Chapter 12: Dreams and Revelations

Angela Petrelli woke up in the morning sunlight as it shone pure colour through the stained glass mirrors of the cathedral. She opened her eyes and saw her beloved youngest boy holding her. She blinked sleep away and smiled at him.

"You feeling better?" he asked quietly, and she pulled herself up in the pew to face him. Her eyes were brighter than they had been since he rescued her from that elevator shaft.

"I slept, and I had a dream."

"What about?"

Angela looked up at a stained glass window depicting an angel, arms open in benediction. "That. Or should I say...her." She smiled gently up into the angel's face.

After a moment she took a deep breath and stood, regaining some of her distinctive icy veneer. "I know what we have to do now. We need to go find Nathan and Claire. We have to bring this family together." Angela pulled her eyes from the angel and looked down to Peter who was still seated in the pew. Her eyes were dark and full of mysteries. "But first, we need to go find Sylar."

This caught Peter completely off guard. "What? Sylar? Why would we want to find him?"

"I can't explain it right now, but Sylar must come with us to find my sister."

"Your sister?"

Angela smiled at her son and stroked his cheek, then slapped him sharply and strode off. With a rueful shake of his head, Peter followed. "How are we even going to find Sylar?" he called out after her. She did not slow, her heels clacking along the stone floors of the cathedral.

"He's here in Washington, staying in a motel. He'll be going back there soon, we have to hurry. And Peter, I have to talk to him alone."

"What, are you crazy? No way! Didn't he try to kill you in Primatech?"

"He did, and I earned his anger there. No, he won't kill me, I've dreamed it, and this is something I have to do alone." They left the church and turned into a little alley beside it, where Angela turned and put her arms around her son's shoulders.

"Don't worry, my boy, everything will be fine."

"Yeah, famous last words." Peter had never been any good at denying his mother, and he picked her up gently and flew off in the direction she pointed.

***

Sylar made his way back to his motel room after revealing the shapeshifter's dead body to Bennet. Sylar looked into the rear view mirror as he drove and played at shapeshifting. As always, he was better at using abilities than any of the people he took them from. Further proof that they hadn't deserved what he'd taken. Whistling cheerfully, Sylar pulled the key out of his pocket, then stopped short as he neared his room. The lock had been broken, and the door was hanging slightly ajar. He narrowed his eyes and blue light flared as he charged up Elle's ability. He kicked the door the rest of the way open, prepared to destroy whoever was in there.

Angela Petrelli was standing on the dingy carpet, eyes calm as she watched him burst in. The blue shocks around Sylar's hands disappeared as surprise broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered. He flicked his fingers and Angela lofted up into the air and against a wall. Angela gasped under the pressure but stayed calm, her eyes on Sylar.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm going to find my sister. You need to come with me." Sylar's jaw dropped and laughed incredulously. She wasn't lying for once, but they hadn't exactly parted on good terms. Before he could speak, she continued, "Sylar, I've deceived you and I've used you, I don't deny it. But I am telling you that you must come with me. I dreamed it."

"Oh, you've dreamed it. Tell me why I shouldn't tear your head open right now and take that ability for myself?"

Angela laughed, but not happily. "Trust me, you wouldn't want it." This was true, Sylar didn't want to be able to see the future in dreams. His experience with Isaac Mendez's ability had been maddening and led directly to the death of his adoptive mother.

Sylar cocked his head suspiciously at her. Angela Petrelli had an uncanny ability to manipulate him, she always knew exactly the right words to say to provoke him into action. Still, at this moment she was thin and almost bedraggled, her usual facade broken. His first ability compelled him to find out why. He let her slide down the wall, used the puppet master's power to move her to the armchair, then released her. Angela remained in the chair, unwilling to test his patience. He stood in front of her, arms folded across his chest and a darkly skeptical expression on his face.

"Let's say I believe that you had a dream about me. Why should I care?"

"If you come with me, I'll tell you where you came from, the truth about Samson Gray and your family."

"I know everything I need to know about my family. My father murdered my mother, and he's dying a painful death right now."

"Dying?" Angela leaned forward and caught his eyes urgently. "Did you...?"

"Kill my father? No. I'm going to let the cancer do it." He was surprised when Angela closed her eyes in...relief? She reached up and caught a tear before it could touch her cheek.

"Let me explain something to you, Gabriel-"

"My name is Sylar!" He detested the leash that name put on him, reminding him that he had once been a rabbit, just like all the rest.

"As I was saying, I have been dreaming about chaos and fire – the apocalypse – since before you were born. I have lost everything important to me in order to stop those dreams from coming true."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You have always been in those dreams Sylar. I knew you would be the most powerful of us, but that it would come at great cost. I have seen you destroying the world or saving it, I can never tell which. When I found out the manifestation of your ability, the way you killed that man, I thought I knew. You must be a monster, just like your father was."

"What do you know about my father?" Sylar put his hands on her lap and pressed his face close to hers. "Tell me."

"I knew Samson Gray very well. He was a good man once, but his ability destroyed that, and so much else." She paused and met his gaze, unfazed by his invasion of her personal space. "Like he destroyed your mother, Lauren."

Lauren! Sylar pulled away from her as if burnt and paced the confines of the small room. Angela watched him the way you watch a tiger when you're in its cage. Finally he slowed and turned to her, and most of the beast named Sylar left his eyes.

"My mother's name was Lauren?"

Angela's mouth drew down, and her green eyes filled with sadness. "Yes, and she was a lovely woman. I loved her very much."

"If you loved her, if I'm so important, how did you let my father murder her and sell me!"

"Samson was always a very unpredictable man. I had a dream about what he would do, but by then it was too late. It took me months to find you. By then you were with your mother, and she seemed harmless. I wanted you to have a little normalcy in your life. I watched you all those years, and hoped it would prevent you from becoming like your father, a monster."

Sylar laughed painfully. "Well, that certainly didn't work out for you, did it?"

"No, it did not." Angela rose to her feet and straightened her clothes. "Now, if you've decided not to kill me, we should get going. It's a long way to Arizona, we should get started right away."

"Arizona? You must be crazy, Angela. I'm a very busy man, and I don't have time to go to Arizona on a wild goose chase with you."

"If you don't go, you will do something irrevocable, something you cannot get back from. You will walk in shadow for the rest of your life."

Sylar rolled his eyes and brushed by her on his way to the door. This he'd heard before, and the tune was getting a bit old.

Angela's voice caught him as he opened to door to leave. Time to play her trump card. "Claire will hate you, and she will hate you through all the long years of your lives."

Sylar stopped and straightened suddenly, like he'd put his finger in an electric socket. "Why should I care if she hates me, what difference does it make?!" Sylar snapped as he turned back to her.

She bit her bottom lip with her teeth to catch her smile before it showed. She had him. "It's up to you. But we are going, right now." This time it was Angela that walked by him towards the door. He heard her heels tap on the pavement as she started away, leaving him staring up at the ceiling with his fists clenched. When he couldn't hear her footsteps anymore he cursed and followed her.

Peter watched Angela walk out of the room alone and breathed a deep sigh of relief. His mother was alive and Sylar was not with her. A few moments later though, a tall shadow stepped out of the building after her. Great, thought Peter. Now I get to drive halfway across the country with Sylar in the back seat. Marvellous. This whole thing was crazy, but he knew better than to argue with his mother's dreams. After all, he knew better than anyone what her dreams were like. Peter walked around the car to open the passenger door for his mother and to helped her in, then closed the it behind her. Sylar stood on the driver's side, watching him.

"So, which Sylar are you today?"

"What do you mean?" Sylar asked as he tilted his head to the side. Peter was an interesting enigma for him. It was as if his ability to see how thing worked failed when it came to Peter. He supposed it was because their powers were so alike.

"I mean, I've met a lot of Sylars," Peter replied evenly as he came around the front of the car toward Sylar. "Maniac Killer Sylar, Company Agent Sylar, Big Brother Sylar, the guy who shot my Father with a bullet I fired. Which one is it today?"

"That's a funny question, actually," Sylar smiled, then struck out to grab Peter's wrist. Peter jumped away but Sylar already had what he wanted. His face rippled and he grunted in pain, then looked up and smiled with Peter's crooked grin.

Peter looked impressed, then closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. He cursed as the pain overwhelmed him, then looked up and raised his impressive eyebrow at Sylar. "Wow, that is a good one."

Peter clambered into the driver's seat, then opened his window when Sylar didn't get in the back seat but instead walked across the parking lot.

"Hey, I thought you were coming with us?"

"Stuck in a car with Angela Petrelli across half the country?" Sylar shot over his shoulder, then disabled the alarm on his newest car, a white Mercedes Benz. "Thanks but no thanks." Peter looked at his mother and couldn't really blame him.

When he got in the Benz, Sylar took up his grip on the steering wheel and wondered how many times he'd driven across the country. There was also that time he'd driven all the way from South America to New York City. He grinned toothily into the vanity mirror on the visor, watching his face settle into its own lines. I guess you have to put in a lot of road miles to be a supervillain.

***

Something hinky was going on, Noah could feel it. There was no way Danko just brought in Sylar like any other person with abilities. Danko was acting oddly, unlike himself. Something was definitely not cell phone rang, and he answered it distractedly. "This is Bennet."

Noah heard street noise and a bad connection. "Noah! Angela." As if he needed to be told, he recognized that voice all too well. He cast a look around to make sure he was not being heard. "I've been worried about you."

"I've had a dream. Do you know about what happened at the place called Coyote Sands?"

"I've heard whispers, rumours. In twenty years everyone I asked always told me the same thing."

"Which is?"

"That I should never ask again."

"Peter and I are headed there now. I spoke with Nathan, he and Claire will meet us. I need you with us. It's time everyone knew the truth."

"I just have a few loose ends to tie up. They showed me a body. Our old friend with a six-inch spike in his skull."

"Sylar?"

"So they tell me, but there's only one way to be sure."

"It's not Sylar, Noah." She sounded certain, and Noah was taken aback for a moment.

"How do you know that?" He scanned around himself again then lowered his voice. "Did you dream that too?"

Angela looked over at Peter and Sylar. They were standing in line at a hotdog stand down the street from where she spoke on one of the few remaining payphones in North America. "Because he's with us."

Noah couldn't even make sense out of what she'd said for a moment. "What? What did you just say?"

"I said, Sylar is with us." Her tone was more arch than usual, if that was possible. "Now you need to walk away, Noah, and you need to get in your car and start driving."

She hung up and Noah stared disbelievingly at his cell phone. That woman will be the death of me, he thought as he headed towards the parkade.