Veiled (25 page)

“
Interesting. You’ve done
better than I thought you would,” Agatha said, surprised by their
initiative.

Amanda and Anthony beamed
at the high praise they got from Agatha.

“
Make sure this mortal
gets to this book without any problems and that she is supplied
with all that she needs along the way so she does not die of hunger
or anything. Mortals are so fragile. In fact…shower her with
riches! She will serve us better then.”

Agatha shook her head as if
that existence was beneath her, then remembered that she would soon
be one of them, just another average mortal walking the Earth void
of any memories of who she really was. The thought made her
grimace—yet another reminder of her hate for Tess.

Eugenia was silent now and
a little angry at the turn of events. She liked it better when
things went badly for Agatha.

“
May I ask how you two got
to the physical world to begin with?” Eugenia asked.

“
The door in the records
vault. We snuck through there while that silly little Cherub
Reubium was filing lives away,” Anthony said haughtily.

“
Humph,” Eugenia replied.
She had used that door herself many times, but thought it was her
exclusive knowledge. Now it seemed to be common knowledge and she
didn’t like it.

“
Eugenia, didn’t you have
something to report as well?” Agatha addressed her with a fast
extinguishing patience.

“
I do, my Queen, though I
still don’t know why you would have me do such a menial
job?”

“
You don’t have to know!”
Agatha’s voice was a firm staccato.

“
Yes, you’ve mentioned
that before. Anyway…I have good news and bad. Which would you like
first?” She smiled a forced smile.

“
The Good,” Agatha said as
she mimicked the smile.

“
Very well. She is
definitely up to something. She was taken off world by a Seraph
who…”

“
She was what, where?”
Agatha demanded.

“
I don’t know. That huge
Cherub, Kerubiel, blocked my way as I was trying to follow them.
Once he was gone, so were they, and I lost them.”

Eugenia said this casually,
knowing full well that—for some reason—this information was
important to Agatha and any bad news would bring displeasure to
her, and anything that brought Agatha displeasure, gave Eugenia
great satisfaction.

Agatha was about to demand
more information from Eugenia, but before she could do so, Eros
stormed in and loudly made his way forward. He was pushing spirits
aside as he came down the tunnel and into the hollow center, where
Agatha was.

He glided straight to her
side and whispered something in her ear. Agatha was not in the
habit of approving of such a casual act, but soon forgot all about
it when she heard the good news. Then she started pacing
again.

“
Um, excuse me?” Eugenia
said, irritated. “Should I continue or are we done
here?”

Agatha ignored her and kept
pacing.

“
What is the most
efficient way of hurting a spirit’s evolution?” Agatha asked out
loud, but no one knew who she was talking to, so no one answered
her right away.

“
You stunt their
development,” Eugenia said after a moment.

“
Exactly!” Agatha
exclaimed as she turned and fixed her gaze on Eugenia, forgetting
now the huge dislike she felt for her. “The complicated question is
how? How can we stunt a spirit’s growth at a time such as this,
when they are all so busy preparing and learning? When our only
duty is to study and learn?”

No one answered, Eugenia
pondered with interest.

“
Useless pursuits and
amusements,” a tired sounding voice said from the dark of the
cavern.

Agatha smiled broadly now.
“Yes…useless amusements. As you all know, we have at our disposal
all of the technological advancements that Earth will someday offer
a lucky generation. I had sent Eros, a while back, on a mission to
look for a device that would aid us in slowing down of the progress
of many spirits. Eros, would you like to explain what you have
found?”

Eros bowed low, and as he
rose his face wore a smug look. “It would be my privilege, my
Queen, to explain what I have found,” he said with an oily smile,
relishing the spotlight. “It is a device, a game of sorts, that is
very popular at the Square. It’s called a Virtual Life, and it
consists of a visor that attaches to the temples on each side of
the head. Once the visor is in place the game activates and the
player can choose with thought alone what game they want to play.
The player then directs the game mentally and doesn’t need to move
at all. In fact, the mind tricks one into thinking you are moving,
when in reality you are not.”

“
That is very interesting,
Eros, but I am aware of that game already and all the games from
those visors are based on Earth’s pastimes, and those are of no
interest to us spirits,” Eugenia commented.

Agatha looked positively
vexed at Eugenia. She was relentless in her quest to dethrone
her.

“
A minor inconvenience,”
Agatha said, dismissing her.

“
No, not minor. It is a
very real inconvenience, my Queen,” Eugenia corrected.

“
Not when you have already
thought of it and found a way to fix it!” Eros came forward and
stood his ground.

“
Please explain, Eros,
what you mean,” Agatha commanded.

“
Like I said, I was able
to think of that inconvenience already and found a spirit who is
able to re-program the game to suit.”

“
And who is this spirit
who is so willing to help us?” Eugenia asked with
suspicion.

“
Henry, from Russell’s
clan.” Eros said simply.

Disappointment washed over
Agatha’s face. “He would never agree to help us, Eros,” Agatha
reproached in a low voice.

“
What if he didn’t know he
was helping us? What if he thought he was on an actual Angelic
Mission?” Eros said slyly.

Marcel, who had kept
himself in the shadows until now, came forward and exchanged looks
with Eugenia.

“
How could he be so
gullible?” Marcel asked with that same bored sounding
voice.

“
He is clueless!” Eros
exclaimed. “All he cares about are his gadgets. He hasn’t even gone
to any of his Gifts classes in a long time. He spends all his time
in the technology district, tinkering.”

“
But surely you could have
found someone else to re-program the game. Henry is too close to
his clan. It wouldn’t take too much for them to figure out.” Agatha
was now worried.

“
No, no, no…he hasn’t seen
his clan in ages. I tell you he has removed himself completely from
them, and he even resents all the fancy Angelic Missions they are
so involved in. So I made it sound like I was working for the
Cherubs, and that they had sent me on an undercover mission. I
recruited him for this “very important” job, and told him that he
wouldn’t even have to go take all those troublesome classes in
order to do the work!” Eros finished and looked smugly around the
cave.

“
He must be a real idiot
to mistake you for a Herald,” Marcel sneered.

Eros narrowed his eyes and
looked venomously back at Marcel.

“
Idiot or not—he
accepted?” Agatha asked.

“
Yes,” Eros hissed. “In
fact, he has been working on it for a while already, and I have
brought back a sample of his work.”

Agatha snatched the device
that Eros produced from his robes and put it on. She remained
silent for a long time, and all the spirits present began to shift
and get bored.

“
Take that thing off of
her!” Eugenia demanded.

Eros looked unsure as to
whether he should do it or not, then slowly reached over, turned
the device off and removed it from Agatha’s head. She looked
disoriented for a moment as she looked around the cave, making sure
she was awake and not dreaming still.

“
It works!” she exclaimed.
“Very real…” Agatha tried to sound in control.

Eugenia and Marcel
exchanged amused glances.

“
What…” Marcel started to
ask, but was cut off by Eros.

“
The program is set to
mimic the spirit world, and to follow whatever the mind tells it to
do. It resembles something that mortals call REM—a deep sleep. In
this deep state of sleep one has access to the unconscious mind,
and it manifests itself in dream form. It is said to be very
real.”

Eros shot an anxious look
at Agatha, who seemed to be still recovering from the
experience—and she was. The game had opened her subconscious to
what she had been trying to reach, and she was still trying to
piece it together.

“
How many of these devices
can we have?” Agatha asked quickly, trying to take charge once
again.

“
As many as we want, but I
need help getting them all to Henry. These devices are spread all
over the spirit world.”

“
Get as many spirits as
you need working on that. In the meantime, tell Henry how pleased
the…Cherubs are with his work.” Agatha smiled contently.

Eugenia and Agatha exchanged
annoyed looks before Agatha dismissed them all. Eugenia thought
about giving Agatha the rest of her report, but decided against it.
She would keep the rest of her report to herself, just in case it
came in handy at some future point. She wasn’t sure why, but she
would find out what it was about Tess that Agatha was so interested
in—and when she did, she would use it to bring Agatha down from her
throne.

* * * * *

Chapter 22

“
Tess, can you hear me?”
Valerie whispered through the calling stone.

I was in the middle of my
Time Management class when she called, so I had to slip out to
respond.

“
Yes, Val, I can hear
you,” I told her.

“
I’ve had a premonition,
Tess. Henry is in trouble…and doesn’t know it.” Valerie’s voice was
still soft and heavy with worry.

“
What kind of trouble? And
you don’t have to whisper anymore.”

“
I do have to whisper. I’m
in the middle of a very important mission with a mortal that can
both see and hear me!”

“
Oh…”

“
Anyway…I just got this
premonition, but I can’t leave, so you will have to do something
about it,” she said, sounding a little annoyed now.

“
I’ll see what I can do,”
I told her, and thought back to the little encounter I had with
Henry not too long ago. But there was not much I could do about it
right now. My pendant was ordering me back to the Angelic Missions
building to wait for Dayspring.

Once there I found Celeste
and Dayspring already waiting for me, and not long after that Alex
flew in with a wide grin across his face. He came straight to me
and held me tightly.

“
I learned my
lesson…thanks to you,” he whispered in my ear. Then he picked me up
and jostled me a bit. “You are an angel.”

Apparently what I had told
him hit a chord. He stopped being so judgmental and started
noticing all the small things that made the mortals great. In the
end he grew to respect them and saw them as wise, in their own
right.

“
We have to go,” Dayspring
said, impatiently. “We don’t have the whole group, but we need to
leave right now, or we’ll be late.”

“
For what?” Celeste asked,
but Dayspring took off without an answer.

We did our best to keep up,
but she was very fast. Finally, Dayspring made her descent on the
coast of Antarctica. Everything was perfectly white, spiritual snow
looked just as white and barren as it did on Earth.

As soon as we were on the
surface, we were greeted by a huge oncoming snowball that hit Alex
square in the face. He wiped the slush off his eyes and with a
rueful smile scanned the landscape for the culprit. He couldn’t
find one before another ball hit him. Next ensued an all out snow
ball fight, that after extraneous effort on our part and even with
Dayspring’s help, we inevitably lost.

“
It’s all over,” a deep
voice called from a snow embankment that grew in size right in
front of us. Then the voice took the shape of an enormous Cherub,
who himself was as white as the snow.

“
Not until it’s over!”
Dayspring shouted from behind us. And in a flash she jumped over us
and pounced on the Cherub, knocking him down on the icy
ground.

The Cherub lay sprawled on
the ground and Dayspring had him pinned down with all four legs and
her tail. A loud laugh erupted from the pinned Cherub, but
Dayspring didn’t relax her grip.

“
Gotcha!” she
teased.

The Cherub looked helpless
for a moment, but with a sudden movement overpowered Dayspring and
turned her on her back, pinning her with his long limbs and one of
his wings—the tip of which had her tail.

“
Oh yeah?” he
grinned.

Dayspring looked positively
livid before she let her head fall back on the snow, in
defeat.