the powers of God's angels in our hands the better." He rested a hand on my knee, "Gabriel is scheming, he wants the power of his namesake."

"Do you not want the power of yours? Angel Rapheal would come down and stir the water of the pool of Bethesda and allow healing to occur." I ran my fingers through his hair.

His fair face scowled, "You always knew scripture better than me. No, I do not wish for the power of my name sake, I wish for the power of the archangel Micheal, I wish to fight."

"You are already a Vatican soldier, what else could you wish to fight?"

"Gabriel." The words hung in the air long after he said them as we laid on the cot the rest of the afternoon. We both wanted to see the day Gabriel fell to his knees.

That may be what drew us together.