The New Trinity- Chapter 14: The Key to Salvation

Christmas was fast approaching, and we still hadn’t heard a peep from Henrich and Ammun.

We’d sure heard from Nathanael though!

He’d made a flurry of appearances with the possessed Gabby where he gave his usual bullshit speech. He’d showed up in London, Moscow, Berlin, Istanbul, even Mecca, which I thought was kind of odd.

Guess he was just covering all the bases.

What I couldn’t understand was that we’d had no new messages from the Mystery Angel. We didn’t learn about any of Nathanael’s most recent appearances until we saw the footage of them on Vassago’s student’s computers.

“You think the angel lost us when we left Paris?” I wondered as I discussed it with Lilith and Vassago. “Or maybe he just can’t get inside this magic mansion of yours, Vassago.”

He grinned slyly.

“Oh, he knows you are here, I’m sure. And he can certainly get inside any time he likes. No, I imagine our friend has simply been preoccupied.”

“Or maybe he just realized it was pointless sending us all over the World chasing Nathanael,” Lilith said. “It’s not like it did us any good before.”

But as the days slipped by, I was getting more and more anxious for some sign- any sign at all- from the Mystery Angel. Especially when we didn’t hear from Henrich and Ammun for over a week.

We were all worried. And each of us showed it in our own way.

Me?

I’d taken to using my handful of fire to light the logs in one of Vassago’s massive fireplaces. I sat staring at the lapping flames for hours at a time, just like I’d done in Hell.

Lilith paced all over the mansion, off in her own little world, like she always did when she needed to think.

Batty and Rash were spending an awful lot of time together talking about who knew what.

The flaky angel and the moronic Human.

Boy, those must be some fascinating conversations.

Vassago spent his days either with the handful of his Human friends who’d made the trip from Paris to Vienna, or hidden away in the top floor music room with Julia. Given his past, I can just imagine what they were up to.

I was hoping something would happen just to end the nervous boredom of waiting.

And waiting. And waiting.

It happened, finally, the evening of December twenty-third in the big fancy dining room.

Julia, Rash and the other Human guests were getting ready to have dinner. Lilith, Batty, Vassago and I joined them. Not because we were hungry of course, but just for something to do.

Julia used a box of matches to light the candelabras set out on the big oak table while Rash flirted with her.

“Ya know, Julia, you’re so hot you could light these candles without matches.” he schmoozed with a big toothy grin.

Oh, brother! Talk about clueless.

“He’s not retarded, is he?” Vassago whispered to me.

“No, just stupid.”

Julia gave him a patient smile, kind of like she would give a little kid.

“You are sweet.” she said and continued lighting candles.

“Here, let me help.” Rash said.

He took the matchbox from her- and he dropped it.

Little wooden matchsticks spilled all over the tabletop.

“Good one, Romeo,” I said, giving him a sarcastic thumbs up. “Real fucking smooth.”

Rash turned bright red with embarrassment and quickly swept the spilled matchsticks off the table into his cupped palm.

The matchsticks shot out of his hand back to the exact spots where they’d first landed.

“What the fuck?!” Rash cried, jumping back from the table in surprise.

Everyone stared at the matches like they’d never seen one before.

“Um…What the hell just happened?” I said, dumbfounded.

“Try scooping them up again, Rash.” Lilith told him.

“No way! I ain’t fuckin’ touchin’ ‘em!” he said, backing away even farther.

Vassago stared curiously at the matches through his sunglasses, his head cocked to one side.

“Julia, would you please sweep them up again?” he asked.

Julia didn’t look like she wanted to touch them any more than Rash did, but she slowly reached out and swept the matches into a pile.

She leaped back with a gasp as they once again shot back into place like they were magnetic.

The rest of us stood to get a better look.

They seemed like ordinary matchsticks. Nothing special.

We’d seen Julia and the others light the candles every night, but we’d never seen anything like this.

Vassago suddenly laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

He sat back down casually, a satisfied grin on his face.

“Take a closer look, Casmiel. They are more than simple matchsticks.”

Great.

The little fucker is gonna play I-know-something-you-don’t-know again. I hate when he does that.

Whatever I was supposed to see, I didn’t see it.

But Batty did.

I heard her sharp intake of breath right before she cried out “It’s a message!”

Lilith leaned over and turned her head to look at it from a different angle.

“It is!” she said. “They’re runes!”

I looked at it from her perspective.

“Holy shit!… It’s about fucking time!” I called out to the air in case the Mystery Angel could hear.

The sticks had fallen in clusters of two or three, crisscrossing each other to form runes.

“’The fat man has the key’.” I read.

Batty frowned.

“Who’s the Fat Man?”

I was too busy thinking to answer.

“’The fat man has the key’,” Lilith muttered to herself, thinking aloud. “’The fat man…’”

Her green eyes went wide.

“Crazy Avi!” we both said at the same time.

“You mean that man from the news report about Michael?” Vassago asked.

“Yes! It’s gotta be him. But- The key to what?” I wondered. “The key to finding Gabby? The key to stopping the bombs? Or what?”

“I don’t know, but we need to talk to Avi right away,” Lilith said. “We should go now. Vassago, if there’s any word from Henrich or Ammun you can call Cas’ cell phone.”

“Certainly,” our host replied. “Good luck.”

“I’m coming too,” Batty said, quickly getting up from the table.

Rash rushed to Batty’s side.

“I wanna come too! I can help!”

I shook my head.

“I don’t think so. It could get dangerous. You’d better stay here.”

Batty looped an arm around Rash’s arm.

“I’ll protect him. I’ll keep him with me at all times. Please?” she pleaded.

I knew they’d been hanging out together a lot, but it was only now that I realized just how close Rash and Batty had become lately.

The bubbly, sweet angel and the dumbass, horndog Human. They made quite the odd couple.

I shrugged.

“All right, but I still think it’s a bad idea,” I gave in. “You can carry him there though.”