"There are ghosts in the house,” I told the seraph in a muted voice. “At least half a dozen. I know I didn't hallucinate that… One of them is my sister. She's been attached to Chancery since the funeral. I think I told Chancery as much. I don't know if I told him about the others.”
The two of us were in the sauna, looking out the only window that faced the lake. I could barely make out the muffled sounds of Bardo and Solberg energetically playing cards on top of the heater positioned outside the door of the thin-walled shack. They'd agreed to accompany me for half an hour, braving the cold for just long enough to get uncomfortable, but not freeze. It helped that it was one of those rare days with no wind or snowfall to speak of.
Regardless, I wasn't about to let an opportunity for open conversation go to waste, however short it was.
Chancery didn't want to talk about my episode and the boys didn't understand the Devereaux legacy, so that left me running theories by the only other reasonable thing breathing in a fifty mile radius.
The seraph cocked his head.
“They were sweethearts,” I explained. “Like my father, Chancery doesn't like talking about her or what happened to her. But unique to himself, he doesn't like talking about non-mundane things… I used to think he was just a skeptic, but it turns out he's just scared. I don't really blame him for that, I just wish he'd be more willing to discuss it. Half the threats in my life are non-mundane. You'd think that fact alone would make him less resistant, but it's like he thinks he can eventually remove us from it and spare him the trouble of confronting it.”
The seraph stared at the lake. He didn't know what to make of Chancery's fear either.
“I don't really know how the other side works, but I know souls aren't supposed to stick around unless they have something better to do than pass on. I know my sister has her reasons… but I wonder about the others.”
The seraph's eyes narrowed.
“I think they're trapped here.”
He nodded once in agreement.
“The others were probably summoned… So, are they here as a byproduct of Dare's spell work, or are they meant to be fuel or bait of some kind?” I sighed. “Symptoms…”
The seraph sighed too, startling me.
“You've got no clue either, do you?”
He didn't respond, which told me he didn't. The sigh could either mean he was just as frustrated by that as I was, or he was getting sick of listening to me.
I picked my second book back up and opened it up to the ribbon. But I put it back over my knee after a second's consideration. I said, “Something about last night's been bothering me. You didn't break into the house when I had nightmares before. Was I really under threat last night?”
He nodded.
“By what?” I asked automatically, but then clicked my tongue. “Yes and no questions,” I reminded myself. I sucked at my teeth. “Was it a jinn?”
He stared out the window.
“Demon?”
Stare.
“It was a specific ghost out of them, wasn't it?”
He nodded.
“It wasn't Kazumi, was it?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed.
What is that, Kouji? Be careful.
“She didn't hurt me. She was warning me.”
He met my eyes in the reflection of the glass and then looked away.
“Hm. Maybe I don't wanna know after all.” I closed my book and asked, “Is it safe then? The offending spirit was dealt with at least?”
He nodded a little more deeply than usual, a small smile tugging at his bloodless lips, before returning his stoic attention to the houses across the seemingly endless ice.
His was glorious purpose. I envied his simple self-satisfaction.
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“Careful Boss, we haven't finished cleaning up the—What is that thing doing in here?” Chancery demanded from the open portal that used to be my bedroom's doorway. I continued rifling through my closet for a set of thermals as he said, “I thought it needed to be able to see the lake.”
“It is a he,” I said.
“I don't give a fuck if it's a zer or a bibble-snaf, it doesn't need to be glued to your hip to do its job.”
The seraph took a step toward Chancery and my second put his hand on his gun.
I threw a sock at Chancery. “I will put the both of you in a get-along tee shirt if you keep fronting. Ke'lev, watch the window.”
“Caleb? You fucking named it?”
“Kay-live,” I corrected. “Solberg was clever enough to have him point to a selection of Hebrew and Greek glyphs.”
“Because we might get him mixed up with all the other guardians running around?”
“Yes, actually,” I said. “With all of us in the house, there are five.”
Chancery crossed his arms and didn't qualify that with a reply, nor did he wonder about the extra occupant. He sighed. “What do you think you're doing, Boss?”
“I'm going for a walk. Solberg already volunteered.” We were planning to go to an overlook to get eyes on one of the western properties, technically.
“I wish you'd run that by me first.”
“Why? So you can remind me again that I'm not on vacation? A fucking ghost attacked me last night. Do you know how rare that is? Most violently inclined spirits can only scare people by moving objects and causing electrical interference. But this one tried to attack me like a demon or jinn would. I need to get out. I feel like I'm being smothered.”
Chancery cleared his throat awkwardly.
I let my irritation go and said, “This shit is outside of your wheelhouse, Chancery. It's okay to admit it. That's what Ke'lev is for.”
Chancery wasn't in the mood to fight me apparently. He just shook his head slightly, his expression halfway between incredulous and annoyed. “I don't know what to think anymore. I just know I miss the old Dev. He wouldn't have defaulted to a supernatural answer at every run of bad luck.”
“Do you wanna take a walk with us, Remus? Or are you gonna stay behind to pout?”
He frowned and left.
The seraph turned to watch him go, then met my gaze.
“I wish he'd find some way to blow off steam that didn't involve dragging me over the coals,” I mumbled.
The seraph looked away. Humans, his guarded posture seemed to radiate.
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Bardo sputtered a laugh as he finished zipping me up. He stepped back and said through a chortle, “You look like a Michelin Man cosplay!”
“Wait, wait!” Solberg came forward and pulled down a white hat with a pom-pom over my head. When he stepped back, he too dissolved into the giggles. “It's perfect! What's the Japanese word, Boss? Kanpeki?”
“Kakko-ii,” I lied with an eye roll.
“No, that means cool,” Solberg called me on the fib. “This fit is definitely not cool.”
Bardo made a frame with his fingers. “Fluffy is the word I'd use.”
“Poofy!” Solberg cackled.
“Squishy!” Bardo squealed.
“A marshmallow on toothpicks!” Solberg screamed.
Chancery, a smug smile on his insufferable face, helped me shoulder on my Camelback and said, “Be back in an hour. The weather's not gonna hold out much longer.”
“I'll make sure we don't go far,” Solberg promised after wiping his eyes. “And we'll turn back early if things get nasty.”
Bardo punched the seraph's shoulder, and the guardian regarded him with a curious look as the blond said, “Keep the boss safe from any more Casper types, yeah?”
Ke'lev nodded once as Chancery grumbled, “Not you too, Bardo.”
We set off on one of the more popular footpaths around the lake, one that would take us to an overlook on the west side. On the way there, taking up the rear, Solberg used his binoculars to point out cardinals and mountain bluebirds and other native fauna. I knew he was doing it in part to keep from actively worrying over me. He was well aware Chancery did enough of that for the lot of them combined. I tried not to resent him for the obvious consideration.
Ahead of me, the seraph practically marched, having to stop and wait for us to catch up as I tried to keep the gulping and gasping to a bearable minimum.
“Let's rest here,” Solberg said only ten minutes into the walk.
I'd left my pride behind about five minutes into the hike, so I braced myself against a tree and sat down on a fallen log after Solberg wiped off the snow.
“Gotta stay hydrated even in this weather,” Solberg said cheerily, tipping back his thermos after pulling down his scarf. The seraph had his back to us a little way away. Solberg lowered his voice as he said, “Just looking at him makes me cold.”
I grunted.
“You don't think we should clean him up a little, Boss? If he's gonna be in the house, we should probably get him something that isn't covered in mud.” It was a practical consideration masking a compassionate one.
I shrugged, but internally I was glad it was Solberg who'd mentioned it first. Chancery couldn't get mad at me if I was just trying to do something nice for the kid with the bleeding heart. I said, “When we get back, we'll get him squared away.”
“It'll have to be Bardo's clothes. His inseam's gotta be a mile long. I already asked. He said he wouldn't mind as long as no one else did.”
I grunted in agreement.
“Owen and I were taking bets over how tall he was by sight. Neither of us were close. We busted out the measuring tape. It was funny. He just let us run the tape up all over him like we weren't even there. He's six-foot-nine! Forget brick shithouse, Boss. We better keep ‘im outta sight, otherwise the next we'll see him will be on MSNBC, frontlining for the Commanders.”
The image of the angel in red and gold football padding made me laugh out loud and Solberg grinned.
We trekked on and while the break away from the house's same-same walls was a nice change, I was beginning to think the great outdoors as the alternative was overrated. I missed my concrete jungle. I even missed all the garbage. At least I understood where all the trash came from. The forest, even with its man-made path and its man-made rest areas, was too unknown to bring any true comfort. It was a battlefield I wasn't used to fighting on.
We were nearly at the overlook when the seraphim suddenly stopped. Solberg said something about the lack of birds, but then Ke'lev rushed off into the trees with a crashing of brush and fallen snow and Solberg shouted, “Wait! Where the fuck is he—?”
“Down!” I snapped, using my bodyweight to force Solberg aside as an animal fell out of the trees and rolled to land on its feet, limbs and claws thrashing like a breakdancer, kicking up wet debris.
Tawny fur and a mouthful of bared teeth played prelude to a horrible, gravely yowl of warning.
“Mountain lion?!” Solberg had his gun in his hand in the next instant, but he wasn't used to handling it with thick gloves. His first shot missed and his second just made the big cat leap to the side, tail twitching angrily.
It raced back into the trees, using the natural cover, and I saw Solberg relax as he thought he'd managed to scare it off, but I could still hear nearby movement and guttural hissing.
Solberg grabbed under my armpit and tried to haul me to my feet, putting his back to the treeline. “Wan! Stand your ground!” I warned, but he turned too late and the cat bodied him, all four paws latching onto his chest as he pinwheeled, his gun flying into a snowbank.
Where the fuck is the seraph?!
Needs must.
I took a breath and looked around us. I'd intended to try to see the angel's aura through the trees, but the first thing that met my eyes wasn't Solberg's guardian or my own. It was the mountain lion's.
An obsidian skinned, serpent-like woman with antelope horns and webbed feet was bent over the spine of the big cat, hugging it from behind, using her semi-corporeal hands to pass through tan fur and coiled muscle—puppeting the animal from the inside. Her fang-filled mouth was twisted into a gleeful grin. Her yellow goat's eyes were wide and mad, darting from Solberg fighting her lion to up the path from us, presumably where the seraphim was.
She had a red, puss-oozing brand on her forehead that I recognized.
The Mark of Solomon.
Cameron Dare, Adelaide's sorcerer, had summoned this.
I couldn't hold the sight for long, but it had given me all I needed to know.
Jinn can't possess living things.
This was a demon.
That told me two things for sure about Cameron Dare; one that I'd suspected, and one that I'd wished.
He had no idea what I was.
And he was probably going to Hell.
I let the sight go, pressing a hand to my head. “It's not a normal cat! It's possessed!”
“You don't—augh!—say?!” Solberg got his thumbs into the cat's eyes just as I managed a running kick into its side. I felt something buckle in my foot, but the pain was an afterthought through the adrenaline.
With an infant-like scream, the cat let Solberg go and ripped off into the trees, spitting mad.
I was on the ground, my leg aching up to my hip. Solberg used me like a brace to get himself to his feet, shedding down feathers and string. “Good?” I asked on a gasp.
“Glad Chance convinced me to wear the vest,” he said after grunting an affirmative. Then he stumbled over to the snowbank to fish for his gun, saying, “Soon as I've got that thing pinned down, make a run for it!”
“Where the fuck is Ke'lev?” I growled as I gritted my teeth and stood. I was going to be spitting blood in the morning. Where I wasn't wet or half-frozen, my body was stiff and sore. The headache from using my sight wasn't making things better.
Solberg and I went back-to-back as we circled, tracking the sounds of breaking branches and the flash and flutter of disturbed snow. The demon was toying with us, which told me that there were more—probably keeping my seraph busy elsewhere that she felt comfortable enough to take her time.
She was going to be just as surprised as Dare and Adelaide when this was over.
“I've got fifteen and another mag.”
I said, “Make ‘em count. The demon can push the cat to do shit it wouldn't normally be able to do.”
“Other than making it fearless?”
As if to answer his question, the mountain lion came crashing out of the trees on its hind legs, its chest and forelimbs coated in blood and gore as its own flesh spiraled out of its body as living whips, barbed with claws. Its head was bent backward, its mouth agape, tongue flapping behind it like a helmet's plume.
“FUUUCK!” Solberg screamed as he shoved me away and started firing at it, missing most of his shots, but clipping the stuttering thing several times before he had to drop his magazine. I was already limping and skipping away as I heard him curse again and again, fumbling to reload as the yowling creature lurched toward him.
A look over my shoulder had me confirming my fears. He'd dropped his magazine and gun, and was now running right after me, his eyes manic and unseeing. He raced right past me and I cursed at him before taking a breath and turning to face the demon.
I don't believe that all the families that survived the Inquisition were descended from Nephilim. I think the Stewards, like most of the matriarchs and patriarchs under their influence, like stories, heroes, messiahs, and divine saviors.
In reality, some legacies are born from magical anomalies, extraterrestrial inbreeding, cursed objects, or old-fashioned genetic mutation.
But we Devereauxs know where we come from. It's flaunted in the thirty stars on our coat of arms. My mother was also the matriarch of a Steward family. The power my sister and I inherited from her is represented by the oni-mask eating those silver pieces like fuel.
Our blood wasn't from one line, but two lines of Nephilim-wrought: one of them the doomed Iskariot, the other the Akayama's mantle of Douji.
We're more Fallen than human.
“Let's see what you can do,” I whispered, making sure Solberg was long gone. I didn't want to accidentally eat him. I shed my coat and water bladder with a wince and flung them to the side.
The monster was ten feet away from me when it stopped, its undulating tentacles wrapping at the churned snow like a bull raking at dust before the charge.
I was going to regret this, but not as much as Dare and his summons.
As it launched forward, I prepared to gorge the furnace within and show this creature what it really meant to be demon—but then I suddenly didn't have to.
Something that sounded like a train's horn shook the very foundations of the earth and I crouched and sat down just to avoid falling on my face.
The mountain lion didn't even know what hit it.
A flash of red and white crashed into it from the side, breaking its back and turning the path in front of me into a coffin-deep trench. I threw up my hands to avoid a mouthful of permafrost.
The seraph was in his true form, encased from head to foot in a carapace of ivory bone and skinless muscle. Where his head should have been, a fan of metal-like feathers spread out in a brilliant sunrise of silver, covered in a dozen golden eyes that were fixed on his quarry.
Out from his back, two gigantic limbs covered in a sea of razor-edged phalanges chopped, corralled, and harvested an entire section of pine trees—violently grooming the landscape to make room for him to strike out at the demon with a golden khopesh and a massive ball of exposed muscle and sinew that grappled with the demon like a living net.
His four legs gave him a centaur-like profile from the waist down, but his calves and armored feet were outfitted in more of those metallic feathers, each independently fanning out and inward to help him get airborne to strike down at his target.
Ke'lev made mincemeat out of the mountain lion and only stopped cutting and chopping when the last tentacle stopped twitching. His angular armor had already been splashed with red, and the blood was already glossy or frozen in places. He must've fought more than a few, I figured. And since he was here, they were dealt with.
That's what angels did. They were handmade to kill anything that came from the underside. No mercy. No hesitation. No prejudice. And they were damned good at it too.
By the time he was through, I could hear shouting from down the path. Seemed Solberg wasn't a total lost cause. He'd at least gone for help after he'd turned tail.
Ke'lev rose up to his full height and came to stand over me. He was at least nine feet tall and his bootfalls left terrifyingly deep impressions in the ground. One of his needle-sharp, lance-like appendages dropped my coat back over my shoulders as another patted the pom-pom on my head. His khopesh split apart, exposing slick musculature, to reform into a gauntleted hand. He held it out to me as if to help me up.
I blinked up at him and his dozen- No, thirteen- eyes squinted at me, as if smiling. A deep, chest-rattling sound like a breaching whale emanated from him and made all the little hairs on my body stand on end.
Before coming to the lake, I'd hit my own rock bottom, powerless to change anything and predestined to fail, but now, looking at this bastion of strength and fortitude, I felt like there might be something in me that wasn't satisfied with just surviving.
Through the ringing tinnitus, I touched a glove to my ear and came away with wet warmth. Fear not, he says? I didn't know the guardian had jokes.
Between painful hiccups of air, I tried to speak, but collapsed backward into the snow, limbs akimbo, and tried to keep my eyes open, but failed.
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The man from Karioth was to leave his wife and two daughters behind. As for the man, he knew what lay before him because his spirit and the Master had told him as much. He still couldn't reconcile it. He had a role to play, but he did not want to play it and could not make peace with it.
All his life, he had been suppressed by the rule of law or by wealth unimaginable. He had kept his hands clean by bowing and complying, but now his unblemished soul would be blackened by a singular conceit—a plan born of powers that lived outside mundane perception.
Freewill? What choice had he?
It made him resent what worked behind the Master, whom he loved, and did not completely understand. Sabriel addressed the Master as the spirit of Elohim, a living aspect of Ywei, and an agent of Kaos.
He knew him only as kindred—a piece being moved about the board.
Who he would follow into the desert for the next twelve years knew from the beginning that he held hate in his heart for the Roman occupation. The Master also knew where that hate would lead him. And still, the Master loved him.
“You are so concerned with such mundane things that you cannot see the noose around your own neck. Death is your enemy, not the foreigners,” the stranger from Nazareth said.
“I know what you are,” the man replied. “My spirit whispers that you are Elohim's emissary. What command does your God have over death?”
The Master had smiled. “My Father created the being that created it… What does that tell you of Him?”
“He is awful.”
“But that is not all He is.”
“Then tell me more,” he bade, adding sarcastically, “Messiah.”
“I will, but you must follow me.”
Teacher, he was. Martyr, he would become. Savior, he would be titled by the few. Heretic, he would be called by all the rest.
“Ioudas,” his angel whispered, wrapping wings around his shoulders—his mantel, his guide, his armor. “He cannot lie, and he will not spare you from the truth, but this must be your choice. I can offer no consolation… Now look, Iesua calls for you.”
He knew now why this messenger of goodwill so often cried for him when there was nothing amiss; why whatever he asked of it, it delivered three-fold with a smile. His comforter may have been made by the same sculptor that had borne the Master, but at least he knew his guardian's service came without any other condition.
And why would it? For his Sabriel, the end had been nigh since his birth.
“Come, Iskariot,” the Master bade affectionately, using the nickname the Greeks had given him when he'd come of age. “Or will you stay?” It was an obligatory question, one rooted in ritual.
“I will follow,” the man said softly.
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