Familiar Angel

by Amy Lane

  Edward rolled his eyes. “Just eat, idiot.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Harry pulled back the covers and discovered he was in his boxers. He felt the small smile before he even registered why it made him happy. “We’ll always be their children, won’t we?” he asked, knowing the answer. “Remember—when it first started? We talked about how we’d know when to walk away? How we’d know when it was time to not be Emma and Leonard’s anymore?”

  “Yeah.” Edward sat up and stretched, both hands on the bed, arching his back and then flattening against the mattress. “We knew very little.”

  Harry had to laugh. “Very little indeed.”

  Edward stood upright and continued his stretch, his abs forming a perfectly corrugated washboard. Harry had a thought—probably long overdue.

  “How come you and me never….” He made vague gestures with his hands, because even the question seemed obscene.

  Edward laughed, unperturbed. “Because. You, me, Francis—we were all reborn that night we met Emma. We were brothers from the very beginning.”

  “Oh.” Yes. That made perfect sense.

  “What are you going to do?” Edward asked, exhaling and lowering his arms to his sides with the grace of a ballerina.

  “You mean… now? Or until….” Until Suriel returned?

  “Well, now. We don’t have any missions to run. Emma and Leonard are still gathering data on Big Cass’s friend. He’s going to be out for blood, I think—the two of them were connected at the ball-joint, if you know what I mean.”

  Harry snorted. “Subtle, Edward. Real fuckin’ subtle. But yeah. I think he’ll be out for—”

  “If you say ‘pussy,’ I will hurt you.”

  A real laugh this time. “No. No, I swear I wasn’t going to. I was just going to say he’s going to be gunning for us. We should watch out.”

  Edward nodded, smiling happily. “Now see—that’s some common sense there, brother. I’ve been waiting years for that. So yes, there will be other missions, but not now. What do you want to do now?”

  Harry thought yearningly of the cabin. “I’d like to… to build another cabin.”

  “Because you despoiled one and need to do that again?”

  Harry hit him in the face with a T-shirt. “No, you wank. Because I want to live in the one. If… when Suriel comes back, I want to live there. So we can, you know….” Oh, embarrassing. Harry had gone years without talking this much.

  “Be with family but have your own tiny, tiny space without internet or television or—”

  Harry had to laugh. “Yes, we’d put those things in. But see? That’s even more to do. But first, the family likes the cabin. It would be nice to not take it away.”

  Edward nodded enthusiastically. “Then I shall draw up plans!” he crowed. “Two cabins. Hell, we’re on thirty acres.” His face took on a half-hopeful, half-secretive look he often wore when thinking about matters of his own heart. “One for you, one for me, one for the family—”

  “Not Bel and Francis?” Harry asked.

  Edward laughed and spread his arms. “Bel’s his mother’s child, Harry. He gets this house, with his parents.” His laughter faded. “After he gets back from Oxford.”

  Harry grimaced. “Oh Lord. Think we’ll see more than the fur on Francis’s tail between now and then?”

  Edward regarded him kindly. “We pulled your head out of your ass—we can do the same for him.”

  And for once, Harry felt optimism flooding him, from the pit of his groin to the tips of his fingers. “We can indeed,” he said grandly.

  Fall….

  “GO TELL her,” Leonard said, wiping his brow in the early fall sunshine. “She needs to hear it from you.”

  Harry grimaced. “But she knows. I told her when she picked it ou—”

  Leonard shook his head. “Months, Harry. Three months, to be exact. You and Edward showed us the plans for this place, she said, ‘I’ll decorate!’ and I have heard about nothing but wall color, bedding, the right paintings, the right tile—three months. Every night—you want to know what my nights sound like?”

  Edward was applying the last bit of sealant to the bright blue siding, and he snickered so hard his brush spattered.

  Leonard was undeterred. “I fell in love with that woman because she talked about science and politics and literature—but not for the last three months! For the last three months it’s been ‘Do you think Harry will like this tile? How about the carpeting? Is the bathtub big enough? Suriel might have wings when he comes back!’ Three months, Harry. I love you, son, but if you don’t go in there right now and tell her she’s brilliant, I may have to curse you.”

  Harry laughed heartily, storing the hurt about Suriel’s wings away in his heart until later.

  His family had worked so hard.

  He and Edward had announced their plans for the new cabin that morning, and suddenly, instead of worrying about the future, instead of missing his lover with all his soul, he had something to do to fill the time.

  Bel had been chivied to Oxford a month ago, but not without giving Francis an extraordinary, knee-melting kiss and a promise to write, real letters, not just email, every day.

  Bel had been missed—so missed—but Francis, instead of spending his time catching mice, had been as invested in the cabin as Harry had.

  The cabin was hope.

  The cabin was a new beginning, a relationship that had waited nearly a century and a half to ripen and bear fruit.

  Every nail, every board, every brush of paint, every speck of drywall—all of it was the brothers’ willingness to believe they could be as happy as Emma and Leonard. They just had to have some faith.

  It was bigger than the little fishing cabin. It had a guest bedroom and a study, for one. Leonard, ever the progressive thinker, had wired it for Wi-Fi, internet, and satellite—all pirated from Harry didn’t want to know where, of course—and Emma had made it… a home.

  The bed was handcrafted. Leonard and Bel had made it before Bel left. Emma had worked for a month on the quilt—red-gold, blue, but trimmed with black—and she’d put those vibrant colors all over the cabin itself. The bathroom tile was that deep, sea-crested blue. The moldings were the red-gold of Suriel’s hair. Detailing—spellwork, for safety and welcome, Harry had read—in the finest, most perfect black adorned all the entryways, the closets, the kitchen, the bathrooms.

  Friends or family would be welcome there. An enemy wouldn’t be able to enter.

  With every board and every detail, Harry built more firmly on the hope that Suriel would return.

  “Yes, of course,” he said now, walking away from the cleanup Francis and Leonard had started, stacking supplies in the back of the battered pickup truck Leonard kept on the property only. The thing was ancient, but Leonard maintained it using a combination of sorcery and mechanic prowess to keep it running.

  As he opened the door and ventured into the shady, cool interior of the cabin, he heard Leonard swearing at the beast in Latin and assumed today, he would be using sorcery.

  “Emma?” Harry called. “Emma?” He looked around, holding his arms wide and taking in the whole, perfect effect of it. “Emma, it’s beautiful.”

  Emma walked in from the bathroom, wiping oil paint off her hands with a rag that smelled of turpentine.

  “It is,” she said happily. “I do nice work.”

  So much for her needing his opinion! But still, “You do indeed.” He bit his lip. “I’m almost afraid to stay here,” he murmured. “I want him to see it perfect, before—”

  “Before your dirty boots mess up the floor and you spill something on the bed and forget to clean the toilet for a week?” Emma laughed. “No, Harry—you two, you’ll be making it perfect together. You need to stay here.” She bit her lip, suddenly no longer celebrating. “You need to have a space to pull him back to earth.”

  Harry blinked, the great wide space in his heart suddenly opening up, raw and bloody. “You think that’s how it will happen?”
>
  She nodded. “Given everything we know about how he left, what sort of trials he’ll have to endure—yes. His love for you is his lifeline back to earth, Harry. You’ll need to be in your place to pull him to you.”

  Harry bit his lip. “Will it be worth it? What he has to—”

  She shook her head. “Don’t doubt it, Harry. Don’t ever doubt. This cabin is an act of faith. Believe.”

  He smiled and looked around again with appreciative eyes. “It’s beautiful, my family’s faith,” he said after an aching moment.

  “My sons are beautiful and deserve every scrap of it.” Keeping her hands away from his shirt, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Now let’s get back to the house so we can move some of your clothes in after dinner.”

  Harry’s stomach rumbled, and she grinned.

  “And maybe some provisions for you too.”

  EDWARD DROVE him back in the pickup, under a sky promising rain. The ancient vehicle jounced along a path carved by frequent trips in the past few months, and although noises had been made about at least graveling the road, everybody had been too excited about building the cabin to worry about niceties.

  Edward pulled to a halt in front of the door, and they both looked curiously at the place in the darkness as silence descended.

  The stream was less than thirty yards beyond the back door, but in the muted moonlight, all they could see was the ominous looming of the forest. The cabin itself was a dark L-shaped little building, its sprightly blue shingles turned gray by the night, without a thing to light it from inside, showing good intentions.

  In the temporary hush, they could hear the surf booming. Harry had chosen a spot downstream from the other cabin, closer to the cliffs. They were maybe a half mile to the west—close enough to visit on even a rainy night.

  “Don’t haunt the cliffs like a romance hero, ’kay?” Edward said into the silence.

  Harry turned and grinned, as though sitting on a promontory and letting the wind tease his whiskers hadn’t been part of what he’d imagined for his nightly routine.

  “’Cause that would be silly,” he said with a smirk.

  Edward didn’t smile back. “You’ve been very optimistic these past months, Harry, and I know you’re in it for the long haul. But….” Edward bit his lip. “I hate to think of you out here alone. Waiting.”

  Harry swallowed. Out here, away from the family he’d lived for. That had sustained him.

  “Well, you’re welcome to use the guest room. Emma did it in green.”

  Edward nodded. “I brought a change of clothes. Let’s get your shit unloaded first.”

  He swung out of the cab, and Harry half laughed before following him. Oh, heaven bless his meddling, practical, sentimental brother.

  In the months that followed, Edward and Francis would come out to the cabin to crash in his guest room many times. They’d track dirt over the floor, spill sodas on the bedding, leave handprints on the walls.

  Every night, Harry closed his eyes and prayed.

  He asked for Suriel back.

  Winter….

  “GODDAMMIT, HARRY!” Edward’s voice, full of panic, drifted above him. “I thought we were over this shit!”

  “I wasn’t trying to get hit,” Harry mumbled. It was true—this entire venture, from Sacramento to Canada, Harry had been the watchword for caution. But this organization was big, it was well funded, and Harry had been riding cleanup, fourteen scared girls into a van, Francis driving.

  The bullet ripped through his arm and into his chest before he even knew they’d been flanked. Harry had toppled into the van with Edward screaming “Go! Go! Go!” and… he’d sort of lost track of things after that.

  “I’m trying to stay alive,” Harry mumbled, needing Edward to believe him. “’S why Francis is driving.”

  “Drive faster!” Edward screamed, and Harry let out a sigh.

  “Feels like we’re closer to home already,” he said, because breathing had become easier, like they were nearing Mendocino and he was perched on the cliffs, the salt air setting his soul free.

  “No!” Edward cried out tautly. “No. Not closer to home. Dammit, Harry—we need you! Didn’t you learn that? We need you!”

  “I don’t want to leave,” Harry said dreamily. “Promised Suriel….”

  He closed his eyes and remembered that last moment, Suriel in the darkness, his smell washing over the both of them, the heat of their lovemaking still heavy in the air.

  “Harry!” Suriel cried, sounding desperate. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

  Harry’s eyes flew open. He was surrounded by a perfect meadow, one that smelled of hemlock and redwoods, skunkweed and salt water, with wildflowers floating on long green stems. The sun shone down in dazzling gold, and the earth kneaded warm beneath his toes.

  His beloved stood before him, shackled to a tree, his hands swollen and purple over his head, perfect pale skin oozing blood from lash wounds all over his body.

  “Well, neither are you,” Harry said crossly, anger surging through him for the first time since Suriel left. “Why are you here? You’re supposed to be down on earth with me, keeping me out of trouble!”

  Against all odds—against everything the two of them had endured—Suriel smiled. “That was the plan. But you need to be down there to pull me to you, Harry, or I’m stuck here, suffering for eternity.”

  Harry growled. “This is bullshit. What are you suffering for?”

  Suriel’s smile grew gentle. “Same thing you’re suffering for, Harry. I’m the bound angel. I suffer for those on earth who are bound against their will. If I’m to break my bonds, I need to suffer long enough to know my freedom for the gift it is.”

  A surge of blood flushed under Harry’s skin. His breath came in heaving, searing gasps, and his brothers were calling him home.

  But he hadn’t seen Suriel in half a year, and he was damned if he didn’t get in the last word.

  “I’m your gift, goddammit! Get off your knees, break your chains, get down to earth, and love me!”

  A gray mist obscured his vision, the heat of the sun fading, the smell of his beloved meadow becoming a memory of human sweat and exhaust. The last thing he saw was the unlikely image of Suriel, battered, lashed, starved, and bound, tilting his head back and laughing in delight.

  His body was a misery of fire and ache, and breathing was a luxury, as distant as the meadow where an angel stood bleeding.

  “Harry, are you with me?” Edward’s voice held tears in it, and Francis kept up a hideous nonverbal yowl in the far corner of his mind.

  “I’m alive,” Harry croaked. “Francis, for fuck’s sake, shut up.”

  The yowling stopped, and Francis shouted, “Don’t do that to us, you asshole!”

  “Sorry,” Harry wheezed. The earth heaved and jounced underneath him, and he realized they were still in the van, and Francis was driving like a thing possessed. “Had to talk to Suriel. Stubborn fucker.”

  “Oh, of course,” Edward muttered bitterly. “We’re so blessed you came back from that.”

  “Well, I thought so,” Harry grumbled. Darkness encroached again, but this time he was pretty sure he was only passing out.

  The next twenty hours were a misery of bodies stuffed in a van, his brothers’ irritated worry, and pure physical discomfort. But Emma had been spellcasting over their bodies for a long time, and Suriel had added his own protection in the quiet dark of the cabin. Unlike the wound Suriel had needed to heal, this one was not nearly as grave.

  The only reason he’d ended up in heaven this time had been pure yearning to see his lover—but, like he’d said before, not a willingness to die.

  Emma met them in Portland, and she and Edward spent an anxious night in a tiny hotel boiling herbs over lit candles, wrapping poultice after poultice over Harry’s wound before digging the bullet out. The next day, Leonard took over the driving so they could move the girls out. Edward and Francis left Harry reluctantly, but Harry knew the sc
ore—the victims came first.

  Yes, he was pissed at Suriel, his willing bondage, his suffering, being torn from Harry’s side. But that didn’t mean he didn’t understand the nature of the higher calling. Resent it? Absolutely.

  But oh yes—he did understand.

  Understanding did not make healing any more comfortable.

  Hell—healing didn’t make healing any more comfortable.

  When he was down to clean bandages and feeling like he’d been hit by a truck instead of mangled in its gears, Emma put him in the Cadillac and took him home.

  He spent a week in the big house proper, watching as Francis and Edward decorated their world in pine boughs and tinsel while Leonard studded tiny LED lights throughout their endeavors like stars.

  Harry—under strict orders not to move—was consigned to the couch to watch the frantic activity. Francis, in particular, moved with fever and intent. Bel was coming home for the holidays.

  Leonard—finished with the lights and willing to let Emma trim the rest of the tree with purple ribbons and set out the knickknacks—brought him a mug of hot chocolate and company.

  “You’ve been quiet,” he observed after Harry sipped appreciatively.

  “Punctured lung,” Harry told him, although they both knew that wasn’t the only reason he hadn’t been speaking.

  “Edward said you were speaking to Suriel when you passed out.”

  Leonard was such a plain man, average, comfortable. Harry was so grateful for his stolid kindness; he couldn’t even imagine what it had taken for this man to sink into a world of torture and depravity.

  For the first time, he wondered.

  “I saw him,” Harry confessed. He’d told nobody of this. “I saw him, in a meadow much like ours, being tortured so he would appreciate the taste of freedom.”

  Leonard grimaced. “You know, there was a reason I chose the other side.” He shook his head. “But enough of that. Are you okay?”

  Harry smiled tiredly. “Faith,” he said softly. “Hope. Belief. They’re not just words, Leonard.”