It was a question he didn’t answer immediately, instead staring blankly down at his lap. His wings rustled restlessly behind him. His jaw worked soundlessly a few times, but he said nothing. She had, evidently, managed to strike him speechless with just six words. She was almost proud of herself.
“It means…when a punishment is given, it is just,” he began eventually, his words coming slowly, each one carefully picked. “There is no unnecessary pain.”
Siobhan waited for him to keep talking, but when he didn’t, she cocked her head to one side in bemusement. “And if a punishment isn’t necessary?” she coaxed. “What then? What if you decide someone does something wrong, but they don’t need to be punished for it?”
The archangel’s brows furrowed. “That does not make sense,” he stated bluntly. “If someone has done something wrong, why should they not be punished?”
“Because sometimes people repent without punishment,” Siobhan returned flatly. “Sometimes people repent when they realize something is wrong, and punishing them further is just cruelty.” She tipped her head to the side. “What then? What counts as mercy when your definition of mercy assumes that the one being punished feels no guilt?”
“Surely your hypothetical guilt-wracked criminal is a rarity,” he argued, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“Why do you assume we’re wicked by default?” she asked with hardly a pause in the middle. “Why do you assume that humans are automatically bad?”
He didn’t answer her, and his wings pulled in tighter to his back.
“Do you just not know how to handle someone who isn’t made from a mold?” she asked, giving him a pointed once over. He looked as perfectly symmetrical as every angel she had met before, save for the variations in his color palette. For just a moment, she was reminded of a video game, where all of the enemies were the same, just with different color schemes. She shooed the thought away before she could laugh. That wasn’t what she was there for.
His eyes darted up, narrowing as he scowled at her.
“Can an angel grow beyond the mold?” she carried on, heedless of the glare he aimed at her. He was not the scariest thing she had seen before. “I think one could. Do you?”
She didn’t wait for him to respond before she got to her feet once again and left the storage room.
*
It was two days later when Siobhan found herself asking, “Do angels have families?”
“In…a manner of speaking,” the archangel replied. “Not in the same way mortal beings do, but we have others who were crafted in the same groups.”
“Do you care about them?” she asked, leaning one shoulder against the wall.
“I do, yes,” he answered warily, his wings rustling slowly.
“And you would be upset if something happened to any of them?” she continued, her tone getting more insistent with each question.
“Yes,” he answered, his tone sharp. “What are you getting at?”
“I bet a lot of the people in Chambersburg had family who lived outside the city,” she pointed out, her tone reasonable, before it hardened abruptly as she asked, “How merciful do you think it was for any of those family members?”
He stared at her, eyes wide.
Siobhan watched him expectantly, letting the question sink in.
“I…don’t think I am in a conversing mood today,” he stated eventually, sounding like he was saying the words from very far away.
Siobhan rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh, but she couldn’t exactly say she was surprised. “Of course you’re not.” She pushed away from the wall. “I’ll be back later, then,” she added before she turned toward the door.
“You may call me Gabriel.”
The words were quick and quiet, offered only once her back was turned to go. Siobhan paused, her hand on the doorknob. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder at him. His expression had changed very little, but she knew she hadn’t just hallucinated the words.
“Siobhan,” she offered in return before she turned toward the door again and stepped out into the hallway.
Maybe, just maybe, she was actually getting somewhere. She was almost afraid to hope.
*
“He has a name,” Siobhan informed Jack, apropos of nothing, when he walked into their room. She was sprawled out on their bed, staring at the ceiling and the moonlight painted across it.
“You already told me that,” Jack replied, flopping down beside her on the bed and resituating himself without complaint when she rolled to the side to curl up against his chest.
“Well, yeah, but now I actually know his name,” she clarified, rolling her eyes and nudging the top of her head against his chin. “Don’t be pedantic.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” he asked, prodding his chin down against her hair. “That’s progress?”
“I’d like to think it is,” she agreed, squirming against his chest as she got comfortable. The bed sagged further a moment later as Barton climbed up to join them, curling up into a remarkably small ball in an unoccupied portion at the bottom of the bed. Siobhan nudged him with her knee, and his tail gave a slow wag.
“You’re going to keep talking to him, I’m guessing,” Jack added after a moment.
“Does that upset you?” she asked warily in return, by way of an answer.
Jack was quiet at first. “I’m worried,” he replied, “but I don’t think that’s the same thing as upset, so no.”
She bonked her head against him again. “You’re always worried about something,” she replied, as if she was reminding him of some oft forgotten detail.
“I’m good at it,” he replied primly. “I’m supposed to play to my strengths.”
“You should work on being more well-rounded instead,” she sighed as earnestly as she could manage, giving his shoulder a pat. “It’s important to have varied strengths.”
“Oh, dearie me, I never knew,” he deadpanned, his expression flat. “I’ve seen the light. Thanks so much.”
Finally, Siobhan rolled her eyes and sat up just enough to kiss him. It was a good way to get him to pipe down, she had found. It was certainly her favorite method of doing so, at any rate, and he wasn’t complaining about it, either.
*
Siobhan opened the door to the storage room and stepped inside, closing it behind her. Outside in the hallway, Barton slept, at ease enough with the routine to have stopped his grumbling.
Gabriel regarded her quietly for a moment, but before Siobhan could say anything, he spoke up.
“There is a way for your Vampire Lords to match the strength of the seraphim on a one-on-one basis,” he stated, staring at a point on the wall just past Siobhan’s shoulder.
Siobhan’s eyes widened, and she gaped at him blankly for a moment before she shook her head minutely, dropped to her knees on the floor, and scooted forward to close the distance between them. Before she could demand to know what that method was, though, there was one thing she needed to know.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, her voice low. “You haven’t told me anything before now, other than your name.”
“I am…not convinced that this world is beyond saving,” he answered carefully. “I am not convinced that this world needs to be cleansed.”
Siobhan opened her mouth to thank him, only to pause as he added, “But.”
Of course. There was always a but.
“I will explain it to you,” he informed her, in a tone that brooked no argument. “What you choose to do with the information is up to you, but I will tell it to none of the others. If you wish for your Vampire Lords to know, so be it, but they will not hear it from me.”
Slowly, Siobhan nodded. “Alright,” she agreed. “I’m listening.”
Gabriel began to explain, “They are called the Pieces of Eden…”
*
“There are five of them,” Siobhan explained to Regina, standing in the middle of the Lord’s admittedly rather informal audience chamber. Even so, the way R
egina reclined in her seat like a panther, calm and assured, made it feel as official as a court room. “An angel needs to open the door to each one, but after that, anyone strong enough to complete the trial behind the door can obtain the Piece.”
“And he’ll cooperate with us?” Regina asked dubiously, leaning her chin on one fist, her elbow balanced on the arm of her chair.
Siobhan fidgeted on her feet. “He’ll cooperate with me,” she corrected. “He doesn’t have much interest in working with any of you, or with anyone else in the manor.”
Regina’s mouth twisted to the side in distaste. “And you can’t convince him otherwise?” she wondered, though her tone made it clear that she already knew what the answer would be.
“I’m not exactly strong enough to convince him of anything, on my own,” Siobhan pointed out, “and he’s just going to decide not to cooperate with me if I try to bring in anyone else to force the matter.”
Regina sighed slowly and waved the matter off. “Of course, you’re right,” she agreed. “And you have no complaints about acting as our…interpreter?”
Siobhan shrugged one shoulder and hooked her thumbs through the pockets of her pants. “Not if it means we can stop whatever happened in Chambersburg from happening again,” she answered easily. “That was…horrible. They call it cleansing, apparently.” A slightly melodramatic shudder chased itself down her back.
“Like Sodom and Gomorrah of old,” Regina mused, rolling her eyes. “Always so dramatic, these heavenly types.”
She fell silent for a moment, but she had not actually excused Siobhan. After a few seconds of contemplation, she asked, “How did you convince him to change his mind?”
Siobhan rocked back on her heels and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. “I just…talked to him,” she answered. “Gave him a book. Showed him a bunch of stuff about people banding together. Made him think. I’m kind of guessing ‘thinking’ is something most angels haven’t had to do all that critically.”
Regina hummed thoughtfully. “Fair enough,” she sighed after a moment. “Keep speaking with him to get what information he’s willing to pass on. I’ll inform the other Lords of this breakthrough. And Siobhan?”
“Regina?”
“Very good work.”
Siobhan couldn’t quite keep herself from smiling as she made her way to the door.
CHAPTER THREE
“I’m going with you,” Jack informed Siobhan pleasantly as she got dressed to follow Allambee and Gabriel to wherever it was they needed to go to get the first Piece of Eden. He was already dressed, and Siobhan couldn’t tell if that was because he had been anticipating her arguing or just because he tended to nap at a different time of day from her.
“And why’s that?” she asked, though there was no true ire in her voice. She never objected to Jack’s company, and frankly, she wasn’t looking forward to needing to mediate between Gabriel and Allambee on her own. It sounded like a sure fire way to lose a few body parts.
“Because I worry,” he answered flatly. “Like any reasonable person.”
“If I don’t argue, will you keep Allambee from trying to get into it with Gabriel?” she bargained, though she had no real intent on leaving him behind. “And I’ll keep Gabriel distracted from Allambee.”
Jack made a show of thinking it over for a moment, tapping his lip with one finger. “Sounds fair, I suppose,” he sighed eventually, and he gestured for her to lead the way with a flourish.
At the back door out of the kitchen, though, they had to slow, as Barton tried to trot after them as normal.
“You’re staying here this time, buddy,” Siobhan sighed sadly, crouching down to scratch his chin with two fingers.
“I’ve got him,” Alistair assured her cheerfully, hooking two fingers in Barton’s collar. Siobhan offered him a crooked smile, scratched the top of Barton’s head once more, and straightened up. Barton whined as she stepped out the door, but she didn’t have time to be heartbroken over the sound.
Gabriel and Allambee stood in the grass, both of them very pointedly not acknowledging each other. Whether it was his promise to Siobhan that he would help or the knowledge that if he tried to leave them Allambee would rip his wings off that kept Gabriel in the yard, Siobhan wasn’t sure. She stepped between them, just to be on the safe side.
There was a brief exchange as Gabriel explained where they were going, his voice low and his words terse. Frankly, Siobhan was just glad he hadn’t decided he would only say it if Allambee walked away.
“Right,” Allambee started, sounding far cheerier than he looked, “then I guess we’re off.”
Jack yelped as Allambee hooked an arm around him, and then they were gone. Siobhan had no time to think it was sort of funny, though, before she yelped just as loudly as Gabriel simply picked her up, scooping her off of her feet.
The world twisted and warped, everything blurring past too quickly for her to see it. She wasn’t sure if it was flight or some sort of teleportation, but the end result was all the same: a moment later, he set her back down on her feet, just as Jack was squirming his way out of Allambee’s hold.
They were standing in a broad, wide open space, nothing visible for miles in any direction. The grass was golden and crinkling, shuffling quietly as it swayed in the breeze around them, nearly as high as Gabriel’s waist. The sky above was clear, with hardly a cloud to be seen, and there was no scent of rain in the air.
It looked as if no one had been there in years, and if there was anything there to symbolize that it was the location of a trial, then Siobhan couldn’t see it.
Moving quietly through the grass, Gabriel began to walk. He went only a few yards before he stopped again, and his attention shifted to Siobhan. “I will open the gate, and Allambee will go through. The three of us shall remain out here. We will only know if he has completed the trial if he reappears.”
“If,” Allambee repeated dubiously, eyes narrowing.
“You are attempting to retrieve a very powerful object,” Gabriel explained, both his voice and his face impassive. “Are you expecting it not to be dangerous?”
Allambee rolled his eyes. “Well, how will it work, then?”
Gabriel remained silent. Hands on his hips, Allambee turned to give Siobhan a beseeching look.
“Gabriel—,” she began, but he shook his head once.
“I will not explain it,” he stated. “If I must explain the trial to him, then he will fail the trial. May I begin?”
With a slow sigh, Allambee gestured for him to carry on. Gabriel paused, though, looking again to Siobhan as he added, “Opening a trial gate is not subtle. It will likely attract the attention of other angels. While I find it extremely unlikely that a seraph will bother to show up, do at least be ready to face some opposition.”
Siobhan folded her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one side, cocking her head to look at Jack. “What do you think? Can we handle it?”
Jack snorted out a laugh against one fist. “I think we can manage.”
Gabriel nodded once before his attention seemed to shift inward, as if he was focusing very intensely, his eyes closing. He laid one hand over the other in front of himself, his palms facing downward. Slowly, his wings spread behind him until all four were extended to their full width, and Siobhan realized with some surprise just how enormous they were when they weren’t tucked so close to his back.
There was a smell like ozone in the air, and Siobhan could feel her skin prickling as clouds gathered in the sky above them, rapidly swirling as the wind picked up, and Siobhan was concerned for a moment that they would have a tornado on their hands. The peace of the clearing rapidly vanished as the wind howled and the moonlight vanished behind clouds as thick and black as swamp scum. It was no natural sort of weather, and as Siobhan stared upward, it looked as if the clouds were going to part, opening wide and swallowing them down like a beast. At the very least, it suddenly looked like they were in for one hell of a downpour.
Gabriel opened his eyes once again, and their glow had shifted to a bright, magnesium white. Abruptly, he dropped to one knee, both palms slamming down to the ground. With a pair of twin yelps, Siobhan and Jack leapt backward as lightning arced down from the sky, striking the ground with vicious fury, a crack of thunder loud enough to shake the world following only a split second behind it. Jack and Siobhan both clapped their hands over their ears. Allambee, largely unperturbed by the turn in the weather, watched the proceedings curiously, his posture lax and his hands linked loosely together in front of himself.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 20