The Angel's Humanhood

22. Crossfire

"Daughter?! Oh now I am your daughter! Fifteen years after you left me to starve to death!" Dow fired.
"I told you, I had my reasons! And, how was I supposed to know your father was going to get killed and never return home!" Madame Balqis fired back.
"Who is my father?" Dow challenged, and the look of rage and poison in Madame Balqis's eyes suddenly shifted.
"He is gone now. There is no need to dig graves," she turned away from Dow.
"Jonah, what happened to you?" she grabbed Wahag's hands which he gently released himself from.
"Please, don't touch a man you are not related to so freely. It's a gate to sin," he genuinely adviced to which she snorted.
"What? A sin? And who's the man? You? You are barely a year or two older than her! I could have given birth to you!" She gestured at him with a wave of her hand.
"What? He looks forty!" Prince who was standing the corner suddenly announced his presence.
Madame Balqis was suddenly giving a measuring look to Prince, "And who are you again?"
Prince bowed his head gently and placed a hand on his chest, "I am Percy Hills, they call me Prince."
"Oh, you're the son of the Hills family. You were sent to shelter when they passed," her words were dry of empathy, "it's a shame your uncles took everything." Prince bowed his head to hide his expression and Madame Balqies quickly shifted her attention back to Dow and Sal, shifting her gaze between them.
"You have some explaining to do," she expelled her authority.
"There isn't much to explain. Apparently he is really Jonah. But something happened to him in the woods before I found him," Dow sounded unsure. Madame Balqis gave her daughter an exasperated sigh of disappointment.
"Well, at least, can he tell me what the prophecy was?" Madame Balqis said before all the attendance turned to Wahag for an answer.
Wahag shrugged, "Haffaf asked me the same thing. But, I really don't know. This body only shows me memories when it's triggered by a physical object," Wahag felt revolted by how all of this was emphasizing to him that he is using someone else's body.
Everyone was silent waiting for a response from Madame Balqis who was in turn standing very still.
She rolled her eyes around the ceiling, "physical trigger, you say." She suddenly turned to grab a chair and swung it at Wahag who jumped back dodging, to which she took another swing before Sal stood between them and grabbed the chair.
"Madame, I don't think this is what he meant!" Sal leveled his gaze to hers.
"No harm in trying," she attempted to pull the chair out of Sal's concrete grip.
Wahag jumped from behind Sal to take shelter in Dow. Prince tried to push him out from behind her, but Wahag slipped out of his grip too.
"When did you learn to do that?" Prince said in annoyed astonishment.
"I didn't. It's the body, a memory that surfaced," Wahag said from behind Dow.
Madame Balqis had already acquired another chair that was in the corner, and snuck behind Wahag, but before she could land it on her prey, "I think I know how we can get him to remember," Dow's words made her freeze.
Madame Balqis reluctantly put down her weapon, "Go on."
"He needs something to trigger his memory, right? If we take him back to places he used to know as Jonah, he is bound to come across something that triggers his memory," Dow reasoned.
"Wait, we need to go to the cave soon, or else my bond with this body will end and it will die. We don't have time for this. And as a matter of fact, why do I need to give you anything! Who are you, anyway! Why do you care about this prophecy?" Wahag sounded like someone that woke up from hypnosis.
"Sal! What is this!" Wahag didn't notice Madame Balqis's face turning from brown to burgundy, "What is he talking about? Who is dying!" She was nothing short of pulling a knife on Sal. The small woman was suddenly up close to Sal's face and her guard was readily on standby.
"I promised to bring you the carrier of the prophecy, nothing more and nothing less," Sal pointed at Wahag without a hint of fear in his eyes, "he needs to journey to the caves of the chosen ones to find a book and then he is all yours."
"How am I all hers?!" Wahag shot.
"I saved your life!" Madame Balqis pointed a finger right at Wahag's nose with rage.
"I am Jin! You can't kill me even if you wanted to!" Wahag challenged.
"He loses his last chance to get back up there though," Sal murmered between his teeth.
"You! YOU! Crook!" Wahag turned to grab Sal by the collar.
"I am the crook?! You still have a favor to pay me, or did you think you could fool me!" Sal fired back.
"You have no right to have a book of scriptures!" Wahag could have blasted Sal into Shish lamb Kabab if he was in his jin form.
Prince cleared his throat and suddenly everyone turned to him, "I think you are all wasting precious time," he said with a worried look on his face, "Sal just broke out of Haffaf's prison, he will send an army to find you, that's not even considering that he is also after the prophecy. Wahag needs to get to the cave of the chosen ones before that thing about his body running off or going up," Prince paused confused at his words but shook it off, " it seems we all need each other. Considering that the Madame bought Dow and I off the auction before it even started, we can see she is very wealthy. So, she can help you escape the village and cross the woods in a vehicle," Madame Balqis nodded with pride to that, "If you walk, it'll days. You have a day or so, right?" Wahag nodded, "Sal needs some book that's in the cave, and obviously he can't get it himself," Sal begrudgingly nodded, "I heard a prisoner talking about Haffaf planning to summon the hounds to cleanse the village in the eclipse which is next week. I am assuming that will very negatively affect the Madame's black market shares."
"He will clear out everything and everyone outside the walls!" She declared.
"Wait, what happened to Sammy and Riza?" Wahag directed his question to Prince.
"They were taken before us. The guards were talking about a special prison," Dow answered instead with a lot of pain in her voice. Wahag knew that was the pain she felt for wanting to save everyone.
"I need you to get them out," Wahag turned to Madame Balqis.
"Why would I waste my time and money on two riffraffs?" Her face looked more empathetic than her words.
"You said you needed something from Jonah's memories. Nobody knows Jonah better than them. They spent a life time with him," Wahag felt a pain in his chest that he didn't understand, and yet something told him that this pain was better to have than not.
Madame Balqis said, "You better cough up that prophecy quickly, " before she turned to the small door being followed by her guard.