They were both content until night fell, and then Tabris started listening again, and what he heard only made him angrier. He paced the halls that night, muttering under his breath, curses in a strange language that sounded like song.
Shinji was so worried to see Tabris like that he couldn't sleep either, and he found his way to the room where the incubi exercised and sparred mostly in the hope he could tire himself out, work off the nervous energy, but also reassure Touji and Hikari.
"The Master hasn't been this upset in all the time I've been with him," Hikari said, hands clasped together. "I've written to Mari to see if she remembers anything like this."
"What the hell happened?" Touji bluntly demanded.
"SEELE, the Inner Circle, is planning something," Shinji said, holding up his hands to forestall Touji's wrath: the incubus' claws were fully unsheathed. "He has a plan, and I'm trying to calm him down, but then he listens to the air and gets upset again."
"The fallen angels and demons can speak to him that way," Hikari told him.
Shinji remembered Tabris' words appearing in his head at the opera house. He'd almost forgotten that part, between the beauty of the Israfel's singing and the nervousness of his first time out in public in a dress. The glass of champagne and demon blood might have something to do with it, too.
"I'm looking forward to it," she added with a sigh. "But we absolutely can't become demons now, not when the Master is like this, and of course you don't have the time for us to focus on training you, not when you're trying to calm down the Master."
"Do your best, Shinji," Touji said, and maybe they were friends now, because there wasn't any 'or else,' to it. "Anything you can think of that we can do?" We meaning all the incubi, Shinji was sure.
"I don't know. Do you know anyone who is good at thinking of things like that?" Shinji asked.
"Kaji," Touji said right away.
"But he's…" Shinji blinked.
"Your servant," Hikari told him, nodding. "And Leliel certainly won't mind, if it's for the master."
Kaji was there when Shinji, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, padded into the kitchens the next morning to see if maybe making mulled wine and adding his blood would soothe Tabris enough to even get in bed with him at all. He nodded at Shinji as he finished swallowing the bite of kipper he'd taken. "Leliel's looking like the cat that got into the cream," he said with a worried expression. "He was drafting a letter of invitation for Misato to attend this midnight's ceremony in disguise for one of the runners to deliver to her address when I left."
"You can eat human food?" was the first thing Shinji asked, mystified.
"Not that much of it," Kaji explained, "it's the essence of life in the blood of power that keeps me alive and lets my body continue to function, but bodies will still wear out over time if they don't eat, and I don't want to end up a walking skeleton. I wish Leliel had told me that a little earlier," he said, rolling back a sleeve and looking at the muscles of his forearm worriedly. "At least it's replacing itself fast."
"Will you be alright?"
"Mind asking Tabris that? Later," Kaji added. When the devil was less upset. Kaji would rather not get any closer than he had to get to a furious King of the Underworld. "Did you know that there's a storm over your grounds? It sprang up two days ago and hasn't left."
"No?" Shinji said. "The sky is blue in the courtyard. I think you were right, about the windows being enchanted."
"The house has to be enchanted, if you haven't heard all the thunder. I've lost all my sources, which is how I lost the arm, but-"
"You lost an arm?!"
"I had to tender my resignation to Her Majesty's Government," Kaji explained. "It was one thing to employ a sorcerer: plenty of precedent there. But one of the undead who can have their free will removed and become completely obedient to the prince of hell at any time should really not be anywhere near any of the people I'm sometimes called upon to guard when they're somewhere riflemen are a possibility. Unfortunately, I know enough that, well, things got a little hairy until a certain Sir arrived and reminded them that dismembering my body, putting a stake through my heart and burying my remains under a crossroads wouldn't do any good when my soul would just end up you-know-where. I mean, I'd told them that, but I'd already got through telling them that they really shouldn't trust me anymore."
"I'm sorry," Shinji said, bowing his head. "It's because of me, isn't it?"
Kaji laughed, and reached out to ruffle his hair. "It's because you couldn't be in two places at once, boy. Both Keel and the w-" A slight pause. "The woman you brought back let me know that they demanded I acquire you for them. I couldn't deliver you to both of them, and whichever I didn't bring you to would have felt slighted and had me offed. I knew I was a dead man walking when I got the first of the orders. Taking you to Misato was the best option."
"Because she wouldn't do anything to me that Master Tabris would torture you for," Shinji knew. "Do you remember what it was like, being dead?"
"Like being in a fishtank," Kaji told him. "Waiting for someone to scoop me out. Except I couldn't see anything. I'd say it was like the womb if there was a heartbeat. I don't think I got as far as my final destination before your Master brought me back, though." He frowned, but, "Regardless, apparently before Ritsuko shot me she told Maya to flee to Misato for safety, so no one else would scoop her up. Maya's been by here and a few other places doing alchemy, and she heard that it's not Ramiel who's responsible for the thunder and lightning there. So either it's Tabris or, well," Kaji looked at the ceiling. "You know who. Can't say any of his names anymore."
"My mother asked for me?" Shinji said next, and Kaji winced: it looked like he'd hoped Shinji'd missed that part.
"That's… not something to be happy about," he told Shinji. "Your mother, well, she's Keel's daughter and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Sorry to break it to you, kid, but trading your soul for someone like that? You got ripped off."
"No," Shinji said. "I'm happy I belong to Master Tabris now. I'm just glad she cares I exist. I don't care what she wanted to see me for, just that she wanted to see me."
"Well," Kaji said, feeling in a coat pocket habitually for cigars that couldn't be smoked on Master Tabris' estate, when their master was utterly disgusted by the things. Possibly because tobacco was used for pagan holy ceremonies? If they had any effect on an infernal being as powerful as Shinji's Master. "I care about whether or not England is about to be invaded by the Legions of Hell. I don't know how long I'll continue to care about the fate of my country or the world, and that's in your hands."
Shinji was taken aback. "I don't want to take away your free will, Mister Kaji. And I don't want Master Tabris to kill people, either. I don't think he's angry at anyone who doesn't deserve it."
Kaji didn't look any less worried. "Either he's mad enough to bring down the heavens on his entire estate or heaven's pretty damn near to coming down after him. And I couldn't warn anyone. Except you, apparently." Which was a relief. "Misato's going to come tonight, I know it. With Maya. If only to try to spring Ritsuko. And not many of the Circle believe in due to the dead. When I went to cash in a few favors owed, I got reminded that I'm not my own man, or probably not even my own self, anymore, and they didn't owe any debts to you and I can't exactly claim that Leliel will call them to account if they don't treat his servant with the proper respect and pay up what's owed."
"Ritsuko's here?" Shinji was surprised. "After she shot you?"
"In the nicer area of the holding pens," Kaji told him. "Where they put the prisoners that matter. Same area you were in, from when Gendo arrived until the ceremony started, just to be sure that Keel wouldn't try anything with a compatible new body that close by. She's not a sacrifice, but they also use that for sorcerers awaiting trial, since it's heavily warded. Not even an alchemist's elixirs would work to get her out of there."
"I don't know what I can do," Shinji told him, and then realized that was a lie. "I should try to ask Master Tabris to have mercy, but he's so furious right now."
"Believe me, I don't want him reminded that she exists right now either," Kaji told him. "I don't know what you can do either, kid. No one's ever been in the position that you're in, except for the fallen angels. Leliel's jealous of you, and I've heard that Israfel is too."
Shinji nodded. Makoto was, even if Cecelia was very nice. In hindsight, he saw what Tabris meant: they really had protected her from the world, allowed her to stay innocent, to believe that the world was made up of mostly kind people.
"Speaking of which, why the seven lamb's horns?" Kaji asked.
"They're lamb's horns? Master Tabris asked me to wear them," Shinji said, touching the right one. They didn't itch any more, but they weighed on his head like a crown, and left him feeling a little self-conscious when he remembered they existed.
"And you don't know what that means?"
Shinji shook his head.
"I would tell you," Kaji said, "except it seems I can't. Which may mean that I've guessed correctly."
"Can I order you to tell me?" Shinji asked. "Since I'm your master."
"I don't know." Kaji was worried. "I was ordered not to tell their secrets, and now that I've had a few days to think about it, I can tell that they took away the part of my free will that used to decide whether or not to say things like that. Now, when it comes up, there's no decision to be made. I'm just not going to talk and that's how it is. Right now, I can't consider whether or not I'd tell, but I can consider whether or not I'd obey an order from you. It's not the same kind of inevitability. I haven't lost the free will to choose to disobey your will." He didn't want to lose it.
"If you had to obey someone," Shinji asked, "Would it be Misato?"
Kaji looked startled. The idea of choosing who to obey? He'd been an agent of the British crown, a familiar to a few good people trying to at least protect Asuka from being enslaved and used as they'd been, but Misato? "I tried to propose to Misato once," he told Shinji. "I didn't have the courage. Too much chance that I'd die, and then she'd lose one more person. Better to be unreliable than have her rely on me, when I was only going to let her down. It… wouldn't be bad," he told Shinji, his eyes distant, "but I couldn't…"
"Would you like to give him to Misato?"
Shinji almost looked around to see where the voice was coming from. "Can I?"
"Look inside him," Tabris told him. "Not the body, but the soul that inhabits that base flesh. There, on the forehead, that place where the surface is scratched, whatever was once written there long since erased. Inscribe Misato's name."
Kaji dropped his fork, eyes widening. Suddenly overcome with guilt, for just doing what Tabris showed him, obeying his Master without thinking about it or asking Kaji first, Shinji reached out again and scored out the mark. Kaji looked horrified, whirling on him desperately. "Put that back!" he cried, and Shinji did.
The older man braced his hand on the table, caught his breath. "Thank you," he said, and stood to go.
Shinji let him go, watching him as he just left, without even giving Shinji any advice on Tabris.
"That is what Iruel did for your friend Kensuke. I simply give the incubi a few instructions there, and not my name itself. Mari bears Asuka's, as she wished: your father bore his wife's, until she died. Losing their purpose is a horrible thing for… humans, and normally they come to hate their controller, when freed, for offering them a purpose and then cruelly taking it away from them. Your father reinscribed his Mistress' name."
"Am I… Am I writing your name there?" Shinji asked, drawing in a breath.
"You don't have a space like that. You… but, tonight." A hint of smugness in the affection he felt coiling around them, and then the sense of Tabris departed.
At least triumph made Tabris feel a little less angry for awhile, but even though Shinji was nervous, he was really looking forward to that night. It should all be over, after that.
Unless a war started. But for how long could mere humans possibly oppose God's most powerful creation?
"I lost my free will," he told her. "But it was going to happen anyway. I could feel it eroding. What was terrifying was that part of me wanted it to erode, just so I had a purpose. 'A man can not serve two masters.' But Shinji gave me to you." She could see the relief, the inner peace, in every line of his body. His eyes, when he lifted them to meet hers from where he knelt at her feet, were full of dreamy adoration, just like Maya's when Ritsuko first bound her because one of the cult members' sons had already hired detectives to check out her family background and it was better than the alternative.
Misato didn't need to hear Maya's dreamy sigh in the background to know that she thought this was romantic. That she was genuinely happy for Kaji.
When it was all Misato could do to hold back tears. She was the one who had dragged him into this. In the end, the responsibility for his sacrifice rested with her. Just like her father.
Damn them both, she might say, if that weren't the very issue.