We were walking on the beach, Clara and I. We walked every time we were fighting, using the aimless forward movement to drive our conversation toward the inevitable sandy embrace when we'd realize whatever it is we were arguing about didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
That was the first time I saw one—a thing that only those with Devereaux blood, the blood of the Iskariot, can see. But by the time I understood what it was, by the time my father sat me down and explained where our family sat on the Steward pecking order, Clara had been dead for weeks.
First, there was a warm wind, not unlike those you feel close to the ocean, but this wind came in the dead of winter and smelled like lightning. Then, suddenly, there was fire without fuel or source. The jinn looked like a human sized flame to my untrained eyes—the details of it were constantly changing; a form in flux. Still, I thought I recognized a satisfied smile on its face as it rushed toward me.
There was a flash of light as Clara's guardian manifested to meet it. Guardians are not unlike honeybees against jinn. They have one hell of a sting, but at sacrificial cost. Hers was there and gone in a flash, yet the flame didn't stop. Its form was wounded, leaking light from a crack in its shadow-like skeleton, flashing here and there where the outer flame struggled to keep up with its dancing, undulating movements.
The skeleton is the wick. Is the light the oil?
Clara dropped to the sand as the thing leapt inside her and just as quickly stepped out, wrenching her soul clean of its moors and discarding her body like chaff. After ripping her translucent shape to shreds, it turned a sickening smile on me and flew forward, intent on making my soul the other half of a couples’ matching set.
My own guardian met it in midair, but instead of striking or blocking, my protector went headfirst into the crack of light, forcing itself into the breach in its armor, and wrenching it apart as it burrowed inward deeper and deeper like a twisting, roiling parasite of sunlight and pain.
When the jinn exploded, it turned the sand to glass beneath my feet.
My father told me Lavelle would find me another guardian since the ifrit seemed fixated on me for some reason. Since we had no acquaintances with sorcerers—something about literal burned bridges—we could only call on other powers, and guardians were always eager to serve humans.
The adults didn't share their theories about the jinn with me then, and wouldn't, but I knew they had to have some ideas about motive. Ifrit went after Fallen or lost angels. They didn't single out humans unless they were being commanded to.
As for the mundane world, they had their theories too, but didn't hide them. Investigators, reporters, and internet commentators alike all made a beautiful tragedy from the corpse of mine and my wife's fledgling romance.
“Didn't you hear?” they would whisper. “The young Devereauxs were holding hands when Clara was struck by lightning. It's a wonder Kouji even survived.”
“Someone or something must be looking out for the Midori heir.”
Or something, Chichi would mouth at me, as if it were an inside joke between just the two of us.
Or something.
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“Boss!” Solberg was shaking me awake. I came out of the nightmare swinging, my right hand feeling like it was on fire all over again even before it contacted his jaw. Burn scars, in the shape of phantom digits, flashed silver in the moody half-light. “Shit!” Solberg was smart enough to put more distance between us in case I tried to hit him again, his eyes wide with surprise and embarrassment, but not pain.
It took me a second to remember when I was. “Get… out,” I growled between breaths, running my hands through my hair. The clock at my elbow read 4:29, just a measly minute before my alarm was supposed to go off.
Solberg nodded twice, but he lingered a little longer than was safe, let alone appropriate. “You sure you're—?”
I pitched the clock at him, and it knocked on the door frame with a sad plastic sound before he was shutting the door on a curse, kicking pieces out of the way just to button things up properly.
I heard angry whispers on the other side of the door, then Bardo raised his voice just enough that I made out, “... -old you. There's a reason Chance said not to bother him before five.”
“He doesn't need a sabbatical. Boss needs a fucking therapist.”
“You wanna tell him that?”
“Well, maybe Mister Chancery—”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You're the one that…”
I didn't catch anything after that.
The silence that followed only served to highlight my own ragged gasps.
After a time, I wiped the angry tears from my face with a hysterical whimper.
Solberg had said he'd wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself—something vibrant and strong. Bardo had been following Chancery since Kazumi's death but had only ever seen me in my prime and had once been proud to call himself one of the president's lackies.
I laughed in the dark, coughing slightly when even that proved too straining for me this far separated from my physical therapy sessions and breathing exercises.
They were once foot soldiers of the glorious Midori. Now they've been reduced to babysitters packing heat.
I settled back down with a groan of discomfort, trying in vain to find a position that didn't feel like laying on sharps—not to sleep, but to wallow in my own melodrama until the sun rose.
I’d apologize to Solberg later.
I wasn't sorry yet.
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Chancery was trying to coax me into eating when Bardo stomped into the breakfast nook from outside, shedding snow. Chancery did a double take before asking, “Solberg?”
“Situation, but it's resolved. Wan saw some guy on the pier and went to confront him. Had to beat ‘is ass, but we got him back to the main road. Some lost hiker by the looks of him. Didn't even have a fucking coat on.”
Both of us were on alert before he finished talking. I was headed to the junk drawer full of loaded magazines as my second asked him, “Who? What'd he say? Did he have any weapons? Are either of you hurt?”
Bardo wasn't the type to get easily rattled. He was more of a laugher than a crier, but the frown pinching his blond brows together meant he was confused. “That's just the thing. He didn't say anything. Just didn't wanna move from the pier. He didn't even look at our pieces. It was like he didn't understand threats, so couldn't be scared. When we got rough, he just kinda let it happen. Solberg's checking around the dock right now for drugs.”
I tried to rack the slide back on my own gun, bracing it against the counter, but couldn't chamber a single round before I noticed they were watching me. I gave up and asked, “What'd he look like? You said he wasn't dressed for the weather?”
Chancery was staring at my gun as Bardo shook the snow from his beanie before replacing it, saying, “Built like a brick shit house, but he was just in a turtleneck and slacks. Nice boots, unbranded. Nothing else. No weapons. Just albino features and yellow eyes. Sick maybe? Like I said, if he ain't a junkie trying to get close to nature, he's lost.”
“It's still weird he didn't say anything,” Chancery said, coming over to take my Glock and drop my mag back into the drawer. “He could have a house around the lake.” He didn't sound convinced. He met my gaze as he said, “We'll take shifts to make sure he doesn't turn back up. Bardo, you take this morning. I'll relieve you. For now, tell Solberg to go to bed. He'll take the graveyard.”
“I can take the graveyard watch,” Bardo offered.
“Everyone will do their time. You keep babying him and he'll never learn how to cope.”
“Kazumi babied me, and I turned out just fine,” Bardo quipped, but he left to pass on the message all the same.
Chancery waited for him to be out of earshot before he asked me, “Should we move?”
“Where? New York's been scuffed since Sidney's funeral, the Midwest is off-limits thanks to the Arbitrators, and LA is full of European headhunters.” Chancery opened his mouth, but I put up a hand. “This is our fortress, Remus. Chichi-we picked it for a reason. We're safer if we wait and see. If it really was one of Adelaide’s, moving will give her more opportunities to attack us. I'd rather have my back to a thirty-inch wall or a bullet-proof window than have that damn forest behind me.”
My second sighed. “You just live to be right, don't you?”
I gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Being wrong hasn't killed me yet either.”
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Our pale visitor was back on the pier the next morning. Bardo told Chancery at sunup, but they waited to do anything until I came down for breakfast. Slowly descending the stairs one at a time, I asked their stony expressions, “Someone die?”
Chancery said, “The guy from yesterday is back.”
I frowned, but didn't stop moving. When no one offered anything else, I realized they were waiting for orders.
They knew how this went when we were underground. If he didn't leave, then we'd take him in and convince him to leave. If that failed, we'd confine him, contact my father via satellite, and transport the nuisance back south in a trunk where he could be detained by civil authorities away from our supposedly secret lake cabin.
If I were my grandfather, I'd just cap the guy and go ice-fishing with him. But Midori hadn't operated like that on principle for years. People forgot what we used to do to keep the peace… until Adelaide provoked me. Then, using her Riders as examples, I reminded everyone else why it was better that the Midori used money over people to maintain its control.
I think the old ways, like an heirloom mantelpiece, will always have a place within the organization.
I took the sword off the mantel. And, like Chichi taught me, after I was done, I put it back on the mantel. That's the difference between a peacekeeper and a tyrant.
I wish my father saw it that way.
I limped past them and went to the sliding door that led onto the porch. Chancery followed me, his hand on his belt. Bardo said something about waking Solberg, but my second shook his head at him and gestured for him to secure the house.
From the porch's railing, I leaned on it and looked out toward the mansion's lonely pier, jutting out over the ice like a gang plank leading to the underworld. Almost too hard to see, a man in white was perched on the very end of it, looking out at the lake without moving. All totaled, he was maybe a hundred feet from the property line, but he didn't seem interested in the lakehouse.
“He's been like that since three in the morning,” Chancery whispered next to me, handing me a lukewarm cup of coffee, already losing its heat in the chill. Now I understood their hesitation. They weren't waiting for orders. They were waiting for answers.
“Is he frozen?” I asked, holding the cup in both hands to keep from dropping it.
Chancery shook his head. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He shook his head again. I knew that look. He was spooked and didn't know how to handle it.
I tried to help him out. “Maybe he's wearing a thermal under the turtleneck.”
“Don't do that,” Chancery said. “You know I can tell when you're being charitable to spare my ego. Just say it. This is something to do with your family curse, isn't it?”
“It's not a curse,” I said softly. Sometimes, I reminded myself. “Power is just power. Neither curse nor blessing.” Fuck, leave it to Chancery to make me quote my fucking father. “But yeah.” I took a sip of coffee. “I'm thinking this is something to do with my family. Specifically with the witch in its employ.”
Chancery raised an eyebrow. “What do we tell the boys?”
“Remus, you're the kind of person that doesn't believe in ghosts, but still bans Ouija boards in the house, just in case.” I grinned when he gave me a rat face, but then his expression softened when he recognized I was teasing him. I'll admit, it had been a while since I'd done that to anyone without being mean-spirited about it.
I gave him back the empty mug. “Make it make sense. Tell ‘em it's a ghost. Tell ‘em it's an angel. Or tell ‘em it's some guy hopped up on PCP and beta-alanines. I don't care.”
“But you know what it is? Is it dangerous? Can we trust it?”
Of course it was dangerous. It was a guardian that normal people without special sight could see. Anything with that kind of raw power was… Well, it was unheard of even in my less mundane circles. I wasn't even sure that Lavelle knew what she'd summoned to me.
But could we trust it?
Peeling back any layer of glamor with my sight would cost calories I couldn't afford to lose. Otherwise, I would have looked at our guest and known for sure whether it was a paragon of virtue or a deceiver of the flock.
“It's not Adalaide's. That's all that matters for now,” I said.
Chancery made a disgruntled sound. “You know that for sure?”
“Sorcerer-summoned jinn are too focused on their quarry, their obligation, to care about quiet contemplation. Even if it wasn't sure I was in this specific house, it would burn it down to find out, then flee back to its master with the knowledge. And it wouldn't care about the collateral damage either. Bardo and Solberg would have been dead yesterday if it was one of Adelaide's, and Chichi would be getting a refund from Lavelle.”
Chancery was watching my face the entire time I spoke. After a moment, he said, “I didn't think you believed in any of your father's superstitions.”
“I don't believe in his superstitions,” I reassured him wryly, “just his valid concerns about rogue entities that want to kill me, be they bitch or jinn. Keyword being valid.” I waved a dismissive hand. It didn't matter if he believed me or not. It mattered more that he listened. “It's cold. Let's go back inside.”
“Boss.”
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“He hasn't moved in twenty-five hours,” Bardo said, staring out the backdoor, slurping a cup-a-noodle.
Chancery glanced once at me over the top of the sports section, but didn't comment.
I was halfway through a book and wouldn't have normally bothered with the chit-chat, but if I'm being honest, the pale figure on the pier was an intrigue that had been keeping me up since the first day and any talk about it had me engaged in the present like nothing else had managed to do to me since Kazu had died.
I asked nonchalantly, “What do you think he thinks about, staring across the lake?”
“I don't wanna know,” Bardo said gruffly after a moment's consideration. “Only other person I know that thinks that fucking hard is my uncle.”
“Terry?” Chancery asked, suddenly interested in the conversation.
Bardo nodded, eyes still glued to the pier. “He's a war vet, Boss,” he explained for my benefit. “I asked him one time what he thought about so much that warranted so much time thinkin’ about it. Know what he said?” After confirming he had our undivided attention, he slowly shook his head. He said, “You don't wanna know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just punch me in the nuts next time you take me for a ride like that.”
Bardo barked a laugh. “No! I mean, he told me that I didn't wanna know. But it was the way he said it. He wasn't playin’ around with me. It was like he was talking to my soul when he said it. Like he knew I just wanted gory details and shock… but I was just a kid. I didn’t know what any of that shit was or what it would do to me.” He smiled as he finished off his cup like a shot. He said to the Styrofoam, “He was right. I really didn't wanna fucking know.”
The thermostat clicked and the central heat kicked back on with a rattle and roar. Chancery flicked his paper open and sat back in his chair. He mumbled over the lip of a lifted thermos, “So, Lavelle's avenging angel has the look of a Korean War veteran with chronic PTSD. That's comforting.”
Bardo chuckled, but didn't contribute anymore to the speculation. Instead, he sent his empty cup into the trash shute with a lazy layup and said, “Solberg even got me feeling bad for the thing. You know, like how you feel when you see ASPCA commercials and all the dogs shivering in cages?”
“Is it shivering?” Chancery asked, genuinely curious instead of dismissive.
“Well, no,” Bardo said, but when he saw Chancery losing interest, he added quickly, “I just mean, I get that feeling.” He looked at me then and asked, “Hey, Boss, you really think this thing is the guardian the witch ordered?”
“I'm 90% sure.”
“Why's he on the pier then? Isn't he supposed to be protecting you or something?”
I had been losing sleep over that very question. But I shrugged, feigning apathy. “Probably sees something you guys missed during the survey. Might be a good idea to do another canvas of the property to be sure. Pay close attention to the proximity sensors near the pier and double check that the lines haven't been damaged because of the snow.”
Implied dereliction will get any underling fired up with impotent fury and a desire to rectify all wrongs, founded and unfounded. Bardo was a classic case study. He immediately bowed to us and said, “Right away, Boss! I'll wake Solberg and we'll get right on it.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Chancery agreed quietly before Bardo left. After waking a half-dead Solberg, they both crashed around upstairs as they vocally hunted for snowshoes or cleats, whichever manifested between them first.
Chancery laughed to himself, making me look up. “Mm?” I prompted. “Sports ball scandal? Anything juicy?”
Chancery shook his head. “No. Just… You.”
“Me?”
“Mhm.”
“Me what?”
He smirked. “You know exactly why it's sitting on the pier, staring off across the ice, don't you?”
I mirrored the mischievous expression, but didn't elaborate, instead returning my gaze to my book so I could skim over more paragraphs without reading anything.
Chancery laughed quietly to himself and left me to my thoughts.
Of my thoughts?
I had no fucking clue what the fuck that guardian was doing—what he was staring at—but I planned to find out on the graveyard shift. So, I needed Solberg to be half-cocked and sleepy in order to get a chance alone with the thing.
I felt bad taking advantage of the kid's lack of experience, but not bad enough to desist. Besides, what had Chancery said? Something about learning not to baby him…?
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Antwan Solberg did some adult time behind bars when he was still in his teens, which was how he got into our group as green as our namesake. The Midori yard dog, Ojii June, had taken a shine to the kid and recommended him upon release.
Solberg might've been just another grunt if it weren't for Chancery's brother seeing something in him. Romulus took him under his wing and, after three years, all but said he planned to make Solberg his official second despite his youth.
This all happened a year after I was made President, right around the time my second wife, Sydney, had “dropped dead” from an “aneurysm”.
Hearing Chancery complain about his brother's lack of foresight to try to distract me from my own concerns had been beyond frustrating. I was in the middle of coordinating flights for the in-laws to visit my wife and son's memorial in the middle of a pandemic, and this idiot was acting like a jilted lover in a daytime soap.
I snapped, “You wanna be your brother's second instead of mine?”
“It's not that,” Chancery said. “It's that Romulus is thinking with his heart. And his heart is in his dick.”
I slapped my laptop shut and got up to go take a walk. “Don't wait up.”
He pulled on his jacket as he followed me anyway, saying conversationally, “Beside the colossal power imbalance, you know Rome is thirty-seven. The age gap is fucking a canyon.”
I hissed derisively, “If I were my grandfather, I'd do you both a favor and remove the point of contention. Antwan Solberg is the issue, right?”
“I didn't say that.” His chuckle was infuriating. He knew I was on the edge. He was nudging me over it.
Chancery ignored me when I tried sending him off on errands to get him out of my hair. He finally leaned all his weight against the coat closet door before saying, “I'll order something in… Come on, Dev. Lie to me and tell me you're not hungry.”
“Is the problem with Romulus just talk?” I demanded.
He sighed. “I admit I was trying to distract you. You were bowing up. You're gonna have back problems before you're thirty.” He wouldn't be wrong; he just didn't guess that it would have nothing to with my posture and everything to do with a bullet lodged in my scapula.
“So, you're fine with letting a twenty-one-year-old have control over half of your family's shares?”
“You were agonizing over plane seats. You can't make everyone happy, Dev. It's enough that you're getting them here to see their daughter off. You need to stop thinking about logistics for five minutes and think about something human.”
I grabbed his lapels and gave him a shake but let him go when I realized it was pointless. I turned on my heel to head back to the office. “How about this?” I turned back two steps up and Chancery raised his eyebrows expectantly at me. “Order us some Peking duck and the sashimi special, number sixteen… and I'll take care of the Solberg problem.”
Chancery frowned at me. Once upon a time, he wouldn't have questioned what I meant by take care of. He'd assume I meant fire the kid. But lately, he'd been watching me more closely. It was all the dead, all the misfortune, that followed me around like a miasma. It was the red envelopes and money trees followed by white promise ribbons and black coffins.
But then he whipped out his phone. “Sashimi special sixteen, you said?”
“Extra wasabi.”
“Do the right thing and make sure Romulus knows first, whatever you decide,” he'd warned offhandedly.
I beamed, making him cringe with trepidation.
In hindsight, my decision was inspired. It only took a phone call to convince Romulus. Solberg would work for Remus Chancery for the foreseeable future, removing him from Rome's subordination and maintaining the good order.
Except Romulus thought that meant he could carry on seeing Solberg. I did everything I could to prevent that from happening unless the kid asked for him by name.
At the time, I thought Wan would turn out to be some pretty puff with a finely tuned survival sense, that he'd give in and ask for his master after seeing what it was like on the outside. But he didn't. Instead, he was a redheaded golden retriever, eager to prove himself to anyone. He had no idea what the words “groomed”, “abused”, and “taken” meant.
It took Chancery weeks to effectively deprogram the kid. (“No, when I said I'd give you a reward, I was talking about time off, not a blow job! No, I'm not mad at you. I'm disappointed in my brother.”). When he was through, Solberg was given a chance to go back to the streets with a stipend or stay with the group.
Solberg had been surprised by the choice, which broke both the Chancery boys’ hearts for different reasons. To Remus, Solberg was a victim, and he wanted to support him to make amends for his family member's lack of consideration. To Romulus, Wan was the lover he failed to provide for, but was comforted that his brother hadn't stolen him away out of pettiness or, God-forbid, jealousy.
The Chancery family was big money in the Midori Group. They were aware of that but had never flaunted it over us Devereauxs. Romulus had apparently had his reservations about my becoming President of the board so young, but after that, he reaffirmed his fealty to the group with white wine and red snapper. Both brothers were able to professionally reconcile, recognizing that my decision to separate Rome and Solberg had been the best decision after all to keep long-lasting peace within the group.
I was just glad my second never found out I was blackmailing his brother into compliance. If Rome so much as pointed a fucking toe in Solberg's direction, I would boil him alive in so much litigation, the next three generations of Chancery would still smell like hotpot gumbo.
I should've hung that fucker and his mentor, Monty, on pig hooks by their taints.
Of course, Solberg stayed with Remus. In his eyes, there was no higher place in the group he could be, standing on the shoulders of giants, and he wanted a chance to prove he deserved to be there upon his own merits.
He was still proving his worth even four years later, which was part of the reason he was at the lakehouse now and not back in the city overseeing his own crew. Before we left, I'd told Chancery we were going to curb the kid's growth by sheltering him, but my second had only laughed.
“I did give him the choice, but his mind's already made up,” Chancery had said. “Know what he said?”
I'd slowly canted my head on the hospital pillow to regard him, blissed out of my fucking mind, half-fighting the impulse to clock my second over the head with the IV stand.
Chancery smirked like he could read my mind. “He told me he's never seen snow before and started packing.”
That managed to tug a smile out of me as I closed my eyes. “He's too fucking good for this shit.”
Chance grunted. “I think he's just the right amount of good.”
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I waited until I heard Chancery pass the torch to Solberg in the middle of the night. Chancery had a habit of cracking my door to check on me before going back to his room to shower and sleep. But maybe I hadn't been as covert as I thought, because Chancery lingered in the door long enough that I sat up in bed and asked groggily, “Something wrong?”
He was startled, which told me he hadn't been expecting me to be awake after all. “Uh, no, no. I didn't wake you, did I?”
“Yes,” I lied, making my tone annoyed rather than angry. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said automatically, but then he amended himself with, “Okay, not nothing… Bardo tried talking to it today.” I turned on my nightstand light and he shielded his eyes for a second as he said, “No worded replies, but Bardo is sure it understands him at least.”
I tried to keep my response even and thoughtful, like I wasn't about to vibrate through my bed, the floor, and the back door to go confirm for myself. “What did Bardo talk to him about?”
“At first, he was just probing. The usual who, what, where-ya-from. But when he asked about the lake, the thing was listening, really listening. Bardo told it about the other houses along the lake and wondered if that's what it was looking at and the guy nodded. Nodded.” He shook his head tiredly. “I told Solberg to stay away from it but keep his eyes on the other side.”
“We vetted all the houses,” I pointed out. I need to get outside now. “Get some sleep. It'll all be there in the morning. And with the guardian out there, I've got at least one more life to lose before it's game over.”
Chancery frowned. “I don't want you anywhere near the pier until we know what we're up against.”
I made an agreeing sound.
He was too tired to make that into an argument with any substance. He nodded stiffly. “Get some sleep yourself, Boss.”
I busied myself with some online shopping for a couple hours before deciding I'd waited long enough for Chancery to hit REM sleep.
I got up and pulled a robe on before slowly making my way downstairs and sliding my feet into some boots by the door. Under the pretense of some restless, late-night reading, I joined Solberg on the back porch and pulled my robe tighter around me for the cold.
The kid was bundled up for a ski trip, but there were telltale bags under his pale eyes. “Boss, what're you—?”
“Go get me a cup of cocoa. I just need some time to get through this chapter.”
He gave me a dubious look. “I dunno, Boss. Mister Chancery said you were probably gonna pull some shit tonight.”
I sputtered a laugh and the noise was bizarre, yet welcome, enough that Solberg immediately let his guard down. “I bet he did. Don't worry. I'm not gonna get you in trouble. Just grab me a cup. I won't be long anyway. Just waiting for the Sandman to catch on.”
Solberg bowed enthusiastically and left his binoculars on the railing. “I'll get you a coat too. And one of the electric blankets. Be right back.”
That'll keep him busy for a minute, I thought to myself, pleased that I'd thought ahead and hidden all the extra cold weather gear in the attic, along with the electric kettle, the Keurig, and the toaster… just in case.
I picked up the binoculars and fished around in a pocket for a flashlight, then headed for the steps that led down to the pier.
At the edge, the deep snapping and cracking of the ice could be heard over the wind caressing the trees. It sounded like the backs of old gods breaking.
At the end of the jut, the pale man sat motionless, the tops of his shape covered in a spotless layer of icy snow. The rest of him was covered in dirt and debris, fallen leaves and needles that had blown onto him and frozen.
Even approaching him did nothing to interrupt his vigil. And when I sat down next to him on the frosted planks, he didn't even look over.
Bardo was right about one thing. He was built up like a fucking action movie protagonist. But his face was neither lifeless nor cruel. It was made out of softened, triangular shapes, with deep set eyes that looked almost sleepy in their intensity. If I could make any rendering of it on Earth, I'd hang it on a wall.
But there was no denying his unearthliness. His skin was as white as bone. The veins along his temple were grayish pink, matching the stain of color on his lips. Otherwise, his wavy hair, brows, and eyelashes were pure white—as pigmented as the ice clinging to his shoulders and neck.
His yellow eyes were goatlike, the irises dented along the top and bottom, so it almost looked like he had two irises under each lashline.
His clothes, now soiled, were unremarkable, save that they looked finely crafted and fit him like they'd been made for him.
I set my book down and turned off my light. I picked up the night vision binoculars and adjusted them a little wider to fit my face.
Across the lake, like the spokes of an inverted Peace sign, I saw three other piers striking out across the bleak surface. The left one had a solar-powered lantern on the end of it, shining dully in the gloomy, moonless night. It took a moment for my binoculars to readjust when I panned to the right pier and spied a couple of wooden loungers and an end table with the shadow of a turned-over bottle on its top. The central pier was lined with string lights and the bones of what would normally be a canvas canopy over it in the summer. I couldn't see anything beyond that because of the light pollution.
I put down the binoculars and shivered in the cold, kneading the bridge of my nose as I thought. Then I fished into my robe's pocket and produced a pack of menthols and a lighter.
Doc Weatherby had cautioned me against smoking with all the medications I was on. Chancery had been trying to get me to quit long before my convalescence. If I got Solberg in trouble tonight, the smell of cigarette smoke would hopefully take the heat off him, and I'd have a criminal excuse to be out here that didn't involve the holy scout.
It was when I flicked on the lighter that the angel moved. It was just a quick turning of his head and a widening of his eyes, but when I looked up, he was back to looking out on the lake, his mantel of ice cracked along his shoulders.
“Not a fan of fire?” I asked over my smoke. I took a lungful in and tried not to cough. My voice coated in gravel, I conceded quietly, “Me neither.”
He looked at me again, but this time, his gaze was fixed on the cherry of my cigarette, glowing faintly red in the dark.
I finished my cigarette, rolling my hands together before stuffing them into my armpits. It was fucking freezing out, but there wasn't any wind. I thought I'd be fine to hang out, but the cold was making me sleepy and irritable. My breath made dead clouds between us as I said, “Lavelle said she auctioned off my contract to the lowest bidder on the other side. Yet you're here. I've always seen your kind, but I've never seen you manifest in a human form. As far as I know, only messengers and harkers can do that. So, which are you?”
Since my cigarette had ended up skipped across the ice, he'd returned his gaze to the other side of the water. Meaning, he didn't react at all to my question.
He nodded to Bardo. Maybe a yes-no question is more appropriate? I cleared my throat, knotting the folds of my robe closer around me. “Are you an archangel?” I asked.
The guardian didn't move.
“Mm. You're a harker then?”
He slowly nodded, unsettling more snow that chipped and flaked off him like the sloughing skin of a snake.
Progress! I celebrated internally. Then I went down the list of harkers I knew something about. “Throne?” No response. “Wing?” Nothing. “Herald?” No. “Hound?”
He frowned slightly, but then relaxed, his brow as smooth and unblemished as polished stone.
“A kind of hound, then… Hm…” He had to be a footsoldier of Michael, or a warrior sage of Ariel. There was no way he was anything more than a sword if he was sitting in as a guardian. Guardian work was a thankless position. Anything greater than a lackey would have more ambition and more autonomy and wouldn't stoop so low as to contract with a human unless they were ordered.
Still, my own hubris reared its ugly head, and I dared to hope that maybe, just this once, the universe was throwing me a sharpened bone; something I could use.
The significance of a mastered seraphim on Earth was unprecedented. Seraphim were the six-winged Hounds of the Crown who saved their earthshattering voices only to glorify the heavens. Publicly, they were only mentioned in texts that examined the hierarchy of the Holy Host. If one wanted details about them, you had to travel to The Vatican, the Black Mosque, or the Unholy Triad Cathedral.
I'd only ever been to the latter, where I learned that the seraphim in Heaven were relics of a time before man, kept on a tight leash by their militant archangels… because it was their number who had defected with the Light Bringer in The Fall, and they feared another uprising from those that remained.
Their kind were the ones who had coupled with humans on earth and brought about Nephilim—who were rumored to be the super-powered ancestors of contemporary Stewards
That's if you believed in all that.
Worth a shot. “You're seraphim?”
The guardian bowed his head slightly, a lock of white curls falling into his face. He smiled.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
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He didn't know where the boy and he began and ended, but knowing time was not on their side, he couldn't help but bring his charge some measure of comfort. A whisper. A dream. Warmth. His charge may have had the illusion of agency, but the guardian had freewill to spare.
He gladly, willingly gave his heart.
Wasn't that what he was made for?
If only the boy wasn't so destined to be someone else's tool, someone else's burnt offering on the altar of predestination. The feast, the joy, the betrayal, the silver, the noose…
Yes, the plan—his second charge.
“Do not question, do not interfere, and do not neglect your duty. Wait. Watch. Witness,” was the litany under which he had been gloriously ordained. He'd stifled his disgust, lest his harkers sense his discontent.
Heaven had been left in ruddy twilight ever since the Morning Star had fallen.
He did not miss any of it.
He was needed on Earth.
His boy's ignorance was bitter bliss.
But why couldn't it be sweet too?
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