The Watchers Read Online Free

camera was still inside, and then flung it over his shoulder. Pushing the flaking-paint sash window further up the worn ropes, he put his leg through the opening. Tom grinned as he raced down the fire-escape to the stench and the sirens and the sin of his favourite city, and wondered if that would be the night his dream would come true: To meet the Watchers face-to-face, and to capture them on film for posterity…and prosperity.
     
    An hour laterThe PI looked lik e he’d turned blue, either from a lack of oxygen, or more likely, from the reflection of the moon. The event unfolding before their very eyes was incomprehensible. Tom knew it and so did the PI sitting next to him.
    The bait had worked. The Watchers had arrived.
    It was rumoured that the Watchers kept to places that offered the least exposure. Tom had heard stories about them appearing in the cities around the world. Hong Kong, Berlin, Paris, London and his very own hometown of New York City, but there was nothing about the sighting in mainstream media, probably because it was all controlled by the government, but the word on the street, the next best thing to the non-existent Internet, was that the Angels had arrived and that they were beginning their divine mission by whittling out a few bad guys. A photograph had been attained, but those who had seen it said it looked as if it had been photo-shopped.
    No, the pictures couldn’t be anything like the real thing, Tom decided, because the real thing was in front of him right now, and no one could have been prepared for a vision like that.
    The first Watcher had simply stepped into the open as if it had walked out of a tree…or something . The illusion was incredible. One moment they weren’t there and the next moment they were. There was no other way to explain it. Tom was reminded of those crazy coloured pictures that revealed a three-dimensional image after staring at it cross-eyed. Yeah, it was like that!
    The next Angel arrived in the same way, and then another. Tom had to wonder if they’d been there all along while he’d been introducing himself to the PI. That notion alone was startling.
    Within seconds, there were seven Watchers standing in a circle formation within the clearing.
    About six-foot-six tall, the Angel’s limbs were long and powerful; their hands and feet like blunt weapons, while their broad shoulders were rounded like great mounds of muscled flesh. Their lower bodies were swathed in what looked like grey kid leather, but it was no earthly fibre, it looked as if they wore a second skin, wrapped around their form, protecting their modesty, adorning them, so that when they moved, the material shone and illustrated their male shapes, especially their buttocks and thighs of unyielding rock hard muscle.
    Their faces were all different, like ours, each with their own unique visage, but they were strong faces, to match their bodies, revealing the intensity of their presence there on earth. Their only defect were facial scars, crisscrossing their faces, necks and torsos as if they had been carved with talons.
    Their defining features were the colour of their skin, white, brown, dark, black, all different, as man was different. Along their arms, silver and black painted tattoos caught the light. Symbols and signs and indecipherable letters and numbers, etched into their skin, looking as if each were as prominent as the last.
    Behind them, feathered wings were folded like a mother’s loving arms wrapped around her child. From the back the plumes were dull and weathered, some of them missing as if they had been plucked out in battle.
    The Angels stepped into the clearing, where the people inside screamed and cursed, looking as if they were unable to move out of the circle, as if an invisible, impenetrable force field prevented them from leaving. The men and women dashed about like lambs in a fenced enclosure, attempting to find an avenue of escape, but there wasn't one.
    The dark skinned boy,