7:49pm
TOMMY'S HOUSE


Tommy walked into the study.

His father, Derek, was sitting at the computer, when he noticed his son walk in. "Oh..hi, son. Long day at school?"

"You might say that. Short game, though. Something happened, I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Some kid from my class tried to kill our friend, DJ. His name is Joe. He's crazy, he jumped from..uh, a high place."

"How high?"

"Uh..about more than a few feet. Anyway, he got ran over in traffic-"

He was shocked. "He's DEAD?!"

"Yes! But it wasn't our fault. He ran after us. Then later, my teacher tried to kill him. Nearly ran us over, then shot at him. I hit her with a tree branch..she fell on her own knife."

"Who was this teacher?"

"Resor."

"Damn! I remember, she was so nice. You were in her class a few years ago. But..why use the knife? Didn't she have her gun?"

"I think she wanted to take DJ's heart out."

He covered his mouth in disgust. "That's sick!"

"She went on about how her lord told her to do it. Pyriel."

"Never heard of him."

"Neither have we. She chanted about how he's her saviour, the next God."

"NEXT God?"

"Yeah, I know. Maybe she was involved with some cult. She said for DJ to tell Lucifer-"

"The Devil?"

"Yes. 'Give Lucifer our regards when you meet him'. She called him the Beast, abomination..a nephilim. Personally, I think she's seen 'The Omen' too many times. So, we took DJ home. A police officer might be talking with me, cuz I'm a witness."

"I see."

"But COLE..he's weird as usual. He thinks it's about angels. He says Gabriel--this other guy who's after DJ--is the angel of death."

"Like in the bible, *that* Gabriel? The Archangel?"

"Yup."

"Please. There's a lot of people named Gabriel. Coincidence. Cole is still acting like a freak, huh?"

"That's what I think too. But.."

"Yeah?"

Tommy removed the short scythe from his backapack.

"WHOA!! Where did you get *that*?"

"One of Josiah's weapons, he tried to use it on us. It hit a baseball, went clean-through a fence, then stuck into the wall."

"Unbelievable."

"I'll say. Here..can you analyze this? See what it's made of?"

"It's worth a shot." He opened the cover to the scanner. He positioned the miniature laser-pointer above it. Taking the sickle, he placed it under the pointer. "Okay, here it goes." He hit a button.

The pointer shot a beam onto the sickle..it casacaded over the handle, up to the blade, then back to the handle. It switched off.

"Alright.." He typed in a few commands, the data results appeared on the monitor. "Hmm. Composition of handle, black ivory. Blade.. titanium alloy. Very high resistance to other matter. But then.."

"What?"

"There are a few unknown quantities."

"Like.."

"Tommy. It's *unknown*. Very rare. It's composed of elements.. unknown. It's not from anywhere in THIS world. Very unususal."

"So, now what?"

"You need to hand this over to the authgorities. When you go back to school tomorrow, take this to the Dean's office. If you can't find him, talk to Mr. Cunningham."

"Okay." He put the weapon into his backpack, then zipped it up.

Tommy's mom ran in. "Hey, Tommy! There's a cop at the door. He wants to talk to you."

"Okay." He walked to the door. "Yes."

The man was dressed in a business suit. "Hi..you're Tommy?"

"Yes."

"I'm Detective Rizzo. Philadelphia PD. I understand you're a witness."

"Right."

"We found the perpetrator not far from the house of Diabolus Jefferson. What do you know about her?"

"Only a little. She was my teacher in first grade."

"St. Anthony's Academy, right?"

"Right. She was always nice. I have no idea why she would do this."

"Well, people do strange things now and then. Did she say anything that might help our case?"

"That her lord Pyriel sent her. He's some savior, the next God."

Rizzo raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"I know, she went nuts. She drew a symbol." He showed the detective
his drawing. "These are symbols I saw on this other kid, Josiah. He died too. Her tried to kill DJ also, but he died in a traffic accident."

"You sure?"

"Yes! We saw him get run over. It was by the staduim, near school."

"Hmm..interesting. Someone reported an accident. We checked it out..no body."

"Oh."

"You know what ELSE is intersting?"

"No, what?"

"We pulled the school records for Josiah. He's a student, but he doesn't have a last name. So we did a search in the citizen database at the station. NO record that he even exists. No parents or family lineage. No fingerprints, social security number, birth certificate, photos.. *NOTHING*! As if he was never born. Big mystery."

"That does sound interesting."

"Yeah. Well, we have no logical explanation for it. We're still investigating it. Wait, let me see that paper.."

Tommy gave it to him. "Joe had one of those marks on his neck. So did this other guy..Gabriel. The crown. DJ has one too."

"Aha. Too many of *these* to be coincidence." He copied the symbols
onto his notepad. "Here." He gave the slip back to Tommy. "I'm going
to submit this to the Cults Investigation unit, see what turns up."

"Okay..I'll be either here, or in school. Or playing baseball at Floydd Stadium."

He handed Tommy a card. "This is my number. If you hear anything, you give me a call. I'll be in touch." Then he left.

Tommy closed the door.

His mom asked, "Hey, what was THAT all about?"

Tommy shrugged, "I don't really know. Something that happened at
school."