Just to be dramatic, she continued flailing her arms and legs out for a few more seconds, just to get Gabriel to laugh. She sat up again afterwards, and for a short while, they simply sat there in silence.
*
If Gabriel couldn’t interrupt the signal, then all that was left to do was for Siobhan to practice doing just that. Consistency came first. It wouldn’t be particularly helpful in a combat situation if she needed twenty minutes of silence and intense concentration just to make the signal stutter for a heartbeat. Oh, sure, she didn’t need to be able to stop it permanently—she doubted that would even be within her capabilities—but she did need to make it stop long enough to feasibly have a conversation with whatever angel they were dealing with at that point.
At first, just focusing enough to hear the signal left her with a migraine. It was nowhere near as loud as it was the first time; she suspected it had to do with Gabriel technically not being an angel anymore, or at least not strictly an angel. While confronting any other archangel or principality, hopefully the signal wouldn’t be so loud that just hearing it sapped a lot of Siobhan’s concentration.
Even with that difficulty, though, Siobhan improved. Faster and faster, she could pick out the buzzing of the signal. Faster and faster, more reliably each time, she could silence it.
They decided they were ready for things to get a bit more complicated when she could reliably keep the signal quiet for about a minute before she couldn’t dampen it any longer.
The headaches were more than a little aggravating, but Siobhan was glad to improve. If nothing else, she was content in the knowledge that the headaches were temporary. Once the Metatron was out of the way, the signal would stop. And if the Metatron was as high as the heavenly ladder went, then that meant that once he was handled, all of their angel issues would be over and done with.
*
“Can you tell where other angels are?” Siobhan wondered, sprawled on her back on the balcony after practice one night. Her head hurt, but that was nothing out of the ordinary anymore. “Like, can you sense them somehow? Since you all seem to be really good at finding each other.”
“To an extent,” Gabriel replied, shrugging one shoulder. “We can ordinarily find each other well enough, but the…signal obfuscates it to some extent. It gets too loud.” His expression twisted with mild discontent. “So I could get close to them, but I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint an exact location.”
Siobhan blew a raspberry and made a show of flipping off the sky with both middle fingers.
“That will surely show him,” Gabriel deadpanned. He curled one wing forward to block the punch she aimed at his shoulder.
*
After consistency came distraction. Siobhan and Gabriel moved their practice sessions down into the yard, and then Gabriel, Jack, Alistair, Myrtle, Viktor, and Charlotte would carry out very intense sparring session free-for-alls around her, making sure they were as loud and as thoroughly distracting as they could be.
When she could reliably silence the signal even with all of them at their most distracting, she joined the sparring sessions herself. After all, in an actual combat situation, there was no way to tell if she was going to have the means to simply sit on the side lines and focus, especially since some degree of close proximity was still a requirement.
Even if Gabriel was now stronger than any other archangel, that was little help in a nonlethal fight. Besides, underestimating an angel was never a good idea, even if victory seemed like a sure thing.
It took time. An annoying amount of time, if anyone asked Siobhan, but Gabriel and Jack both seemed convinced that she was progressing at an admirable rate. Eventually, though, she could silence the signal and still hold her own in the sparring sessions. She doubted she would be able to win any of those sessions, even ignoring the fact that Gabriel could walk through them all like a series of dried-out sandcastles, but she was willing to accept that.
*
No one quite knew what was happening when everyone in the manor was gathered together to meet with all five of the Vampire Lords at once. Everyone’s confusion only grew when the Lords greeted them with their respective Pieces of Eden, save for Regina, who was curiously unarmed.
It was Regina who began to speak, stating in a voice that carried, “Whilst sparring earlier, we learned that whatever took control of our resident archangel has also affected our weapons, or at least that is the only explanation we can think of.”
In demonstration, Allambee held up the Scale of Eden, and Harendra slammed a fist into it with all of his strength. There was a loud, bell-like ring, and the shield dented inwards, landing Allambee on his back in the grass.
Everyone flinched back as one. Typically, the shield simply repelled forces backwards, like throwing a rubber ball at a cement wall. In all of the Lords’ practice bouts, no one had ever seen the Scale take damage.
As Harendra reached down to help Allambee up, Osamu stated plainly, “They’re useless now.” He sounded about as close to annoyed as any of them had ever heard, and he lifted the Apple. The silver orb had stopped glowing. “I can’t control anything with this. The rest have turned into regular weapons; they can’t hold up to our strength, and they grant us no powers. The Bough snapped in half earlier.” That did at least explain why Regina was unarmed.
There was silence for a moment until Gabriel volunteered, “The Metatron created the Pieces of Eden. It would stand to reason that he could deactivate them.”
“Why didn’t he before?” Dask’iya asked pointedly. “We killed the seraphim with them.”
Gabriel held one hand up in a ‘one moment’ gesture as he thought over the question. “I think,” he began slowly, “it’s the amount of power he needs to expend. Creating the Pieces of Eden, like creating us, was costly,” he explained carefully. “He would be reluctant to expend that amount of power unless he thought he had to. Before eliminating the seraphim, he would not have thought it necessary. But with them gone, there is literally nothing else he can throw at you that you can’t overcome.”
“But why the reluctance?” Regina wondered. “Why would it be such a big deal to use that much power?”
“He will need to recuperate,” Gabriel answered simply. “It will take time.”
Regina’s expression turned thoughtful. “Long enough for us to get to him?” she wondered carefully.
“Potentially,” Gabriel returned. “If you work quickly.”
Regina hummed a low note. “Food for thought,” she mused quietly.
*
Being surrounded by Vampire Lords was not a place Gabriel especially wanted to be, but that was where he was, standing in Regina’s chambers with the five Lords clustered loosely in front of him.
“How would we go about finding the Metatron?” Regina asked, wasting no time with pleasantries or small talk. “I’m assuming we won’t just trip over him somewhere.”
“The trial keepers will need to help you,” he replied, folding his wings tightly to his back and linking his hands together loosely. “You’ll need to form a series of pacts with them, so they’ll help you get into Heaven.”
“Will we find them the same way we did last time?” she asked, moving along quickly.
Gabriel shook his head briefly. “No. You have the Pieces of Eden, even if they’re inert. You already have something of a bond with them. Contacting the trial keepers is…more of a matter of meditation.”
“And while we do that,” Regina mused slowly, “you and some of the others can deal with the other angels I imagine are going to be controlled.”
“Once we figure out a reliable way to track them,” Gabriel agreed reluctantly. It was a rather large gap in the plan, but it was just one that they would need to fill.
*
No one was going to like Siobhan’s idea. In fact, she was rather sure that, if she actually broached the idea with anyone, she would be very thoroughly talked down. But they needed a way of tracking the angels. If angels tended to smell reasonably dis
tinct from humans to Siobhan, then she could only wonder how easily they could be tracked by smell by something with a much better sense of smell than hers.
What was that saying? Better to ask forgiveness than permission?
She clicked her tongue, and Barton trotted after her obediently, his claws clicking on the floor as she led him out of the manor and onto the grounds. He bounded off of the porch behind her and loped along at her side as she jogged down to the woods.
She knew it was risky. She wasn’t stupid. But she knew what was at stake. And she knew Barton. He was smart as a whip—smarter than anyone else was giving him credit for—and he would do anything for her. If she had to train him to only eat when he was specifically being fed, then she knew she could train him to do that.
It would work out. And if it didn’t…well, she would handle that later.
He sat calmly, eyes bright and curious as Siobhan knelt in front of him. He hardly even blinked when she buried her face against his neck; it was nothing out of the ordinary. It was only as her fangs broke through his skin that he whined and began to squirm in her hold. Carefully, she tightened her hold on him, using one arm to hold him as she bit into her opposite wrist.
She had to hold her bleeding wrist to his neck, mashing it against the bite she had given him. She wasn’t even sure that would work until he started whining, high-pitched and fitful. She wrapped her arms around him, scratched his ears, and cooed nonsense to him. Hesitantly, his tail gave a slow wag.
When he went limp in her arms with a last, bitten-off whine, it felt as if he was dying on her. Siobhan buried her face against the top of his head for a moment before she picked him up, cradling him carefully, as if he were an infant.
When she got back to the manor, Jack was waiting in the kitchen, watching her curiously. Curiosity soon changed to disbelief and then to incredulity as he looked at Barton and put the pieces together.
“No lecturing,” Siobhan cautioned quietly, adjusting her hold on her dog. “Not right now. I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I’ve already thought about it. There’s nothing to change it now.”
Slowly, Jack sighed out a breath, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “Alright,” he agreed quietly. “…Alright.” He turned aside to let her pass, letting her carry Barton up to their room in peace.
*
Siobhan got a lecture, regardless, not from Jack but from Regina. It was a very short lecture, though. Just a piercing stare, and a quiet, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
She sounded disappointed. That hurt more than Siobhan expected it to.
*
For the twenty-seven hours that Barton slept, Siobhan watched him like a hawk, waiting for him to wake up.
When at last Barton began to stir, Siobhan hurried to the kitchen to grab a bowl and a bag of blood. She ripped open the bag and poured it into the bowl as she headed back up the stairs. By the time she was back in her room, Barton was slowly lifting his head. He blinked at her with unnerving red and black eyes. His tail wagged slowly across the floor a few times before he scented the air carefully.
His canine teeth had lengthened enough that they didn’t fully fit in his mouth, the tips of them just visible poking out from under his lips. He licked his teeth and slowly got to his feet, taking a careful step forwards.
“Leave it,” Siobhan cautioned, her voice low. “No eating.”
Reluctantly, Barton came to a halt. He cocked his head to one side and licked his lips once more, watching Siobhan with eyes that seemed unwontedly intelligent. He edged forward a step, though he came to a halt once again as she repeated, “No eating.”
He sat down, scooting forward fitfully as Siobhan set the bowl down.
“No eating,” she repeated once again.
Barton’s ears flattened back against his head, and he whined, but he stayed where he was sitting.
“Eat up,” Siobhan finally told him.
He surged to his feet and darted forward, throwing his muzzle into the bowl so quickly that he very nearly knocked it over. He licked it clean, lapping every drop out of it, and then he spent a few moments making sure the bowl was perfectly empty before he shoved the empty bowl away with his nose.
When he looked up again, the red of his eyes was paling, gradually fading back to his typical gold. Siobhan reached out to scratch beneath his chin with two fingers.
“Good boy,” she cooed quietly, and his tail thumped against the floor.
*
“A vampire dog.” Jack shook his head disbelievingly. “You turned Barton.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Why? You weren’t really clear on that before.”
“He can track angels,” Siobhan answered simply, working her fingers into the fur behind one of Barton’s ears. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, and his eyes slowly drifted closed.
“You’re sure—”
“I can handle him,” Siobhan stated simply, cutting Jack off. “Don’t worry.”
Slowly, Jack nodded. “If you’re sure,” he returned. “You’re sure he can track angels, though?”
“Gabriel can get us close,” Siobhan replied, shrugging one shoulder. “Barton can get us the rest of the way. I know it.”
*
“A vampire dog,” Gabriel observed, crouching down to let the mutt sniff at him vigorously.
“No stranger than a vampire angel,” Siobhan pointed out, one eyebrow arching.
“Strangely enough, both are your doing,” Gabriel mused dryly. He sat back with a huff so Barton could bodily clamber into his lap to bury his nose against the side of the archangel’s neck.
Siobhan stuck her tongue out at him, and she couldn’t quite hold back a laugh when Barton used his newly acquired vampiric strength to nudge Gabriel off-balance and bowl him over onto his back.
*
The Vampire Lords were cautious as they observed Barton, though the caution seemed rather unwonted when, at that moment, all he was doing was crunching his way through a bone as if it was made of balsa. It was hard to deny that there was curiosity there, too, though. Both from the Lords and from Barton, as he glanced up from his bone to watch them periodically.
“You’re insane,” Allambee informed Siobhan, his tone less pleasant than it typically was. “He’s a dog; he doesn’t have the reasoning power of a human. What happens if he decides he’s hungry and just goes after the closest person?”
“It’s called training,” Siobhan informed him blandly, irritation overruling her manners. “I can handle him, and we need him.”
“Do you expect him to actually recognize his own strength?” Osamu asked pointedly. “Frequently, a regular fledgling has issues adjusting to it. How do you—“
“How do I expect a dog to recognize that? Yeah, I know.” Siobhan folded her arms and sighed out a breath, forcing her shoulders to relax as Barton whined and looked up at her. “He already had a concept of minding his own strength,” she pointed out. “When I was still a normal human, he was stronger than me. But he never hurt me. If he could keep himself in check back then, I’m pretty sure he can learn to adjust now.” She paused for a moment before she added slowly, “Especially since I think the change made him smarter. Something about him is different, at least.”
There was silence for a drawn-out moment, and then it was Harendra who stated, “We will see if this works out. But if you cannot control him, then one of us will deal with him. Do you understand?”
Siobhan ducked her head and nodded tightly. “Understood,” she returned quietly.
“Then you’re dismissed,” Regina informed her, flicking one hand dismissively towards the door.
Siobhan clicked her tongue as she turned back towards the door to the stairs. Barton snapped down the last of the bone, hauled himself to his feet, and trotted out of the room behind her.
Everything was always complicated, wasn’t it? One day, everything would calm down for a while, and Siobhan wasn’t even going to know what to do with herself when that happened.
; CHAPTER THREE
“So, has your speed increased at all?” Siobhan wondered, splayed out on her back on the balcony. It wasn’t necessarily their practice space anymore, but it was a decent place to relax. As it turned out, the Lords’ Floor was a lot less worrisome once they realized that the Lords were very rarely ever actually on that floor. No one else seemed to have realized it yet, so they were only rarely disturbed.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Gabriel returned, perching on the balcony’s railing like some sort of overgrown gargoyle.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 36