I had to
send Jessie home at eleven; her parents had her on a curfew after one too many
long research nights. They did it more to flex their muscles than because of
what she was doing. They would rather she be out working for me than getting into
trouble again, but they had to maintain their authority somehow. It was their
last chance to do so as she would start college in the fall.
Jen,
though, was a trooper, and, as I though, had managed to bribe the librarians
into letting us stay. Kate was the only Storm Rider to stick with us. The
others, hopefully, went to recover from their injuries. I was just glad not to
have them nipping at my heels.
Kate sat
across from me trying to look over that list I had jotted down. I had circled
various aspects of their description to try and narrow down who their fallen
angel might be.
“How the
fuck are you even still working on this? It’s not like facial recognition or
something. How will you know you found the right guy?”
“I won’t.”
I turned the page, carefully studying the diagram.
“What?”
“That’s
nowhere near enough to go off of. Worse, most of the stuff on angels is junk.
Modern interpretations or wild speculations. Even the decent stuff from the
Middle Ages is mostly guesswork.”
“So that’s
it? I thought the answer was supposed to be in one of these books!”
“This isn’t the movies, doll. We
don’t get out a dusty old book inked in blood and animal skin to magically find
the answer we need. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have a job.”
“So what do we do? We’ve got
nothing!”
“Didn’t say
that. Jen?”
“Yep,
violet,” she pointed to a passage in her book. “That seems to be the one. The
stole is symbolic of the binding of Christ at the passion, along with other
pieces. That’s probably as close as we’re going to get.”
“Yeah.
Sounds like we’ve got our longshot. Now, do we go historic or modern?”
“What are
you two talking about?” Kate passed looks between us.
“I’ve got a
couple of museums. Nothing by any particularly famous priests, but they are
historic, so that might work a little better.”
“Silk?”
“Yep.”
“Good. They
should hold up the best. They’re not frayed or anything?”
“Matt, I
will fucking shock you if you don’t start explaining this.” Kate made a claw
out of one of her hands. I remembered the lightning that would arc between her
fingers.
“One is,”
Jen went on, unperturbed. “The other is in pristine condition. In Ireland. Best
of all, they’ve got the complete vestments.”
I looked
up. “All three elements?”
She
grinned. “Yep.”
“Well, that
settles that, then. Okay, good news. We’ve got a way for you to bind the fallen
angel. You can wrap him up tight, even put a bow on him. All of his powers
should be, well, suppressed is the best word I can think of, here.”
“What do
you mean suppressed?” Kate asked.
“I mean
what should be a bonfire will be taken down to a candle. I hope.”
“You hope?”
“This isn’t
an exact science. We’re dealing with belief power here. Anyway, that’s the easy
stuff. This,” I plopped the book in front of her, “is where it gets hard.”