by Amy Vansant
Just a strange, condescending humanoid.
He wanted to fly away, but he felt weak, and rooted in place by prudence. Or fear.
“You can’t go anywhere,” said the mouthless creature. Seth couldn’t tell if he heard Casso with his ears or in his head.
“How did you know I was thinking of leaving?”
“We’re connected. Look below.”
Seth peered down and realized what he’d thought was a plastic mat was the same clear substance that formed his strange new friend. He tried to scramble back and away from it, but no matter where he landed, the substance remained, squishing through his toes. It felt warm and tingly. He didn’t think he would find it unpleasant if it wasn’t so horrifying.
“What are you?” Seth closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths. He needed to stop thinking about the substance under his feet. The fact that he couldn’t escape it threatened to drive him mad.
“Does my appearance upset you?”
Seth opened his eyes. “You could say that.”
“Would you prefer I looked like you?”
The creature shimmered and reappeared as the mirror image of Seth.
Seth shut his eyes. “No, no, no. Worse. Much worse.”
“Someone random perhaps? Man or woman?”
“What?”
“Would you prefer I appear as a man or a woman?”
“Oh, uh...” Seth imagined for a moment the off chance that he might be attracted to the creature as a woman. The idea of being attracted to a human gelatin was nearly as upsetting as the fact he’d even considered it a concern.
Seth cracked open his lids and peeked at the creature. “Man. Be a man.”
Am I talking to it, or myself?
With another scrambling of light and color, Casso reformed into an average-looking man. Everything about the form he’d chosen was so bland as to make him almost indescribable.
“I can’t tell you how happy I was to find you,” said Casso, his new human lips moving in time with the words. He lowered as if sitting and a chair appeared beneath him a millisecond before he would have collapsed to the ground. Seth felt something touch the back of his knees and turned to find a plastic white chair of his own. He sat. Still, the warm jelly stuck to his feet.
Don’t think about the jelly.
“Find me?”
Casso grimaced. “Do you remember anything about our time together?”
“You said that earlier; our time together. The last thing I remember...” Seth searched his memories, but couldn’t grasp anything solid.
“I’ll help you fill in the gaps,” suggested Casso.
“That would be helpful.”
“Do you remember the affliction your people call Perfidia?”
“Yes, the sickness that makes Angeli crave human energy.”
“Exactly. Perfidia is mine. I sent it to test the boundaries of your moral center. But then the Angeli began turning humans into soldiers to renew their fallen brethren. Whenever one of you was drained—to cure the Perfidia—your energy mingled with my plane of existence. I could connect with you on a primitive energy-based level, but I found you all unremarkable. Useless. Until you.”
A memory flickered in the dark recesses of Seth’s muddled mind. He recalled the pain of being drained.
“I contracted Perfidia. We thought Archs couldn’t get it, but I did.”
“You did. That’s how we met.”
“I don’t remember meeting you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You can’t comprehend me in my true form, just as humans can’t comprehend you in your energy form. Not really.”
“Why was I special?”
“Because you have a gift. Your twin.”
Seth knew what Casso meant. He was the only Angelus with the gift of bilocation. He could be in two places at once. Others had referred to his power as having a built-in twin.
“Why does my twin matter?”
“Your twin is why you contracted Perfidia. Splitting your essence weakens you. Together you’re an Arch Angelus, but split, you’re susceptible to Perfidia. It also made you the perfect vessel for me to use for traveling. You see, I have a twin as well. I know how to co-exist with a twin. How to be one but separate. So I coexisted with you. This enabled me to travel to Earth.”
“But why come to Earth? Why do any of this?”
“Ha!”
Casso laughed without smiling and Seth recoiled.
“It’s a game! I’m in competition with my twin, Taksi. For eons we’ve been competing to influence humans. Taksi sent the Angeli here to keep the balance of power in...” He trailed off and cocked his head to the side. “Do you prefer to think of Taksi as a boy or a girl?”
“Sounds like a girl’s name.”
“Done. Taksi sent the Angeli to keep the balance in her favor. Traveling here made it easier for me to trigger the switch.”
“What switch?”
“Replacing the Angeli with Cherubim.”
“Cherubim?” Seth echoed the word in a whisper. He recalled the legend of the Cherubim and how they would one day battle the Angeli and exact vengeance upon evil humans. He’d considered it a folktale.
But that meant—
“You’re saying we failed? It’s time?”
“Time?”
“Time for the Cherubim to replace us?”
Casso sniffed. “I hope so.”
“Do the other Angeli know?”
“They do. The game is afoot. Your fellow Angeli are trying to syphon my Cherubim as fast as my Cherubim are trying to drain the Angeli.”
Seth dropped his head and took a deep breath.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
Casso’ shoulders sagged. “Honestly, I needed a rest. Possessing you is exhausting. You fight me constantly and we end up sounding like maniacs. This is the first real conversation I’ve had in hundreds of your earth years.”
Seth felt his face twitch with a nervous spasm. “You’ve been talking to people through me? For hundreds of years? What year is it?”
Casso stood and Seth scrambled from his chair to retreat, his toes squishing in alien ooze. Behind him he heard a whooshing noise and turned in time to watch the ocean rise into the heavens, twirling against a glowing yellow backdrop, as if he were standing inside Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The sands beneath his feet wafted into the air, twinkling like tiny stars. As he waved through the glistening sand storm, the grains burst into miniature fireworks.
Casso’s human façade fell away, revealing his gelatinous form, pulsating with a riot of colorful flecks. The bed disappeared.
Casso advanced.
“No!” Seth threw up his hands and tried to back away, only to find himself rooted in place. The substance beneath his feet wrapped up his body, dragging him towards Casso.
“No!”
As Seth’s senses became overloaded, his gaze transfixed on a glowing yellow star far in the distance until everything went black.
Chapter Six
Even Con had to admit Angeli Headquarters was impressive.
Leo brought them to an enormous hall, tiled with impossibly large marble slabs. The ceiling was fifty feet tall, held aloft by giant marble columns.
Con elbowed Leo in the ribs and motioned to one of the veined pillars. “Look familiar?”
“Where are we? I mean in relation to the rest of the world?” asked Anne.
“Deep underground. Too far for human radars to penetrate. Beneath the ocean.”
“The ocean is above us?” Con asked, gaze rising. He swallowed. He didn’t like the idea of being beneath an ocean. “Which ocean?”
“Does it matter?”
“Some oceans are smaller than others. Less...heavy.”
Leo strode toward check-in where a man in a velour track suit sat behind a desk carved from stone.
“Leo,” said the man, standing and shaking his hand.
“Hey, Alexander.” He turned to Anne. “You might know this guy as Alexander the
Great.”
“Aw, cut it out,” said Alexander, clearly pretending to be embarrassed.
“The Alexander the Great?”
Alexander held out his hand. “Terrible nickname to live up to. They never let me forget it.” He returned his attention to Leo. “They asked if Anne and Con could wait here while they talk to you. They might want to talk to them afterwards.”
Leo sighed. “Fine. Though I think they’ll need to talk to these two. I’ve been gone.”
“Rumor is you were in Chaos? What was that like?”
“I’ll fill you in at the meeting.”
“Probably not. I always thought Chaos was a myth.”
“I wish.” Leo turned to Anne and Con. “You two wait here.”
Con looked around the giant empty space. “Are there some magazines or somethin’?”
Leo ignored him and followed Alexander out of the room.
Anne pointed to a large, plush sofa. “I guess we might as well sit.”
Con shrugged and followed her to the seat.
“Quite a place,” she said as they sat.
Con nodded. He didn’t feel like talking. He was in a terrible mood. Though he didn’t want the Cherubim to take over the planet, the idea of Michael gone hadn’t been awful. Now that Michael’s stupid brother Leo was back, he knew it was just a matter of time before Michael strolled through a door, naked, probably with some kind of anaconda strapped to his thigh.
He winced at the thought of it.
He’d come to terms with his relationship with Anne. What did people say? It is what it is. When it is.
Though it is a lot more with Michael gone.
Taking joy from Michael’s earthly death made him feel like a terrible person. Still...
“I wonder what they’re going to do,” said Anne.
There she goes again, probing my mood, making small talk to trick me into talking about my feelings.
Con stood. “I don’t know. But I can’t just sit here while they spend the day hashing out a plan of attack that probably involves throwin’ us at the problem. I’m going to take a walk around the hall.”
Anne frowned. “Please don’t get into trouble. You’re already on their naughty list for letting Seth escape.”
“They can piss off with their list. I didn’t let Seth escape. He tricked me.”
“Whatever. All they know is, he’s gone.”
“So what? What are they going to do? Kill me? Deactivate me?”
“I don’t know. They’re two of their options, though. If they removed your Sentinel power, I don’t think you’d make it long as a two-hundred-year-old boxer, do you?”
Con felt his anger rising. “You know what? They can take their Sentinel hocus pocus and shove it directly up—”
“Uh, Anne?” said a voice.
The two of them turned and Con spotted a man’s head sticking through a door.
“Yes?”
“Could you join us?”
Anne stood and headed for the door. Con followed. When they reached the man, he put a hand on Con’s chest.
“Just Anne.”
“Whaddya mean just Anne?”
“They only want to see Anne.”
Anne, already on the other side of the door touched the man’s shoulder. “I don’t know if you want to leave him alone. It might be uh, safer, if...”
“Sorry. They said just you.”
Con puffed his chest, indignant, as the door closed. He tugged on it and found it locked.
“Fine!” he screamed, pounding it twice with his fist to make his point. “I don’t want to go to your stupid angel party anyway!”
Con turned and looked around the huge empty hall.
“Hello!” he barked. There was no answer and he turned to scream at the door. “Your stupid hall doesn’t even echo like a proper hall!”
He shifted to his newly acquired energy form and tried to stick his head through the door. An electrical disruption kept him from breaching.
He solidified and kicked the door.
“Pack of gacks!”
Con spotted a vase of flowers on a table against one of the pillars and zipped over to it. He picked it up, dumped the flowers, and held the vase above his head.
“Can you see me?”
He dropped the vase and it rattled around on the floor, bouncing from one end to the other until the clattering finally ended.
Con sighed and picked it up, knocking it with his knuckle as he muttered to himself. “Plastic. I figured it’d be Ming dynasty or sometin’.”
He threw it as far as he could and it bounced behind a pillar and out of sight.
Con stomped back to the sofa and flopped. He put his feet on the cushions and scrubbed them around a bit for good measure.
The week kept getting worse. Anytime an Angelus showed up, things got worse. He and Anne had been happy as pigs—
He closed his eyes. No. That wasn’t true. At first, maybe, when they returned from defeating Mallory, it did feel like they could finally begin their life together without the distraction of Michael. But something was off. He could feel it. If he were honest with himself, maybe that’s what he was really mad about. Monogamy didn’t feel right, even with Annie. Without the threat of Michael looming, everything felt so—permanent.
Want something until you have it. Wasn’t that always the way?
In the beginning, whenever they found themselves together, it had been magic, stolen moments of bliss, pure and simple. Neither of them felt the need to claim the other. But when she toddled off with Michael something changed. He didn’t want to share her with him. A dirty Angelus son of a—
There was a loud smack and Con jumped as the vase he’d been batting around the hall bounced off the back of the sofa and landed on his chest.
“Won’t let you play, huh?” said a woman’s voice.
Con scanned the room, searching for the source. A striking redheaded woman appeared from behind one of the columns.
“Who are you? Did Ronald McDonald have an affair with a giraffe?”
“Yeah. And he sent me here to entertain the children.”
She held out her lily-white hand and when he shook it, he thought she’d crush every bone in his paw.
“My name’s Boudica.”
“You’re a mountainy ginger, eh?”
Standing eye-to-eye, she glared at him. “I’d heard you were a fan of redheads.”
“Speakin’ of Annie?”
She nodded.
“Aye, I’m a fan of Annie. But...”
Boudica put her hands on her hips. “But what?”
“You look like you ate Annie.”
Boudica ran her tongue across her teeth.
“And you look like a spoiled man-child throwing vases around because Mommy had to go do grown-up things.”
Con scowled and sat back down, twirling the vase in his hands. “Shouldn’t you be in the meeting with the rest of the dossers?”
“I should, but I hate meetings.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
“I’m on a need to know basis. Only tell me what I need to know.”
Con looked up. “Exactly! Right? That’s how I feel about meetings. I don’t want to hear everyone’s bits, just the bits that matter to me.”
Boudica wrinkled her freckled nose. “What are you? You feel like a Sentinel, but there’s something off. You feel a little like a Angelus, too.”
Con stood and offered her his best sexy leer. “You want to get a good feel?”
She reached down and clamped her hand on his package. His mouth fell open and he froze in place.
“Now, darlin’, don’t go doin’ anything crazy.”
“Are you sure?”
“I...” Con found himself considering the question. Before he could decide, she let go and took a step back.
“So what are you?” she asked again.
“I’m like one of those fancy new hybrids.”
“So you’re comparing yourself to a weak, fuel-effici
ent car?”
“Only in the hybrid sense. In every other sense I’m a tank.”
“So you’re slow but persistent.”
Con grinned. “Exactly. And I have a big gun.”
She stared at him.
“Did you get that?”
She remained expressionless.
He huffed. “Big gun. I’m sayin’ I’ve got a big—”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Boudica’s mouth twitched and he could tell she was trying not to smirk.
Got her.
“So what do you do around here with all these Christmas lights callin’ themselves angels?” he asked.
“I spend as little time here as possible. I’m in the field more often than not.”
“A woman of action, eh?”
“Yes. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“No, should I have?”
“You’re Irish, aren’t you?”
“One hundred percent, thank you very much.”
“I was queen of the Iceni. Led the Celts against the Roman Empire back in sixty.”
“Nineteen sixty?”
“No, sixty sixty. Sixty A.D. I said the Roman Empire.”
“Oh. Right. Of course. Sounds impressive.”
“I suppose. I mean, I was just doing my job. Supporting advancing human cultures, blah blah blah.”
A door on the far wall opened and the hall flooded with Angeli. Con spotted Anne as she made her way towards him.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Good, I guess. They want Leo and me to hunt for Rathe. They think he might be with a new Cherub.”
“What about me?”
“They want you and another Angelus to locate the missing third Cherub.”
“They’re teamin’ me up with an angel? Are they off their nut?”
Anne shrugged. “Don’t kill the messenger.”
“What about us? We’re the dream team. We’re like Irish whiskey and yet another Irish whiskey. Why not team us?”
“One of each. An Angelus to help track and hold and a Sentinel to syphon.”
Con pounded on his chest. “I am one of each! All me own self!”
Anne put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say that too loudly or they might keep you here for studying.”