Headfirst into war
The five people rose from their table in the little cafe, much information exchanged, but many more questions as yet unanswered. They had laid some brief plans for how they hoped to get some of those answers, and were about to begin to walk the path toward actualizing those plans.
Josh seemed to be feeling the effects of the travel and busy day, and followed along more on autopilot than with any particular interaction of his mind. He was clearly still a little confused at a lot of the things that were said over the coffee, but apparently trusted Lynne to bring him up to speed on anything he missed, or just plain did not understand.
Melanie, while clearly tired, remained by Karen's side as the group exited the little cafe. She was clearly not quite ready to head for the hotel room just yet.
The time was almost 10 pm, almost 28 hours after the Silence. New York city was still very much alive at this hour, but the feel was different from the bustle of the day. The sky above was remarkably clear, though faded into the neon glow of the reflected city lights, and the stars and moon above seem unremarkable and distant.
Lynne hung back, hands in her pockets, and let the others walk ahead of her -- her face softened as she watched the cherubim. Josh trudged beside her out of habit, his expression blanked by weariness and uncertainty, concentrating as much on putting one foot in front of the next as much as anything else. Sensing that some reassuring comment was required, the Mercurian waved in a vaguely upwards direction, "Look," she said to him, "the stars are coming out..." She sounded more certain of herself, less edgy than she had done all day.
The man sighed and followed her gaze briefly, steering her away from a street lamp. "Whatever."
"I know its been rough..." she blinked back to him and took his arm absently.
Josh just shook his head, "L, I'm so tired I can hardly think. I'm glad you've met some .. umm .. friends.. but I still don't see why..."
"They look different from this side of the Atlantic, I think that one must be the Pole Star."
He glanced upwards again and shrugged, defeated. "Yeah, must be...."
The group moved out onto the streets, walking the short distance back to the public library, and the entities there in. Raphael, angel of healing, Selindeal, seneschal of the library tether, and last, Ashikel, impudite of unknown service, each in their own way, waiting for the group to return.
The first sound of the trouble came then, as they walked quietly upon the sidewalk toward the library. It re-echoed, not in mundane ears, but ripping and tearing at the acute other world senses of the celestials. All save Josh heard it, even Melanie's few years of training were more than enough to pick up this particular noise.
Chaotic, almost random, yet profoundly disturbing, the counter-symphonic perturbation was like nothing any of the angels had heard in well over a thousand years. Characteristic, unified and defined, the sounds were possessed of a peculiar tone and cadence, like the arrhythmic beat of a thousand drums, some beaten till destruction. It was painfully reminiscent of the first notes out of the Order that each angel remembers to have heard. But, because of that unique nature of the sound, it was not difficult to identify.
It was the sound of a Prince of Hell corporeally manifesting in the Mundane world.
And it was coming from the library.
Lynne stumbled and stopped dead as the echoes flood the sidewalk, and her head jerked round to the library like an iron filing to a magnet. "Wha...?"
Her servant did a double-take and stared at her blankly, then looked to the others for their reactions. It was as though another veil of incomprehension drops across his face. He started to phrase the words "Are you all right?" to the group in general and to reach automatically for his camera, when he was interrupted.
Karen gasped as she heard the sound, glancing at the others to see if they heard it while breaking into a run. "Oh no! Not now! Raphael is far too weak! We have to get there." She turned an angry glance at Jason, although the anger wasn't entirely directed towards him, "If Raphael comes to harm because of Ashikel, talking won't be what I do to her when I find her!"
Jason stops short as he hears and identifies the Symphonic Disturbance. "Oh Shit." he exclaimed succinctly, before starting to run toward the library.
Muttering obscenities under her breath, Lynne pulled herself up and broke into a dead run. "Come on," she said sharply, "They're going to need to get the hell out of there! And everyone in the city will have heard that!"
Melanie looked a little afraid as she broke into a run to match Karen and the others. "Was that what I think it was?"
At Karen's nod her run slowed. "Um...in that case should we really be running towards it?" there was no response from Karen as she bolted into the library, and Melanie sped up to catch up with her, muttering something distinctly un-nice about Karen under her breath.
Galvanized into action, and letting reflex take over, Josh flipped off the lens cap on his camera and followed. His face was set and grim.
The run to the front steps of the library was short, but to the concerned celestials, seems an eternity. Each half expected to hear something else, something more in the symphony as they cover the distance, and their nerves are tuned with trepidation to the possibility of it.
Karen got to the steps first, Lynne behind her, followed by Jason and Melanie, and Josh on the end.
They entered the lobby at a rush, nearly bowling over a middle aged woman with an arm full of books. She swore loudly at them in some Asian language as they sprinted past.
Karen sprinted straight on down the corridors in the direction of the echoes of the Disturbance. It was heading awfully close to where the group left Raphael and Selindeal.
Lynn, a few yards behind her, followed as quickly as she could.
Jason moved as fast and silent as possible down the familiar corridors toward where he left Selindeal and Raphael. His senses alert, he picked out the exact location of the manifestation. It was not five yards from where he had left Ashikel. He tried to shush the others and make them move more quietly, but they ware beginning to really out distance him.
Down stairs, more corridors, then an open area filled with neat book shelves. The group neared an intersection in the stacks. Ahead, about 20 metres down the centre of the room, was the reading room where Raphael and Selindeal had been, one of four such rooms along that wall. Sight was obscured by the last of the bookshelves. To the left, down between two shelves, about 15 metres, was the centre of the Disturbance. Five metres beyond that, was where Jason left Ashikel in another small room.
On this floor, the group spotted two people. The first, a young African American man in casual clothes, was in the far corner of the room, near the door to the stairs, eyes wide, look of terror written across his face.
The second lay on the ground, at this exact spot. She was about sixty or so, Caucasian, and was clutching at her purse on the ground, in a comma shape on her side that neared the foetal position. There was a gash on the side of her forehead from which blood ran free.
Lynne sprinted down the corridors after Karen, taking the stairs two or three at a time, but as they arrived at the intersection her attention switched to the mortals.
"Was it here? This precise spot?" She murmured to the cherubs. She was absently rubbing at her ears and twitching stray strands of hair back into place, even as she looked down on the old woman with strained concern -- it was a very grown-up, tired expression, but she stood back to let Jason handle it. She took in the man in the corner with another strained smile, trying to ignore the din and extended her perceptions towards the mortals as best she could and sent what was supposed to be a reassuring smile to Melanie, then she glanced back instinctively to locate Josh.
Jason, just behind her, replied "The Prince arrived near Ashikel... " he pointed to the left, and seems about to continue, when he was interrupted.
Until this moment, there had been no secondary symphonic distortions...
Until this moment, that is.
This time, the causing event was cloaked under the echo of the previous perturbation. It was much harder to pick out its reason, but due to the proximity, it was not hard to spot its location. It was coming from straight ahead, from the room where Raphael and Selindeal had been.
Its sound was strange, like a hollow hall filled with people that all simultaneously spoke/sang one word, but in a language no one could understand. There were individual voices screeching something different intermingled with this new sound, and it cut across it, amplifying and mingling. Some small echoes came from the left, but they were even harder to pick out.
The cacophony was really quite tremendous. If any celestials were sleeping in New York, they were not now. In fact, the same probably goes for New Jersey and half of New York State.
Again the Mercurian's head snapped round like a pointer and she swallowed hard, bracing herself against the noise instinctively. This time, rather than swearing, her lips moved in a silent prayer.
The group paused for the briefest of moments at the sound. All were present, some ahead and some behind.
Jason stiffens as this new sound broke across the Symphony. He listened closely and seemed to be picking individual pieces out of the disturbance.
"A celestial just murdered a mortal...and Raphael just healed someone on a scale I have _never_ experienced before, so I guess s/he is OK...and I think some more celestials just arrived, and someone else seems to have left...but it is hard to tell."
�A mortal?" Lynne breathed ... "Here or in there?" She was trembling, but it didn't seem to be with fear, and her eyes were very bright.
Jason replied hurriedly. "The mortal was murdered either there," included his head to the left, "Or in the room with Raphael and Selindeal." he pointed forward.
"None of the arrivals, if that is what the next disturbance was, were Princes or Archangels, and there were less than 5, if there were any. They arrived, and someone probably departed, from one of the two previously mentioned places."
Karen had rushed ahead towards the room where Raphael was. She pauses momentarily at the new disturbance and could probably make out Jason's words. Melanie in turn was a bit freaked out by the sheer force of what was going on and stood stunned for a few moments.
Lynn glanced at Karen, who had raced ahead, then to Jason, steadied herself and dashed again for the room from which the sound emanated, letting the cherub go first, since that was what she wanted to do, without another backwards glance.
A concerned look crossed Jason's face, and he spoke, half to himself, half after the backs of the two angels running ahead, "It would not surprise me if Ashikel's Prince came for her, killing the Tether's attendant and wounding (badly) someone else who Raphael healed. Then the Prince left when Raphael or Selindeal brought in reinforcements. But that is just a guess."
Melanie overheard this, and gasped. A grim look of determination came over her, and she drew her service pistol, and moved steadily toward the door ahead.