Page 33 of Destined for Dreams
Chapter 10
Bartol
He slid on the heavy down jacket he’d brought with him for the trip, zipping it up tightly. The morning was more than a little cold, and the heating in his quarters—one of several small rooms inside the same trailer—left something to be desired. Other than a twin size bed covered with sheets and a couple of woolen blankets, there was just a metal wall locker in the corner where he put his bag and hung his clothes. If Zoe had wanted to entice Bartol and the others to stay longer, she should have considered providing better accommodations. This was only a few steps above his cell in Purgatory, though at least the roof didn’t leak here.
Bartol missed his comfortable cabin already, and if he was honest with himself, Cori as well. Emptiness filled him with her so far away. It was all he could do to ignore that feeling since leaving Alaska so that he could get on with his mission.
A knock sounded at his door. Bartol opened it to find Tormod and Caius waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. They were staying in the other two trailer rooms, each with its own entrance. The wind was blowing particularly hard, and both men were shivering. Being immortal meant one couldn’t suffer from cold weather injuries, but that did not make them unaware of freezing temperatures. Just as humans, some of them handled it better than others, and everyone felt it to some degree.
“Ready?” Caius asked.
They’d decided to walk together to the dining facility for breakfast. The previous evening they’d missed dinner and had to settle for reheated leftover soup. It hadn’t been pleasant, particularly since some of the contents in their bowls were not quite identifiable. They’d agreed not to make that mistake again and to partake of their food at the start of meal time. Hopefully, it would be fresher with more varieties to choose from than before.
“Yes,” Bartol said, pulling a wool hat over his head to keep his hair from flying about in the wind. He turned and shut the door before joining them.
Tormod glanced over. “So, uh, I thought eating in Purgatory was bad, but last night was a hell of a lot worse. At our compound, we eat way better than this.”
“Breakfast is the best meal,” Caius promised.
“What’s the difference?” Bartol asked.
“They rotate the cooks for each meal so different nerou can practice their culinary skills, but the best men and women prepare breakfast.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why the others haven’t improved by now, but I’m afraid they haven’t had the best teachers, either. One time they served steak for dinner, and the options were close to raw or burned with no in between. It was dreadful.”
Tormod made a disgusted face.
Bartol considered the few nephilim assigned to the compound other than Zoe. He couldn’t recall that any of them were known for cooking, though he wasn’t particularly close to them. “They should hire an outside source to assist in the problem.”
“Easier said than done.” They crossed a small field where about a dozen nerou performed their morning exercise routines—push-ups and sit-ups at the moment. “They’d need permission from the archangel in charge, and he isn’t as amenable as Remiel. From the way Zoe explains it, she can hardly get any funding for the place at all.”
“None of the nephilim here are poor. Why don’t they spend their own money?” Bartol asked. They’d all been so desperate to get their sons and daughters out of Purgatory that one would think they wouldn’t mind parting with some of their funds to help their offspring adjust to the new world.
Caius sighed. “They already do—most of this place was paid for by them—but they’re hardly going to bankrupt themselves. Maintaining these training compounds and keeping them supplied costs a lot more than you’d think. The security measures alone are expensive.”
“Remiel brought angels with him to put magical protections on the place in Alaska,” Bartol said.
“The archangel here left it for the trainers to handle.” Caius led them up the dining facility steps. “This one only shows up to punish anyone who breaks his long list of rules.”
“He’s clearly never had Melena or Cori go after him before then.”
Tormod chuckled. “He wouldn’t know what hit him.”
Caius stopped at the door, grasping the handle. “It’s only for a few more months, and then they’ll be going out into the world as enforcers. I suppose it’s a moot point now.”
They entered the building. From what Bartol could tell, it had been hastily constructed using mostly two-by-fours and plywood. Only the roof had reasonably decent materials, but the walls lacked proper insulation, and the windows rattled against the wind. The entire structure, including the kitchen at the back, wasn’t any more than four hundred square feet. With the ovens and stoves going, it wasn’t as cold as when they’d stopped by the night before, but it wasn’t as warm as it should have been, either.
Each of them grabbed a tray and joined the line for breakfast. There were only a few nerou ahead of them, each with ravenous expressions on their faces. They must have been half starving from the previous two meals. Bartol was grateful they kept their gazes on the hot food and didn’t pay any attention to him. He kept expecting someone to gasp in horror over his scars at any moment like what always happened when he went about strangers. Instead, their appetites were all that appeared to matter to them, which was almost more upsetting.
“When I talk to Remiel next, I will speak to him about this,” Bartol swore.
The nerou were innocents who had been deprived of a chance to grow up on Earth. Soon, they would be charged with the difficult task of being supernatural enforcers, but they had limited time left to learn how to live in the modern world before they’d be out on their own. They could hardly do it with a start like this.
Caius accepted a large spoonful of eggs onto his tray. “I wish you luck with that.”
“I will do my best.” Bartol might not have any children of his own—and never would—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t sympathize with the nerou’s plight. Many of their parents were long dead, and they had no one with a backbone to stand up for them.
As they went along the line, each of them received eggs, bacon, bread, and fruit. It wasn’t a large meal, but it was well rounded and smelled reasonably good. He thought about Cori and what she could teach the nerou if she had a few days here. She could help them to dramatically improve. But it wasn’t her job, and they needed someone who could dedicate their full time and energy into helping the place.
The three of them sat at a table near the window and dug into their meals. The food was as good as promised, to Bartol’s relief. All around him, he overheard nerou speaking in several languages. The primary dialects he heard were Russian and Chinese Mandarin, but there were others as well. In addition to that, they all knew English, but since they would have to serve in various areas throughout Russia and Asia, they needed to learn the language for where they’d be living and working. Bartol was impressed with how quickly they had already adapted their lingual skills since they couldn’t have started studying any earlier than February. It must have been a special quality of their kind, considering he’d found Tormod to be a fast learner as well.
