Chapter 1: Harbinger of Fate

I stepped from the subway into the station and headed up the stairs to street level. It was raining hard that night. My tasks are always grim, and they have worn on me over the centuries and millenia.

The rain hit my trenchcoat and it felt as if each drop was a hammer, beating me down. I had grown tired. I looked at the diner where she worked, and I sighed. In my sigh, anyone passing by might have heard the regret and frustration inside me. I had been a good soldier. I had done the Council's bidding since before the Dawn of Time. Now our victory was within our grasp, and all it would take would be to snuff out the one candle of hope that Mankind had left.

It must be done in secret. It must be done without the knowledge of anyone close to her. I saw her through the window, taking orders from her customers at their table. They were rough looking men, and they leered at her constantly. I let the rain fall over me as I watched them and her. I looked at their Souls, and I saw they were darker than my own. I looked at her soul, and I was blinded by her brilliance. Those four men would snuff out her light without my intervention. I could let them do what they were planning and leave her to die. I would not have to slay her, but the mission would be fulfilled.

I looked for traffic, but there was none. I stepped into the street and made my way to the diner. I looked at my face in the window and saw what all men and women saw. My short black hair was plastered to my head by the hard heavy rain. My green eyes were clear and bright, and seemed otherworldly, even to me. It was a form that I preferred over others, simply because it was the most unexpected. I looked nonthreatening. I looked like most other people, except for my eyes. That was the one Setian trait that I would never lose. I could change my face and hair at a whim, but never my eyes. I looked at the reflection and into my own eyes. I could see the love I had, and the pain of devastating loss. I closed my eyes and turned away from my reflection. I walked up the steps and into the diner. I looked around. The cook, the four demons in human form, and the woman were the only others in the diner at this time of night. I stepped to the counter and sat down on a stool.

"What can I get ya, hon?" I was roused by the sound of her voice, the Brooklyn accent not masking the softness of her voice.

"Coffee, please. Black. No cream or sugar."

"Comin' right up, sweety." She said and flashed me a radiant smile. I nodded slightly and showed a thin smile that didn't reach my eyes.

She poured a mug for me and set it before me. I handed her two dollars. "Thank you. You may keep the change."

"Thanks, sweety." She flashed another brilliant smile at me. and her blue eyes gave me soft feelings inside. I looked down as I felt my face flush. No. She is the target. She must die. I resolved to make her death as painless as possible. She would feel nothing as she passed from this life.

I looked at her nametag. 'Sharon' was engraved in black upon the gold painted tag itself.

I could hear the men whispering from their booth. The four men who wished to rape and kill this angel in human form that it was my sworn duty to slay. They were actually just planning to rape her, but they knew that if she lived, the police would hunt them down. She would die by their hands to hide their crime.

No. She deserved a better death than what they would do for her.

One of the men stood up and straightened his jacket, and I saw the telltale bulge of a firearm stuffed into his belt on the side.

"Hey, homie. You're out kinda late in that fancy suit. You lost?" I realized that he was addressing me.

"No, friend. I am exactly where I need to be." I looked up at him from my sip of coffee. I looked in the mirror above the counter and saw his friends readying their weapons as well.

He was black, or African American, as they were called now. His ancestors had landed in Africa before it was even called Africa, and had destroyed all traces of Setian culture there. Of the Ten Thousand Setians still surviving, none had come from Africa.

We were not always immortal. We lived and died as God and Earth Mother intended. We lived for hundreds of years, but we died eventually. Of old age or by accident. Death takes us all. It was only the Prophecy and the Magic therein which now coursed through us and made us what we were.

"Why you even here, then?" He asked. His tone had become belligerent very quickly. He started to raise his jacket to reach for his weapon.

"For a cup of coffee." I raised my mug and smiled before taking another sip. The coffee tasted bitter, as it should. It reminded me of life.

I glanced at Sharon, my target. She had a look of apprehension on her face. She recognized these men for what they were. I would not let them have her, though. She looked from them to me, but she couldn't say anything. I saw her reach into her pocket for her cellphone. I caught her eye and slowly shook my head No.

Her eyes grew wide at my gesture, and I smiled at her before turning back to the man still standing there looking down his nose at me. He was trying to intimidate me. I was not intimidated, but continued to smile at him in a friendly way.

He raised his head and chin in a quick gesture. "Enjoy your coffee, homie." He turned and walked back to his friends.

"How'd you do that, hon?" She asked in a low whisper.

"He saw that while I posed no threat to him, I would kill him if he had acted." I explained evenly to her in a lowered tone.

"Well, we need you around here every night, then." She smiled at me, and I returned her smile with a nod.

"This is good coffee. Thank you. May I have a refill?" I had finished the mug and was ready for some more.

"Of course, sweety. On the house." She winked at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. I considered her for a moment as she went to refill the mug. Her hair was short down to just the nape of her neck. Her hair was as black as mine, but her eyes were the most brilliant blue I had ever seen. They seemed to glow with her inner light.