Thirty-Five
GRAY
All thoughts of glowing, red stones were wiped from Sev and Gray’s minds as they stepped foot into the restaurant known as Glittering Galaxy.
“Bloody hell,” Sev exclaimed—the first curse Gray had heard from him—as they descended from the darkly lit hallway into an anti-gravity, infinite room filled with stars and planets and floating tables and chairs.
Gray turned to see the door morph into a massive black hole. Now it truly appeared as if they were their own little constellation.
There was enough gravity in the room for Sev and Gray to bounce their way to the table, led by Anther who was speaking without taking a break or a breath. “This is my absolute favorite restaurant,” he said, doing a flip in midair. “When I was human, I was fascinated by space and stars and planets and things, and I read any science fiction I could get my hands on. Your passions from life carry on with you to the afterlife.”
“How is this accomplished?” Sev asked, looking both impressed and puzzled.
“Not everything has to be explained, my scientific friend.” Anther stopped at their hovering table, waving a hand over the chairs. Sev frowned, apparently not liking his response one bit. “And some things,” Anther continued, “aren’t meant to be understood by human minds.”
“Yes, but we are half angels,” Chord cut in as he came bounding over to the table. “So, we should be able to halfway comprehend.”
“I’m not sure it works that way,” Anther said.
Another voice appeared in the form of Brielle. “Well, if we can’t have our angel wings yet, I suppose this is a decent alternative. I wonder how they got a piece of outer space in this little ship!”
“This is clearly not outer space.” Sev shook his head wearily. “If it were, we certainly would not be sitting at a table and chatting—especially seeing as how sound doesn’t travel through space in this way. In addition to the fact that—”
“I was joking,” Brielle said defensively. “Chill out.”
“Well, perhaps you should make that clear,” Sev stated coldly.
“Wow,” Chord muttered to Gray. “Brielle is four for four on the hate scale in our group.”
Gray thought it best to ignore Chord's comment. “Oh, Anther,” he said instead, remembering the glowing stone in Sev’s pocket. “I was going to ask you—”
His sentence dropped off when a ray of light flashed in the corner of his eye. That ray of light happened to be Aurora—clothed in a flowing white dress with a blue satin sash tied around her waist. She looked troubled, like her mind was far away and didn’t seem even slightly intrigued by the dining room galaxy.
“Anther, could I have a glass of wine, please?” she asked as soon as she sat down in the seat between Gray and Chord. “White or red. Doesn’t matter which.”
Gray almost wished she had sat across from him so it wouldn’t be so obvious that he was attempting to study her demeanor.
“Of course you can!” Anther said, turning to leave and then whirling around to face Gray. “Oh, right. Were you going to ask me something, Mr. Cross?”
Gray looked from Aurora to Anther and said, “Oh, uh…nah.”
He’d worry about the stones later.
“You okay?” Chord asked Aurora before Gray had a chance to.
Aurora looked from her plate to Chord in confusion. “Hm?”
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
“Oh.” She straightened her back and seemed to be attempting to bring herself out of her head, into the present space. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Just tired from training, is all.”
This appeared to appease Chord, though Gray wasn’t quite convinced.
“Well, you look hot in that dress if that helps any,” Chord said.
Aurora smiled, though Gray could tell it was forced.
Gray tried to make eye contact with her, which was difficult when they were sitting side by side. He knew she could feel his gaze on her, but was choosing to ignore it.
Samuel was the last to show up at the table, and the tension between him and Aurora was nearly palpable. She pursed her lips, staring intently at the salt and peppershakers. When the bread rolls came, she immediately grabbed one and proceeded to slather it with butter and stuff it into her mouth. Samuel acted as if he didn’t notice any of this.
“Here you are, Miss.” Anther handed over Aurora’s glass of wine.
Aurora grabbed the glass and took a large gulp, bread still in her mouth.
“It’s like you’re taking communion,” Chord noted with a chuckle. “You know, when I was a little kid, they used grape juice instead of wine for communion at my church, for some reason, and I always thought that the bread dipped in the sweet juice was delicious. So I asked my mom to buy some grape juice, and I would dip our sandwich bread into a large glass of it as an after school snack. At the time I didn’t realize this would probably be considered sacrilegious. Eating Jesus for a snack.”
Aurora swallowed her mouthful of bread and wine and let out a choking laugh. Anther patted her gently on the back. “Anyone else need anything?”
“I’ll take some wine,” Chord said.
Aurora laughed again. “For communion, or—?”
“I’m going to regret telling that story, I can see.”
Anther bounced off to retrieve the glass of wine for Chord.
The tension between Samuel and Aurora seeped slowly back, having been temporarily camouflaged by Chord’s humor. Sev—always blissfully oblivious to awkward social situations— sat up straighter and said, “Oh, right. The stone. Have any of you happened upon one of these in your bags?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the glowing black and red stone. Gray wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but he could’ve sworn he saw Samuel stiffen considerably at first sight of the object.
“I did.” Chord took the stone from Sev’s hand and examined it closely. “Weird. I couldn’t figure out how it got there.”
“I did too,” Brielle jumped in.
“I haven’t,” Aurora answered, “But, then again, I also haven’t fully unpacked my bag. It’s under my bed, half-full.”
“I found one too,” Gray added. “But it basically exploded when I accidentally touched it with my crux.”
Chord frowned in contemplation. “That’s strange… I wonder if the Powers put them in there when they took our luggage to our rooms.”
“Why would they do that?” Aurora asked.
The entirety of the table looked to Samuel.
“Yes, they did,” he remarked. His eyes remained on the dinner roll he had yet to eat. “They are protection stones. They repel demons.”
Was it just Gray or did Samuel sound exceptionally uncomfortable? Looking sideways at Aurora, Gray found he wasn’t the only one who thought the fair-haired angel was behaving strangely.
“They are meant to stay in your staterooms, though,” Samuel continued, finally looking up at them. “Not on your person.”
“If they repel demons,” Gray said skeptically, “wouldn’t it be better to keep the stones on you?”
When Samuel answered, his voice was tight. “They lose their power when they come into contact with human flesh.”
Gray wasn’t going to let him explain things away so easily. “So, if we keep them in our pockets, they wouldn’t be in contact with human flesh.”
At that moment, Anther arrived with Chord’s wine, placing it before him with a dramatic flourish. “Here you are, sir. Anyone else need—?” He stopped as his eyes landed on the stone in Sev’s hand. Gray watched as Anther’s eyes went wide with something akin to terror, and his mouth opening to speak. But then his expression went blank, his eyes glazing over. The redheaded angel then spoke in an entirely different tone, almost robotic. “Juniper will be here soon to take your orders. Have a good evening.”
Gray's eyes scanned the table, but it was apparent he had been the only one to notice what had just happened. Sev replaced the stone in his po
cket, dropping the subject. But his brows furrowed, and his mouth turned downward in deep thought. This didn’t necessarily mean anything, given that this was how Sev's face looked most of the time.
Juniper arrived then to take everyone’s order, effectively bringing the conversation topic away from the supposedly protective stones. Gray kept a wary eye on Samuel, scrutinizing his every move now.
“I’ll have the galaxy gazpacho to start,” Chord said. “If only for the name.”
“It’s delicious, I promise,” Juniper assured him.
“Is the meteor mushroom soup cream based?” Brielle asked.
Juniper nodded. “I believe so.”
“Hmm,” Brielle responded with a downturned mouth. “I suppose I’ll just start with the starlight salad then. And tell them to go light on the dressing, please.”
“Still dieting, Brielle?” Chord said.
“Just watching my calories,” the brunette answered tightly, not making eye contact.
“Watching them, huh? Like bird watching? Do you use binoculars or…?”
Brielle shot him an incensed glare.
All the while Gray’s mind was imploding. Was he seriously the only one who was suspicious of what had just happened with Samuel? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he currently couldn’t stand the guy, but still. Protective stones the angels had secretly slipped in their bags? How did that even make sense? And, if they were meant to stay in their staterooms, why not make them part of the decoration? There were stones and jewels strewn all over the ship, embedded in the marble and metal decorations. What would be the point of secretively slipping these stones into the Halos’ personal luggage and not telling them of their significance?
“And for you, Gray?” Juniper asked, pulling him out of his thoughts, like a parent fishing a reluctant child from a swimming pool. Gray glanced quickly at the menu and ordered the first things he saw, which happened to be the black-hole borscht and the Milky Way meatball medley, which didn’t seem to mesh at all, but he didn’t quite care. Plus, he’d never had borscht before, so…
“Aha!” Sev thundered to himself, slamming his fist on the table, causing everyone to look at him in surprise and bemusement. “I, er, I need to go check on something. Please excuse me. I apologize.”
And with this, he stood and moved weightlessly through the galaxy restaurant. As he moved away, he reached his hand into the jacket pocket holding the glowing red stone and didn’t remove it.
And Gray realized he must not have been the only one suspicious of Samuel after all.
CHORD
Chord didn’t know what the hell was going on at their table, but it wasn’t normal. First, Aurora came in all distracted and uptight-like, though that wasn’t too far from the norm. Then she and Gray had this weird awkwardness that hadn’t been there before. And then Samuel came to the table and the awkwardness intensified. To top everything off, Sev and Gray started going on about some weird stone everyone had in their bags and, when Samuel cleared that up, Sev seemed even more in his head than usual before he jumped up and hurried out of the restaurant before eating anything.
Either Chord was missing something or—no, that was it. He was definitely missing something. He just had no idea what that something was. But you better bet Lucifer’s ass he was going to find out.
So, after the most awkward dinner in the history of awkward dinners, Chord went in search of Sev.
If I were Sevastion Blackwood, where would I be, Chord thought to himself. The library. The answer always was and forever would be…the library.
Lo and behold, when Chord entered the massive room of books, he found Sev flipping madly through a tome the size of a dictionary. “I knew it,” Chord exclaimed, causing Sev to jump out of his skin at the rude interruption.
“I know I read it somewhere,” Sev said, more to himself than to Chord.
Chord took a seat next to him, on the side with the arm that wasn’t wildly flicking through pages, lest he get smacked in the face. “Read what where? And if you’re talking about one of these books, you have a stack of twelve here.”
“I am talking about these books,” Sev muttered, ceaselessly swiping through the pages.
Chord leaned sideways, so he and Sev were shoulder to shoulder. “How are you even processing what you’re reading?”
“I’m skimming. Beside a certain passage, there was an illustration I vaguely remember, for which I am explicitly looking.”
Chord rested his arms on the table, leaning forward. “So, what exactly is the image for which you are explicitly looking?”
“It’s two images actually,” Sev clarified, ignoring Chord’s jest, or perhaps missing it entirely. “One is a picture of a hoard of demons emerging from a black hole.”
“And the other?”
“The other image is of a stone. The picture is in black and white, so I didn’t make the connection at first. But, during dinner—”
“You mean before dinner,” Chord corrected. “You didn’t actually consume dinner.”
“Pardon. Before dinner—after Samuel acted rather strangely when he was questioned about the stones—I began searching the memory stores of my brain for a distant recollection I believed correlated to this subject. Then I realized, during my research on demons, I had read something about a stone. I can't recall the name at the moment, but the stone itself, if I remember correctly, was a dangerous one.”
Chord looked over his shoulder to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. Oh, who was he kidding, no one was crazy enough to be in the library when they could be eating, drinking, or sleeping. He turned back to Sev and murmured under his breath, “So, you don’t think Samuel was telling the truth?”
“Not if this,” Sev held up the glowing stone in his left hand while his right continued to flip through the pages of his book, “matches the stone in the picture.”
“Don’t you think it would be wise to tell Michael or someone if Samuel is a shady dirt bag, rather than an angel?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I could be wrong. If I’m going to alert anyone, it’s going to be with the facts.”
“Sev,” Chord said seriously. “You’re never wrong.”
“Not often,” Sev conceded, “but I have been ignorant of some things in the past. Geniuses have a tendency of being incredibly smart and equally unwise.”
“Aren’t being smart and wise the same?”
“Not in the slightest. AHA! Here.” His finger slapped the page down and moved until it reached the image he had earlier described.
Sev mouthed the passage beside the image without uttering a sound. Chord watched as the color drained from Sev’s already pale, downward drawn face. And he knew he didn’t even have to ask if the stones matched, but he did anyway.
“So?”
“It’s a mulciber stone,” Sev answered darkly. “A physical gateway between the demon realms and our world.”
Chord felt a chill, unrelated to the temperature of the library, travel across his skin. “So, like, a demon portal?”
“That’s precisely what it is.”
“And does this,” Chord picked up the stone Sev had placed on the table, “match the one in the picture?”
“Yes, it does.”
Picking up his crux, Chord tapped the mulciber stone, which shattered at its touch, emitting a high-pitched squeal as it did so.
“Well…fuck.”
Thirty-Six
AURORA
Gray called her name once.
Twice.
A third time.
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Aurora stopped walking and turned to wait for Gray to catch up to her. “What, Gray?”
“Why are you chasing after Samuel?” he asked bluntly.
This brought her up short and a warm blush crept across her cheeks. “I wasn’t.”
“Don’t play dumb. I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m not playing dumb,” Aurora lied and then quickly switched thi
ngs around on him. “Why are you chasing after me?”
“Because that’s what I do.”
Aurora’s brows met at this. “What?”
Gray ran a hand through his thick hair in apparent frustration. “Nothing. Never mind. You do know Samuel is lying to us, right?”
“Nice subject change.” Aurora turned to move up the stairs again, and Gray followed after her. She could’ve sworn she saw Samuel go this way. She just needed to apologize for how she’d acted earlier.
“I’m serious, Aurora.” Gray’s voice was low and urgent. “You have to listen to me. Those stones aren’t protection stones. There’s something dark and dangerous about them—otherwise, why would my crux destroy it like it did? Why would a crux destroy something meant to protect us?”
Aurora sighed, her breath straining from climbing the endless stairs. “I don’t know, Gray. Why is the sky blue?”
“What?”
“That’s how pointless your questions sound right now.”
“You think the fact that your boyfriend could potentially be the traitor is pointless?”
Aurora stopped climbing the stairs again and whirled around so her torso was twisted and her feet remained facing forward. “He’s not the traitor. And he’s not my boyfriend.” She should have known Gray would be jealous about her spending time with Samuel. Just because they arrived on Etheria together and shared their dark secrets didn’t mean he had any sort of claim to her.
Gray came to a stop a few steps down from Aurora, both of his arms spread out, clutching the rail on either side of the stairs. “Okay, so he’s not your boyfriend.”
“And he’s not the traitor.”
“You don’t know that, Aurora. He—” Gray’s face went suddenly blank as his mind had clearly traveled somewhere else. To a different place, a different time, maybe. “The hooded men who stole our bags,” he said suddenly, his eyes lighting up in an epiphany. “That’s it! That’s how those stones got there! And Samuel—that asshole—is covering for them. He must be their leader.”
Aurora raised an eyebrow at Gray and shook her head. “Do you know how crazy you sound right now, Grayson?”
Etheria (The Halo Series Book 1) Page 21