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Birds of Pray	By : Kittenmommy Category: M through R > Prophecy, The Views: 2168 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Prophecy movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
“Birds
of Pray”

Chapter
10

“The
Mystery That Was Gabriel”

*****

AUTHOR’S
NOTE: Unfortunately, they never gave Joseph a last name in any of the
Prophecy movies… so I gave him the last name of the
actor who played him.

*****

Greg
drove up the long, dusty, desolate highway that led to Chimney Rock.

He
still couldn’t believe he was on his way to attend Katie’s
funeral… how could so much have changed in only a week?

Katie
was dead, he’d broken up with Carolyn, and Gabriel was nowhere
to be found.

Greg
was still enraged that law enforcement wasn’t doing anything to
find Katie’s mysterious friend. Sure, the Coroner’s
Office had ruled that her death was due to natural causes, but who
has a stroke at the age of 42? As illogical as it was, he was
certain that Gabriel was somehow responsible.

And
with that in mind, he had spoken to the police and finagled his way
into Katie’s house, where he had taken photographs of those odd
drawings that Gabriel had left on her guest room walls… and
that was when he’d found the pile of big white feathers on the
bed, just like the feather that Katie had had in her hair that last
day they’d been together. Leave it to Gabe, Greg
had thought ruefully. He must’ve started collecting
them when he found out I’m allergic… that explains why I
always had an allergy attack whenever I came over here!

The
feather on the top of the pile was broken and stiff with dried blood
and would – Greg had guessed – provide a nice little DNA
sample for analysis. He hadn’t been sure why it
seemed so important to collect and collate this evidence, but
something had told him that these feathers were the key.

He’d
gotten an extra large Ziploc bag from the kitchen, and wearing rubber
gloves (and sneezing all the while), he’d put the feathers in
the bag and taken them to a contact he had in the Coroner’s
Office.

“I’m
not a vet,” Mike had said bluntly. “What do you
expect me to do with them?”

“Find
out what kind of bird they came from,” he’d answered.

“Is
it really that important?”

“Yeah,”
Greg had nodded. “I think it is… but I’m not
sure why. I know it sounds crazy, but – ”

“I’ll
do my best,” Mike had promised with a shrug.

Greg
had gotten a friend in the DA’s Office to put the photographs
of Katie’s guest room walls on several different law
enforcement databases, hoping against hope that they would lead
somewhere.

Not
that he was very optimistic. Gabriel had vanished as though he
had never even existed. The police had humored Greg, dusting
Katie’s house and car for prints and coming up with nothing.
The only prints they found in Katie’s guest room were Katie’s.
Ditto the two coffee cups they found in the sink. Greg’s
prints were all over the house too… but evidently Gabriel’s
weren’t.

The
driver’s seat of her car had been moved, suggesting that it had
recently been driven by someone taller than Katie… but the
only prints on the steering wheel were her own. It wasn’t
possible that the driver had somehow wiped the wheel – as Greg
had suggested – because Katie’s prints were perfectly
clear, not smudged.

Greg
just couldn’t figure it out.

The
paramedics who had answered the 911 call had initially thought that
Katie had killed herself; she was arranged neatly on the bed, she had
called 911 to insure that her body would be found, and she had even
left the front door unlocked for them. It had seemed to be an
obvious suicide, but the autopsy had proven otherwise.

So
how had she called 911 when she was lying there comatose,
dying? That was a question that neither the police nor the
Coroner’s Office could answer to anyone’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately, they weren’t overly concerned about pursuing it
since there was no evidence of foul play involved in her death, no
fingerprints on the phone aside from her own.

Greg’s
cell phone rang, and even though the highway was deserted, he pulled
over to the side of the road to answer.

A
quick glance at the caller ID told him that it was his friend in the
Coroner’s Office calling. “Yeah,” he said
into the phone.

“Greg,”
Mike said. “I have some news about those feathers.”

“Great!
What’s up?”

“I
FedEx’ed one to the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine –
they have an Avian Health Unit, so I figured that if anyone could
identify what kind of bird that thing came from, it’d be them.”

“And?”
Greg asked.

“No
dice. They said it’s a primary flight feather, which
means it came from a wing. And they never saw anything
like it before… they said it’s probably from a raptor of
some kind, but there aren’t any raptors that big. In
fact, they said that there aren’t any birds that big
that are capable of flight.”

“How
big?”

Mike
hesitated. “They said that whatever that thing came from,
it’d have to be human-sized.”

Greg
blinked. “What?”

“Yeah.”

“Is
that possible?”

“I
don’t know – I told you I’m not a vet,
remember? But get this… I ran the DNA on that
bloodstained feather, and it was the weirdest DNA I’ve ever
seen in my life.”

“It’s
probably bird DNA,” Greg suggested. “You probably
don’t see too much of that in your line of work – that’s
why it looked weird.”

“No,
it’s not from a bird, because I had Cornell fax me some
examples of avian DNA for comparison. Sure, there are a lot
of similarities, but not enough to explain – ”

“A
feather that didn’t come from a bird?” Greg interrupted,
puzzled.

“Yeah,
it’s weird. But you know what? It gets weirder.”

“How?”

“Whatever
this thing is, it doesn’t have sex chromosomes… you
know, X’s and Y’s.”

Greg
frowned. “And that means… what?”

“No
gender. Nada. It’s not male, it’s not
female.”

“So
what is it?”

“Dunno.
I asked Cornell… they told me there are reptiles and fish that
rely on things like environment and incubation temperature for gender
determination, and they don’t have sex chromosomes
either. They’re true hermaphrodites – both male and
female, all at once. I guess you could say they come from the
factory fully loaded.”

“Bizarre,”
Greg murmured.

“Yeah,
bizarre – and I saved the best for last. Believe it or
not, I actually recognized the DNA from the feather right away,
because I’d already seen it.”

“You
did?” Greg frowned. “Where?”

“Are
you sitting down?”

“Yeah.”

“We
found a couple of black hairs on Katherine Henley’s body…
and it’s the same DNA.”

Greg’s
mouth opened, but nothing came out for a long moment. “How
– ”

“Your
guess is as good as mine.”

“So…
if the DNA is similar, that means… what, exactly?”

“No,
Greg. Not similar – the same. Exactly
the same. As in a one hundred percent certain match with
whipped cream and a cherry on top.”

“So
it’s from the same… person… bird… thing…
whatever it is?”

“Yeah.
Whatever it is, it has black hair to go with those big white
wings.”

“You’re
sure it was a hair and not part of another feather, right?”

“Absolutely
sure, Greg. Checked it out under the microscope and
everything. I do know a little bit about forensic
investigation, you know!”

“The
hair…” Greg groped, still trying to make sense of all
this. “Is it possible that the sample from the feather
got contaminated somehow?”

“Nope.
A contaminated sample would show two distinct types of DNA. Not
one.”

“Gabriel
has black hair,” Greg said suddenly.

“Gabriel?”
Mike asked.

“Oh,
he’s Katie’s weird friend. The one who vanished.”

“Gabriel,”
Mike mused. “Like the angel, huh?”

“Angel?”
Greg repeated, frowning.

“Yeah,
you know – from the Bible?”

“I’m
not really religious.”

“Well,
maybe you should be. Think about it, Greg –
mystery solved!”

Greg
wasn’t sure if Mike was joking or not. “Angels?
I don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Hey,
it’s as good a theory as any I’ve got,” Mike
said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. As
far as I know, this DNA isn’t from anything we’ve ever
seen here on this planet. Even Cornell is stumped.”

“All
right,” Greg agreed, feeling even more puzzled now than he had
been when he began this conversation. He was sure that the
black hair had to have come from Gabriel… and then he suddenly
recalled Katie’s angry vow to take Gabriel home and screw him.
With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he forced himself to
ask, “Hey, one more thing… you did the autopsy, right?
Did Katie have sex with… with anyone?”

“Yeah…
she had consensual sex with someone the night before she died,
but it wasn’t with the Bird-Thing, if that’s what you’re
worried about.”

“It
was with me.” Greg sighed. “OK,
thanks, Mike.”

“Anytime,
buddy.”

Greg
hung up the phone and drove on for a few more miles, all the while
trying to make sense of what he’d just been told. How
could a feather have Gabriel’s DNA – DNA that was like
nothing else on Earth? Unless Mike’s bizarre theory was
right…

No,
that was absolute insanity. Only fanatical nut jobs
believed in things like that. And anyway, why would an angel
have been hanging around with Katie? It didn’t make any
sense… even if he believed in that stuff. Which he most
certainly did not.

His
cell rang again – now it was his office calling. The
dusty road was as deserted as ever, and this time he didn’t
bother to pull over.

“Listen,
I know you didn’t want to be bothered,” his secretary
apologized when he picked up. “Doctor Joseph Hytner from
the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office called for you.”

“Oh
yeah? What’s he want?”

Greg
could hear the frown in her voice. “I told him that you
were away on personal business and couldn’t be reached.
He wanted your cell, but I wouldn’t give it to him. So
then he absolutely insisted that I call and give you this
message. He wouldn’t let me hang up until I swore on the
life of my firstborn child that I would do it – believe it or
not.”

“OK…
that’s really weird.”

“Yeah.”

“So,
what’s the message?”

“He
said he saw those pictures you had Shirley post on VICAP yesterday
and he needs to talk to you as soon as possible. He thinks
you’re in real danger, and he said he can’t emphasize
that enough: real danger.”

“Danger?”
Greg repeated, leaning forward in his seat. “Why?”

“He
wouldn’t say… said I’d think he’s a nut,
that you’d think he’s a nut, that everyone else
already thinks he’s a nut.”

“He
sounds like a nut.”

“Well,
he was a very worried nut. Just be careful, OK?”

Greg
sighed. “Yeah, I will. Did he leave a number?”

“Sure
did,” she said, and read off the digits. Greg pulled over
and scribbled them down on the legal pad he always kept on the front
passenger seat for just such occasions.

“Great,
I’ll call him when I get to the hotel. Thanks, Phyllis.”

“Anytime.”

“Listen…
you go to church a lot, right?”

“Yes,
Greg,” she said, sounding amused. “Why?”

He
hesitated. “What do you know about angels? Do they
hang around with humans?”

“Uh…
no, I don’t think so.”

“What
about an angel named Gabriel?” Greg frowned, trying to
recall the long ago Sunday school lessons of his childhood.
“He’s
an important one, right?”

“Yeah,
he’s God’s Messenger.”

“And
he doesn’t hang around with humans, does he?”

“No…
I think he just delivers his message and leaves. That’s
how he did it in the Bible, anyway.”

“So,
no hanging around drinking coffee in the kitchen or watching DVDs or
getting into fights at the Olive Garden or stuff like that, right?”

This
time she laughed. “No, Greg. I really can’t
picture it.”

“Yeah,
me neither.”

“Why
are you asking me these things?”

“I
don’t know, Phyllis… maybe I’m turning into a nut
like that doctor.”

She
laughed. “All right. I’ll see you when you
get back – and don’t forget to call the nut.”

“Believe
me, I won’t!” he promised.

He
hung up the cell and got back on the road. He would definitely
make that call as soon as he could, and maybe – just maybe! –
he’d finally get to the bottom of the mystery that was Gabriel.

*****

Chimney
Rock was a ghost town.

The
clerk at the Motor Lodge told Greg that the town had been slowly
dying over the years, after the copper mine closed back in the early
90s. The school had closed four years ago, and the stores were
being boarding up one by one.

“So
what brings you here?” the clerk asked as he handed back Greg’s
Visa card. “We don’t get many visitors, nowadays.”

“A
funeral,” he replied shortly.

“Oh,
you must mean that schoolteacher… yeah, she left when the
school closed. I’m surprised she didn’t leave a
long time before that.”

“She
felt it was her duty to stay. You know – for the kids.”

“No
money in duty,” the clerk said with a laugh.

“Not
much money in hotels, either, from the look of things around here,”
Greg said rather sharply.

But
the old man behind the counter only laughed some more.

“’Spect
I’ll be closing down and moving along too, pretty soon,”
he agreed. “Go live with my daughter and her husband out
there in Tempe.”

“Well,
good luck to you,” Greg said, collecting his key.

“You
too, buddy. Room 105’s the sixth door on your left when
you walk out the door.”

“Thanks.”

“You
bet. I’d say enjoy your stay, but under the circumstances
– ”

“Yeah.
See you later.”

*****

Locating
the room wasn’t difficult, and soon he was fitting the key into
the lock.

The
blackout curtains were drawn against the afternoon desert sun, and so
it was quite dark in the little motel room. It was nice and
cool as well; Greg could hear the air conditioning unit running.
He fumbled at the wall and found the lightswitch.

He
left his briefcase and his one piece of luggage in the room, grabbed
the little plastic ice bucket off of the bathroom counter and went
back outside to the soda machine he’d passed on his way to the
room. He bought two cans of Pepsi and filled up the ice bucket
from the ice machine.

He
returned to the little motel room, popped open a Pepsi, and sat down
to call Doctor Hytner.

He
gave his name to the lady who answered and was put on hold. He
sipped his Pepsi as he waited and tried to decide whether he should
tell the doctor about the feather and hair DNA.

“Hello?”
a male voice said in his ear. “Gregory Bailey?”

“Yeah,
that’s me.”

“I’m
Joseph Hytner, and I saw those pictures you posted to VICAP.”

“I
heard. So what can you tell me about them, Doctor Hytner?”

“Call
me Joseph. How much time do you have?”

Greg
frowned. “As much time as you need, I guess. I’m
here in Chimney Rock for a funeral tomorrow, and – ”

“Chimney
Rock?” Joseph repeated. “Oh boy.”

“What?”

“Once
upon a time, there was a homicide detective named Thomas Daggett.
One day, he followed a murder investigation to Chimney Rock. He
came back to LA raving about a War in Heaven, the Devil, and the
Archangel Gabriel. You with me so far?”

“Yeah,”
Greg agreed, taking a deep breath. “I’m totally
with you.”

*****
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