Calvin and Kali recognized him instantly. It was Bishop Steele, her husband.
“Their father . . . that man made sure that with his last breath he would protect us. I wasn't always an Immortal. I was just a Prophet, a human with the gift of sight. I was just a woman who fell in love with a Disciple with magic abilities. We met in college and knew we were soul mates. My visions of him and his visions of me sealed it. So it made sense to marry and start a life, especially since we loved each other dearly.”
“Unc Bishop was more than a Disciple?” Calvin calmly asked as he studied Tamar's butter-brown face as it softened with the memories.
“Yes, my beloved was more than a Disciple. He had your gift, sweetheart, with magic. It passes through your Creole bloodline, stemming from Africa.”
Calvin softly smiled, sitting up straight with the knowledge as he glanced at Kali. She also flashed a brief smile as she nodded to listen.
“Very strong magic, gifted from the Ancients. My beloved was going to be your mentor and teach you about the power you have, but the Most High called him back home.” She got very quiet as her mind flashed back to her husband's death.
Calvin gently squeezed her hand as she exhaled slowly.
“It's okay. I've grieved. He gave me so many gifts, I have nothing to complain about.”
“What happened? Why did he die? How did you become an Immortal? Because that's not possible. Yet here you are.” The questions seemed to rush out of Kali as she sat on the edge of her chair.
Tamar chuckled as she gently kissed the back of Kali's hand, which she held with her own. “We had to move the moment I was pregnant with Sanna. The instant we conceived her, everything changed. We both had the dream of Denotation as I carried her. Me, a human Prophet having a Denotation vision. I was incredulous, and I was scared out of my mind from that power. My husband was just as worried for us all. We knew we had to go into hiding and couldn't put our family in jeopardy.”
Tamar glanced at Calvin as she said that. She watched him bow his head, emotion tight in his shoulders.
“You know, my husband's father, for the longest of times, didn't want us to meet you all, but when the Elders of the family passed, we knew it was okay go back to where it all began. Home, as my husband's father would say. So we all went, my husband and a pregnant me. We wanted to see if we could hide without putting you all at risk.”
Memories of it all flashed in between the triad as they linked in mind and power. Kali and Calvin's eyelids flickered with the movie screen projected images in their mind.
“So your grandmother Prophetess Sera told us to hide in plain sight, but my husband was smarter than that. He knew I needed protection, and he could feel the power our child held. So he contacted his childhood friend in St. Louis, Hideo. Hideo had just married Emi, and so they both suggested we move there, where they could watch and protect over us.”
Calvin raised an eyebrow. “So they are Gargoyles, correct?”
Tamar smiled brightly. “More than that. As I said, my husband was intelligent. He had plans of protection set up long before I was pregnant. As soon as I conceived, he set his plans in motions. The Satous are Dragons, the highest level of Gargoyles.”
“Yes, next to the mythical Sphinx line, of course,” Kali interrupted in quiet glee.
Tamar agreed as she studied her cousins, whom she called niece and nephew. “Yes, my husband knew this. He always said it was the Most High's plan to put Hideo in his life, and at that moment he understood why. So we lived in peace in St. Louis. My husband had to fight, from time to time, to keep us off the Cursed radar, but when Sanna was born it became harder to hide her. My little girl had the gift of sight at birth. Whenever I changed her, she would touch me, and I could see what her little mind held. It frightened me sometimes to know that our child was an Oracle and a Vessel. We had heard from others, through the family, that Oracles were being killed and kidnapped by Cursed, so we had to be careful. That was why we never registered in Society. Society never would have truly accepted us anyway, due to my husband's background, but it was for the best in the end not to register.”
Calvin grumbled as Kali interjected.
“Regardless, they should have accepted you all. So, she was an Oracle even at birth? That is powerful. Oracles do not come into their power until they hit maturity! And you do not know who a Vessel is until they awaken!” Kali exclaimed, confused and excited.
“Yes, I know. This is why I think we were able to hide for so long, because they were hunting maturity-aged girls, never once thinking of an infant being born into her or his powers already.”
“How is it that she doesn't know what she is then? How is it that she's having migraines, as if she's maturing into her powers now?” Calvin asked, confusion lighting his eyes.
Kali responded, her eyes wide in excitement. “And who is she? She is the Vessel of who?”
Tamar's own eyes lit up with the power of a Prophet as she sighed. “My husband. He did something at his death, and her real identity is locked away from even me.”
“That's what's up. It's the way of the Vessels to stay hidden as a means of protection,” Calvin explained.
“Tell us how Uncle Bishop died, Momma Tamar. We need to understand because there is so much we just learned before we came here.” Kali stood then kneeled near Tamar as she held her hand.
“It was right after we left from visiting New Orleans. Sanna's birth was a trigger that we had to hide, but when the twins were born and Takeshi was born at the same time, we had to be even more careful. It was as if Sanna's powers grew when they were born. My husband told me he had another Denotation dream about them. And I did too, after he died.”
“What are they then?” Calvin softly asked as he ran his hands over the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension.
“I'm not sure yet. My husband knew though and died protecting his children. As I said, it happened after we left New Orleans. Sanna was playing with the twins in the back of the car, and she made a power surge happen. She was three. They were giggling and cooing. Sanna was trying to sing to them. They loved her so much, she was always able to connect to them. It was like they all knew what each was thinking, so when the power surge happened, it scared the hell out of us. We knew we had to figure out a way to hide them.”
Hesitating, Tamar rubbed her temple and continued on. “It took until Sanna was sevenâyou were ten, Calvin, right when you were coming into your own gifts.”
Calvin bowed his head, nodding in remembrance. He loved his cousin, had started calling him uncle when he was young, because he felt a kinship with him left void by the father he had lost long ago to depression over the loss of his mother. “Yeah, I remembered. He was a cool OG. He taught me a song.” Calvin held a hand up then dropped it as he ran his palms over his massive thighs and chuckled. “Ey, I'm a damn chump. That song, a rhyme he taught me, is a spell. I had no idea at the time. I thought it was some rhyme he made up. Man, that shit makes sense.”
Calvin observed the woman who sat quiet, her toffee skin glowing with a mother's love. Comfort as well as the wisdom of a Prophetess wrapped around him in comfort.
“Ma Tamar, I think I know what he did.”
Tamar gave a ghost smile as she nodded. “Yeah, you do. You just have to remember what he taught you.”
Kali sat confused as she listened. Everything was settling in her mind like puzzle pieces, except for the link between the three Steele children. She had never heard of a link that can charge an Oracle, let alone a Vessel.
“My husband was always doing research, creating scrolls of power to protect us. It was like he was a man obsessed. He made sure he spent his time with our children. Teaching them some of his legacy as they played. He even taught Kyo and Takeshi some protection spells as well.”
“How?” Calvin and Kali chimed at the same time.
Tamar softly chuckled as she stared at the pair. “He was a very strong Mystic and an even stronger father and husband. That man loved us with all of him. I guess this is why I was a Prophet. There is so much that your Society has documented but kept from you or just lost through the ages. I know what I know because my husband fused his knowledge with me as he passed, and thanks to the later dreams of Knowledge I had as my babies grew up. I also know what I know because of Sanna. It's like she knew what was going to happen before us.”
She shook her head and gave a drained laughed as she thought on it. “Of course, she knew. She was only a baby when she gave me that knowledge, and I later was able to unlock it. My little girl is . . . so powerful.”
Kali had to bite her lip and let Tamar settle through her emotions before she shouted and asked what happened.
This was a lot of much-needed information, information she knew she would defiantly keep away from Society until she could document it in a way that didn't scare the Elders or rile up the pretentious council members' angelic feathers.
“I'm sorry, babies. I'm just worried for my children, and the doctor is taking too damn long.”
She pulled out a bottle of water and took a slow sip, exhaling at the cool feel of the liquid sliding down her throat as she licked her lips. “This is what happened. My husband was at work. He had just dropped off some of his scrolls and then went off to the office, heading down two seventy, toward Chesterfield. The Cursed somehow was able to link him to the power surges occurring, so they started stalking him since the first one when Sanna was three. Those . . . bastards crossed the boundaries, took the fight in front of human eyes and caused a massive pileup on the highway with him in it. Somehow he was able to escape as they pulled him out of the car. He took the fight away from the confused humans and died fighting Snatchers, Hunters, and . . . a Fallen Elder. A Shroud-Eater.”
Kali's mouth dropped open, and she stammered, “A Shroud-Eater! They do not get involved unless what they want is of highest value.”
Calvin stood. “Motherfucker! How did they know?” Calvin's roar filled the room and caused the hair on everyone's body to stand with the electrical charge he shot through the place. He slammed a fist on a nearby wall as he thought of his cousin, the man he called uncle. It just didn't make sense at all. He needed to remember the rhyme he had taught him. It was fucking mandatory. He just had to.
He remembered clearly that his uncle had told him that he would need it one day in understanding everything that was going to happen soon. Of course, he didn't understand and pestered his uncle all day to tell him what he meant. But his uncle just laughed, handed him a basketball, and had him go it over and over as he made hoop after hoop. A song, a simple rhyme to him, but what was it?
“I think they traced the surges to him. Somehow my husband manipulated the power to focus on him and, in doing so, deflected the Cursed from us. I do know that. I felt his last word, a rhyme, a poem he wrote, vibrate through me, through our children. I knew then, when I couldn't sense his heartbeat anymore, that he was gone from me.”
Tears choked her throat as she remembered the pain and relived it all over again. Her nephew's comforting hand rested on his shoulder.
“My Immortal beloved cut down and killed. The Shroud-Eater took his last breath. But my husband protected his soul from being permanently killed off by his spell. The poem and my children's powers were bound, their memory of their powers locked away, as I was made an Immortal and we were hidden from the Cursed, until now.”
Kali abruptly called forth her laptop and went to clicking. “What you just said, I know. I remember it somewhere. When I was visiting my family in India, my great-aunt was talking about something like that. Spirit song? Spirit anchoring . . . something like that.”
Everyone in the room got quiet as they watched her click away, staring at the screen as she spoke. “I'm searching. We can learn so much about what he found and help many.”
A knock at the door had everyone looking up as a tall, handsome, syrupy cocoa-kissed man with sprinkles of white at his locked fro's temples and goatee walked into the room. His dimpled smile calmed everyone as he quietly closed the door.
“Sweetheart, close that laptop. You can search later,” Tamar calmly said, switching into the concerned human mother routine. She stood and smiled at the handsome doctor. He was a tall drink of water. Stood over her in a towering six five, with black, wired glasses that accented his chiseled face and welcoming, dimpled smile.
The speckles of white grey in his low-cropped, spiky fro and goatee added wisdom to his golden eyes. Tamar had to inwardly pray. Something about this man felt familiar to her spirit. Had her blood pressure rising in all the right areas, areas that had been ignored since the death of her beloved husband, and it scared her. She shook her head and offered a warm smile as concern over her sons took over.
“Hello, I'm Dr. Eammon Toure,” the doctor stated.
A soft island lilt to his voice filled the room while he held out his hand for Kali to shake. Calvin sized him up and quickly moved to block his view from Tamar.