Chapter 9 – The Neutral Collective

The taxi turned into a small but long cottage. Silk took a step out into the air stretching.

"This way," Grace called back to Silk who was already metres ahead of him.

Silk raised a hand to indicate that he heard her, he jogged a bit to catch up. Nick followed closely behind locking the taxi as he moved.

Grace opened the door.

"In you go," Nick pushed Silk through the doorway. He saw two men and a woman playing a board game on the table in the corner, a man looking in the mirror admiring himself and a woman sprawled across the sofa. No one noticed Silk enter.

"We leave in an hour," Grace declared. All the people turned to see them now.

The man who had been admiring himself walked up to Silk with a smile on his face. "Welcome to our group and I know what your thinking but no I am not gay so don't get your hopes up," the man said to Silk extending a hand.

Silk raised an eyebrow quizzically before extending his hand to the man. "Good to meet you but I have to say, you're not my type." He looked him up and down and the man was by no means bad looking, on the contrary he looked like a god on Earth and most would feel jealousy from looking at him.

The narcissistic man walked away.

"That's the hero," Grace stated like that was an obvious fact.

"What do you mean by hero?" Silk asked curiously.

"He is powerful good looking and charismatic so even if this operation goes wrong we plan to pin our hopes on him," Nick interjected.

"So, am I just cannon fodder in front of him?" Silk asked slightly ruffled by the comment.

"Yes," Nick said frankly. "Come with me so I can brief you." He led Silk through to a side room.

The side room in question was just a small kitchen with no real distinguishing features, the best description for the kitchen was a kitchenny kitchen.

"So what's the plan?" He asked eagerly.

"I will take you and two others down to London in my taxi where you will be set yourself up as a tailor and collect information. I will do the same as a taxi driver and the other two have their own methods. If they plan to start the war back up we will meet up to sabotage the enemy. Any questions?"

"What if I can't manage to get a job as a tailor?"

"Don't worry, specialised jobs are in special need as demons don't tend to like to do work like that. They much prefer killing and hunting."

"Where is my sewing equipment?"

"In my car, would it worry you to know I took it earlier so to not cause any problems?"

"Yes, it would." Silk replied frankly.

"I'm going to call in your partners n this mission to insure peace." Nick walked out and shouted into the other room.

The woman playing a board game and the woman sprawled across the sofa came in.

"So the well dressed idiot is the idiot who made me miss my turn in scrabble," the blonde scrabble player glared daggers into Silk.

"This had better be important." The other woman said seep in her eyes.

"Silk, this is Lucy." Nick indicated to the woman with sleep in her eyes. "Lucy, this is Silk. He will be coming with us to London."

"Good to meet you." Lucy yawned and left the room.

"Bronze, this is Silk." Nick introduced.

She ignored Nick's introduction. "Why do we need some untrained idiot on our team?"

"That is a very good point," Silk backed up Bronze.

"Because the prophet said we needed him on our team." Nick shot her line of questioning down in one swift blow.

Silk now had many more questions from this sentence, "What prophet, am I in a prophecy, why didn't you tell me before and what is said in this prophecy?" Silk burst out.

"You don't even know about this," Bronze sneered.

"We bought some information from a great man called the prophet." Nick replied ignoring Bronze. "Apparently there will be a marvellous person in the future, we have deduced the hero to be this person, however many people will have to help him reach this pinnacle power and you along with everyone else here is just a stepping stone for him."

"And this is one hundred percent accurate." Silk guessed.

Bronze took the lead in answering this question, "Yes, once the future is read it is impossible to change. No one knows quite how it works but if anyone looks into the future that version of events is going to happen with no exception."

"That's horrible."

"That may be true but you should know this now and not get your hopes up for a future." Bronze warned. "Now if you don't mind, I have a game of scrabble to win." She rushed off to get back to the game.

"I really have no future." Silk mumbled.

"While this may be true you need to realise all of us are in the same position." Nick comforted. "Everyone here knows how you feel except from the narcissistic hero."

"That is good to know." He sighed.

"You will get used to savouring moments of peace like this, even Bronze does."

As if on cue Silk heard Bronze shouting angrily and soon after something big and wooden snapping.

"She doesn't seem to." Silk said.

"That is her way of enjoying things." Nick turned around to the oven. "You haven't eaten anything recently, have you?"

"How did you know?" He asked bewildered.

"I've been stalking you for a while. Remember?" Nick switched the oven on. "I'll make something up."

Silk finished eating his omelette and it was nothing short of delicious. This was most likely to his fasting over the last couple of days.

He thought to himself for a bit thinking that he had forgotten something important. Shouldn't he be searching for someone but he couldn't quite remember any details when he tried. It was like something was in his way stopping him from accessing his memories.

"When do we go?" He asked Nick.

Nick turned to look at a clock. "About now," he informed. They left the room.