The Book of the Watchers

Chapter Three

I just stared at him. “What?” I’d heard the words, but they meant nothing to me. Sure, I knew what angels were; religious messengers of the gods, or something. But they were purely myth and legend.

“I know you don’t believe me, Anastasia, but you do have power; and someone has been abusing it on your behalf. That feeling that you get; when you lose control?” He didn’t continue until I nodded. “You’re being possessed. Someone out there knows what you are. They’ve just been taunting with you so far, but I suspect it won’t be long until…” He trailed off, and his eyes widened.

“Until what?” I demanded.

He didn’t seem to hear me. “Saxon.” He growled, and for a moment, I thought he would throw something. He looked back at me, his eyes blazing. “This guy, the one that has your mother, what does he look like?”

I backed as close to the wall as I could, away from his fury. “Um—” I was stammering. “He’s tall and thin. He has long blonde hair, which he ties back in a ponytail, and blue eyes. Icy blue. He has an accent,” My eyes widened. “The same accent as you!”

Danny was pacing, running his fingers through his thick black hair. His fury was plain in his scorching obsidian eyes, and I had no idea what was going on. What did he mean, ‘sorceress’?

“Danny, I’m scared.” I whispered the words so softly that there was no way he could have heard them. I opened my mouth to try again, when he approached me, his eyes wary.

“I know you are—I’m sorry. This is all my fault.” He grabbed his backpack, and rifled through it. In a secret pocket sewn onto the inside, he tore free what looked like thousand-year-old parchment. He brought the pages over to me and laid them at my feet on the bed.

“What is this?” I breathed, turning through the pages of strange hieroglyphs and detailed drawings. “It’s so old.”

“It’s the Book of the Watchers. The original copy. It’s completely unedited—it tells the entire history of my kind, and of yours. It unveils secrets that have been hidden for thousands of years. This is the single most sacred document known to man. It disappeared off the face of the earth two and a half thousand years ago.” He clasped his hands together.

“It’s held up pretty good over all this time.” While the parchment was cracking and fragile; it hadn’t entirely disintegrated like it should have after being carried around in a back pack. “Doesn’t the Vatican have a secret place for these types of things?”

His smile was exhausted. “This book was not meant for the eyes of religious men. It was meant for no man.”

“Who was it meant for?” I asked, gently turning the pages over.

“You.”

I glanced up, a witty remark dying on the tip of my tongue when I saw his expression. I’d never seen anyone look more serious. “Me?” I squeaked.

“You are the only one of your kind left alive. The line ends with you, at this point in time; unless you have a daughter to carry on the legacy. Sorceresses, such as yourself, are the only ones able to read the ancient language it was written in.” His fingers brushed the hieroglyphs.

“But I’m barely passing Spanish.” I frowned.

“Good thing it’s not written in Spanish.” Danny grinned.

“What has any of this got to do with my mother?”

He sighed then, looking more tired than I’d ever imagined anyone could be. “I had a friend once. We’d been closer than brothers, at one point in our lives. When I fell, I came across this book, and Saxon found me soon after. I tried to hide it from him; but he knew I had it, and eventually he succeeded in stealing it. I got it back, but not before he’d seen what he interpreted as a way back into Heaven. A way to get his wings back.”