Journal Entry 19

The warm morning sun woke me up about thirty minutes ago.  I just pulled into the Fed’s camp.  I will hide the journal in the glove compartment.

Journal Entry 18

I’m sitting alone in Jacob’s car, staring out the window into the desert night.  The black emptiness seems to swell around me.  I can feel my breath quickened.  The overwhelming open space outside is making me claustrophobic.  If it wasn’t for the speck of light from the Fed’s encampment, I’d panic.   I’m truly alone.  And, I don’t like it.  How did I get here?

Within a couple miles of our destination, Jacob had slammed on the breaks and pulled over to the side of the road.  “This isn’t right.”  He jumped out of the car and stared down the country deserted road.  Lights and tents could be seen in the distance.  “I knew the Feds were searching, but I didn’t know they had a base camp here.”

The air was cool and dry and smelled of sage.  An animal’s howl could be heard.

I gave Jacob all the information I could had.  “The Feds said that they are conducting sweeps of this area.  Given the timeline before they caught Jackson at that gas station, they must’ve figured she’d be somewhere along this road.  If Jackson hadn’t been lying.

“They know where we gotta go.”

“The Feds?”

“The Morning Stars.  The nexus point is a couple miles passed the Feds camp.  It must be the closest one to that gas station where Jackson killed that gas station attendant. 

“Nexus?” I asked.

Jacob kept his eye on the distant camp.  “There’re only certain places you can call a Jinni or communicate with the other side.  Elliot, that cowboy that stopped you the first time, knows where they all are.  The Morning Stars sent him to stop you from calling a Jinni.  They know where we’re going.  We only have one place to go.”

“Do you know where another one is?”

“No, but it don’t matter.  This be it.  Each one is completely different.  Our bag of goodies won’t necessarily work at a different one.  My hunch is that there isn’t another one close anyways.  That’s how Elliot knew to stop you where he did.  Joe the Barber is gonna be waitin’ for us.  His men probably infiltrated the Fed’s camp already, waiting for us to drive by.  They were probably here from day one.”

“How do you know?”

“Cause I use to be in Joe’s crew.”

“I’m more afraid of that cowboy.  That guy was scary with a gun,” I told Jacob.

“He won’t be here.  They don’t need him anymore.  He’s more of a hired assassin than a Morning Star.  He comes from the old days when the Protectors fought.”

I ignored the obvious question and asked, “What do we do?”

Jacob turned off the car.  “We walk.  This area is flat and in a valley.  If we wait for daybreak, they’ll see us for sure.  Right now, we can walk right passed their camp.”

“We are going to walk through the desert at night?”

Jacob rubbed his chin.  “I’ll go by myself. You get some sleep.  Wait for daybreak and then drive to the Fed’s camp.   Chat them up.  The Morning Stars will focus on you, and I’ll sneak to the nexus point and get Avery’s location.”

“Why are the Morning Stars so bent on not saving Avery?”

Jacob leaned against the car, thinking.  “They got a crew working around the clock trying to find her.  Likely, that Fed camp gots Joe’s men as well as a crew who is just looking for Avery.  They just can’t let you contact an angel to help you.  Jinni’s can be vicious.  The Morning Stars are afraid of them, and they should be.”

“Have you used them before?”

“Not from this side.”  Jacob cleared his throat.  “I used to be on the other side.  I could see angels since I was a kid.  My moms thought it was blessing from God.  She worked in the church ever since my pops died.  She thought Jesus was the answer to the ghetto’s thug life.  She didn’t know that they were the suppliers.  Drugs, prostitutes, whatever you need.  All came from the church.  As soon as my minister knew that I could see the angels, I became his errand boy.  I worked with the angels.  They were scary, even from the other side.”

“How’d you escape?”

“Just like everyone else.  Realized that the morals my moms taught me were not what the preacher practiced.  I got rid of my own watcher, left Chicago, and ran to bright sunny California.  Left my moms, just like my pops did.”

“Your Dad’s in the Morning Stars too?”

“No, he was a junkie.  But in my mom’s eyes, there ain’t no difference.  She don’t know why I left.  There’s no community there, like here.  She wouldn’t have been safe.  I’ve seen angels erase memories, replace Watchers, and execute rebels.  It’s not pretty.  I really don’t know what a Jinni is going to do from this side of the line.  I do know that they do what the master says.  I’ll call the angel and ask it to find Avery.  You keep those Feds on you.  We’ll find her before you know it. ”

Jacob took both guns and left before I could muster up the courage to protest.  I guess if I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to go with, I’m not brave enough to go along.  So, here I am alone in Jacob’s care.  Waiting for day break.

Journal Entry 17

This ride through the desert is a nightmare.  I got my last memory back.  The memory I hadn’t written down.  The last missing memory.  The day the charm shop burned to the ground.  The day I didn’t want to save Avery.

First.  The order of things:

1. Jacob found me the night I lost Heather.  He offered to find Avery.
2. Jackson died in prison.  Jacob took me to Jenna.
3. Drove out to the desert and failed to summon a Jinni.
4. Lost my memory for the first time.
5. Went back to the charm shop by myself desperate to retrace my steps to Avery.  For some reason Jenna attacked me.  Joe the Barber saved my life.
6. Lost my memory again.
7. Went back to the charm shop with my sister (last missing memory).  If it hadn’t been for her I would’ve never have gone.
8. Lost my memory for a third time.  Turns out I kicked Jacob in the balls and killed an angel.
9. Jacob caught up with me, removed my Watcher, and helped me get all of these memories back by showing me the angel at the lotto station.
10. I hid in a motel waiting for my last memory with this hidden coordinates while Jacob got the necessary ingredients to redo the spell.
11. Joe the Barber tried to kill me.  Jacob rescued me.
12. Now, we are on the run.  Trying to get to 33.11685,-114.292145.

I had woken up the day after Joe’s men shot up the charm shop with no memory of the previous day, no memory of Jacob, no memory of going to the desert to find Avery.  I found my journal under my pillow like I did (and will) the next morning.  I read it.  There was a new entry that I didn’t remember writing.  Journal entry 10.  I didn’t believe it.  I’ve been writing in this journal since I found it, but have no memory of any of the entries that involved angels or Morning Stars.  It was all too convenient.  I didn’t believe it.

“I have to find Avery!  I have to remember what happened!” I violently pulled myself out the torment.  I vomited out the Jacob’s car window as he raced down the highway. 

I remembered everything that has happened to me before and after that missing memory, but the person living the memory didn’t.  It was me, but a past me.  He wouldn’t go after Avery.  The journal was too unbelievable to him.  His car was in his garage, there was no black guy at his door.  He couldn’t hear the real me begging for me to find Avery.  His knee ached a little, but he had to think logically.  It was his imagination.  He read the journal again.  My heart sank.  The first time it took me days to decide to find the charm shop.  The second (third) time Jacob chased me out of my house.  This time, this me decided to call my sister.  She came right over.

“Go to the first shop!” I shouted at myself, while I waited for my sister. 

“You’re making it worse,” I heard, but it wasn’t my voice.  It was Jacob’s.  “Just relax and let it happen.  Like you’re watching movie.  We’ll find Avery before you know it.”

I relaxed and slipped back into my memory.  I made a chi tea latte, Heather’s favorite, while I waited for my sister.  I just wanted to feel normal.  I convinced myself that my knee felt fine while I sipped my wife’s favorite drink.

When my sister arrived, I showed her the journal.  I lied about the middle entries.  I told her that I found the journal exactly as is.  I didn’t want to confuse things.

“Let’s just drive by the shop.  Maybe what we need is a dose of reality.” 

“I should be committed.  This is my handwriting, which means I wrote this and have no memory of doing it.  You want to take me to the scene of the crime.  I’ll probably lapse into some sort of episode and kill us both.”

“I know you.  Whatever this is, a shrink will just make you go farther into your hole.  You hate them.”

“I’m taking myself in”

“No, you called me because you’re afraid this all might be true.  Well, it’s not.  You’ve been through a lot.  There isn’t some mystical reason.  There are assholes in this world that kill people because they like it.  We lost two good people-”

“One.”

“Yes, Avery is still out there.  The FBI won’t stop until they find her.  We’re not going to the shop to find Avery.  We’re going to keep you sane.”

My sister was smart, collected, and practical.  I had always relied on her to keep me grounded even before this tragedy.  We got in her car and drove to the shop in my journal. 

We went to Beautiful Charms.  Nothing.  No bullets, no broken glass, no damage of any kind.  I wasn’t surprised, but I needed more. 

My sister moved to open her car door, but I grabbed her hand.  “Wait.  Who wrote this journal, if not me?  It’s my handwriting.”

“This shop is actually here in one piece.  We should go inside.”

“Aren’t you scared that we’re going to be attacked by a teen gymnast and then shot up by gangbangers.”

My sister laughed.  “Maybe we should run back to your house and search your pots for that gun.”

I became stern.

“Journal entry 6.  You put the gun in one of your pots.  You think you would of read your own journal.”

“This notebook is in my handwriting.  If we go in there and none of this is true, then… then I’m crazy.  I must of wrote this last night and I’ve got some kind of crazy split personality disorder.”

“Or someone is playing a cruel trick on you.”  She thumbed through the journal.  “We’re going in there and seeing if this shop is as described.  If it is, we’re taking this to the police.”  My sister put the journal in the glove box.  “This is our evidence if someone kills us in there.  Or if you kill us for that matter”

“I called you so that you can keep me sane.  I just lost my wife and the guy who murdered her hid my daughter and committed suicide.  Avery’s probably dead.”

“She’s alive until some tells you she’s dead.”

“You’re supposed to keep me sane.”

“Let’s find out if you are.”  My sister got out of the car.  “You coming?”

I followed her into the charm shop.  It was exactly as I described it in the journal.  My sister walked up to the rack of snap bracelets and turned back to me bugged eyed.  I looked to the counter.  It was male teen.  I breathed a sigh of relief, but it didn’t last.

My stomach dropped.  The teenager’s face was like stone.  He glared past us like we didn’t exit.  I grabbed my sister’s hand. 

“We need to leave,” I whispered.

“I can’t,” she said. 

The teen tilted his head slightly for a moment.  It shook violently and in an instant he was right in front of us.  We couldn’t flinch.  We were petrified.

The teenager was an angel.  I knew it then as I know it now, but I don’t know how.  It wasn’t invisible like before (or will be).  There was no denying what it was or is.  In a flash, I gained my memory of Jacob.  The first time we met, the first time I went to the charm shop, the first time I saw an angel in the desert.  I remembered that I needed to find Jacob to save Avery.

“Do you not fear God?” the angel hissed.  “Even those that follow the fallen fear him.”  The angel smiled a set of jagged teeth from behind its teenage lips.

Another voice came from behind us. “Ireul?”

“Go forth messenger.  Seraphim is needed,” the angel commanded the voice.

“What drives you human?”  The angel stared right into my eyes, giving only inches between our faces.  “Fear should.  Your race has spent centuries trying to drive it from your souls as though it’s a curse.  You have bastardized love for this.  Those of you that use your creator’s love to conquer your fear of him shall burn in hell.

Life came back to my limbs.  Love, I thought.  Avery, I thought.  I cared little of God and this angel.  Avery was what I wanted.

I punch the angel right in the jaw.  It was like punching a metal tree.  The angel picked me up by the front of my shirt with one hand and slammed me into the floor.  “How is it that you keep on finding your way back here?” 

My sister suddenly came to life.  She took a step forward.  The angel let me go and spread its wings.  “My powers are gone!” it announced.  Then, another set of wings covered its face and another set covered its feet.  It lunched through the ceiling and flew away. 

My sister covered her head and ran over to me.  “What happened?”

“That angel was going to kill me.”

“What angel?”

“Did you not see that teenager behind the counter?”

My sister shook her head.  “We need to get out of here before this whole building collapses.”

I took off running to the back room.  I remembered going in there to meet Jenna.  I had to see if she was there.  I had to see if I could get another chance to find Avery.  I ran through the beaded curtain.  The room was empty.  Just white painted walls.

“Andrew, get out here,” my sister cried.

I ran back out to find the building was on fire.  It spread quickly.  We ran through the front door where we were met by a bright light. 

…

The memory was over.  I immediately asked Jacob questions, “Is my sister okay?”

“You and your sister were put back into your homes after your memories were erased.  It’s their standard protocol.”

“How did my notebook get back under my pillow?  Where did my car go?”

Jacob didn’t answer.  He slowed the car as we passed by a ton of flashing lights.  “Cops been searching day and night.  They got no idea what their looking for.  All I know is that they found Jackson in this area.”

“Can’t you use your contacts in the police station to let them know where Avery is.”

Jacob continued to drive.  “That’s the plan.  We summon a jinni.  Find out where she is.  And then get the flatfoots to take her out.”