An argument downstairs woke me, but the smells of wet dog and body odor had me struggling to sit up and escape. I swallowed a curse as I gave up. My right foot was in a boot, and my left arm was mummified.
I was medicated again.
Turning my head toward the diffused light in the room, I noted Ke'lev staring out my bedroom window. Outside, the precursor of a blindingly white blizzard made it impossible to see anything beyond the property line, but the weather didn't seem to impede him. As for the seraphim himself, he was covered in brown stains from head to foot, his hair a tangled mess of encrusted dirt and detritus. His boots were gone, and he was only wearing one sock. The state he was in also didn't seem to bother him.
Well, that accounts for the dog.
Turning my head to the other side, Bardo was in the bedside chair softly snoring, positioned like a bird with his chin tucked into his chest and his hands tucked into his armpits. His suit was disheveled, like he'd been holding vigil until his body gave out.
And there's the BO.
Keying into the angry shouting downstairs, I determined that Solberg was receiving the dressing down of his life because it was mostly Chancery doing the “talking”. It seemed like he wasn't going to lose steam anytime soon. Poor Wan was probably getting all my second's pent-up rage and jealousy as a treat.
Chancery would probably need to be talked down eventually. He couldn't begin to imagine what we'd seen in the woods, even if he had seen what remained of the thing's pulped corpse.
I closed my eyes and decided to sleep through both storms.
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After Adelaide's botched card game, my father had been incensed by my “misguided” use of demonic power. It was meant to be an end-all-be-all, a Hail Mary, a last resort. As if being assassinated was just another hazard of the occupation meant to be dealt with (with poise and dignity), he couldn't understand why I'd metaphorically and literally flipped the table on the Rider's attack after seeing Kazumi getting clipped in the neck.
His true irritation lay in the fact that I'd revealed my non-mundane status to Adelaide—that it wouldn't be normal gunmen that upset our operations in the future. As if she hadn't already been sending opportunistic wizards to harass me.
Dare wasn't on her payroll back then, just the non-mundane equivalent of a street musician spitballing irritants at the back of our collective head. If Midori had a witch, then it follows that the Riders should have some kind of magical offense too, right? In Adelaide's eyes, even if it all turned out to be wasted money and time, she could at least annoy the group with her copycat shenanigans.
After the sermon had concluded, I finally said to Chichi over the hospital whitenoise, “Haha-we said I wouldn't get hurt after I transformed. I don't know… I don't know why it turned out like this. Am I…? Is the power defective?”
My father had regarded me for a moment, purposefully looking at anything but my eyes. I wasn't in a good way physically and he was disappointed in me. I'd still had another five surgeries ahead of me and that day was the first I'd been moderately cognizant of where I was and what was happening to me.
I wished Kazu was in the bed instead.
After contemplating how best to phrase his response, he'd said in a quiet voice, “Your mother told you that you would heal in that form if you fed the furnace with the blood of your enemies. I know it sounds like poetry, but the Akayama clan aren't skalds. Your mother was one of the few of her line to unlock its true potential, but it came with a cost, Kouji.” He'd switched to his native Creole as he said, “Eating ‘em before they're dead will heal you in the middle of a fight, but once you've eaten human flesh, you're no better than a lugaroo. You won't be able to stop.”
“Haha-we stopped.”
Chichi had looked uncomfortable. “No… she didn't. We found other ways to satiate her needs afterward. And since she was already forsworn, she didn't hesitate to use her power again when we needed it. But she, and you by extension, are not full blooded.”
“It wasn't brain cancer.”
“No. It wasn't... Prions.” He finally looked away from me and said, “I'm not saying this situation is ideal—”
“Not ideal?! Kazumi—”
“—but I am glad that you survived with your soul intact,” he'd gone on, adding, “And I'm pleased you gave that Walker whelp the fright of his life. But Kouji… don't ever use that power again. Use your sight. Use your wits. Use the tools at your disposal.” He'd met my eyes again, willing me to commit the lesson to heart. “The way of the Ouwarawa is a damned one. Don't follow in your mother's footsteps.”
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It was pitch black when I next woke. Even Chancery's room across the hall was dark. The lakehouse was silent, the singing of the snow and wind outside making it feel like a hollow shell.
Outside, wolves howled.
I tried to move, but save for my eyes, I was paralyzed.
Oh, I thought dispassionately. So it's like that, huh? The dread started in my toes, humming like soft radio static, and built up like snow and ice, setting every muscle tensing and freezing up as I struggled to move and fucking couldn't.
No. No. I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your—
A butane lighter flicked on in the darkness, slowly drawing my eyes, but instead of my sister's death mask, it was Ke'lev's uncanny features kissed by hard shadows. A dream. It had to be a dream. The lighter closed, but a single point of orange and red bloomed in the air as he inhaled and exhaled.
Someone was right next to me, formed to my side, pressing their lips against the shell of my ear. “It's a boy, Kouji,” the ghost whispered, her fingers dancing over my chest, pressing down over my heart.
Sidney? No. Wake up, I told myself. I can't do this. Not again. Not again. Not again.
She kept pressing, her nails digging into me, pushing me down into the bed until the sheets and blankets began to curl around me, enveloping me like a bodybag.
The fabric closed over my face as someone else helped her pull me down from the underside, pulling the fabric taut. Wrapped up, running out of air, eyes darting for some purchase on the world, my fingernails cut into my palms, but I was still powerless to stop anything from happening.
“Three guardians for three humans…” a taunting voice began from above me. “I have to hand it to Lavelle, she's really outdone herself with this one. But you're falling apart, and everyone knows it. A man who circumvents Heaven's will once is a Faust, but three times? We call those dead men walking. A Vudoun high priestess should know better.
“Who will be sacrificed next, Kouji? Remus Chancery with his two guardians? Antwan Solberg with his ridiculously spelled name? Or maybe you'll give Owen Bardo a chance to make up for his past misdeeds?”
Cameron Dare.
This is his doing.
I was almost relieved.
The sorcerer chuckled and the sound was all around me; a not-so-funhouse of auditory torment. He said, “I was curious as to why the demons couldn't find you like the jinn could. Maybe Lavelle warded you? No matter, I thought. I told my hellhounds to track any celestial signatures instead, but lo, even your new pet knows how to go to ground. He's really been cavorting about in human form? One of the seraphim?! He must be a paragon of humility to take such a pathetic shape.”
Wake up. Please… someone…
“It's funny, the only reason I found you was because I'd sent the wolves out to secure the lakeside in case any of your men arrived. Since you yourself have, I'll be sure to send a housewarming gift.
“Don't worry, I told Adelaide where you are. She wasn't even surprised. She's missed you, Kouji. Running around the city isn't as fun for her without her constant green shadow haunting her every step.
“And how can she put an end to the Midori line if its loosest end is still adrift in the wind? No, no, it just won't do.”
A man manifested out of the blackness, like a corpse bobbing to the surface of an inky lake. Dare's icy blue eyes cut into me like fallen icicles. “Scissors, paper, rock is the name of the supernatural game and I am its most valuable player. What you need isn't more ifriti or inferni. No, in this case, you need a more holy handling. Let's see how you handle the icari.
“I've seen through my summon's eyes, Son of Judas, and I know what you are.” He was swallowed by the darkness with a laugh. “Does your angel?”
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“Dev, you're having a—ugh!” Chancery almost got his nose broken as I came up out of bed swinging. The thrashing didn't last long. My arm screamed in agony and I ripped it back, holding it to my chest as I fought back tears.
Everything was stuck to me, sheets, blankets, pillows—all drenched in buckets of sweat. I felt even less substantial than usual, only hanging on to some measure of reality based on the amount of discomfort I felt.
“Good morning,” my second said sarcastically, keeping his distance.
“Is it?” I wheezed.
Ke'lev had been staring out the window, but upon hearing my voice, he canted himself slightly to watch me too.
I cleared my throat. “How long…?”
“Since Solberg almost got picked up by a cougar? Two days. We tried to get some fluids in you, but you were pretty far gone. Tried calling Doc, but the phones were out. I was this close to calling your father on the satellite radio when you started screaming. Never thought I'd be glad to get woken up like that…”
“It was ghosts before. Now its demons,” I said hoarsely. “Dare knows we're here. Adelaide is on her way.”
“Good luck to her. She'll freeze to death if we're lucky. The roads are blocked all the way to the ranger station.”
“That'll buy us time,” I conceded. “As for Dare, he has a terrible habit of monologuing. Likes the sound of his own voice. He's sending another problem in the next couple days. It'll test our defenses like nothing else.”
Chancery took a moment to take that in. “How do you know all this?”
“Astral projection,” I deadpanned.
“Asshole.”
“No, as–”
“Fine, don't tell me. Not normal people is what you're saying.”
“No. Not normal people.”
“Demons, genies, or ghosts?”
“Angels.”
That, of all the other things, was the thing that surprised him. “But angels are good!” He looked across the room to the seraphim. “Angels are good, right?”
Ke'lev didn't move.
“Guardians are protectors and servants of humanity,” I said softly. “If it weren't for Lavelle's contract, Ke'lev wouldn't have anything to do with me.”
Ke'lev raised a single eyebrow as if to refute me, but my second wasn't looking at him.
Chancery shook his head, not understanding. “Is this a Devereaux quirk? A Steward thing?”
“Some Steward families, yes.” I motioned for him to hand me my pill organizer. “Remus, you've always known I'm not completely human. Kazu told you that—”
He cut me off with an aggravated sound as he tossed the container on me. “You're all insane. This is insane. I don't know what I saw out in the woods, but—”
“Remus!” He swallowed what he'd been about to say. “Look, whatever Dare sends after us, be it angel or jinn or otherwise, it doesn't matter. There are no good guys and bad guys. There are just those who have power and those who don't.” I had to take a breath. “Listen… we can discuss all the finer details of our world's cosmology after the dust has settled. All you need to know is we're going to have company soon and they will be able to get through the windows and doors just like Ke'lev. What can you do?”
Chancery took a breath of his own. Then he nodded, straightening out his suit. He handed me a glass of water. “We scoped out more of the houses while you were out. We've got it narrowed down. It's either the house with horses and tactical horse tackle, or the one with a heli-pad. But if we're going to have company soon…” I saw the light bulb behind my second's eyes click on in real time. He smiled. “I have some ideas, Boss. Don't go anywhere. I'll get the boys on it.”
Right, because I'm just chomping at the bit to get back outside again after facing an abomination of flesh and violence. I wasn't going anywhere unless I spontaneously healed.
Chancery was headed for the door when he ordered, “Ke'lev, stay with the boss until we get back.”
The guardian nodded once.
Oh finally, I thought in relief, they've decided not to kill one another. It's about fucking time.
In the hall, Chancery paused and turned back again to say, “When all is said and done, there's a flesh and blood man at the heart of all this that means you harm. But, just like every other flesh and blood man, I bet he's probably allergic to bullets.”
“Deathly,” I said, falling back into bed, trusting that he would do his best to prepare for whatever came.
After he was gone, I looked over at Ke'lev and asked, “You know what I am, don't you?”
He hesitated for a second, then nodded.
“But did you know when you took the contract?”
This time his nod was deliberate.
I sighed. He was as hopeless and deluded as all my previous guardians. I didn't understand it, didn't understand why there were any among the Host that would take such a risk for what amounted to a subhuman in their ranks’ eyes.
Maybe I could get my head around the idea of some underling looking to rise in status by successfully bringing an oni onto the path of righteousness, but a fucking Hound of the Crown? No.
I rubbed at my forehead and, even knowing he wouldn't be able to articulate the reason, wondered on an exhale, “Why?”
The seraphim just smiled.
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I tried to get the seraphim to bathe on his own, but he wouldn't be left in a room without me being in it too. I settled on a stool by the door with my back turned to him as he splashed around in the shower. Turns out, guardians are more bird than anything and as soon as he figured out how the water worked, he was invested in trying to make a bath out of the fixture. If I'd known he'd be so enamored, I would have drawn him one, but I was afraid he'd just end up sitting in a pool of mud if left to his own devices.
“Alright, that should be good enough,” I said after an hour of reading. I flicked a towel over my shoulder and told him to dry off. The water had to be freezing by then, but he’d still been happily splishing away.
He took the towel from me, and I pushed the clothes from Bardo's room around to the other side of the stool. After a few minutes, a pile of mud-caked clothes appeared next to me, and I winced down at them. If it were my decision, we'd burn his original clothes, but I swore to myself I'd leave it up to him after getting Solberg to show him how the washer and dryer worked.
When I didn't hear any more movement, I turned around and nodded in approval. It wasn't every day you saw a guardian in blue jeans and a white tee-shirt, but stranger things have tried to kill me.
Shoes were a different beast. I'd have to order some replacement boots for him online. “Not bad,” I said. “Your hair's still a mess. Come on, let's go to the vanity.”
My sister's old room was on the second floor, next to Solberg and Bardo's. Inside, the room smelled like dust. There were plastic and canvas covers on everything. The tape had to be cut, but once I got her vanity exposed, I confirmed that all her personal effects were still in the drawers.
“I know it looks like I own a Loreal lineup, but I was blessed with naturally untangleable hair. I just put it up with a hairstick when I get ready. My sister on the other hand got my father's texture. If she doesn't have something in here to help tame that windblown coif, then you're gonna hafta settle for a miracle instead.”
The seraphim snorted with mirth.
I directed him to sit down while I worked. Eventually, I was able to manhandle the white tresses into something manageable and out of his eyes, pulled into a messy bun that wouldn't be a handhold in a fight. His hair wasn't actually white up close. Each strand had the same metallic sheen as his feathers. Flattened out in my hand, it had the same feel as spun silk.
“What do you think? Not bad?”
He cocked his head at himself and slowly reached forward to touch the mirror. It seemed to surprise him when he met cool glass instead. He looked at his fingers, then turned to look around at me.
“Never seen your reflection before?”
He looked back at himself and cocked his head again. It was actually kind of cute, the way he studied himself, like when you put a slick surface in front of a cat to watch its pupils blow out with prey interest.
I patted his shoulder and said, “Let's go downstairs to wait for—”
He grabbed my hand, his eyes still glued to the mirror. Then he slowly turned his head to look at my hand, eyes flicking back and forth between reflection and reality.
“Well, at least I know how to stop an angel dead in its tracks,” I muttered to myself, trying to extricate my digits from his grip.
Instead, he pulled my hand forward and I nearly lost my balance as he turned it over in front of him, his fingers tracing the taut burn scars over my palm and thumb.
“The first jinn that tried to kill me,” I explained, trying to tug away from him.
He just tucked his elbow over mine to keep me from pulling away and I barked a curse as he rubbed a thumb over the barely healed entry wound on my forearm.
My heart was going to explode. “Ke'lev, let go!”
He seemed intent on something, unhearing and uncaring. He pressed his thumb into my arm, and I finally put my foot down and wrenched away from him, tucking my hand to my chest. I took a step backward and fell onto my ass, cursing. He'd never done anything like that before. It hadn't hurt exactly, but the extra pressure over the lodged bullet hadn't felt good either.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I seethed. “It's still healing. The next time you… Ke'lev.”
The guardian was back to watching his reflection, head tilting from side to side, his posture indicating equal parts fascination and perplexity.
“Okay, that's… That's enough me-time,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. I threw the canvas back over the vanity and it was like a spell had been broken. Ke'lev got up from the seat and looked at me expectantly as if to ask, Where to?
I sighed.
He sighed too.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Wait a minute, are you just… parroting me?”
The seraphim nodded.
I palmed his face. It was like smacking a STOP sign.
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“Lend me your lap,” I grumbled after trying in vain to get comfortable on the couch. The foot brace was clunky and hard to maneuver, but I eventually had it rested on the arm of the couch.
Over the breakfast table, Bardo and Solberg were busy discussing tactics while Chancery supervised them, offering quiet corrections and suggestions when they reached stopping points.
The seraphim patted my face when I stopped squirming, and even drew my throw blanket up to my armpits, but was still watching the others with pointed interest the whole time, his eyes roving between them as if memorizing their lazy, comfortable movements.
“You're gonna burn holes in ‘em,” I muttered. Ke'lev didn't respond.
Bardo looked up and asked me, “Boss, you're sure salt or silver doesn't have anything to do with it?”
“The fuck—They're not werewolves,” I said with a sigh.
Ke'lev's sigh was one of solidarity.
Bardo snorted as Solberg whined, “There are freaking werewolves out there too? What's next? Vampires?”
“Draugr? Oh, yes,” I lied, my tone explorative. “They're not as ubiquitous anymore. Not enough virgin blood to sustain a major population.”
Chancery said, “Knock it off, Dev. You're gonna scare the kid.”
“I'm not scared,” Solberg insisted. “I-I'm just concerned.” Bardo hit his arm with a barked laugh and Solberg rubbed his bicep as he asked me, “But there are other things like that out there though, right Boss? Other than angels and demons, I mean.”
“Mhm,” I conceded. “Those that couldn't integrate into human society have been hunted to extinction over the centuries. The world now exists in a waning of wonder. Gone are the days of magical supremacy and religious fervor. Here it be, my good fellows: the Mundane Era, a time fucked by idleness and apathy. A boring era, if you asked me.”
Bardo slapped the table in front of the collective. “Alright, fess up. Which one a you let the boss huff paint this time?”
Grinning, Chancery finally looked over at me and did a double take before mumbling, “So says the magical seer cuddled up to the angel.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that jealousy I hear? He's got two thighs. Wanna get in on this action? We can rearrange.”
Chancery rolled his eyes.
Solberg said thoughtfully, “We've done everything we can to prep for any human vessels, but…” He looked up and asked, “What kind of animals might the angels possess? What else should we be looking out for?”
“Demons are fine with debasing themselves inside something non-human, but angels have standards. They won't settle for anything less than human, even if a sorcerer tries to bend their will.” I spared a look up at the seraphim when I caught him glancing down at me. “Hmph. Ke'lev's exceptional.”
“Could they manifest outside their host like Ke'lev?” Bardo asked.
“If they're powerful enough, yes, but they won't be able to go very far away from their charge—and if their host is killed, they'll be banished back to the other side.”
Ke'lev made an um-actually sort of face that had me curious about what exactly he wanted to disagree with.
Chancery rubbed at the dark stubble shadowing his face. “Either they won't risk their hosts and will meet us in the flesh where we can try to corral them into a kill box… or they'll come hidden and pop out when they've made it past our first line of defense. Either way, stuffed in a meat suit or not, we've got a contingency.”
Ke'lev's face relaxed. What Chancery had said had evidently resolved whatever concern he'd had.
“I hope you guys got a fireworks permit,” I said offhandedly.
Chancery nodded. “I sent a copy of the approved version to the ranger station already. They even did us a favor by notifying Fire Watch. Anything goes off, we're just celebrating.”
This was apparently news to Solberg because he looked to Bardo for confirmation and his partner wiggled his eyebrows at him.
“The occasion?” I dared to ask.
Bardo hooked an arm around the redhead’s neck and over the kid's growled protests, the enforcer announced proudly, “Coming of age! Antwan Solberg is finally a man! Mazel Tov!” Bardo let him go to dance a jig and Chancery nearly pissed himself laughing as Solberg barked expletives at them both.
Give them intrigue and horror, and they'll forsake even their convictions. But give them a target that bleeds, access to explosives, and the confidence that even they can win against Cosmic forces… and suddenly they can't help but dance.
Humans are weird.
I rolled away from them and tucked my face into Ke'lev's side, pulling the throw blanket over my head. Ke'lev consoled me with another pat, his palm resting on my nape where he gently squeezed me.
Angels are weirder.
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“Why do you have so many mugs?” Chancery asked after shaking off the snow at the backdoor.
He came over to pick up one of the dozens currently scattered across the living room end tables as I explained, “Bardo taught the seraphim how to use the coffee machine.”
“Oh, no.” He was fighting a smile.
I grunted in response.
“Where's the guardian now?”
I gestured at the kitchen, and on cue, the Keurig made a gasping noise as it finished brewing and Ke'lev appeared in the archway. He scanned the room for an unoccupied surface and seemed to have an existential crisis before he gave the mug to Chancery and turned right around to go back into the kitchen.
My second blinked down at the mug. “This is hot water.”
“I hid the box of coffee.”
“Have you, I dunno, told him to stop?”
I shrugged. “He's not hurting anything, and it seems to make him happy. He noticed we really like mugs full of hot liquid.”
“Maybe you could teach him how to clean up after the boys. Then he'd really be occupied.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
He set the cup down in a bookcase alcove as he switched gears. “Bardo's going out tonight to plant a gift on the helipad. Solberg took off toward the stables to… Well, I dunno what he's planning exactly, but I told him it better not involve blowing them up.”
I nodded. “Detective Burke emailed us back. The owner of the helipad and its property is dead.”
“How did we miss that?” he hissed. “Tell me he was killed.”
I shook my head. “Been dead since twenty-two. The house is in legal limbo right now, pending the execution of the will. So, technically, you wouldn't have found anything amiss unless you searched for obituaries.”
He sighed. “Burke say anything about the tacti-cool horses?”
This time I laughed. “Believe it or not, the chick who owns that property is a doomsdayer with cash to spare. When gas runs out, how else are we gonna outrun the zombies?”
“You're fuckin’ with me.”
“Okay, it wasn't zombies, but fluoride-drinking, horse-fearing, gun-toting soy-boys doesn't sound nearly as plausible.”
Chancery chuckle. Then, sobering slightly, he asked, “Dev, how did Dare know we would be out here? This place is owned by a shell and occupied by some kid from Seattle most of the year on a timeshare when it's not being used by our people. It passes all the checks.”
I had a feeling that Montenegro, my father's second, had something to do with it, but I didn't share any theories with him. I took another mug of hot water from Ke'lev and had to take a sip from it before he was satisfied. After he disappeared back into the kitchen, I said, “I'd have to confirm with the madam, but when she warned me who was on my tail, I had a feeling Dare knew how to track me somehow. If Lavelle can bind a seraphim using just my hair and fingernails… It might be easy to track someone using the same sympathetic bend.”
He didn't seem entirely satisfied by the answer, but he didn't have any evidence to the contrary. “Magic is cheating.”
“Yeah… Feels like as soon as Adelaide found out there was an EASY button to all things and it only cost her time, money, and her mortal soul, she didn't hesitate to go brrr.” I smiled then and asked, “Wanna learn more about the non-mundane business? It would make you competitive in this line of work.”
I expected him to immediately shoot me down, but he pursed his lips in consideration and bit the inside of his cheek. Finally he said, “When all this is over, maybe. For now, I'm still wrapping my head around your spook-revealing sight.”
“You've known about that for as long as I have,” I practically whined.
“Another ten years from now, I'll probably still be chewing on it!” he countered with a laugh.
“It's not going to get easier. This stuff is a rabbit hole. Not even I'm an expert and I'm neck-deep in it.”
“Hence your family's witch.”
“Hence the family witch,” I agreed.
When Ke'lev reappeared, Chancery rerouted him by the shoulders and said, “We're good on drinks. Lemme show you how the dishwasher works…”
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My door was back on the hinges by night's end and The Dog Accords were amended to account for the dog. Chancery said I could keep the door closed if Ke'lev was watching over me. I'd given him the death stare and he'd corrected his statement with a harried qualifier, “Unless you want the door open. Or cracked. Or whatever you want, Boss. It's your call. Your house, your rules.”
I let it go. “... Mhm.”
The wind came in sideways that night, howling against the lakehouse. I had enough giveafuck in me to turn on the electric firewall after figuring out how all the switches worked. It didn't quite have the same ambiance as a crackling fireplace, but the light chased away the shadows and made it impossible for anything to hide in plain sight.
It did mean that Ke'lev's night vision was impaired, but I dismissed the need for a vigil as I said quietly, “Solberg's on the pier.” I patted the edge of the bed and he stared at my hand. “Sit down.”
After a moment, he sat next to me and stared at the fire jets blazing under the wall TV instead.
I said in a low voice, “When Chancery leaves us at the house, we're going somewhere isolated.”
He nodded.
“They can deal with the humans, and the angels can't attack them on account of their nature. Whatever guardians disengage from that fight, they'll home in on my location. That's when we'll make our stand.”
He nodded.
“If their vessels are with them, I need you to make sure I don't eat them.”
He frowned, but then nodded.
“No heroics, Ke'lev.”
He made a sour face and it was so out of pocket that it made me smile. “What I mean is, so long as you keep the humans away, I can do the heavy lifting. Oni may not be built to take on kami, but I'll make them rethink the natural order by the fight's end.”
He looked at me without turning his head, assessing.
“I can't feel pain when I'm in that form. I'll be able to hold my own.”
He didn't react.
I fell back on the bed and rubbed at my face. “It would be easier if it were more demons. I'd even take jinn at this point. I know I can fight those.”
He looked at me with an unreadable expression. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he doubted my statement, but was curious to find out for sure. Then he reached over and placed his hand on mine, turning my burned hand over to study it.
“I didn't fight that one,” I said after confirming he wasn't going to try to rip it off me to look at it this time. “My guardian sacrificed themselves to destroy it. It'd already been weakened by my first wife's angel.”
He nodded, as if he approved.
“The next time they came after me, they left me with a broken arm. That time, me and my second wife were on our way to the symphony. I was going there to talk to my father. She was going to enjoy the music. We were… She was eight months along. We were planning a gender reveal for the family afterwards.”
Ke'lev let my hand go and I drew it up so I'd have something to look at in the half-light. “It took out our driver. The car flipped. Then it pulled me out of the vehicle and my guardian attacked… I don't remember what happened after that. Maybe I went feral. Woke up from a coma a week later and was told that Sidney was dead… Her soul had been snatched, but the jinn hadn't been expecting two guardians out of one human and had perished too. At the time, I didn't know why the jinn would've attacked Sidney, but then, it wasn't her it was after.” I clasped my hands over my stomach. “The paramedics couldn't save my boy.”
Ke'lev looked back at me for a moment and then turned away.
“My father never told me why the jinn were so interested in me, and Lavelle would always hit me with a cryptic smile and tell me to look within.
“I knew I'd get more out of the dead than them. I started meditating on the lessons my mother taught me before she died. She used to say that the strictures of Heaven are not as chiseled into stone as Westerners would like to think. Reincarnation is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to certain human souls. That notion alone had me visiting the Unholy Triad Cathedral in Moscow where I learned most of what I know about angels and demons.”
Ke'lev held out his hand and, curious, I put mine in his after confirming that's what he wanted. He didn't do anything after that, just held onto my hand, his digits fitting over the marks. You wouldn't know I had them unless he let go.
I had no idea what the gesture was supposed to mean, but it wasn't hurting anything, and it seemed to comfort him, so I continued with, “I told Kazumi what I'd learned because she always seemed interested in Haha-we's side of the family. She'd been doing her own investigations in her off-time and we put together that maybe the soul of the progenitor of our line popped up every handful of generations.
“We could only look so far before it disappears in the record, but of those Devereauxs that we could find, all had been killed by something mundane, like a heart attack or an untreated illness, in their twenties, shortly after marrying or having kids.
“Kazumi and I made jokes, but the more we learned, the more likely it seemed that whatever curse had been placed on Judas Iskariot two-thousand years ago keeps finding him when he reincarnates… But I bet he's never gotten the chance to reincarnate as an Ouwarara.”
Ke'lev squeezed my hand, then let me go.
“Do you believe in the recycling of human souls?”
He was still for so long that I thought his stillness was his answer, but then he nodded, a troubled expression on his face.
“What's with the face?”
He tilted his head at me.
“I mean, what's with that look? Something about that bothers you?”
He nodded with a frown, but obviously it was difficult for him to articulate why. Eventually he just crossed his arms and closed his eyes, tucking his head down as if to think.
He knows I'm oni, but that revelation didn't cause him nearly as much distress. What about the Iskariot line has him worried? Is it because the Holy Host still sees Judas as a betrayer even though his actions were what led to The Resurrection? Or does he know something about blending bloodlines that the Stewards don't?
I ran through his reactions one more time and then asked a simple yes-or-no question, “Do you trust me, Ke'lev?”
He nodded without opening his eyes.
“Do you think I'm the Iskariot?”
This time he looked up to nod.
I could feel my heart trying to escape its cage as I asked, “Would it be possible t—No, wait. Can you help me break the curse so that no one else down the line has to suffer like I have?”
He bowed his head in an affirmative.
He was smiling.
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“Attending a summons is not the same as being bound to a born soul, Ke'lev,” Raguel warned him. “If their soul is imperiled, you will not be untethered and returned. You will share their fate. You will be Fallen and destined for the pit.”
Once, he had dreamed of the pit.
He wasn't so afraid of it now.
He stepped onto the hexagonal ward and folded himself to fit under its canopy. It was constricting, this bipedal shape, but it wasn't without its merits. Raguel's personal flock dressed him down in appropriate vestments for the time period he was being summoned to and he bristled at the contact, but did not pull away.
Raguel wasn't so insufferable when he didn't have a captive audience to perform for. He also wasn't nearly as tall and forbidding. But he wasn't Ke'lev's friend in any case. The archangel smirked and lifted one of his head-wings to survey him with uncountable eyes. His face was like a metastasized argos trapped in a gilded frame, beautiful in its perfect horror.
Raguel said, “This is not an ordinary half-blood you will be beholden to, Ke'lev. Your precious line has been polluted with the blood of the mountain inferni. Oni, they call themselves: the Children of Douji. Your charge is a born pariah in both human and demonic sects and is doomed to succumb to his own power. He's a Maneater.”
The seraph raised one imperious eyebrow.
“It appears even that will not sway you. You cannot save him. Three others have tried.” Then the angel sneered. “Do you intend to couple with it? That might be the only way to purify the bloodline.”
This Nephilim-wrought was Iskariot. Raguel's words were just that; the whining of a sycophant who had forgotten what his own name meant.
Ke'lev motioned for the attendants to take their leave of him, and he regarded Raguel with a cool gaze as they were left alone.
Raguel shielded his eyes from view as his mouth twisted in fury. “You could have let Es’tyr take your place. You know how much I covet you.”
The seraph nodded once, then crouched down and placed his palms over their markers. He stared up at the archangel, waiting for his release.
He would not bow, even for this.
The warden could want all he wanted, but orders were orders. Duty was duty. Service was service.
“You will regret this, Hound.” With a cry, the Archangel of Redemption drew his six sickles and slashed them down onto the points of the glowing ward, completing the summons, and splitting the mouth of Heaven open like a wound. Raguel exposed his neck as he saluted him. “Watcher for Deceit, blessed be!”
Ke'lev fell from his keeper's aerie like a meteor. For the first time since the dawn of the common era, he smiled to himself and let the wind and water scour the sounds of burning blood and singing icor from his mind.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
