We were given two lists this week on Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction challenge... and asked to make a title from the two lists. I chose these two words because they jumped out and smacked me in the face! Enjoy!
Anna held the book to her chest as she ran
down the dark London street. It didn’t
look like anyone was after her, but over the last few weeks – since being sent
this damned book – she’s had people after her.
This was the third city she had landed in and the third city she was
running around in to try and lose them.
And the one thing she knew was that she had to get her butt to the
Watcher’s Council to hand the book over.
Pausing on the corner of the street, she
looked left and right, then up at the building across from her, chanted a
phrase in Latin in her head and closed her eyes. For a split second the world switched off –
went quiet – and then came back on. When
she opened her eyes, she was in the foyer of the building she had been looking
at… but she had used her last stores of energies to get inside. As she looked over her shoulder to see if
they had followed her, she staggered a little, fell to one knee and looked up
to see a few blurry people rushing toward her to catch her as her world turned
dark.
She woke in an office on a lounge with a
blanket over her. Every muscle hurt and
her feet tingled then hurt then tingled again.
Sitting up slowly, she found the book on the table next to her. Picking it up, she held it close to her
again.
“Hello Anna.” A man she hadn’t noticed sat
not far from her by the window. He had
looked over at her when she picked up the book, “Where did you get that book?”
“It was sent to me by my father.” She said
looking at its worn leather cover, “And since I’ve gotten it, I haven’t had
time to study it.”
He leaned forward in the chair, “Do you know
what it is?”
“No.”
“Then, how did you teleport inside here?”
“I’m not sure.” She shook her head, “But it
wiped me out.”
He nodded, “Indeed it did. But you now have time to study your book…
would you like something to eat?”
It took Anna only a few days to learn she
wasn’t exactly what she thought she was.
Her father sent her the book because he had died and she had to take
over as representative in the family business.
She had been shielded from it for a long time, until now; until she
received the book. Reading the text, she
realised she was part of much bigger thing than she thought, but could she
believe in such things?
She looked up from the last few pages as she
was let in on the secret to fulfilling her quest to the family business… to
acquiring full knowing of everything she needed to know. To know what?
She wasn’t sure.
“So?” the man asked as he walked into the
room and waited, “What has the book told you?”
“Not much.” She lied.
He folded one arm across his stomach while
the fingers of the other hand absently stroked his chin, ‘Don’t lie to me,
Anna.’ A voice entered her head as he glared at her from the door.
Rising, she closed the book and left the
room, “Get out of my head!”
As the door slammed, he winced, “Dammit.”
She found the room she had been given and
locked herself inside it. Opening the
book to one page she had marked with a post-it note, she re-read the part she
couldn’t believe:
‘… and
just how am I going to tell you at the right time, my dear Anna, exactly what you
are and where you really come from?... However, all I can do now is hope you’re
ready for what is coming for you – what you’re about to endure and about to be
confronted with…’
She sighed, what the hell was he talking
about? Dammit, she was human… wasn’t she? Well, if she was, exactly how did she
teleport herself inside a building from across a busy London street? It was late.
She was tired. Anna went to bed.
A loud noise woke her. But the place was in absolute darkness. She was at the ready as she grabbed the book,
pulled on her shoes and jacket and opened the window of her room. Shoving the book into the pocket inside her
jacket, and strapping it in, Anna climbed up onto the window sill, swung her
leg around and began to climb up the side of the building. As she moved, taking deep breaths, she felt
as though she had done this a hundred times before and knew where to put her
feet and hands.
Then, she slipped a little as she came to
the top ledge of the building. A sinking
feeling her gut gripped her, but before she plunged to her death, a massive
clawed talon reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her up effortlessly onto
the roof.
“Anna Montgomery I presume?” he thunderous
voice whispered.
Her eyes took in his massively muscular form
from the huge feet to the hooked winged tips towering over her, “Um… yes. So long you don’t kill me… I am.”
He smiled, “I am not allowed to harm you or
allow harm to come to you.”
“Shit.” She whispered, “So, what do we do
now?”
His kind eyes looked down at her, “You have
your father’s diary?” she nodded, “Good, you know what you are then.”
“No.”
“He didn’t say?”
“No.”
“It is written in Ancient Law from thousands
of years ago that you were and have always been Annabellia the Great Queen and
Master of the Gargoyles… we are made from Orichalcum and you are the only one
who can tell us what to do in any country all over the globe.”
“I read about that… it’s mainly used in
Ancient Rome for coins.”
“And they made gargoyles like me from it too…
and they made you as well; to start with.” He muttered, “Then, you became part
human and part angelic, you were immortal to some impossible to others… a name
was given to you.”
“What name?”
The massive creature looked down at her, “The
Orichalcum Mechanism. You come but once
in a lifetime; and in each lifetime you look exactly like you are now, with all
the power and knowledge imbedded in your mind… until now, where you must learn
it from your father’s journal.” He snorted, “However, we must search for the
right journal to inform you better.” Suddenly he turned to the roof door, “They
arrive, hurry, climb on! Your life is in
danger seeing as you don’t know your full power, I shall have to protect you
further until you know who you fully are!”
Anna and this huge creature she barely knew
flew off the building and across the London skyline with people watching on
after them. It was with sudden knowledge
she knew his name… Kelwin – the very first of his kind. She was indeed the Orichalcum Mechanism; as
her mind suddenly threw open doors she thought weren’t there and poured out
knowledge she thought was just weird stuff her Dad told her about. She was everything he had insisted she was.
