Siobhan heaved yet another sigh, her shoulders rising and falling with it, so great was its melodrama. “Alright,” she huffed. “We’ll head over there and get going.”
So much for watching that comet. And Siobhan had been so looking forward to it. She could’ve named it something silly and convinced the Vampire Lords that was its actual name, because watching them adapt to the way the world worked was one of the few things about them that was consistently entertaining.
But oh well. Duty was calling.
*
For once, they were in a city. It was enormous, skyscrapers clawing at the clouds and enough light pollution that the late night clouds looked orange, and Siobhan doubted she would have been able to see a single star even if there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She could hear sirens in several directions, because in a city of that size, there were always going to be emergencies that needed to be tended to. They offered no insight on where they actually needed to be going.
Barton was already snuffling at Gabriel, muzzle buried amongst the feathers of one of his wings for a few moments, until he decided that was enough and he wheeled about and took off along the sidewalk with the other three in hot pursuit.
They wound up on a residential street, carefully tended to with apartment complexes that reached towards the clouds in every direction. There was smoke billowing out of two of them, and people were screaming. As they watched, two people were flung through a hole in one of the buildings on nearly the top floor. Without even hesitating, Gabriel shot into the air to catch them both and return to the ground with them.
They babbled incoherently, terror and gratitude and awe mixing in equal measures, until the man simply passed out and the woman was left a sobbing mess. Gabriel deposited them behind the corner of the building, tucked into an alley and out of the line of sight and, hopefully, out of the path of destruction.
When there was no satisfying crunch of bodies meeting the pavement below, the angel emerged from the building, hovering high above them but gradually lowering towards them, wings carrying him downwards in a manner that should have been graceful, but mostly managed to look faintly mechanical for its puppet-like movements. It was like watching a beautifully-made marionette being used by a puppeteer who had no experience.
When they found Remael, Siobhan was almost used to the way he so closely resembled Gabriel. Having both Anael and Samael wandering the manor and looking so very similar to each other had softened the unnerving edges of the… family resemblance, as it was.
As ever, though, the resemblance was not exact. Remael was paler than Gabriel by a considerable margin, though still lightly tan. His eyes glowed such a bright shade of green they were almost neon. His hair was black and pulled back into a short tail, and it was such a dark shade that it almost seemed blue in the moonlight. His wings were a pale color caught somewhere between red, gold, and brown, and they gleamed faintly as they flapped.
When he landed, his wings snapped out behind him with a melodramatic flair that had been absent in the others, and Siobhan wondered if the Metatron’s control only managed to strip them of most of their personality, rather than all of it in its entirety.
She didn’t wonder on that long, though. They had a job to do, Siobhan most especially. She shuffled backwards a few steps until she came to the nearest front stoop, and she circled around it to drop to a crouch and sit down against its other side, hidden from view as much as she could be and well away from the hapless civilians Gabriel had snagged out of the air. She didn’t need them getting caught up in anything when Remael inevitably made a grab for her.
As it turned out, though, it wasn’t an enormous concern. Remael lunged straight for Siobhan, but it was an obvious, telegraphed movement, and he was slammed down to the ground when Gabriel clothes-lined him across the chest with one forearm as easily as he might pick up Barton.
Before Remael had a chance to get up, Barton was on him, teeth sinking into the joint of one wing and beginning to drag him backwards. Remael thrashed and squirmed and kicked, making loud, outraged noises at the utter indignity of it all, and his wings beat fitfully before he finally managed to wrench himself free, scattering feathers. Barton sneezed and spit out the mouthful of down he was left with.
Again Remael tried to make a move for Siobhan, but that time, Jack intercepted, catching the archangel’s arm and vaulting him up and over his shoulder to hit the ground with a reverberating thud that made Siobhan’s shoulders ache in sympathy. Granted, he sort of had it coming to him at that point.
Remael scrabbled away, out of Jack’s reach, and slowly got to his feet once again. He looked around to watch as he was closed in upon before he evidently decided that it was not something he wanted to deal with.
When Remael took to the air, it was a fairly obvious attempt at fleeing. Gabriel followed him without effort. He turned in a circle, swatting Remael with one wing and causing him to abruptly drop through the air for a few yards before he caught himself and tried to change directions. There was no way for him to outpace Gabriel, though. Soon enough, there was a hand hooked loosely around his throat, and another holding onto one of his wings. Save for some agitated squirming, Remael fell still in Gabriel’s hold.
When the signal died down, it was like a needle scratching over a record. It was there one moment and gone the next, and Siobhan couldn’t help but to think that the Metatron was getting frazzled with their continued efforts and their continued successes. But she could ponder over that later.
“Gabriel!” Siobhan barked, her fingers tightening in her hair. “Get to it!”
Gabriel hurled Remael downwards so he hit the ground, and when Gabriel landed, he was standing over his brother, wings spread and braced forward to block off escape routes.
“We can get rid of the Metatron’s control over you,” he stated bluntly, “but you must become a vampire to do so.”
“You’ll not banish me from my own home,” Remael snarled in return, sitting up as much as he could. “Just because you decided never to return doesn’t mean the rest of us want to make that decision.”
“You won’t get to return either way,” Gabriel pointed out, and Remael’s eyes widened as, just then, it finally dawned on him that they intended to kill him if he didn’t fall in line.
As quickly as his surprise manifested, it vanished, his eyes narrowing sharply. He spread his wings as much as he was able. “Be a traitor, then,” he snarled. “You’re already off to a good start.”
Gabriel reached forward, quick as lightning, and snapped Remael’s neck as if it took no effort at all. It probably didn’t. He let go, and Remael’s body toppled backwards.
Slowly, Siobhan poked her head up over the edge of the stoop in time to watch Gabriel pick the body up and vanish without any preamble. She supposed she understood. Regardless of the baggage and the history, she wouldn’t like it if she had to kill any members of her family, either.
She could check on him later, back at the manor. After he came back to pick the rest of them up, and after she had some time to nurse her headache.
*
Meditation was not something Harendra had ever put much stock in, in the past. If he needed to reflect on something or calm himself down, he had other ways of doing so, and his own methods were generally not quite so mind-numbingly dull.
Needs must when a devil takes the wheel, he supposed, though the phrase seemed a touch backwards, given the nature of their enemies lately.
When it came time for it, he left the manor entirely. He had the ability to be anywhere he wanted to be as quickly as he pleased. Considering that, why would he stay at a manor that he held no attachment to? There was no one room over any other that inspired calm in him. The manor didn’t inspire much of anything in him. It was Regina’s home, not his.
So that was where he went. He went home. Back to India. Back to the plantation he had hibernated beneath for centuries.
It was much the same as it was when he’d last seen it, after Siobhan and Jack w
oke him from his slumber. He made his way leisurely through the maze that the pepper plants had been turned into, deftly avoiding the traps scattered throughout it as he did. His thoughts wandered as he walked, only occasionally returning to the shepherd’s crook he held loosely in one hand.
Useless. It would splinter if he simply tightened his grip, and its power was long gone. But it had served its purpose well while it had still functioned. He had saved people with it. Not many, but enough to make a difference. Just saving one person would have made a difference, he supposed, but the Serpent had helped to defeat the seraphim, stealing from them the single moment where they might have been able to turn the tide. They never stood a chance, courtesy of the Serpent.
It was a pity to see it reduced to little more than an attractive chunk of wood. But he didn’t want to focus on that too much. He had a purpose for being there, and as he made it to the center of the maze, he dragged his thoughts towards that purpose.
He sat down on the hatch in the ground that led down to where he had slumbered, folding his legs beneath him and laying the Serpent of Eden over his lap, his hands curled around it loosely. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift to his acquisition of the shepherd’s crook and the very literal serpent that had bestowed it upon him. It had been reasonable, in the end. Or at least, it had seen reason.
Why should it not side with him again? The Metatron had robbed the world of an artifact of healing, so he could rain more destruction with fewer interruptions. Harendra couldn’t imagine his trial keeper would agree with such actions. So, perhaps, it would be simple. But that was what he was there to find out, wasn’t it?
He could smell a farmyard, and he could hear sheep moseying about their business. He felt the shepherd’s crook move under his hands, and for a second, it felt as if it had melted, and then it coiled up around one of his forearms. The snake that the crook had once been slithered higher until Harendra felt it prod curiously at his chin with the end of its nose.
“How goes the tending after your flock?” it wondered in a sly voice, like it was sharing some sort of inside joke. Perhaps it was. Perhaps Harendra was simply missing it.
“They’re still in danger,” he answered simply. “I did what I could, while I could, but…” He gestured to his lap with one hand, indicating where the Serpent had been until it turned back into a very literal serpent.
The tip of a small tongue brushed his chin, and the snake sighed, its coils tightening around Harendra’s arm for a moment as it did. “Yes. I know.” It did not sound enthused. “Rather arrogant, I thought. As if they were his to decide what to do with.” It scoffed. “An artist loses the ability to decide what happens with a sculpture as soon as they sell it, do they not?” it reasoned, its voice drifting slightly as it bobbed its head.
“You would think so,” Harendra agreed. “But sometimes, creators cling too strongly to all of their creations.”
“You speak of the other angels,” the snake acknowledged. “You know you would never have been able to convince all of them to join you, but still, their current state is not exactly fair. The Metatron is a parent, for all intents and purposes. Should he not want what is best for his creations?”
“Even his more tool-based creations,” Harendra added. “It only seems fair.”
The snake hissed out a quiet laugh. “True enough. And you’re here because you want my help to make things fair. Correct?”
“That is the broad strokes of it, yes,” Harendra agreed. “Presumably, you have thoughts on that.”
“Fewer than you might expect,” it sighed, dropping down from Harendra’s arm to coil in a circle in his lap. “I will help you,” it agreed simply. “Partially because it seems like the better option, but mostly because I am unhappy with this turn of events. But I suspect you don’t particularly care about the details.”
Harendra shrugged, not even bothering to deny the statement. “Being fussy about it seems like a waste of time,” he pointed out. “But you will help, not only with getting to Heaven, but with pulling the Metatron out of it?”
“It will not be a simple matter,” the serpent cautioned, though it didn’t sound particularly bothered by the idea, “but yes, I will help, assuming the last of the trial keepers gets onboard with the idea.”
“Then you have my thanks,” Harendra assured it, “for whatever that is worth.”
“More than you might expect,” it returned. “Beings of your power are infrequently obligated to thank anyone. It is refreshing to hear it when it happens.”
True enough, Harendra supposed, though it made him sound like more than a bit of an asshole.
That was as far as his attention needed to wander before the moment was gone. The Serpent was once again a shepherd’s crook sitting across his lap, and when he opened his eyes, it was made of plain wood once again. There was no sign of a farm or of sheep in any direction. He was simply sitting in the middle of the pepper plant maze.
Slowly, he got to his feet, leaning the Serpent against his shoulder once again. He looked around leisurely, as if he expected the scenery to have changed, but it all looked exactly as it had when he’d arrived. For all he knew, less than a minute could have passed, though it felt like much longer than that.
But he supposed none of that was actually important. His trial keeper agreed to help when the time came. That was the important part. For now, that was all he needed to worry about.
With that thought in mind, he rolled his shoulders, stretched his back, and began the return journey to the manor.
*
It wasn’t that Siobhan was entirely unconcerned about the headaches. She knew they would eventually become a serious problem if they kept getting worse at the rate they were going at. She wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t naïve. She wasn’t that optimistic. She was well aware that eventually they would be bad news.
But she was equally aware that there was nothing to be done about them. They were being caused by the Metatron and the signal, and as he got angrier and more insistent, the signal got stronger, and Siobhan’s headaches got worse. Until the Metatron was gone, there was nothing any of them could do to fix matters.
Considering all of that, why should she get worked up about it? It wasn’t going to help matters at all. Frothing into a panic every time she felt a twinge of pain in her head wasn’t going to make it stop; it was just going to mean she spent a lot more time panicking than she really wanted to. (Well, she didn’t really want to spend any time panicking, but that seemed unrealistic, given everything she had been up to for the last couple months.)
It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand why the others were worried. They cared about her. She was in pain. Of course they were worried. It was just that they didn’t seem to understand why she wasn’t getting more worked up. They didn’t seem to grasp that worrying quite so much wasn’t actually going to do anything to make the situation better. It was just a lot of unneeded stress.
And really, if she was being honest, pretending that everything was okay for everyone else was harder than dealing with the headache. She had very quickly learned to appreciate her privacy, where it was just her and Barton, because Barton didn’t sit and fret pointlessly about things that couldn’t be fixed.
Eventually, the Metatron would be gone, and so would the signal. And Siobhan’s headaches would clear up. She knew that was the only way to fix it, and she comforted herself with the surety of it. Because she knew it would happen.
But until it happened, she wasn’t exactly keen on wasting more of her time and her energy than was necessary on performative fretting and bland reassurances that she was A-Okay.
She still would, though. Because the others were worried, and she didn’t want them to be. And that was more important than her own irritation at the entire situation. But she would do that later. For the moment, she just sat in the grass in a clearing in the woods, with Barton sprawled over her lap as if he wasn’t the size of a small pony.
She could deal with the rest o
f the world later. For now, this was all she needed.
*
When Siobhan climbed onto the roof, her head still hurt, but she wasn’t overly concerned about it just then, if only because her thoughts were rather thoroughly occupied in a different direction entirely.
She had been looking all over the manor, and she didn’t know where Gabriel was. He wasn’t in the library. He wasn’t on the balcony. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the lounge or any other room Siobhan had poked her head into. He wasn’t in the angel recovery room. He wasn’t on the roof, as she rather quickly realized. He was just… off, somewhere.
(For a moment, she had an absurd mental image of the Metatron asking him where he had been and Gabriel, like a surly teenager, simply saying, “Out.” It wasn’t a particularly funny thought, but it made her laugh anyway.)
She splayed out on the roof, her arms and legs spread in all directions, and stared at the sky. The moon was as bright as silver, there was hardly a cloud in the sky, and the stars stretched on into infinity. She wondered if angels or the Lords could get to any of them, but she quickly buried the thought again. It was ridiculous, and she knew that.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 44