Rem's lips twitched. He glanced at Snow, who was just blinking open his eyes with a scowl. "Sometimes I think—"
Snow interrupted in a slurred mumble, "Fuck you, Rem."
"Afternoon, Snowy," Gabriel greeted, helping him sit up. His light shone brighter without the interference of the rogue magic flying around. He sent it up higher, and conjured a handkerchief out of the nothingness around them. Snow took it and wiped away the blood on his jaw. He glared at Rem, who gazed calmly back.
Snow looked away first, shaking his head with what seemed to be disgust. "What time is it?" he asked, voice hoarse.
"Half-past three. Are you okay?"
"Been through worse," he replied shortly, grimacing, studiously ignoring Rem. He searched Gabriel's face, some of his unreadable masks already back in place. "When were you going to tell me he's an anchor?"
Oh, hell. Even barely conscious, Snow was too sharp for his own good. Gabriel shrugged. "When I figured out what to do about it. Which I haven't, yet."
"And why would you wait until then?"
"Because you'd just tell me to exorcise him. And that is a bad decision."
Snow gave him an unimpressed look. "Another one of your gut feelings?"
"Actually, no. Just the fact that getting rid of a spirit that strong will shake things up a bit too much."
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, of course it will. You did say exorcise, not dismiss. So?"
"So… the borders around HQ will get smudged a little."
Snow frowned, then his expression cleared. "Oh." He lapsed into silence.
Rem said tentatively, "It's all gone, Gabe. The barrier's fine."
"Good. Thanks. Snow—"
"Do it anyway," Snow said, staring at his hands.
"Oh, for god's sake. No."
"I can handle it," he argued bluntly. "Look, if we kill him, we let the spirit loose. Bad. But if we don't kill him then it's just going to grow stronger inside him. That's worse. So obviously we exorcise him and then kill him, and all our problems disappear. It's simple."
"Yeah, barring the fact that after the exorcism you'll be an absolute wreck and you'll be past caring whether some pesky sorcerer is dead or not," Gabriel pointed out.
"I told you, I can handle it."
"And I told you, no." He mustered the most patient smile he could and stood up. "I'll think of something else. I'll be going now, Rem. Don't worry about the damage, the others will patch it up. Get some rest; you look like death warmed over. You too, Snowy. See you both later."
He walked away from the small circle of illumination. The darkness gave a slight resistance as if it was an actual membrane being stretched, before falling away and releasing him back into the physical world. Now that Rem had calmed down, he could see his surroundings: smooth tiles beneath his shoes, the same neutral grey as the high, curved ceiling above him. Small lights installed across the dome lit up the empty space. Behind him, just heaped on the floor like a mound of soil, was a stretch of nothingness, a void hanging in midair, its existence in the three-dimensional world impossible yet real. Gabriel couldn't see or hear what went on inside, but after a while the shadow bulged and shimmered, and Snow walked out of it as if emerging from a cloud of ink. He looked irked and weary. He paused when he saw Gabriel still there, shrugged and fell into step beside him. They went to the only exit without speaking.
The sunshine outside was blinding after the dim interior of the dome. Soldiers were sawing apart and carting away the destroyed trees, their shields no longer sputtering. It wasn't a very impressive, soldierly thing to be doing, but most of them just seemed glad the magic had been controlled. Stag was gone, presumably back to supervise the cadets. Gabriel took a deep breath of the clean air and headed downhill. Snow followed him. "Are you going already?"
"Hm? Oh, yes. Gotta get back to work. I literally stopped mid-fuck to get up here."
"Oh. Sorry," Snow mumbled, frowning. He hesitated. "You could stay. If you want. I owe you that much, at least."
"I know, Snowy, but I have to work to pay the rent and feed the li'l sis," Gabriel said, smiling thinly. He paused, remembering the wallet he'd grabbed from his client. He'd forgotten it in his urgency—stealing from clients who broke rules was almost second nature to him now, because so many of them did it. Pulling it from his pocket, he did a quick count of the cash—a surprisingly satisfying amount, enough to pay for the session and a few more to boot. Maybe the guy had been planning a downtown fuck fest. Tough luck for him, then. He folded up the money meticulously, slipping it into an inner pocket. "On second thought, this is enough to cover half a night's work. I'll call Keri and tell her I'll be back tomorrow morning."
"Good." Snow smiled—general contentment, and perhaps relief. "We can both take the day off."
"Day off?" Gabriel snorted, shoving him. "What are you talking about? I said half a night. That means you owe me four blowjobs, or two fucks."
That got a quiet laugh and a shake of the head. Definitely relief now. Gabriel didn't know what Snow was so worried about—he could never stay angry at him, not really. He thought it'd be obvious by now. "I'll sleep on the couch and you can have the bed, how about that."
"No. It's sex or nothing."
"Where will Keri stay while you're gone?"
"She'll sneak into one of her friends' places. I swear kids these days are bewitched. The sheer amount of loyalty they have for each other…" He thought about the strange concept for a moment, then dismissed it silently. "Don't avoid the topic. What'll it be? Blowjob or fuck?"
A pair of lieutenants strolled past right as he asked it. "Good to see you back on your feet, sir," one of them said gruffly, while the other stared diligently ahead and tried to keep a straight face.
"Thank you," Snow replied graciously, though his cheeks were tinted pink. Gabriel found it adorable, and said so, not quite waiting for the lieutenants to get out of earshot. When their barely-muffled laughter faded, Snow muttered, "Stop it."
"I won't until you answer. If you want to pay me back, this is the easiest way to do it. Blowjob or—"
"I no longer want to pay you back."
"Yes you do. You've got your soldier's guilty conscience thing, remember?"
"It means I feel compelled to help injured people. This is scarcely relevant."
"Of course it is. Spending the night on your bed will just give me a serious case of blue balls, and suddenly we've got all this risky crap about blood pressure and erratic heart rate and whatnot. Which can all be cured, if you'd just make up your mind, Snowy. Hell, if you're really against giving, I could fuck you. Not as fun, but you are technically the client. But that's all the options I'm allowing you. You gotta pick. Giving or receiving, four blow—"
"For heaven's sake, Gabriel, be quiet before I get Stag to kick you out of HQ. Let's go get some food. I'm starving. Spending a quarter of the day knocked out by Rem isn't very fun."
"Okay," Gabriel said cheerfully, throwing his arm around Snow's shoulders. He didn't shift it to more suggestive areas, though it was tempting—it was one thing to speculate loudly about sexual advances (which was okay, because everyone here knew he was a whore), and another to actually try anything in public. Even a hand on the waist was too much for Snow's sometimes-painfully private character. Gabriel settled for lowering his voice to a husky baritone and whispering, "You can decide when you feel better. I don't mind waiting. Most of the time the suspense makes it even more… intense."
It worked. Snow blushed a slightly deeper shade of pink and didn't reply.
Chapter 16
"Kana, stop it," Elstrin hissed anxiously, tugging on the sleeve of his roommate to no avail. Lightning flashed harshly, and the deep boom of thunder followed. Miraculously, it was still only drizzling, but one glance at the purple-black clouds marching down the mountains told him it wouldn't last long. This wasn't a gentle summer storm—the rain was freezing cold, and the clouds no doubt carried snow or hail. Wind whistled closer from somewhere not terribly far away. It was
only late afternoon and already almost too dark to see.
"Come on," Kana laughed, prying his fingers away only to clasp his hand tightly, leading him across the empty field. Nobody else was crazy enough to venture out in the face of such a formidable tempest. The gate guards, two smudges in the gloom, watched their progress. "You need to do something different for a change. You're too focused on training. Physical prowess isn't all you need to fight a war, you know."
"We're not fighting any wars, and this is suicide, not 'something different'. Let's just go back—I fail to see the point of—"
He yelped as thunder cracked deafeningly overhead—sounded like the sky was splitting apart. Kana laughed. "Backbone!" he shouted above the din. "Backbone isn't all you need either, but it's pretty damn important—"
"Are you saying I haven't got spine?" Elstrin yelled indignantly, shivering as chill wind picked up. The clouds thickened and the air grew a notch dimmer, charged with ozone and energy. It was amazing how fast the weather worsened—the rain was starting to pour angrily. Another burst of lightning seared afterimages of Kana's grinning face into his retinas.
"No, just missing a few vertebrae, that's all." Elstrin jumped at the hundredth explosion of noise directly above them, unable to get used to the frightening closeness of the storm clouds. Kana squeezed his hand and ran the rest of the way to the other end of the field, where the friendly lights of the barracks seemed miles away. Elstrin huddled miserably in the sparse cover of a tree, soaked to the bone now. Kana put an arm around him, lending a little warmth, and tilted his head up towards the dark sky. "This part I've always understood," he said, almost as if he was explaining it to himself. "Standing here, pumped full of adrenalin, horribly uncomfortable, knowing that any one of those huge forks of electricity could just come down and kill me in a second…. Even before I
wanted to be a soldier. I knew what it felt like, to flirt with death like this. And…" His arm tightened, voice breathless and exhilarated. "I think you ought to too. Everyone ought to, until the fear becomes something else, until you've grown that missing bit of backbone. Because then, if something really happens, maybe you'll be able to keep your cool and save a few lives while running for your own. This is the closest I've ever been to a battlefield, and I hope to god it's the closest I'll ever come, but—it's good to know what it feels like. To be prepared. Don't you think so?"
Wordlessly, Elstrin nodded, half-lost in Kana's transfixed, almost reverent tone, half-lost in the pure power of the storm. The tree sheltering them shook and swayed. Cold needles of rain struck him at sheer diagonal angles. Less lightning now, even that swallowed by the black bellies of the clouds, but the thunder growled and snarled without pause, until he couldn't hear his own thoughts. Its immense sense of size and threat made him shudder and press his back against the tree automatically, even though he knew that was even riskier. He felt like a small rodent trapped out in the middle of a busy road, praying that no car would stray off the lane and skid across the line he sat on. His heart thumped in his throat, leaving him light-headed and wide-eyed.
The field lights came on automatically, strong white globes that did little to cut through the bruise-coloured air and the rain sheeting down. Elstrin dared himself to take a step out—just one step—and leapt back when thunder roared at the exact moment, blasting through his eardrums and all the way down to the soles of his boots. Kana's grip on his shoulder was getting painful.
He didn't know how long they stayed there, not speaking because it was pointless with the racket all around them, just standing motionless and tempting fate, drinking in the unconstrained energy while waiting for the lightning to strike a little too close, for the wind to pick up a little too much debris. Then—suddenly, somehow incomprehensibly, as if he'd thought it wouldn't actually happen—something small and hard struck the side of Elstrin's face, numbing the spot briefly. Hail. The realisation snapped him out of his open-mouthed study of the storm, breaking apart the enthralling chaos of rain and wind. Logic kicked in, around half an hour too late—what the fuck was he doing, outdoors in weather that was so beyond shitty he didn't have a name for it? More marbles of ice pelted him, tiny spots of pain he knew was going to bruise if he didn't seek shelter right now.
Kana, to Elstrin's great relief, seemed to have become conscious of the same fact. He craned his head up and flinched back immediately, bringing an arm up to protect his face. Hunkered close together, Elstrin could just hear him talk, though he couldn't believe what he was saying. "Hang on. There's something here—"
"We need to go!" Elstrin hollered. "Before—"
"No, look. Look."
Elstrin looked. Impossibly, he recognised the tree—something about its twisted trunk, its low branches—it was the one Kana had taken them to months ago to explain the spirit that had latched itself onto Elstrin. Back then, he'd said that there was a ghost anchored to the tree, and Elstrin had been unable to see it….
He gaped at the pale shadow stretching from the rough bark, unmistakably there. It was much less sketchy and shaky than Max's brief manifestation up in their dormitory—this one had mostly solid-looking limbs, even the simple suggestion of a military uniform. Parts of it floated in and out of sight, fading away then coming back. Its face was indistinct, but it held itself upright rigidly, staring into the rain attentively as if waiting for someone. Its back and legs melted into the tree.
Kana reached out with a trembling hand and touched the ghost's shoulder. It looked around
slowly, seemed to notice them and nodded once. The rain pelted through it, ripping off shreds of icy fog. Kana stared at it, for once seemingly shocked by a supernatural presence. His mouth moved, asking a question too soft for human ears to pick up. The figure replied with a rush of whispers that carried through the storm. It turned away, back to its study of the flooded field. Kana looked too stunned to move. Elstrin shook his arm urgently and he snapped back into focus, blinking.
"Let's go," he muttered, jogging around the edge of the field, where the rest of the trees provided some refuge. They passed two more spirits, tall and unwavering, peeking from between dripping branches and black tree trunks. By the time they neared the gate, Elstrin was almost too cold to care. A light swung towards them, shaking closer as a scowling guard ran into his blurred field of vision. He shouted something about them being extremely stupid, and Elstrin nodded agreement, grateful for the simple shield that the guard conjured up over their heads to keep out the worst of the hail and rain. He led them back to the barracks without going near the gate—Elstrin glanced back anyway and could just make out more pale shapes rising from the iron, all of them still and silent like sentinels.
Kana unlocked the gate and the guard departed, grumbling about dim-witted suicidal kids. They stumbled back into the dry interior of their building and collapsed on the bottommost stairs, too out of breath to climb them yet. Elstrin was freezing—he forced himself to move first, dragging Kana to his feet. By the time they got up to their room, most of his extremities were numb. He got rid of his clothes clumsily, donned a new pair of boxers and huddled under his blanket, concentrating on shivering until he warmed up. Kana was standing by the window, still dripping steadily, peering out into the storm with a frown.
"Kana, your fingers are turning blue," Elstrin pointed out. "I can see it from here. Get changed before you freeze solid."
"They're all here," Kana said quietly, turning to gaze at Elstrin, the bewilderment still not quite gone from his eyes.
"Really?" More concerned for his roommate's imminent health, Elstrin abandoned the warming cocoon of his blanket and pushed Kana onto his own bed. Kana didn't even seem to notice when he started to carefully undo the buttons of his uniform. "What's all here?"
"Every soldier who ever died in HQ."
Elstrin's hands stilled. "What?"
"Their spirits. Most of them, at least. Didn't you see?"
"Yes, but—"
"What're you doing?" Kana interrupted, leaning back, finally se
eming to realise where he was. He smirked at Elstrin's affronted glare and popped the rest of the buttons. "Could've just asked if you wanted to undress me."
Rolling his eyes, Elstrin retreated back to his now-cool bed and yanked the blanket over his head in an attempt to get warm faster. "What do you mean, they're all here? Why would they stay?"
"He said…" Kana paused with a rustling of cloth. Elstrin's mattress dipped as he sat upon it. "He said someone keeps them here. Peacefully and safely."
"How does that happen?" Elstrin frowned. "Just one person could do that?"
"No. It's impossible." Kana hummed thoughtfully and, without warning, peeled back the blanket and wriggled under it next to Elstrin. Elstrin twitched away from where their bare, damp skin touched, but then Kana just slung an arm over his waist.
"Um. What—"
"It's cold."
"Worst excuse ever."
Dragon Bone Page 20