Through the fire, p.30
Through the Fire, page 30
"What do they mean, 'get a room?'" Elemiah asked, and Arioch at least laughed, breaking down the tension obviously building between them. He didn't answer, though, which was enough for Nick.
"What'd I miss?" Chris shifted far enough out of Nick's hug to rub the heel of his hand across his breastbone. "I feel like I got barbecued."
"Yeah, you almost did," Nick said roughly. "Don't do that again, man."
"How 'bout you don't go absorbing demons and angels and I won't do…whatever the hell I just did…and we'll call it even?"
"I think that'd be best." Nick tried to catch Elemiah's eye, and when that failed, found Arioch looking at him expectantly. "You kept saying they'd come after me. Demons. Because I'm a battery. Are they still gonna?"
"I'm less certain now," Arioch said slowly. "The grendel power is still a part of you, but the soul bond is stronger than before, and may offer some protection."
"The what now?" Chris sounded like he'd been swallowing fire, and not in the theatrical way.
Nick said, "There's water in the van," but Chris waved him off, and he was willing to take that for an answer, at least for a minute.
"The soul bond," Elemiah said. "They're rare, and rarer still between siblings. And of course they even more rarely matter, in the larger sense."
Chris scrubbed his hands through his hair, then eyed Nick. "This guy making any sense to you?"
"Not yet."
"A soul bond is one of the rarest forms of—" Elemiah began portentously, and Arioch overrode him. "Your brother would do anything to keep you safe."
A snort of laughter jolted through Chris. "No shit. 's my job."
"It is, in fact, not your job," Eli said, less portentously. "It is your…calling. Your choice. Hence its power. Its strength. You shouldn't have been able to share that power. You absolutely couldn't hold it. But the selflessness—"
"The grace," Arioch said.
"—of the act, the willingness to sacrifice yourself," Elemiah went on, clearly trying to pretend he hadn't heard Arioch, "is a power unto itself—"
"Did he really just say 'unto?'" Chris muttered.
Nick elbowed him, trying not to laugh. "Quiet, he's pontificating."
"That's it, I'm going back to being dead, you can let me know when the pretentious pontificating stops." Chris fell over backward again, throwing a dramatic arm across his eyes.
Nick shoved him and he sat back up, a grin smearing over his face as Nick muttered, "'Pretentious,' huh?"
"I gotta learn something from my baby brother's oversized vocabulary, right?" Chris looked up at the angels and laughed through his nose, then ducked his head and rattled with more laughter. Nick glanced up, too, and made almost the same sound.
Not for the first time, both angels wore identical expressions of distaste, as if vaguely afraid human hysteria might somehow rub off on them. Elemiah had clearly given up on his lecture until they could receive it with sufficient dignity, and Arioch's impatience all but pulsated, although of the two of them, he appeared to find some faint humor in their inability to remain composed. "Mortality," he said after the brothers regained some semblance of dignity. "It makes you humans so overwrought, when avoided."
"Man, it has been an overwrought week." Chris rubbed his face again, then looped his arms around his knees, squinting up at the angels. "Can y—" He broke off with a yelp as his butt buzzed, loud in the comparative quiet of the church. He took his phone out of his back pocket, grunting to see the screen had broken, although he said, "Surprised it still works at all," before answering. "Yeah, Jakey. No, I'm not dead. Neither's Nick. Oh." He pulled the phone away from his ear, flicked to another screen, and winced as Nick saw a chat window with a hundreds of messages missed notification glowing in the middle.
Chris put the phone back to his ear. "Yeah, no, we're not dead. Where you at?" He tipped the phone up, said, "He's almost to Denver. How long was I out?"
"I don't know, man, you're the one with a clock in your hand."
"Oh. Right." Chris glanced at the time, then brought the phone back to his ear. "You can't be almost to Denver, it's only been like an hour since we talked. You're gonna get arrested. Look, tell the girls we're okay, all right? I'll call you back in a little bit, we got some shit to figure out here. Aight. Bye, Jakey." He hung up, flicked through the scroll in chat, and winced. "Yeah, yeah, okay, sorry, I didn't mean to get attacked by demons mid-conversation, whatever." He put the phone back in his pocket as Nick took his own phone out to discover he wasn't on that group chat.
"What, I don't get to be kept in the loop?"
"You were busy dying. Reading you in while I freaked out didn't seem helpful."
"I guess that's fair." Nick slumped, then glanced up to find the angels staring at them again. "What? Don't you guys have group chat? Maybe you should, maybe Raphael wouldn't have snuck up you if you did."
"I'll put a word in with the Spheres," Elemiah said dryly. "Are you…well?"
"We're not dead," Chris said. "I need somebody to tell me what this soul bond shit is without the flowery talk. Can you do that, or do I need an interpreter?"
Eli drew breath and Arioch held a hand up, clearly meaning to silence him. This time the smaller angel only curled a lip, and, with a visible effort, said, "Occasionally two people are sufficiently committed to one another's safety that they forge a bond that can withstand even celestial—"
"Or demonic," Arioch said.
"Or demonic," Elemiah echoed through his teeth, "forces. We call it a soul bond, which—"
"Sounds pretty fucking romantic," Chris said.
The angel exhaled so deeply he actually lost an inch of height, and spoke in a tone of infinite patience stretched to its very limit. "Yes. Most soul-bonded pairs are romantic, not fraternal. Or sororal."
Nick took a breath and Chris said, "If you're about to tell me that means 'sisterly' I will put my elbow through your teeth. I'm not stupid."
Nick weighed his options and decided, "I know you're not stupid," was by far the safest thing to say.
Elemiah stared at them until satisfied they were done before saying, "The bond allowed him to take on the excess power you carried. The fact that so much of that power was angelic allowed the castaway—"
"Who has a name," Arioch said.
"—to absorb it from Christopher. He couldn't have taken it from you," Eli said to Nick. "No celestial creature could take power from an Exalted."
"But I'm a puny human so he could suck me dry?" Chris finished.
An expression of pain crossed Eli's face. "In effect, yes. That, and his own connection with the divine is severed. If I had tried such a thing…"
"You would have exploded." Arioch sounded pleased about the prospect. "Think of me as a dry river bed, Christopher. You set the waters flowing again for a little while."
"I tell you what, usually it's more fun to get somebody's waters flowing." Chris put his hand up and the fallen angel took it, pulling him to his feet.
An aura—a halo—of power burst when their hands touched, bright enough that Nick threw a hand in front of his eyes and even Elemiah flinched back. Chris jolted and pulled his hand free, shaking it. "Jesus, static electricity much, my dude?"
Arioch rubbed his own fingers together, pale eyebrows drawn in a knot above the bridge of his nose. "I think not, but neither am I sure what that was."
"A connection, man." Nick, getting to his feet without any help mostly to see if he could, put on the soppiest tone he could. "Like, a real deep meaningful connection. Like, cosmic, man."
"Oh my god, shut the hell up." Chris vaguely threatened Nick with a loose fist made from the hand he'd shaken, although he went back to shaking it almost immediately. "What'd I do, charge you all up?"
Arioch's mouth twitched and Chris said, "Oh, for god's sake, forget it," under laughter that started with Nick and spilled to the blonde fallen angel.
"I believe you did," Arioch said as his laughter faded to a sharp grin. "Perhaps significantly. Perhaps permanently."
"Well, great, remember me in your memoirs when you reign in Hell, then."
"Oh," Arioch purred, "I shall." He offered a hand to Chris again, who eyed it warily before ostentatiously stuffing his own hands in his pockets. Arioch grinned again, then copied the motion, sliding his hands into his own pockets as he turned on a heel to face Elemiah. "What now, Power? You've been called to this plane, but the boy is out of danger and you're no guardian angel. Will you stay?"
Nick, mildly insulted, said, "Hey," and Arioch slid a lazy, impatient glance his way.
"You haven't yet seen one and twenty years of age, Nicholas Cassidy. In this time and place, you're a boy, and as a thing that has existed an impossibly long time, anyone younger than Elemiah here is their infancy. Dinosaurs failed to reach adolescence, in the time scale of the universe, and they were so much more successful than your little species."
"Kind of arrogant, isn't he," Chris breathed, and Eli's eyebrows flicked upward.
"Thrones are not known for their humility."
"Nor would you be, if you looked upon the face and served the hand of God," Arioch said coolly.
"What do they look like?" Chris asked suddenly. "God, I mean. And if you say ineffable…"
The corner of Arioch's mouth twitched again. "And yet. God is most often seen in the eye of the beholder, I'm afraid. My description would mean nothing to you, and yours would mean little to me."
"I am no guardian angel," Elemiah said, as if the rest of the conversation hadn't taken place. "And for the moment, I believe my greater duty is to return and report with confidence that the Exalted has passed through the fire."
Nick, abruptly remembering that Elemiah had grabbed hold of him and gone all pillar-of-fire, said, "I literally did."
Elemiah flashed a grin as disarmingly bright as Arioch's. "But Exalted rarely do, Nicholas, and the power remains within you. Not even the Spheres would expect you to deny or refuse its use, but if you do, it—" He hesitated, shooting a sharp look toward Arioch, whose jaw settled into a glacial thrust. "It clouds the future, so that not even the Thrones may see clearly. It's possible," he said thoughtfully, "that I would be remiss if I didn't stay."
"You see?" Arioch said. "You see how easy it is, to convince yourself that an exertion of free will is only tending to your assigned duties? Careful, Power. I know this path, and it's a dangerous one." He reached for the long coat he'd thrown over the altar what seemed like hours ago and shrugged it on over his tattered shirt. "My path between planes is no less fraught than yours, but certain responsibilities beckon me home again. Call on me as you wish, Christopher. I believe I'll hear even the most intimate of prayers."
"Oh my God." Chris passed his hand over his face. "Did you have to make it weird?"
Arioch cracked another grin. "I expect I did, yes. We're connected, you and I, and I rather think I'm going to enjoy it."
Nick swore that Chris would've tossed his hair, if it was longer. "Most people I connect with do."
Elemiah, not entirely sotto voce, said, "Is this where one says 'get a room?'" to Nick, who laughed sharply.
"Yeah. You're getting the hang of humanity."
"I'm not entirely certain that's wise." Eli didn't look displeased, though, and Nick grinned.
"Probably not. So you're heading…home?" He whirled a finger skyward.
"It seems necessary. Raphael should not be allowed to…"
"Control the narrative," Chris supplied, and Nick raised a startled eyebrow at him. "Yeah, yeah, I know, what's the dumb brother doing recognizing narrative arcs and shit. I watch movies, Nick. Look, I think we better go hang somewhere else before the cops get here." Chris gestured at the church, and Nick, for the first time, glanced around and grimaced.
It hadn't quite been reduced to rubble, but its structural integrity seemed in question. The roof sagged, rafters broken and holes punched through, a startling number of the pews were shattered, and a far wall had been half knocked out, cold air blowing relentlessly in. "Did I do that?"
"You could call it a joint effort," Arioch offered. "Given that you were inspired by my presence. The rest," he said with an easy gesture upward, "was largely courtesy of our archangelic visitor."
"What the hell was his beef, anyway?" Chris tilted his head toward the door, then began picking his way across wrecked pews in search of a clear path out.
"Humans have the audacity to praise others of their kind for miraculous interventions, and it offends his sensibilities. Raphael is committed to the premise that all thanks should go to God." Arioch followed him a few steps, then cut his own path across the church, only to pause in the broken wall he'd been thrown through earlier. "And if I were to call upon you, Christopher? Would you answer?"
Chris squinted across the dark church at the fallen angel. "Not if that means you're gonna pray my fine ass into Hell."
Arioch chuckled, stepping through the rift toward the night. "That seems unlikely, but perhaps it's worth exploring."
"Nope! No the hell it is not! N—augh, come back, where'd you go, you can't do that!" Chris glared futilely at the gap that Arioch had disappeared into, then turned nervously to Elemiah. "He can't do that, can he?"
The angel spread his hands uncertainly. "I'm not sure it's ever been tried. Angels rarely pray for mortal intervention."
Nick's eyebrows rose. "Do they ever?"
"I would have to consult the Books of Law."
"Well, you're going home anyway, right?" Chris demanded. "Get on that and get back to me, because I'd really like some reassurance here. I do not want to be prayed into Hell! Do I have to unpray you?"
"No," Elemiah said dryly. "Once my duties are tended to, I'm free to go as I see fit. Watch yourselves, Cassidys. Mortals who gain celestial attention rarely stray from it again. Your lives are so short, it's easy to watch you for a moment or two to see the path you take."
"Great, now he's made it weird," Chris mumbled. "Begone, angel, leave us, or something. There must be a quote for that."
"'Be gone, run to your houses, fall upon your knees,'" Nick offered, and got exactly the look he expected and probably deserved for that. "Julius Caesar. Shakespeare. Sorry."
Chris muttered, "Can't be both, man, they lived centuries apart," as he climbed over another broken pew, then looked up, looked around, and said, "Holy shit, but it worked."
"What did?" Nick, crawling over pews in his wake, followed his gaze, then swung around, searching for Elemiah. "He did the thing! Like in movies!"
Chris, sullenly, said, "I always wanted to do that. Poof, vanish mysteriously at the most dramatic possible moment. I mean, rude, but super cool. Even just the whole 'the bus drives by and they've vanished' thing, that's cool. Like, sexy cool."
"You could go stand beside Lucille and I could drive away," Nick offered. Chris gave him another dirty look as they left the church in the most ordinary, human way possible: through the kicked-in front door.
Nick somehow expected gawkers to be gathering, but the parking lot was deserted save for Lucille, sitting alone in a space closer to the street than the church. He couldn't think of an even vaguely plausible cover story, so it was just as well. Chris weaved a little on the walk to the van, like walking was something he'd learned how to do once but couldn't quite remember. Nick felt a lot like that, too, actually. Getting one foot in front of the other took a ridiculous amount of effort.
There was a bed in the van, though. If he could make it that far, maybe he could collapse and sleep for three weeks. Chris wobbled toward the driver's side, with Nick frowning vaguely at him until he could focus enough processing power to figure out why the idea bothered him. "You safe to drive?"
"I am extremely not." Chris got in the driver's seat anyway, so Nick got in the passenger side while Chris put both hands on the wheel and exhaled until his forehead touched the wheel, too. "We can't stay in the parking lot, though. We probably shouldn't stay within fifty miles of here."
Nick shook his head broadly. "You can't just drive off into the sunset. Jake's coming down here hell bent for leather."
"Ah, crap. Right. Text him, would you? Tell him we're going…"
"Out drinking, and to meet us at…" Nick scowled through the windshield, then cast a worried glance at the half-demolished church behind them. "Tell you what, start driving and we'll figure it out on the way."
"Good plan." Chris patted the dashboard, then pulled Lucille out onto the street, casting looks up and down it. "No traffic. Like, weirdly no traffic for suburbia."
"Nobody came to see why the church was on fire or whatever, either. Maybe acts of gods come with special not-my-problem filters and people don't notice them."
"I really hope so, 'cause Lucille's registered under my real name."
Nick nodded, then scowled suspiciously at his brother. "I'm sorry, what? Do you have vehicles registered under not your real name?"
Chris, sanctimoniously, said, "That would be illegal, Nicky."
Nick snorted laughter, checked his phone, and said, "Turn left up there. Local events page says there's a good bar a few miles up the road."
"We've both spent half the day getting possessed or something. You really think getting shitfaced is a good idea?"
"First, I didn't say shitfaced, and second, I think it's the best idea."
Chris cackled. "You might be right. Arright. Tell me where to turn, because if we're relying on me to read roadsigns right now we're gonna be back in Sterling by midnight 'cause thinking is way too hard."
"So what else is new." Nick ducked his head over his phone, said, "Left again up ahead, then straight on till morning, or at least, the bar," after a minute, then, not sure he wanted to be heard, mumbled, "Sorry about that, earlier."
Chris said, "Wasn't you," so quickly he clearly knew exactly what Nick meant. A knot tied and untied itself in Nick's gut, leaving him unsure of what to say, but Chris picked up the slack. "Not any decent part of you, anyway. The, uh. Grendel power? Is it still…?"
"There? Yeah. It's, um." Nick took a deep breath, trying to see if it pulled or stung at him the way it had before. "It doesn't feel as, I don't know, alive? Anymore. More like it's part of me, and not something of its own. It feels safer, I guess?"
