Wherever the angel was, they were a bit more ambitious than Anael had been. Her own destruction had been localized. This one, however, looked to have been systematically badgering at each house along the street before flying off to have fun elsewhere, so even out of range of the signal, Siobhan, Jack, Barton, and Gabriel were still standing in the path of destruction.
Gabriel crouched, and without even needing a command, Barton snuffled at the archangel vigorously for a moment before he wheeled about on his hind legs. He sniffed at the air, and then his hackles gradually rose and his ears flattened. He bared his teeth just briefly before he took off at a sprint, cutting over a stoop and across a small yard. The others followed in short order.
They chased him along a side street, through more yards, and around a pond that had once been decorative, though it had certainly seen better days. The grass around it was torn and soggy and smoking in places, and the water had flooded awkwardly into a crater in the center of the pond, baring the edges of the pond.
Barton kept running until, finally, he hopped over a downed tree, landed on a downed streetlight, and began barking furiously at a roof across the street as he balanced on the light like it was a balance beam.
Siobhan stared across the street to the roof in question, where smoke was pouring from the broken chimney and dust hung thick over the shingles. There was a distant beat of wings, and the dust cleared like the parting of the Red Sea, revealing the angel standing on the roof. She was familiar from the confrontation in Belleview. Oriphael.
Structurally, she looked identical to Anael. Siobhan was adapting to that quirk, but it was still a little unsettling. That was where the similarities ended, though.
Oriphael was pale, true, but with a golden cast to her skin, and her short, smoothed hair was chestnut brown and curled against the back of her neck. Her wings were a nearly matte shade of brown, the dust in the air making them lose nearly all of the little sheen they had. Her eyes were pale enough that they barely even glowed, and Siobhan couldn’t pinpoint their color.
Siobhan had not fought her in Belleview. Jack, however, had. He heaved a sigh and grumbled, “Oh, great. It’s the shrieking banshee.”
There was no time for any other conversation, as Oriphael lunged from the roof, aiming straight at them. Barton surged forward and crashed into her, throwing her to the ground. They tumbled over the cracked asphalt, Oriphael’s forearm caught between the dog’s teeth as she held him at bay, away from her face.
“No eating!” Siobhan snapped before she dropped down to sit behind the uprooted tree, hoping that, if she wasn’t immediately visible, it would offer her some modicum of extra safety while she dealt with the signal.
It was just as loud as it was in the fight with Anael and the fight with Gabriel before that, and instantly, Siobhan’s head began to throb. She dropped her head down to rest against her knees and dug her knuckles against her temples. Stubbornly, though, she kept wrestling with it, conjuring up every ounce of her willpower she could manage as she tried to tamp the noise down.
Much like last time, it argued right back. The signal got stronger until it was nearly all Siobhan could hear, save for the way Oriphael screamed in outrage behind her before she shouted, “Get off of me!”
Barton yelped as he was tossed aside, though he landed on his feet, claws dragging across the asphalt as he skidded. Jack threw himself into the fight next, catching an arm around Oriphael’s middle and using his momentum to drag her down to the ground. From there, he scrambled to pin two of her wings with his knees, his hands wrapping tight around her wrists and slamming her hands down to the ground.
She was practically shrieking by then, her two free wings still beating as best as they could when they were partially pinned to the road. Soon enough, she managed to slam one knee into Jack’s back, destabilizing him just enough that her two free wings could hoist her partially off of the ground, and she tossed him aside before she launched herself skywards.
Gabriel, not in the mood for playing any games of tag just then, launched himself after her. They drew even and he backhanded her with, perhaps, a bit more strength than intended, as she was sent careening back towards the ground. She hit the road like a meteor, the asphalt cracking and cratering around her.
She was fine, though. She wrenched herself out of her crater, fingers hooked into claws and ripping into the asphalt. Before she could get off the ground again, Barton seized one of her wings in his teeth, shaking his head as his jaw tightened. Oriphael stumbled back a step as the dog began to back up, and then she wound up right back on the ground as Jack kicked her square in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs.
She recovered quickly, rolling aside before Barton could land on her and flapping her wings twice to launch herself back to her feet. She beat both pair forwards, forcing Jack to rear back and halting his approach. When she heard claws on the asphalt behind her, she hopped into the air, did a flip, and landed behind Barton instead.
The mutt turned to peer at her, his ears pinned flat and his teeth bared savagely. He certainly wasn’t the most pleasant sight, and she kicked at him, only to need to wrench her leg back as he caught her ankle in his teeth.
While she was distracted and balancing on one leg, Jack punched her in the throat, caught her by one arm as she reeled back, and tugged her back in close so he could land a second strike against her sternum.
Finally, she ripped herself free, blood dripping from her ankle.
“No eating,” Jack said sharply, the dog jerking to a halt mid-step at the command. He huffed out a put-upon noise and licked his teeth, but dutifully, he made no efforts to actually maim Oriphael.
Gabriel landed again behind her, meaning she was rather effectively penned in between the three of them.
The signal was still rattling, though, still shrieking and buzzing, filling Siobhan’s head like smoke in a jar. The Metatron was angry, though that wasn’t all of it. He was offended, and Siobhan could feel it, like gossip in a dark hallway. But that sort of back alley cattiness had never scared her before, and it certainly wasn’t going to scare her then.
And… finally! Siobhan squeezed her eyes shut tighter, and with a force of will so strong she was surprised it didn’t manifest into a physical entity, she wrangled the signal into silence, as if she were squeezing her hands tight around it and choking off its air. The sounds of the fight going on behind her snapped back into clarity, as if a sheet muffling the world had suddenly been ripped away.
Oriphael made a very peculiar sound then, caught somewhere between a gasp and, “What?” One hand rose, as if out of reflex, until Barton hopped up on his hind legs to seize hold of her arm and pull it back down to her side.
Gabriel’s hands landed on her shoulders for just a fraction of a second before he lifted them just slightly so they hovered on either side of her neck, poised to strike at a moment’s notice.
Oriphael fell still very reluctantly, Barton’s jaws still wrapped around her wrist and Gabriel’s hands on either side of her neck.
He asked his question very simply. “If you aren’t being controlled, what will you do?”
“My duty,” she snapped, her wings flaring open behind her. “Not all of us have forgotten what that duty is, brother. I—”
He didn’t offer her a chance to finish her speech. He simply tightened his hold and twisted his hands to one side, and Oriphael’s neck snapped with a click and a crack. He let her go, and she crumpled to the ground in a heap, Barton letting go and scampering back a few steps as she toppled.
Siobhan sat up as the signal abruptly ceased, falling silent so quickly that her ears rang for a moment. She sat up, peering cautiously over the edge of the fallen tree to make sure there weren’t going to be any surprises, and then she stood up slowly, dusting off her pants and shirt as she did.
“That was abrupt,” she observed, digging her knuckles against one of her temples.
“How’s your head?” Jack asked, wringing his hands together just slightly
as he looked at her.
Siobhan waved him off. “No worse than I expected,” she replied. There was no time to get into it beyond that, as the street’s residents, terrified but curious at the sudden lack of noise, began creeping back out.
That was their cue to head back to the manor and let everyone else know what had happened. Gabriel picked up Oriphael’s body and whisked that away first, leaving Jack, Siobhan, and Barton to mill around for a moment, mimicking the nervous bewilderment of everyone else on the street.
It was best to blend in until they were gone.
*
If Osamu had to pick a room he felt the most ‘at home’ in, it would not be the suite he had claimed as his own on the next floor up. There wasn’t anything especially unique about that suite. They all looked the same; they were all identical and generic, and none of the Lords had put much effort into customizing them. They were all still a touch unsure of what would be happening in the future. Would most of them go back to sleep? Would they all stay awake and rule by committee? No one was sure, and trying to make plans to act on in the midst of that lack of surety seemed ill-advised and hasty.
Consequently, the suite was largely a place where Osamu slept for a couple hours each day, bathed, changed his clothing, and not much else.
Instead, he was drawn to the library by the smell of old pages and ink and dust that never went away no matter how often Alistair cleaned. It was quiet and comfortable and just a bit quirky and offbeat, and though he knew he couldn’t claim it as his own, it was his favorite room in the manor regardless.
If meditation was what he needed to do, then doing so in the library seemed like the most logical choice.
Osamu closed the door to the library, locked it more to let anyone else know that they weren’t welcome than because he thought the lock itself was in any way helpful, and made himself comfortable on one of the beanbags, holding the Apple of Eden in one hand. It was inert and cold, little more than a silver sphere. It was pretty but nothing more. It seemed like a waste, were anyone to ask him.
But that was a gripe for another time. He had business to attend to just then. Laying back on the beanbag, he held the Apple up to take one last look at it before he lowered it to his stomach and cupped both hands around it. He shifted his shoulders to make sure he was as comfortable as he was going to get before he let his eyes drift closed.
He centered his thoughts on the Apple in his grasp at first, and then on the feeling of getting others to bend to his will. He had to admit, even to himself, he found it slightly unnerving. There was a reason most of his use of it had involved him simply stopping people from doing things, rather than forcing them to do other things, unless it was necessary that he do so. There were some lines even a Vampire Lord wasn’t entirely comfortable crossing. It had been necessary, though, he supposed. Otherwise, a swathe of Belleview would have been rubble, like Chambersburg before it, and no one wanted that to happen. (Save for the angels, but that was rather the point of Osamu using the Apple at all, wasn’t it?)
From there, his thoughts drifted to his trial keeper. Eve, assuming that was her name. She had resembled a woman, and she gave him the Apple of Eden, so calling her that had felt natural, and she hadn’t objected to it, so he felt no need to try to call her anything else. It seemed fitting, after all, though he couldn’t say he was enthusiastic about having another chat with her. She had been… unsettling. Like a robot that was trying to mimic a human while only having the barest understanding of what a human was or how one might behave. The inability to truly pick out any of her features had not made her any less uncomfortable to be around. But if there was one thing Osamu had always been skilled at, it was keeping his feelings to himself.
Besides, she had been reasonable in the end. She had allowed him to pick the Apple of Eden, and when he truly thought about it, her arguments hadn’t been so extensive. He supposed the trial keepers, perhaps, did not actually want to see life on Earth end, despite how difficult they could be. He let that thought bolster him and concentrated harder on what it had felt like to undergo his trial.
Gradually, he realized that he could smell flowers, though, with his eyes closed, he could see none of them. He shifted, and it felt as if he was resting in the grass. Though everything was dark behind his closed eyelids, he could still see the garden perfectly in his mind’s eye. He wondered if it was still just as extravagant as it had been when he’d truly visited it. It certainly smelled as if it would be.
Footsteps approached, bare and nearly silent, and he heard a high, chiming, bell-like laugh. “Welcome back,” she greeted, and she sounded as if she was leaning over him. “A bit of a surprise, I will admit.” Her voice was closer to the ground when she spoke next, and when he prodded outwards with one hand, his arm hit her knee. He felt the Apple shift in his hold, and he could only assume she was touching it. “I gave you that to take care of,” she reminded him in a voice that sounded like she was pouting, before she sighed out a slow breath. “But I suppose it’s not your doing.”
“I would’ve rather kept it, had it been up to me,” he assured her quietly. Even with his reservations about the Apple, he couldn’t deny that it was useful, after all, and squandering it willingly would have been a heinous waste of a resource. “And this isn’t even a half of what’s happening now.”
“I know.” There was something flatter about her voice then, as if, for a moment, she had put aside the human costume. The Apple left his hold for a moment, and he heard her hum thoughtfully before it was returned to his hands once again. “You’ve come to ask for my help, haven’t you?” Life had returned to her voice.
“I’ve been informed that you can get me into Heaven,” he told her by way of confirmation. “I have some rather powerful incentive to go there. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“It won’t bring back my Apple,” she sighed, and there was something wistful in her tone. “But I suppose I shan’t fault your goal. I’m rather unhappy with him.”
“Only for the Apple?” Osamu wondered curiously.
Eve laughed delicately. “That’s a part of it,” she agreed. “But if you recall, I came to agree with you last time we spoke. I came to support your goal. And he’s rather opposed to that goal.”
“So you do disagree with him,” Osamu mused. “Here I just thought you sided with whoever is best at arguing.”
“If you’re good enough at arguing, would it not make sense for me to come to agree with you?” she reasoned in return. “So I suppose it is both. I do disagree with him because your argument was more compelling.”
“So you’ll help me, then?” he wondered cautiously. “You will help me get into Heaven, and help pull him out once we get there?”
For a moment, there was silence, and then there was a quiet, gentle sigh. “I will help you,” she returned. “When the time comes, and the rest of you have had this discussion, then you will have my aid.”
Osamu sighed, a line of tension he hadn’t even been aware of gradually easing. His part was done, then. He just had to count on the others.
That was all it took. His thoughts hardly even drifted, and yet he could feel the beanbag beneath him again, rather than grass, and the smell of the gardens was gone. Slowly, Osamu opened his eyes and sat up, looking down at the Apple of Eden, still cupped in his hands.
As unnerving as its power had been, its loss was a pity. He supposed it could be for the best, though. He wasn’t so arrogant as to say he would never take advantage of it. If there was a way for them to win without it, then it was, perhaps, for the best. When one was as powerful as he was, it was always important to be realistic about it, lest he fall off the slippery slope and become what he was trying to fight against.
It was not a cheering thought, but it was a realistic one, at least.
He sat up, got to his feet, and unlocked the library door. That was two trial keepers down. They still had three to go, but Osamu was…hopeful. He supposed that was a good word for how he felt about their odds.
/> Assuming Harendra and Dask’iya could be charming, at any rate. And even Allambee, to a certain extent.
…Perhaps he shouldn’t get his hopes up too much, he reflected with some amusement. But he would keep that thought to himself unless he wanted to cause a scene. (Perhaps he would save it for a particularly slow day sometime down the road.)
*
“What was she like?” Siobhan wondered, hoisting herself up to sit on the balcony railing. She spared Anael a glance before she tipped her head back to look skywards. The moon was full, and if she squinted, she could see the glimmering specks that she knew were other planets. “Oriphael, I mean. What was she like before all of this ‘let’s kill everyone’ business?” She curled her fingers around the balustrade. “Was she always so violent?”
It took a few moments for Anael to reply, kneeling on the deck and absentmindedly running one hand along Barton’s back over and over, as if she had fallen into some sort of trance. When she finally answered, her voice was quiet.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 39