I couldn’t stand in the hallway paralyzed with fear. I inched forward and waited until it sounded like whatever was in my room had moved away from the door. Then I saw shadows underneath, moving back and forth. By now I had a sword and bag of eyeballs at the ready. Only, I was too scared to do anything with them. I inched closer, dropped my bag on the floor, reached for the door handle, twisted it, and flung the door open.
The albino angel from the other night was on the floor wrestling with another one who looked even younger. They saw me and stopped, mid camel clutch hold, which I knew because my dad used to watch wresting all the time in his shop. And when Dad wasn’t around, Vinny Dumbrascatori, the youngest and by far the cutest mechanic Dad employed, and I used to watch it. Unfortunately, Dad found out Vinny and I had been watching wrestling together and fired Vinny shortly thereafter.
The little blond angel eyed my bag of oily eyeballs and frowned. The albino one, with the cornrows, increased his hold on the little one and smiled. “Hi. I’m Arcturus, he’s Caius.” He pointed to the one underneath him.
“Um, OK. What are you doing in my room? I mean, not that I’m not happy to see friendly faces.” I tried to steady my breathing, dropped my knife, and went to retrieve my bag from the hall. But Caius had managed to get out of the wrestling hold, get my bag, and make it back inside the room before I got my wits about me.
He handed me a silver briefcase with a red handle. “Thanks, I think,” I said.
I plopped the curious briefcase on the bed and opened it. The two boys peered over my shoulders at the briefcase’s contents and Praefatio.
“We kind of got bored waiting for you to arrive. So we put this bag of stuff together for you,” Caius said. “Gabriel sent us, to protect you, but said he’d feel safer if he knew you had some gear of your own.”
“Yeah, but you seemed to have everything under control.” Arcturus’s sarcasm was not lost on me. “Were you gonna throw that bag of eyeballs at us?”
“What? Whatever. No.” I tried to sound like it was the furthest thought from my mind.
“You won’t need them. Besides, I’m sure their owner will want them back. You’re supposed to burn them. The longer you keep them, the easier it will be for him to track you and come after you.” Caius spoke with the authority and knowledge of a much older person. He took the pillowcase and threw it to Arcturus.
“No! I want … to keep them. I might … need them. They listen to me,” I mumbled.
“You can command demon vision?” Arcturus looked at Caius, then back to me. “Wicked!” Arcturus smiled. “That means you’ll be able to use the eyes to see evil coming.” He threw the bag in my direction. Surprisingly, I caught it. “Anyway, let me tell you what all that stuff is.” Arcturus removed items from the briefcase and flung them onto my bed. “You’ve got throwing stars, two machetes, a katana sword, two sets of throwing knives with leg sheaths—very handy—two Roman rudiarrii daggers, a Celtic dagger, my personal favorite, a trident, a halberd, a Kit Rae Black Legion Battle Axe, and a pair of sai.” Arcturus took a breath, then finished with, “Caius, where’s the rest of the stuff?” He looked at Caius with wrinkled eyebrows. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be missing. “Uh, I don’t think I’ll need more than that.” I shrugged as he kept pulling weapons of various shapes and sizes out of the small, seemingly bottomless briefcase.
“No, it’s OK. Trust me. You’re going to need all this and more.” Caius tried to reassure me, then turned to Arcturus with a worried look. “Dude. I don’t know what we did with it.” He looked around in all directions, then spun toward me and said, “Hang on a second, Grace.” Caius disappeared.
Arcturus smiled weakly. Caius reappeared holding a black duffle bag and looking stressed.
Arcturus looked suspiciously at Caius, then at the bag. “Is that everything?”
“You can always get more, less, whatever.” Caius handed me the bag and added, “It was Arcturus’s idea. He thinks you should dress the part.”
I placed the bag on the bed then unzipped it. Inside were two silver cuff bracelets with Latin inscriptions on them. I held them up; the left