Bodiel hesitates briefly and then in a brusque monotone he says, “Your mother is...” It is as if he cannot form the words.

Adelaide looks at Lucias with a sad look in her eyes. “Your mom is dead. She had to die.”

“What do you mean, she had to die?” Lucias could not hide the shock on his face.

“So that you could be born.” Adelaide sighs a long breath. “We are getting ahead of ourselves though, you would understand it better when you have heard the whole story, as Bodiel had said. It’s a story that cannot be told in a few words.”

Bodiel interrupts Adelaide curtly, “Your mother’s soul was reincarnated repeatedly for one purpose and one purpose only, so that you could be born. After many, many reincarnations, and failed attempts to get you born, I met your mother and I fell in love with her.” Bodiel hesitates for a moment, his eyes hard and then under his breath, while looking up toward the ceiling, he mumbles, “It would have been too much to let her stay with me.”

“Why was she...” Lucias hesitates. “My mother. Why was she reincarnated repeatedly? Why was I supposed to be born, for what purpose?”

“God is as kind and forgiving as they proclaim in your Bible, but he also enjoys a challenge. He could not make it too easy for us, could he? If it were too easy, it would have defeated His purpose, because He always causes little incidents that have previously prevented you from being born or living past your tenth year. Sometimes the child that was born was a girl and it was specified you had to be a boy.”

Adelaide flops down on the chair next to Lucias and pulls her legs in under her.

Lucias feels instantly unsure of himself with her sitting so close to him. He asks, “Who were the two winged men from earlier tonight?”

“They were Camael and Vechiel, from the Powers, a celestial police force. They found you before we could. The day you were born, you were taken to the Catholic Orphanage, because you were safe there and shielded, until you decided to run away. Only Abaddon knew where you were and then tonight, he sent us to find you.”

“Why? What did I do wrong?”

Bodiel stands up from his chair and walks to the counter where a bottle of red wine is standing. He pours himself another drink and then slowly he walks back to his chair.

Lucias notices that Bodiel has not answered his question, so he turns his cold mug around in his hands nervously, the coffee long finished. He decides to ask another question, “How have you managed to live so long, since creation, without anybody ever noticing?”

“Every fifty years or so we are sent to this far away monastery, so that humankind does not get suspicious. Have you ever wondered about the rumours regarding vampires? Where do you think people would have gotten the idea from in the first place?”

“You are vampires?” Lucias asks with a chuckle.

“No. But, you can see the similarities.”

“Do you drink blood then?”

“No… Well, sometimes, but not in the way you think.”

“How then?”

“This you will learn in due time. Now I think you should go to bed, tomorrow will be a long day. Adelaide why don’t you show Lucias where he can sleep. I have to make a phone call.”

Lucias hesitates when he says, “Okay, good night then.” He follows Adelaide down the hall and when she stops in a doorway, smiling at him and sweeping her hand in a gesture into the room, he understands.

Lucias turns to her. “Are you with Bodiel?”

She smiles amused. “What do you mean - with?”

Lucias mumbles gruffly, embarrassed, “Never mind.” He turns in the room and then closes the door, while she remains standing in the hallway.

Lucias lies down on the bed. Against his better judgment he feels safe. It does not occur to him to wonder what might happen to him. Why did the angel earlier say he is the key? The key to open what, exactly?

Marvelling at the comfort he has not experienced in a long, long time, and although he was planning on figuring all of this out, this unbelievable cockamamie story, he closes his eyes, and a vision fills his mind.

 

*

 

Bodiel does not move for a long moment. His eyes are focussed on the wall in front of him and there is a distant look in his eyes.

He decides to phone Abaddon, and Abaddon answers the phone with a crude, “Yes, Bodiel?”

Bodiel says, “We have the boy with us.”

“Good. Good. Bring him here.”

“I don’t think he is ready yet.”

“I don’t care whether he is ready or not. Bring him. As soon as he is initiated, they would find it difficult to take him. When is his eighteenth birthday?”

Bodiel feels a hole in his heart, because Lucias’ birthday culminates with Rebecca’s death, but he answers, “Next week. You know this.”

“Have him here by then. I will have everything prepared for your arrival.”

The phone goes dead.

CONTINUE READING