Triune

by Willow Polson

  “Wait a second,” the oldest Mason said, then stepped back where he wouldn’t knock anything over and let his wings out. Reverend Charles gasped loudly and stepped back, cowering a little. The only other time he’d seen that sight, Michael had looked about ready to kill him.

  “Settle down, for Christsake,” snapped the tired and stressed Mike. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  Brian winced at his brother’s language, but then had to stifle a giggle as he realized the preacher had taken the statement literally and was crossing himself reverently. His thoughts wandered while he waited for Barrett to figure out what his gut was telling him, and he idly wondered if the man would have another heart attack if he found out the angel standing next to him was gay.

  “Easier to do some stuff with them out,” Barrett murmured in explanation, gaze a little distant. He started nodding to himself, then looked between them. “Something to the south.”

  “To the south. Anything you know about to the south? Entrances to...the void thing?” Brian asked Reverend Charles.

  “Yes, of course, but if I may...” He fidgeted for a second, looking between them. “Why don’t you... it seems to me I should be asking you where these places are, not the other way around.”

  Mike said nothing, not wanting to spoil the man’s assumption that he was the imposing archangel Reverend Charles thought he was. Barrett answered for them.

  “On the job training.”

  Wincing inwardly, Mike was about to give his brother a mental nudge when he realized, to his relief, that the preacher assumed that he was the one being trained and not the other way around. Reverend Charles’ eyes widened.

  “Yes, of course! A test to prove my worth! I understand, of course, of course. Here, let me get the map...” He rushed off to another part of the massive house, returning a minute later with a AAA map of California that had been marked with various colors of highlighter pen.

  “The yellow is where there have been unconfirmed sightings of demons. Note the concentrations here, and here.” He pointed at several major population centers. “Except this one mark, I don’t know what that is.”

  “The portals?” urged Brian, growing impatient.

  “OH! Yes, of course. That’s orange.” He pointed at the only orange on the map, a large area colored in over the Los Angeles basin. Barrett knitted his brows, bending over it.

  “But where’s the entrance? It can’t be the whole city, can it?”

  “That’s the problem, we don’t know for sure where it is. I’ve gotten so many reports from down there, and some conflict... I ended up just coloring in the whole area until I could go down and try to figure it out for myself.”

  “What are these X’s?” asked Mike, putting aside his fears about dragons for the time being. Maps interested him, and he was very good at reading them, especially due to his Navy training.

  “The best possibilities. Locations with more than one sighting, or a very strong report from a reliable source.”

  Barrett wondered what he considered a “reliable source,” but didn’t question it. “I don’t suppose you have a copier.”

  The preacher winced a little. “It just died a couple days ago.”

  “Mind if I borrow this?”

  “Of course not, but...”

  Barrett suddenly vanished, the man spasming with shock. Brian put a comforting hand on his shoulder, making him twitch the other direction.

  “Where did he...?” Reverend Charles was still blinking in astonishment, not having clearly witnessed Mike and Brian disappearing from the front entry earlier that day because of other distractions. This was right in front of him, however, close enough that he could even feel the little swirl of disturbed air created by the sudden displacement.

  Mike shrugged. “Making copies, probably.” Feeling fidgety and mind rambling, he went into the meeting room to help Mrs. Charles with the chairs and to see if there were any cookies left. The preacher was still trying to grapple with the fact that an angel had vanished into thin air right in front of him to do something as utterly mundane as make photocopies. A couple of minutes later, the angel in question reappeared, handing the original map back to him.

  “Thanks.” Barrett handed a copy to Brian and instinctively felt where his other brother was, pushing through the swinging kitchen door, wings neatly tucked tight behind his back. He’d gotten them caught in enough things that it was habit to keep them in tight when moving around a house or going through doors. The reverend and Brian could hear a little yelp of surprise from Mrs. Charles as the winged Barrett moved into the room. Brian chuckled quietly to himself.

  “Well, I think it’s about time we get home. Thanks for the map and all that info. Hey... what’s your phone number?” Brian got out his cell, preparing to put it into his contacts.

  Reverend Charles cocked his head, staring at the phone. It hadn’t occurred to him that angels would have them. He blinked, then remembered what he’d been asked and stammered out his phone number. Brian nodded and entered it, then smiled at him.

  “We’re gonna go check this stuff out. I think we can trust you now, right?”

  “Trust... oh yes! Of course! I’m here to do God’s work. Had I known the truth about your studio, I...”

  “Okay,” said Brian, interrupting him. “I get the point. And my point is that no, we don’t know everything, and that if you’ll use the information wisely, we may share some of what we find out. Because... here’s the thing. You’ve got an audience that’s more than willing to do whatever you want. That’s a dangerous thing if you decide to use it for stuff like destroying somebody’s place. So I’d like to ask you to use your superpowers for good and not evil, all right?”

  Reverend Charles blinked at him for a minute or so, absorbing everything Brian had said, and mulling it over.

  “I... evil?” He sat down heavily in a kitchen chair, the aluminum legs splaying dangerously. “What I did... it was in ignorance, and I...”

  “Okay, whoa. What’s done is done,” Brian said, sitting down across from him. “Now you know better. So what are you going to do now?”

  “Redemption!” he barked, finger pointing skyward in emphasis. Barrett and Mike came in then, momentarily stopping in the doorway in surprise.

  “What’s he...?” Barrett started to say, but didn’t quite know how to finish.

  “Redemption!” he cried again, turning toward the other two Masons. “I’m going to redeem myself from my evil actions, and not just by paying for the damages to the building. I’m going to help you however I can!”

  Uh... is that a good idea? Mike asked, looking between his brothers.

  Brian nodded. “He’s all right, I think. If we tell him some of what we find, maybe he can help research stuff. He’s already done a lot of the footwork, right? And if he can direct his people in helpful ways...”

  Barrett nodded, then turned his gaze to the preacher. “I agree. You’ve probably got quite the library.”

  “Oh, I do! You should see it...” He got up and spun toward the doorway,having more energy than he’d had in years thanks to Brian’s earlier healing efforts, but Barrett held up a hand.

  “Some other time. We’ve got to get some rest. Long day tomorrow.” He looked between his brothers, and saw that they understood his meaning, as did Reverend Charles.

  “Los Angeles. That means ‘The Angels,’ you know,” he said, wishing the other two would bring out their wings as well.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Brian said, standing up and stretching. He smiled a little, and, knowing exactly what the reverend was thinking, decided to give him a little treat. With a now-familiar gesture and feeling, he dropped his shoulders and let his own out, careful to avoid hitting anything, then tucked them behind his back. Mike smirked, not wanting to do it at first, but then relented and did the same, his own wings needing to be with their brothers.

  Mrs. Charles came in then, just in time to see Mike’s manifesting, his back to the door. She stopped, frozen
at the sight. Her husband looked between them, eyes bright, so tempted to reach out and touch the perfect feathers but managing to restrain himself. Barrett fidgeted uncomfortably.

  “We’ll be in touch,” said Brian, then disappeared.

  “We know where you live,” Mike said with a smirk, disappearing with Barrett, the three of them more than relieved by the change of scenery to their quiet, familiar bungalow living room.

  Brian fluffed his wings, then settled them behind himself, while Mike stretched his own out carefully. The living room specifically had nothing in it that could be easily knocked over or damaged for this reason – no table lamps, vases, or other breakables. Not that they were given to knickknacks anyway, but the living room in particular was devoid of such things and designed as a space to stretch out cramped wings. By contrast, Mary’s usual white glass bud vase remained on the kitchen table, a fresh rose always present as a little gift to “her boys.”

  The house was a little too quiet, other than the sounds of tea being made and a few creaking floorboards.

  “So Javier’s going to watch the studio? His mom’s all right with that?” Brian felt like his voice was too loud, even though he’d actually said it a little more softly than usual.

  “Yeah. I talked to her for a while, wings out and everything. Not like she’s going to say no to me.” Mike gave a little half smile, then laid down on the sofa, legs dangling over the arm, wings under his back like a warm, fluffy pillow.

  Barrett came out of the kitchen with his brothers’ tea, wearing just soft pajama bottoms. He had come to enjoy being shirtless when his wings were out so he could feel the soft feathers brush his back. Considering how much they had to be put away for his day job, the contrast felt good. He set his own mug on the coffee table and got out his phone.

  “Hey, David. Sorry to be calling so late, but I gotta make a quick trip to LA tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. So listen, can you... okay. Okay, thanks. Cool. Thanks, man. See you on Monday. Okay. Bye.”

  He looked up to see his brothers watching him, and smiled a little.

  “So how are we doing this?” Brian asked, curled up in the armchair with his feet under him.

  “What do you mean?” Barrett picked up his tea and sipped, content to stand for the time being.

  “Do we just pop down to Los Angeles and hope we end up somewhere safe, or have you been there, or...”

  “I was thinking we’d fly.”

  Mike looked up at him. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Road trip.”

  Brian snickered. “But without the road.”

  “Well, we’d still basically follow the roads. It’ll feel good to stretch ‘em and take a long flight.”

  “Truth,” said Mike, sitting up. “I second the motion. You want to bring snacks or what?”

  Barrett opened his mouth to say yes, but stopped, brow creasing, thinking. His brothers looked at him curiously, then finally he looked up between them.

  “When was the last time we ate? And I don’t mean cookies just now. I mean a whole meal.”

  Brian snorted a laugh. “Breakfast. We had waffles.”

  Barrett looked at him for a long moment. “That was yesterday, Bri.”

  The youngest Mason’s smile faded as he started thinking back. Mike looked between them as well, as if they’d have the answer he wanted to hear, even if he wasn’t sure what that was exactly. They were all thinking pretty much the same thing: None of them had been particularly hungry for at least the past couple of weeks. Grocery shopping had waned to perhaps one small trip a week. Things were getting thrown out, spoiled, before they could be eaten. It also explained the ongoing cleanliness of the bathroom, one area they refused to let Mary help with.

  It’s all right, she said, drifting in from the kitchen. I don’t need to eat any more either.

  “Don’t need to...” Brian set down his tea as if it were suddenly some kind of foreign substance and stared at it.

  “What?” said Mike, part of his mind confused, and the other part knowing she was probably right but unable to wrap around the concept. “But here we are, drinking tea.” He took another sip to emphasize his point.

  You can, you’re still physical. I can’t even do that, she said sadly.

  “But you’re saying we don’t need to...?” Brian wasn’t entirely sure he liked the idea. Not needing to breathe was one thing, and had come in handy a number of times. But that was mostly invisible and unnoticed. Not needing to eat was a whole other step removed from being human.

  “So then where’s it going? I mean, I don’t want to be gross, but...” Mike finished the last of his tea and looked into the bottom of the mug. “Okay, so if things aren’t... if the plumbing’s not doing what it used to do, then how are we even alive? Because I don’t feel any different.” He looked back up at them. “No, correction. I feel amazing.”

  Barrett tapped on his chin, thinking. “Okay, what about this. The other thing that’s changed is all the stuff we can all do now. Where’s the energy to do all that coming from?”

  Heaven, put in Mary, dusting off some shelves.

  “Right,” said Barrett quietly. “Where the wings come from. Where the light is. Whatever you call it.”

  Well, I like to call it heaven. And, with a firm ghostly nod, that was that.

  “...Right,” Mike said slowly, turning his gaze from Mary back to his brothers. “So what we eat just somehow goes toward all that? Like... it supplements what we get from there?”

  Brian curled up a little tighter, slightly creeped out and not really wanting to think about where the tea he’d just had was currently residing. Even if it did make a lot of sense.

  “But we’re still alive, right? Even if we don’t need to breathe or eat...”

  Barrett nodded. “Sure. We still bleed, and need to sleep, even if it’s not as much, and we’re living lives like most people when we’re not out helping them. We didn’t die, we just... changed.”

  Gaze a little distant, thinking, Brian nodded slowly. It didn’t seem so creepy when his brother put it like that. And they’d all changed together, so it wasn’t such a lonely, frightening journey. And maybe going into the void would give them the answers they needed. Help them to understand where they’d come from, what had happened, where they were all going, and why.

  “So...” said Mike, looking disappointed, “Does that mean we’re not bringing snacks?”

  SIXTEEN

  “Waitwaitwait, I got this.”

  “Mike...” Barrett pinched the bridge of his nose, losing patience.

  “No, seriously. I got it this time.” He loosened the straps to the backpack and put them over his shoulders. “Brian, pull it back.”

  Slightly confused, Brian did as he was told, and pulled backwards on the pack. Then Mike carefully brought out his wings through the straps.

  “There, see? Ta da!” he declared in victory, arms aloft. Barrett blinked, then chuckled.

  “Okay. Congratulations. Can we go now?”

  “Yep,” said Mike, grinning brightly.

  Brian smirked and put a couple more sodas in the pack, then zipped it up and gave it a pat. They were all dressed casually and practically, not sure what to expect but ready for nearly anything. Not that they had the first idea what would be waiting for them, or how to get inside, or even where the entrance was.

  Barrett nodded at them, then darted up through the ceiling like a ghost, his brothers following. They headed out invisibly into the warm spring morning, moving south at a leisurely pace. None of them were in any particular hurry to take a leap of faith into some kind of doorway to what could be heaven or could be hell. Or something else entirely.

  But that inevitability was being conveniently avoided as they enjoyed gliding on the thermals, lifted up by the currents and cushions of warm air formed by the sun on the undulations of the landscape below. They decided to follow Interstate 101, more out of habit than anything else. The familiar ribbon of gray below at least gave them some sen
se of direction, even if Barrett’s gut knew the way perfectly well. They didn’t even really need the maps they’d copied from Reverend Charles – they were much more of a comforting excuse. Something to look at and hold onto. Physical and real and solid and... mostly normal.

  I’m glad we brought snacks anyway, Mike sent. They were far enough apart that shouting over the wind would have been necessary otherwise.

  Barrett smirked a little. That’s all you’ve thought about since we started. Why don’t you enjoy the view?

  We could go a little closer to the ocean, Brian suggested.

  Yeah, that’d be nice. Let’s follow the coast, Mike said.

  As if they had nothing better to do, the Masons started slowly heading to their right and the great blue watery nothing beyond the edge of the land. The inland was starting to heat up a bit, and the cool breeze of the ocean felt good. Far below lay the patchwork of crops and freeways and towns that made up the central coast.

  We’re making good time, noted Barrett. I think that’s San Luis Obispo down there, but I’m not sure. The map doesn’t go this far north.

  Mike just nodded, simply following along wherever his brothers went. He knew very well that part of the reason they were flying and not teleporting was foot-dragging as much as safety. Part of him wanted to dig in and get the mission over with, and part of him wanted to teleport back to the house. The idea of having to pull an Alice down some unknown rabbit hole was making him more and more nervous with every mile. Unlike leaving the house, which had felt like a cross between a day hike and a little mini adventure, the reality of what they were about to do was approaching rapidly. If they were over San Luis Obispo, they were already halfway there.

  They watched the city pass below them, looking at the shapes of the shoreline and the roads and the landscape.

  Is that Santa Maria? asked Brian, pointing ahead of them and to the left a bit. I looked at a satellite image, and I think it is. Lots of cropland around a big city. Almost looks like stained glass.

  Barrett grinned. Yeah, it kind of does.