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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
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“Birds
of Pray”

Chapter
2

Angels
and Raptors

Gabriel
sat at the table, adding sugar to his coffee. Katherine leaned
against the kitchen counter, watching him warily.

He
stirred his coffee, took a sip, and made a face.

“Why
don’t you sit down?” he invited, dumping in another
heaping spoonful of white crystals. “Join me.”

“I
don’t think so.” She folded her arms across her
chest. “You’ve got your cup of coffee. So
what else do you want?”

“A
doughnut?” he asked hopefully.

“That’s
not what I meant,” she told him coldly. “Why are
you back in my life, Gabriel?”

“Boy,
you really get right to the point, don’t you?” He
took another sip of coffee. “All right. But
it’s a long story. You really should sit down.”

“I
think I’d rather stand, thanks.”

He
gave her an appraising look. “You don’t have to be
afraid, Katherine. I’m not here to hurt you. I’ve
hurt too many good people as it is.”

“Then
why are you here?”

“I
need…” He hesitated, groping for the right words.
“I want to explain some things.”

She
snorted. “I didn’t think you went around explaining
yourself to us ‘monkeys’.”

“This
is the new me,” he said ruefully. He gestured at
the empty chair across from him. “Sit down and I’ll
tell you all about it.”

With
a sigh, Katherine poured herself a cup of coffee and sat.

*****

As
she listened to Gabriel talk, she tried to imagine what he must have
been like when acting as God’s Messenger. Somehow she
just couldn’t picture him appearing to Mary and announcing the
coming birth of Jesus in that staccato voice of his. And how,
she wondered, had he picked up that accent? To Katherine’s
ears, he sounded more like a New York City cab driver than the Angel
of the Annunciation.

“I
learned a lot living as a human,” he confided. “It’s
not as easy as it looks.”

For
the first time that night, she actually laughed. “I could
have told you that a long time ago.”

“I
wouldn’t have listened.”

“I
know,” she agreed.

“I
was arrogant,” he admitted, staring down at his coffee cup.
“And blinded by jealousy.”

The
phone rang. “Just a minute,” she said, and rose to
answer it.

It
was Greg.

“Hey,
Katie-Kate… how’re you doing?” he asked.
“I’m really sorry about dinner tonight.”

“That’s
all right,” she assured him. “I actually have
company right now… someone I knew when I lived in Chimney Rock
dropped by unexpectedly.”

“Oh
yeah? That’s great. I’m glad you’re not
spending Friday night all alone. So what’s her name?”

“His
name,” she corrected, “is Gabriel.”

“Old
boyfriend?” he teased.

“No,
never!” she said with feeling.

Greg
laughed. “All right. Are you free tomorrow night?
I’m really looking forward to that spaghetti dinner!”

“Wouldn’t
miss it. Hey, how’s the Altman case going?”

He
groaned. “Don’t ask!”

She
made a sympathetic sound. “Poor you!”

”Poor
me,” he agreed. “And poor Altman. I don’t
think I’m going to be able to get him off the hook.”

“That’s
too bad. You really think he’s innocent?”

“Yeah.
Sometimes there’s just no justice.”

“Not
in this world, anyway,” she said, glancing at Gabriel.
“Maybe in the next.”

“I
sure hope so,” he agreed. “Well, I’ve got to
get going. Just wanted to touch base with you.”

“All
right.”

“Love
you,” he said.

She
smiled. “Me too.”

“Bye,
Katie-Kate.”

“Bye.”
She hung up the phone and went back to her seat at the table.

“So…
you cook,” Gabriel observed.

“Yeah,
a little.” She picked up her coffee cup and took a sip.
“You were saying…”

“I
don’t remember.”

“Really?”

He
surprised her by smiling. “Even angels sometimes lose
their train of thought.”

“I
see.” She had never seen him smile before, and was struck
by how it transformed his features for the better. It made him
more approachable, more human. She took a deep breath,
hesitated, and spoke.

“Gabriel…
why did you come here tonight?” His eyebrows went up.
For a moment she was sure he wasn’t going to answer, and so she
decided to make a joke of it. “I know it wasn’t for the
coffee.”

“It
wasn’t,” he agreed. He sat quietly for a bit,
drumming two fingers on the table as he thought. Katherine
found herself wondering if all that caffeine and sugar was getting to
him.

“Look…
it’s like this,” he finally began, and she leaned forward
in her seat to listen. “I was Upstairs… you know…
talking to The Boss. I said, ‘I really messed things up
for a lot of people down there,’ and He said ‘You sure
did,’ and I said, ‘Maybe I should do something about it,
try to make amends,’ and He said, ‘Maybe you should.’
See, He’s real good like that, not telling you what you should
do… just encouraging you to follow what your conscience says
is right.”

Katherine
nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“And
I realized that you probably didn’t have really good feelings
about us or The Boss after what happened in Chimney Rock, and I
couldn’t let you spend the rest of your life thinking that my
brothers and I are all bad and that The Boss just lets us run wild,
not caring what we do or who we hurt. Because He’s not
like that. Look what He did to me – got Michael to turn
me into a human just to teach me a lesson. And it worked.”
He gave another rare smile. “I’m a changed seraph,
let me tell you. I see things a lot differently now.”

Katherine’s
head was spinning. She closed her eyes and put her head in her
hands. “All right,” she said, not looking up.
“So. You want to make things right between us.
That’s why you’re here?”

“Yeah.
That’s pretty much it.”

“Great.
OK.” She sighed. “This is a lot for me to
absorb.”

“I
understand. Maybe we should continue our conversation later,
after you’ve had time to think about all this.”

“That
would be wonderful,” she said, rubbing her temples.
“I feel like my head is going to explode. You talk about
all this stuff – ‘The Boss' – so casually...”
She gave a nervous little laugh. “It’s kind of
freaking me out a little.”

“Yeah.
Sorry about that,” he said apologetically. “Sometimes
I forget.”

“You
didn’t talk like this when you were human, did you?”

“Of
course,” he said with a shrug.

“People
must’ve thought you were crazy.”

“They
did,” he agreed. He didn’t seem very concerned
about it. “That was their problem, not mine.
I didn’t know any other way to be… and I knew
that I wasn’t crazy.”

“I
wouldn’t go that far,” she said before she could stop
herself.

He
cocked his head at her, just like a bird. “Do you think
I’m crazy, Katherine?” he asked, sounding genuinely
interested in her answer.

“I
used to,” she admitted. “Now I don’t know
what to think about you.”

He
nodded once, satisfied, and stood. “I’d better take
off,” he said. “It’s late.”

“Come
on,” she said, also standing. “I’ll walk you
out.”

When
they reached the front door, Gabriel hesitated. “Katherine…
are you still afraid of me?”

“I…”
She thought about it. “I’m not sure.”

“I’m
not going to hurt you.”

“I
wish I could believe that.”

He
reached out and tilted her chin up. “I’ve never
lied to you,” he reminded her, looking her right in the eye.
“Have I?”

She
considered it. “I guess not.”

“I'm
an angel, the Messenger of God,” he continued firmly. “I
never lie.”

She
nodded. “All right.”

Seeming
satisfied, he released her and moved away. “I’ll
see you later.”

“Gabriel
– “

He
stopped, turned. “Yes?”

“You
should smile more often.”

“Hmm,”
he said, and vanished into the darkness beyond her porch light.

*****

The
next day, Katherine spent an hour preparing her Nana’s famous
homemade spaghetti sauce. While it simmered on the stove, she
sat on the living room sofa with her PowerBook, reading about angels.

Gabriel,
as it turned out, was a very busy angel. In addition to his
roles as the Angel of Death and the Angel of the Annunciation, he was
also the Angel of Incarnation, the Angel of Consolation, the Angel of
Mercy and the Angel of Childbirth. Those last three these
things made her laugh out loud at the thought.

She
laughed even harder when one website assured her that Gabriel was the
only female angel. She made a mental note to show him that
particular website the next time she saw him; she had an evil desire
to see how he’d react to the news of his sex change.

Next,
she did a web search for birds. The only birds with eyes on the
front of their heads are raptors, she learned. Birds of
prey… or in this case, of pray, she thought with a giggle.

Most
birds have a uropygial, or preen gland, she read, located
on the upper surface of the rump and covered by feathers. The gland
secretes oils used by the bird when preening. These oils are believed
to help waterproof feathers and condition exposed skin. The oils may
also have substances which control bacterial and fungal infections,
as well as contain vitamin D.

She
tried to imagine Gabriel preening himself and decided that a mental
picture like that just wouldn’t fit in her brain. She
glanced up at the clock on the upper right side of the computer
screen and saw that it was close to five o’clock. Where
had the time gone? Had she really spent nearly five hours
reading about angels and raptors? No wonder she had a headache!

Greg
would be arriving for his promised spaghetti dinner soon, she
realized. First she would do something about her awful
headache, and then she would go check on her spaghetti sauce.

With
a sigh, she stood and headed upstairs in search of some aspirin.

****

Katherine
took a sip of red wine as she stirred the tomato sauce with a wooden
spoon. She took a small portion on the spoon, blew on it to
cool it, and cautiously sampled it.

“It
smells very nice, Katherine.”

She
gave a little shriek and dropped the spoon, which clattered to the
stovetop in a splotch of red sauce.

She
turned around to see Gabriel perched on her kitchen table, his folded
hands resting on his knees. “I just can’t wait to
taste it,” he continued calmly, as though a person appearing
out of thin air was the most normal thing in the world. Well,
she reflected, to him it probably was.

“When
you said you wanted to continue our conversation later, I didn’t
realize that you meant tonight,” she said, picking up
the spoon and wiping the sauce off the stovetop with a dishtowel.

“Fine,”
he said, and she heard him jump to the ground. “We can
talk about something else.” He walked over to the
counter, took a wineglass out of the cupboard and poured himself a
glass of wine. He raised the glass to her in a brief toast and downed
half of it in one gulp.

“Help
yourself, Gabriel,” she said ironically.

He
walked over to the stove, picked up the wooden spoon and sniffed it
briefly. He stuck out his tongue and licked it thoroughly, and
then he put it right back in the sauce.

“Hey!”
she protested, snatching up the spoon. “That’s
disgusting!”

He
shrugged and moved away to poke at the salads that were sitting on
the counter.

During
the course of their conversation the previous night, Katherine’s
feelings had run the gamut from terror to wariness to dazed
numbness. Now she was experiencing an emotion that she had
never in her wildest dreams thought she would apply to the Archangel
Gabriel: annoyance.

“Come
on, leave that alone!” she pleaded as he bent close to one of
the salads, sniffing.

“I’ll
have this one,” he decided, fishing a tomato out of the salad
he’d been investigating and popping it into his mouth.

“I
didn’t make that for you,” she told him rather
ungraciously. She saw the surprise register on his face as her
words finally sunk in.

“You
were expecting someone else.”

“Yeah.
Believe it or not, I do have a social life aside from angelic
visitors.”

“Ahh,
you mean I’m not the only man in your life? Katherine…”
He clutched at his chest in a melodramatic fashion. “I’m
crushed.”

She
gave him a look that spoke volumes.

“Huh,”
he said, and poured himself more wine. The doorbell rang.
“Must be your dinner guest,” he observed.

“Probably.
And don’t drink all the wine,” she admonished as she left
to answer the door.

“Hi
Katie-Kate,” Greg said when she opened the door. He was
Gabriel’s complete opposite; short and stocky, well-tanned and
blond. He was dressed casually in a pale pink shirt and tan
pants. “I missed you last night,” he said as she leaned
up to kiss him. He followed her into the foyer and suddenly
sneezed loudly.

“Bless
you!” she said. “Oh… that reminds me –
Gabriel’s here.”

“Your
friend from last night?”

“Yeah.
He dropped by again a little bit ago.”

“Does
he always just show up like that?”

”Yeah,
pretty much.” Greg sneezed again. “Bless
you again! Are you getting a cold?”

“I
don’t think so,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

“Gabriel,
this is Greg. Greg, this is Gabriel,” she said, shooting
the angel a warning look that said be nice.

“It’s
wonderful to meet you,” Gabriel said, extending the hand that
wasn’t holding the wineglass. “Gregory.”

“Yeah,
likewise,” Greg replied, shaking hands. He sneezed again,
explosively. “Geeze, excuse me!” he apologized.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight!”

“Allergies?”
Katherine suggested as she stirred the sauce.

“Doubt
it,” Greg said. “I’m only allergic to one
thing that I know of.”

“And
what’s that?” she asked.

“Birds.
But you don’t have a bird, do you?”

“Noooo…”
she said slowly, glancing at Gabriel. “Not… um…
exactly.”

“Well,
if you went out and got a bird, just tell me. I’ll dose
myself with Benadryl before I come over.”

“That
might be a good idea,” she agreed. “Even though I
don’t have a bird,” she added hastily. Gabriel was
carefully studying the ceiling.

“OK,
then,” Greg said, looking from Katherine to Gabriel and back
again. Clearly something was going on that he wasn’t
hearing about. Suddenly, he sneezed again.

“You
know, I may have some Benadryl upstairs in my medicine cabinet,”
she recalled. “Would you like some?”

”That
would be great,” he said, wiping his nose with the back of one
hand. “So, when’s dinner?”

*****

AUTHOR’S
NOTE: The information found in this chapter was gleaned from several
different sources.

For
information on angels in general and the Archangel Gabriel in
particular, I consulted the book Angels A to Z by James R.
Lewis and Evelyn Dorothy Oliver.

I
also looked at The Catholic Encyclopedia’s website about St.
Gabriel the Archangel at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06330a.htm
and the Wikipedia entry for the Archangel Gabriel at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_(archangel)

Information
about raptors can be found at the Sea World Birds of Prey
website at http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Raptors/home.html
That site was very useful to me, and I even quoted directly from it
at one point (the bit about preen glands).
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