Fallen (55 page)

“Gershom is a friend of mine
from
school. He knows these…people.”

“Are ‘these people’ from your school?” asked Ezra.

“Yes…and no. I-I think they came to school to find me,” I said.

Ezra was now standing. “You mean you’ve been going to
school with these
people?”

Fin
ally, at least Ezra was alarmed.

“Not all of them. Listen…Gershom knows them better than I do.”

Ezra didn’t bother to sit back down. Instead, she turned to face Gershom, not intending to but very much looking like a mother who’d just found out her son was ditching school.

“Um…yes, I can explain.” He leaned forward in his chair propping his elbows on his knees. “I
…
uh
…
I’ll start with
Abaddon
…”

At the sound of that name, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Ezra, Felix, and Rufus each turned to look at
one
other but by the time I’d glanced in their direction they were back to staring at Gershom.

“
Abaddon
, well, he’s
…he’s…
”

Rufus growled and said, “Wouldya just spit it out already?”

Gershom shook at Rufus’s
ferocity
and replied
, streaming his words together.
“
He’s seen what Maggie is capable of. He knows that she can destroy him…and all others like him. Her very existence threatens him
.”

He paused and glanced around the room, waiting for acknowledgement that everyone understood him and
grasped
the severity of his message.

“
I see
,” said Ezra, unshaken.
“Go on.”

Gershom’s face conveyed no affect to Ezra’s nonchalance as he began to speak again.
“Abaddon has been sending his followers to find and to…to kill Maggi
e b
efore she can do the same to them. And he’s here now…looking for her.”

“Does he feel this way because of her ability to speak with the dead?” Ezra asked, sounding as if she were a detective interviewing a witness.

Gershom’s eyebrows ros
e. “That
…that’s
very insightful
.”
Gershom
paused
and
turned to me
. “
Maggie, you returned to earth fully human.” He glanced around the room uncertain. When no one bristled at this statement, he continued. “
So what
you don’t know is that you’re involved in a war that has been in existence for centuries.
Many lifetimes ago, you came here to exterminate Fallen Ones. Since then y
ou and Abaddon have hunted each other, battled each other,
during
every incarnation on earth.
It was only the last time you incarnated
that
a battle between all Fallen Ones and your…well, your kind…r
age
d
for days
,
and it
was thought
that we were eradicated
. But
the F
allen Ones
did survive, staying hidden…until your return. There is bad blood between you and Abaddon
, centuries of it, and n
othing will stop him in finding you and killing you.”

“
If
he can find her,”
Rufus
suggested
, determined
.

“That won’t be a problem,” Gershom said wistfully. “
He senses
her
.”

“Sense
s
? What does that mean?” asked Felix, speaking up for the first time. His stoic expression hadn’t
budged
since I spoke with him in The Square and I was amazed at how well he could hold himself together during times of emergency. “How does one sense another person?”

Gershom was incredibly shaken up being in the same room as my family and it occurred to me that it may be because he didn’t have any family of his own. That thought filled me with sadness and I answered the question to help
him
shake the feeling. “We
sense
each other
when we’re near
without even trying.
My main sensor is the
hair on the back of my neck
. I
t goes crazy, standing on end…
among other reactions.”

I was thankful when I looked around the room and didn’t find them staring back as if I
was
crazy.

“Well…” said Rufus, calmly. “That must come in handy.”

“You have no idea…”

“And we…” Gershom paused uncomfortably. “They, I mean, feel electricity run through their bodies when she is near.”

“Okay,
so this
Abaddon
character…What can you tell us about him, Gershom?” asked Ezra
, taking a seat again,
coolly
watching him
.

“The most impo
rtant thing you need to know is
…well, he has this ability
to control your
movement
.
A form of telekinesis
but
far stronger.
”

Gershom and I waited for them to respond. What he was explaining was commonplace for him and
for
me
but to them it would
sound
strange, impossible even.

Instead, Ezra nodded
serenely.

Again, my roommates weren’t
taken aback
.
I
t took me a momen
t to
figure out the reason and when I came to it I instantly relaxed a little
. T
hey were shock-proof. After years on the psychic circuit, dealing with all types of individuals
,
certainly ones with questionable sanity, they were more prepared than most to hear this news.

As if Gershom read my mind, he threw up his hands lightly and asked, “How-
how
is it that none of you are surprised by any of this?”

The three of them chuckled together but it was Ezra who answered.

“Gershom, having traveled around the world, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen on the road.”

“Ay, this is nothin’,” added Rufus.

Felix shrugged one shoulder and nodded
in
agreement.

When
Ezra
spoke again, I quickly found the nearest vacant chair before my legs collapse
d under me
.

“I’d have to say
Abaddon
may have been the cause of a few of our friends disappearing along the way.”

Felix and Rufus nodded in agreement.

“Do you think you know him?” I asked, leaning forward, reminding myself to breath, unable to contain my anxiety.

“Actually…I think we’ve been introduced.”

Gershom and I glanced at each other,
completely shocked.

“If I recall, he didn’t travel alone
,
though.”

“That’s right,” said Gershom, more relaxed now. Apparently his
angst
was partly the challenge of explaining something to others assumedly unable to comprehend it. Thankfully, this issue had been resolved.

Gershom s
poke freely from that point on.

“Maggie, that’s why I left
, as
more o
f his group appeared at school.
I figured he would follow shortly. Unfortunately, that was indeed the plan.” He gave me an over
whelmed grin and continued. “So,
to give you all an understanding of what we’re up against…
Abaddon
start
ed collecting
his followers one by one. The first was Sarai. She is his daughter who followed him here and she’s just as deadly. She has
the
unique ability to make any man
,
who she speaks directly to
,
fall in love with her. Not a balanced, well-meaning, healthy
kind of
love but a sad, painful one that leaves the man tearful and desperate. I’ve been conscientious and thankfully have never felt the affect but it does not look pleasant.
Although she seems to have control over the level of lust and
obsession
she can create in her victims, she typically doesn’t hold any of it back.
So…” Gershom addressed Rufus and Felix. “…if she attempts to speak to you
, if you see the smallest hint that she is addressing you, try to get out of earshot
.
This will be challenging because…well,
I’ve actually never seen anyone successfully evade it. Just do your best to avoid her at all cost
s
. The good
news
is that
this affect, this power
,
lasts only
until she leaves.
Unfortunately, she uses her ability
merely
to debilitate
,
so most men don’t survive that long
.”

“
Wonderful
…” Rufus muttered
sarcastically
.

Felix
didn’t appear
concerned, which didn’t surprise me.

“Then there’s
Elam
. When
Abaddon
isn’t around,
Elam
acts as the paternal overseer. They picked him up in the
Tower
of
London
while
he was
working as
an executioner. He’s said to have been the one to execute Anne Boleyn and
he
enjoyed doing it. The makeup of the human body has
intrigued
him ever since.”