“They’re repulsive,” Aunt Agñasta announced.
“I tend to agree,” Jarvis said. “Nevertheless, it is the thought that counts. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it, Loadsworth,” Gabriel clapped Jarvis on the shoulder and stumped past him into the house. “I’d be remiss in my Archangeling duties if I didn’t perpetuate every moronic religious tradition you people have come up with every other week since the fall of Rome, wouldn’t I?” he lumbered through towards the drawing room. “I trust you’ve got goodies for me in here?” he said without looking back.
“I could take a quick trip to BuckSavers, Ms. Vandemar,” Jarvis murmured.
“It’s fine,” Ariel said, “Roon and I got some hair-care products and I’ve got a third cigar I can give him.”
Gabriel reappeared in the doorway as if by magic. “Did you say ‘cigar’?”
CHRISTMAS DAY, 2201
The weeks went by after that, with the weird exponential-acceleration feeling they always seemed to get as October became November, and November launched into December and the year’s end loomed. Even Ariel, generally not one to pay much attention to such phenomena, found herself surprised by it every year. Part of it, she had to admit, was to do with how busy things got for her during this season.
The builders were reluctant to finish the renovation work before Christmas, and the work had to be at a certain point before Cardinal Lursley could perform his blessing to make the chapel into ‘proper’ holy ground. And, naturally, this was a busy time of year for the good Cardinal.
Still, money and family connections make all the difference. The former got the builders turning up early and leaving late through the two-week grace period between Eleventh and Twelfth Day, with the last work being finished off on the night of Twelfth Day Eve;61 the latter got the Cardinal to make a personal appearance on Twelfth Day morning to perform the rather simple process of turning the vaguely church-like group of comfortable rooms with the small auditorium in the centre into an actual chapel. He was honoured but slightly set-upon when he arrived, but by the time he’d chatted with Ariel for five minutes she was pretty sure the old fuddy-duddy would have waited around while the sisters built a cathedral in the back yard for him to consecrate. Without false modesty, Ariel had to admit to having that effect on people.
That evening, when Gabriel once again arrived with muttered invectives against the churchgoers crowding his living space, they led him back outside, around the side of the huge property, past the old tennis courts, and stopped at the big, heavy-duty side door that had just been replaced and finished off two days before.
“What is this?” he asked, as Ash solemnly passed him a tiny package wrapped in silver paper. Ariel had to once again credit his showmanship, if indeed this gift wasn’t coming as a surprise to the Archangel. He opened the tiny parcel, turned the key back and forth sceptically, squinted at the door, then at the sisters. “You’re giving me a key to the servants’ entrance,” he said. “That’s … nice,” he looked at their level expressions. “No, really,” he added, “symbolically making me part of the household, it’s–”
“Just open it,” Ash told him.
Giving them another distrusting look, he inserted the key and opened the door. “I don’t see what–” he began.
The entrance was set up in the style of a house, with a small antechamber and security station, which then opened into the main chapel auditorium. From the large ring of comfortable chairs and multimedia pulpit setup – that, yes, could double as a home cinema if one were inclined to think of it that way – a couple of smaller sitting rooms and a bedroom led off. There had been debate about the bedroom, but Ariel had pointed out that whether or not Angels actually slept, Gabriel seemed the sort to enjoy a good lie-down from time to time, and nobody had been able to argue with that.
“It’s still fully functional,” Ariel explained as the Archangel shuffled in through the entrance and the lights welled up around the opulent auditorium. Well, she amended discerningly to herself, opulent for a chapel anyway. It was, she had to admit, fairly Spartan in contrast to some other parts of the house. “It’s set up in the multi-dom fashion for different services and consecrated to the universal code. Whatever that means. The Cardinal had lots of virtual pamphlets.”
Gabriel wiped his nose with a snuffle that was shockingly loud in the high-ceilinged chamber.
“I’ve got a lot of churches named after me,” he said in an unsteady voice. “I think this is the first that’s actually been made for me.”
“Are you crying?” Ariel asked in fond amusement.
“No,” Gabriel said gruffly, looking away. “I just have go fuck yourself in my eye.”
Even Aunt Agñasta smiled at that one.
They conducted a brief tour of the new chapel and its conveniences, then went on through to the main house. Gabriel confirmed as they left the old wing that the newly-dedicated holy ground extended to the side rooms but ended at the corridor into the converted ballroom that was the central hub of Tumblehedge’s little-used social setup.
“It’s solid,” Gabriel said, “the consecration, I mean. Good boundary,” he looked around. At that moment, the ballroom was undergoing some incidental renovations and decorations related to Ariel’s planned New Year’s celebration. It wasn’t likely to be a big party, since few of her socialite and celebrity friends and hangers-on could ever be bothered coming all the way to Perth for a party, but Ariel’s events were widely touted as Places To Be Seen and Not To Be Missed and usually got the suffix ‘of the year’ as a matter of course, whether earned or not. “I guess the neighbours will be fine,” he added wryly. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“If we’re noisy, you can feel free to lodge a complaint with management,” Ariel said, and glanced meaningfully at Aunt Agñasta.
“They are well-behaved girls,” Aunt Agñasta assured him.
They enjoyed a late supper in the dining room, then repaired to the drawing room and made themselves comfortable with some refreshing rum-iced cappuccinos. Gabriel held forth for some time on the subject of hot weather at Christmas and how it just wasn’t natural, but in the end they concluded that the availability of ice-cold alcoholic beverages made it almost worthwhile.
After a couple of hours of increasingly far-ranging and risqué conversation, they’d covered a lot of ground and begun severely testing Jarvis’s cocktail-mixing creativity. It was, the butler said, probably his own fault for serving something with caffeine in it first.
“So, now, hey,” Ariel decided she was finally tipsy enough to veer into a new topic. “What if … what if … one of us dies,” she said, gesturing at herself and her sisters with her empty glass, “and the other one runs out and gets pregnant, like, that day?”
“Excuse me?” Gabriel said, and looked to Ash and Roon for support.
“Don’t look at us,” Ash said.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Ariel said sternly.
“I believe you,” Gabriel actually stammered.
“So what if one of us dies and another of us gets pregnant?” Ariel repeated. “Come on, it’s not as if any of us would have trouble with that part of it,” she gestured at the three of them again, superfluously.
“Where are you going with this?” Ash asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ariel said.
“No,” Ash replied, then rolled her eyes when Roon nodded. “Oh, well played. Of course, you don’t have to explain any of it, do you? Just nod.”
“What I mean is, what if the one who died then just turned around, flitted over and started weaving herself into her sister’s baby?” Ariel said. Roon nodded again, pointing at Ariel. Ash sighed. “Wouldn’t the most convenient thing for the next, well, hundred years or so be to get born in this family? Especially if the next incarnation is all focussed and stuff? We’re already sort of set up and ready for it, we’ve got a live-in Archangel personal trainer, and all the resources a bunch of theological superheroes would need.”
“As nightmarishly as she has introduced the concept, sir,” Jarvis admitted, “it rather makes sense. There would be few places, physically or socioeconomically, better suited for a Pinian to be reborn.”
“See, that’s what I’m saying,” Ariel said. “I mean, we can’t do it consciously yet, but will we be able to by the time we get to maximum focus in this life? Or, or, if we’re still just humans by then, maybe it would still make sense – the Pinian part would automatically go to the best place? Like instinct, or least-resistance, or whatever?”
“I … okay,” Gabriel said. The Archangel, like the rest of them, was watching Ariel in fascination. She began to feel the buzz of the alcohol drain away into uncertainty.
“We can’t control where we go when we go looking for a new incarnation to start,” she went on, opting not to let uncertainty stop her, “we just get drawn into the next available new-conceived dividing cell clump, right? So wouldn’t it just be best if it was a cell clump in one of us?”
“This is profoundly disturbing for reasons I am not linguistically equipped to express,” Ash said.
“I can have a try,” Gabriel said. “For a start, what you’re suggesting is that straight after one of your sisters dies, going out and having a shag is going to be a priority.”
“I–” Ariel faltered. “Well, for the good of the, uh…”
“And the part where the new baby, regardless of her level of Pinian-focus, is your sister and your daughter at the same time,” Gabriel went on.
“Oh yeah,” Ariel said. “Um, but that’s not–”
“Then of course there’s the part I thought I’d made pretty clear,” the Archangel continued, “which is that all three of you need to die more or less at the same time – within days of each other – to hope for a tighter resurrection and fuller focus next time. You have to die together to be resurrected together.”
“And that’s still not likely to happen,” Ash said, “unless we all live to be a hundred and quietly dose ourselves with something by agreement.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Gabriel said.
“You’ve been thinking about my nieces poisoning themselves?” Aunt Agñasta raised her eyebrows.
“You may be underestimating how boring some of my days are,” Gabriel retorted. “But no, I was thinking about the problem of the three of you obviously not wanting to die, and the very high probability of your deaths being staggered by years, if not decades,” he rose, crossed to the little table of drinks Jarvis had been steadily replenishing, and poured himself a peach bourbon iced tea – a mixture that the others had tasted, when he first mixed himself one, and universally agreed was nauseating. “And for a start, even if you do this mad death-sex foetal possession thing you’re talking about, it’s going to leave you with a nine-month gap between the newborn Disciple and the Disciple who’s her mother.”
“Death-sex foetal possession has just made my top five all-time coolest-sounding acts, though,” Ariel remarked.
“It’s just a matter of–” Gabriel started, then blinked. “It made your top five?” he said. “Do I want to know about the other four?”
“Perhaps not the best Christmas night conversation topic,” Jarvis suggested.
“She started it.”
“Alright,” Ariel said, “maybe it would be weird.”
“Maybe?” Ash repeated.
“I can’t see it working out,” Gabriel said before Ariel could retort, “just for the personal interrelations alone. I don’t think Disciples have ever gestated their Sisters’ or Brothers’ next incarnations personally before. I mean, there aren’t that many situations where it would even be possible, but this … no,” he shook his head. “Best not.”
“I was just trying to come up with some efficient way of keeping the Pinians in this family, with the resources of the Vandemar estate at their disposal,” Ariel reasoned.
“Best way to do that is to keep an eye on the system after any of you die, and then use maths,” Gabriel said. “Tag babies conceived close to the moment one of you died, then either adopt it, or set the Vandemar estate up as a kind of benefactor. Have to be subtle though, to avoid Demonic attention … to be honest, I hadn’t thought about it in so much detail,” he shuddered. “For reasons that are probably obvious by now.”
“But you had some solutions,” Ash said.
“Well, sort of,” Gabriel replied, sitting back down. “The main one is, it’s not so much you all dying at the same time that matters, it’s you all reincarnating at the same time.”
“And how do we coordinate that?” Ash asked.
“No idea,” Gabriel admitted. “I suppose I was hoping that, as your training progressed, we’d get to a point where we might dare to try a bit of soul-journeying. Maybe Stormburg or the Destarion would come up with something. And then, once you reached reincarnation point, those of you to get there first could just sort of … flit about, as you put it, until the other two are ready. Maybe even do a bit of standard possession, to stay in touch. Then – all of you together, into new bodies. I’d discounted the idea because it would take too long, but with Roon’s advances in getting clean energy, establishing some sort of conduit through the veil … we might actually have the time.”
“Except our training hasn’t really progressed,” Ash said, “has it?”
“Well, like I say,” Gabriel replied noncommittally, “let’s not get despondent after a couple of months. We can afford to work on this for a while. Roon’s not exactly ready to start construction of a global power distribution hub yet,” he paused. “Are you?”
Roon smiled slightly and shook her head.
“Alright,” Ariel said, “well, until Gabe can teach us how to ghost around and possess–”
“Hold on, I can’t teach you anything of the sort,” Gabriel said. “And another thing – you build a luxury chapel for me and suddenly you get to call me Gabe?”
“Pretty much,” Ash replied.
“Fair enough,” Gabriel grunted.
“What else have you got?” Ariel prompted. “You shot down my death-sex foetal possession idea–”
Ariel was interrupted by a soft chime. Ash straightened in her armchair, set down her drink, and tapped at her interface.
Aunt Agñasta looked momentarily stern, because all communications devices were meant to be put away during Christmas family time … but only momentarily. Because there was a very limited number of people who would, or even could, contact Senior Sergeant Ash Vandemar on Christmas. And you answered when they called.
Ash sat and listened for a few seconds, then asked a swift, inaudible series of questions almost entirely rendered down into military-speak. Ariel caught wheels up, recon, team, sign off, but couldn’t have said what any of them meant without context.
She shut off her interface and slipped it into her pocket, where it tinked against the lighter Jarvis had given her as a First Day gift. She sighed gently, and Ariel watched with pain in her heart as her sister’s face lost its smile, lost its animation, turned back into the soldier she needed to be.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“There’s a typhoon cell merging in the Floods,” Ash replied. “We’re on alert. If it collapses, we’re going to be teamed up with an American specialist unit. Supply, rescue…” she snorted a soft, humourless laugh through her nose. “Crazy control.”
Ariel shivered. The swamps and perma-tropical heat of the Flood-Sundered States of America, even in December, were a vast open-air asylum. The heat made people insane, the exotic blood sicknesses carried by the local insects made it worse … and a disaster like a typhoon cell cluster, with the property damage, loss of life, lack of food and water, and inevitable looting and vigilantism that would follow it, was why the ASEAN Union Special Forces were being called in to lend a hand.
Usually, the Floods took care of their own. That meant this was happening in a spot that was already ugly, and was expected to be a cell of greater-than-usual force.
<
br /> “When do you ship out?” Aunt Agñasta asked quietly. Gabriel was watching them in silence, deep-set amber eyes troubled.
“The third,” Ash replied. “We’ll know in forty-eight hours if we’re needed. After that … every day could mean five hundred lives or more.”
BEFORE THE DAWN
Gabriel sat and watched Ash after the call ended, watched her let the conversation carry on around her. He could tell the animation had gone out of the gathering, a despondent and worried cloud smothering the good spirits that had reigned just moments before. He regretted that – regretted it as though he was somehow the cause of it. He regretted the fact that he was, if by technicality only, the oldest and most authoritative figure in the room, and was aware that this gave him some measure of responsibility for everything.
Most of all, he regretted being the ultimate source of what must be going through Ash’s head right now. And Ariel’s, and Roon’s.
If the Pinians had just remained strong … if they’d – if we’d – just been leaders, if we’d kept things running instead of hiding ourselves away … would any of this be happening? Would the world be tearing itself apart from the stratosphere down?
He knew there was nothing much anyone could do. You might as well stand on the wing of a fighter jet and scream at the typhoon.
One by one, the others made their good-nights and merry-Christmases and turned in. By about three in the morning, it was just Ash and Gabriel.
“Ugly business,” he said, testing the waters.
“Ugly as they come,” Ash agreed, her scarred face unreadable. “My team does a lot of strikes on human trafficking and organised crime rings, but it’s when the weather comes down on us that all those things start. Natural disasters are the bloody, shitty womb of human suffering.”
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