Option two
He stood there with a simple smile, black boots squeaking a little as he switched from leaning on one leg to the other across the deck from me.
I scowled at him, trying to recall anything Harry might have said about a Jake or "Mr. Sunshine." Nothing came to mind.
"Let's say the name issue is resolved, and I'll call you Jake. I don't suppose you'd so easily reveal what you are?" I said, ready to throw the knife at this dream invader and kick him into the backyard if he so much as breathed a threat.
My back tensed, and I struggled to form a plan. I'd never been approached in a dream before. Surely wizards had preparations for this kind of thing, but all the millions of dollars I poured into defending the manor, and I had never once thought to protect my dreams.
Jake put the rag in his central coveralls pocket and wiped his forehead. Polishing my deck rail was perspiring work.
"I'm not here to keep secrets, Lady Raith. What I come to offer you is offered freely indeed. So, information and choices I will place before you. Accepting either, well that's up to you," he said, smiling.
In the backyard, a blue jay started to call, and I didn't know if that was my subconscious or something he was doing.
"Lovely home you have here, by the way," he said. "Not much you could do to keep out an archangel if I wanted to show up. But I figured a dream was the easiest setting for me to speak with you for a brief time."
I clenched the knife tighter and bared my teeth at my dream invader. A fucking archangel? There was no way he was serious. And yet, how could I prove or disprove his claim.
As if sensing my disbelief, Jake popped his shoulders, and his eyes luminated a shade of gold that no sun could match. My patio began to creak and my table rattle as some shape began to form under my dream invader.
Looking down, I saw the shape take form.
Wings, I thought, gasping and feeling a fresh terror fill my chest. I hadn't been this anxious since the War for Chicago. And this was an entirely different kind of fear.
I watched as the wings took the form of a shadow outlined in gold, the same shade as Jake's eyes. The wings fluttered as they grew, creeping across the deck to fill 15 or 20 feet of space, boards groaning as if under the weight of some holy burden they weren't worthy of carrying.
And I knew Jake's words were true. The hideously absolute truth of his words carried such enormous weight that my mind began to skip like a melted record on a turntable. I couldn't hold the knife anymore, and it clattered to the ground.
I was paralyzed by the Heavenly power displayed before me, and the most terrifying realization hit me at once. This was just a portion of his true power.
Fuck, I thought, unable to cure in front of the holy messenger.
Just when my head started to hurt from witnessing such an indescribable splendor, it was gone. Within the blink of an eye, the custodian again stood before me.
He walked over slowly, and I didn't move. Was he here to smite me? Did he believe I posed some threat to Harry, and he'd arrived to eliminate it? Surely he could do it with a mere thought. But wait! That didn't make any sense. Didn't beings like this operate with such tight rules to bind their power?
When Jake finally made it over to me, I noted he smelled of cleaning chemicals and cheap deodorant. His angelic presence was gone, but I knew his true power was just below the surface.
The man bent down and picked up my knife, putting it back on my plate.
"May I sit?" he asked as if I could stop him even if I wanted. And yet, even this question represented a majestic truth in his words. It was a choice. He was asking me to choose if he'd sit or remain to stand.
I just nodded, and he pulled out the chair across from me.
"You see? If I'd done that in your actual house, it wouldn't still be standing," he said, sighing with relief getting off his feet. "And I knew you'd need proof only your subconscious could handle, even if only for a mere moment."
"Okay, so you're an archangel. Calling you Jake now seems a bit strange," I said.
"I said I'd give you more names to choose from if you wanted. My angelic name is Uriel," he said, again staying true to his word. It was all about choice. . .free will, I realized.
I nodded and sat up in my chair a little taller.
"Are you here to smite me, Uriel?" I asked. "Why else would you visit the dream of a monster like myself?"
The archangel smiled and looked up as though he wanted to appreciate the fake sky my dream generated above like it was the real thing.
"No, Lady Raith. I'm not here to smite you," Uriel said, chuckling. "I'm here to offer you a choice."
When I waited for his next words, Uriel gave me another simple smile.
"Is the choice something like, 'worship the White God' or perish?' Because I'm going to let you in on a poorly-kept secret. I haven't been to a church since I married Romany," I said.
Uriel shrugged and shook his head.
"No. I'm not here to convert you. That wouldn't be much of a choice, would it?" he asked.
"And yet in the centuries of my life, I've seen mortal after mortal offer that same choice to their fellow man, often with the result of shame or bloodshed," I said.
There was a pain in Uriel's eyes all of the sudden like he lamented my words. As though in one moment of time, he'd looked at every single individual in history who'd perished for refusal to convert their faith. And in that second, he shed a tear for each of them. It was yet another terrifying display of magnanimous, yet enormous power.
"If you wish to discuss philosophy, Lady Raith, I'm happy to do that. Though I confess that's not the primary purpose of my visit," Uriel said with so much patience a small pit of shame formed in my gut. I'd tested someone willing to weep for all the wrongdoing in history.
I listened for the demon's voice inside of me because I suddenly realized it'd gone silent. And I heard nothing. It was an abyss of stillness.
"What are you visiting me for?" I asked quietly, well aware of that abyss within. "Is this about Harry? You mentioned him earlier."
Uriel looked like he was debating himself for a moment and said, "Not directly. Though he's somewhere in the ballpark, I believe is the human expression."
When I said nothing, Uriel continued, "You asked earlier why I'd come to visit the dream of a monster."
I nodded.
"So I wanted to ask you something. Do you enjoy being a monster?"
This wasn't a question I expected. In Uriel's presence the memories of every person I'd ever fed on and killed appeared before me. I'd enjoyed most of it. Some of it was merely what I'd file in the "had to be done" pile. But to an archangel, no doubt it was all some flavor of sin.
"I'd say I enjoy the perks of being a monster," I said, and there was a portion of honesty to those words.
Of course, Uriel knew this. He'd been here since creation. I'd be stupid to think he wasn't familiar with the nuanced dance of truth and lie.
"What perk do you enjoy most, Lady Raith?"
And I thought long and hard about this, scowling. Why did I put so much effort into answering such trivial questions? Because I didn't think it proper or respectful to waste the time of an archangel that could toss me into a sun at the farthest edge of the galaxy with a mere finger.
"It's power. I enjoy being powerful to take what I desire and maintain all that I have," I said. "The money, the ability to shape my family's path forward, the success I've earned, it's all thanks to my power being a monster gives me."
If I figured the angel would be offended by such a disgusting truth, I was surprised to see he didn't even flinch. Maybe he appreciated my honesty.
"What would happen to you if you lost that power?" he asked.
I know he watched as a pale look washed over my face. Was that the purpose of his visit? To rob me of my power? I started to shake again as an ashen expression took control. No. I wouldn't let him. I was Lara Raith, goddamnit. No angel was going to come into my dreams and rob me of my hard-earned rewards.
That was one layer of thought on the surface. But under it, quivering words asked all sorts of terrifying questions like, What would happen if I was powerless? Who would kill me first? Would my father see the opportunity immediately? My sisters? Truly I struggled to imagine a more horrifying fate.
Uriel put a hand up with a soft touch or someone who could obliterate the planet with a wink of his eye.
"I'm not here to rob you of your power, Lara. I just wanted to ask the question to arrive at a deeper truth, one you'll need before I offer you a choice," he said.
Suddenly thirsty as though I'd been stumbling through a desert for weeks, I looked around the table for a glass of water. Surely, one was there. My dream wouldn't make me breakfast without water nearby, right?
A glass of water sat near Uriel's side of the table, and he handed it to me. I downed it. It helped a tiny bit.
"I imagine that terror has been with you since you were a girl, Lady Raith. That would make your fear centuries old. It's quite a burden to carry," he said.
I shook my head. Did angels feel fear? Surely not with as much power as they carried. All it took was the thought of an angel stealing my power to pull up memories I buried as deep as my abyss went. He'd pulled them up easier than Harry had pulled my shreds of humanity to the surface.
It all started with a boom. A bedroom door was thrown open and slammed against the wall so hard the frame rattled. And in walked a powerful man, long before his hunger had been kneecapped. This man brought me into the world, he'd remind me. And he worked tirelessly to put me in the one place he thought I belonged in this world, beneath him.
Raith women all carried similar trauma of being violated from a horrifyingly young age by the patriarch of the family. Harry had helped me finally turn the tables on that rotten bastard and placed me at the top of the family. But being at the high end of the totem pole didn't erase my pain. Scars aren't undone by the spoils of war. All those rewards did was distract me from them for a time.
With the thought of my power gone? I heard his voice rising, "Get over here, you sow. I'm going to put purpose into you so you understand your place in this family and what that means for your entire prolonged life."
And then he took me. That was what it meant to be powerless in my mind.
When I looked up after that horrifying memory ended, I saw Uriel on the verge of tears again. But I was a monster. Angels did not weep for the likes of us. And yet…
Surely he knew of my past, being an omnipotent archangel. He knew how deep my scars ran and exactly where my terrorized mind traveled when he mentioned powerlessness.
"You know what would happen to me if I lost that power," I sighed, much paler than I realized taking another drink and looking at my arm as I held the glass to my lips.
The archangel nodded and didn't have to work hard to find his next words.
"Your need for power is rooted in your desperation to survive, Lara. And later on, your need to protect your brother," Uriel said. "I'd never ask you to give it up."
When I'd managed to cease shaking for a moment, I stopped and took a deep breath. Why would he be asking me about power if he didn't intend to take mine?
The angel gave me a smaller smile now.
"You used your power to survive, Lara. You used your power to protect Thomas as he grew. And now I see you've offered your power to protect Harry's daughter," Uriel said.
I sneered a little at that. I hadn't offered Maggie any such— well, maybe I had. I remembered the piece of jewelry I gave her. But did my offer of protection extend as far as it did for Thomas? What was I willing to do to protect Lara?
"You've done awful things with your power, Lara. But I've also watched through millennia as people shackled with darkness are driven to damnation. I'm going to offer you something, not a pardon for past sins, but the opportunity to do better going forward," Uriel said.
The demon inside found a little space to stir at that. And there was a bit of pride, the thing that I'm sure Uriel watched one of his comrades fall from Heaven over. My skin paled, and somewhere I found the audacity to growl, leaning across the table.
"I am Lara Raith, archangel. And I make no apologies for the way I've lived my life. I don't seek a pardon from you or your White God. I've gotten where I am today by being merciless and cunning. And I carry no shame in that. So you can take whatever redemption you're offering and leave my dream space," I snarled.
And in the space where Uriel should have obliterated me, leaving nothing but ash in this dream and back, in reality, nothing happened. When someone has been around since the dawn of existence, I suppose nothing surprises them anymore. Or it's that much more difficult to get a reaction from them.
"How much of that was you talking, and how much of it was your demon?" Uriel asked with renewed patience.
I suddenly found the demon resoundingly quiet again and couldn't offer anything close to the truth. I just shook my head, suddenly exhausted, which I didn't know one could be in a dream.
"You come with some intelligence, and you come with some aggression. You're deadly, and you don't hesitate to bare your fangs at things much stronger than yourself. Honestly, Lady Raith, you're a match made in Heaven for Harry. Forgive the word choice," Uriel said, smiling.
I shook my head and looked at the sky above as a few crows circled my property, trying to figure out if they could land here safely given my outburst.
"Maybe I should have been more clear upfront, Lady Raith. I want to offer you power because even if you won't acknowledge your ultimate Creator, you can still serve His plans," Uriel said, touching the glass I'd been drinking and creating more water inside.
Placing it down on the table without a drink, I sighed and looked down at the deck. Then I chuckled and said, "What would you have me do, Uriel? Become one of your Knights?"
The archangel smiled and shook his head.
"Heavens no. I've actually created something new that I want to offer you," Uriel said, pulling out a golden coin and holding it in his fingers. It glowed a more muted shade of splendor than his eyes had earlier, but I found my gaze drawn to it all the same. There was warmth in this token, faith, and all the goodness I'd never had present in my life.
"What is that?" I asked.
Uriel looked at the coin, which contained a carving of wings on the side facing me. And he asked, "You're aware of the Denarians?"
I nodded. Of course, I knew of them. I had files down in the basement on each one of those ugly bastards, did business with one once upon a time.
"Thirty coins, each bonded with a fallen angel. And for thousands of years, they've plagued the goodness of mankind. Through the centuries, the Knights of the Cross have fought them here and there, sometimes taking on heavy losses. As a smart woman like yourself probably already knows, the Knights haven't been at full strength for a little while now," Uriel said.
"So?" I asked, not out of carelessness, but wanting him to get to the point.
"So Heaven is introducing something new to counter them. And I want to offer you the first one, Lady Raith. Infused in this coin is a minor angel, equivalent to the demon inside you now in terms of power and ability. If you took this coin, your inner demon would fade over time, and the angel would provide you strength and endurance when you needed it," Uriel said.
I shook my head in disbelief.
"You think I'm going to let you possess me with an angel? Rob me of my free will?" And as soon as I'd said the words, I regretted them. For I suddenly remembered nothing was more important to the archangel across from me than choice.
The table rattled as his wings briefly reappeared around me, and a splitting headache formed inside me as Uriel's eyes began to glow much brighter than the coin he held.
"I have never and will never seek to rob you of choice, Lara Raith. I've come to your dream clothed in the armor of free will offering you a choice for something different. Do not test me or the Lord who sent me by accusing us of plotting to supplant your will again," he said in an entirely different one, one that shook the very foundation of my dream, my subconscious.
Madness from the raw power before me threatened to swallow my mind, and it was preferable to facing such raw Heavenly splendor before me. Yet I feared even madness could not hide me from Uriel's frustration if he sought me out with even an ounce of purpose.
I don't know how long it took for his wings to fade or my breathing to return. But after minutes or years, they did.
"Forgive me, Uriel. All my life, others have sought to control me. My father did it for the longest time. I suspect Queen Mab seeks to control me as well. For a time, I worried even Harry had the same intentions, but he's proven otherwise lately. Do you want to know what I am without power, archangel? I am without means of control, and I feared you were just another who sought that," I half-whispered.
And suddenly, there was that look of understanding or pity on Uriel's face again. How did one cycle between smiting and sorrow? I'd never understand.
"Lady Raith, if you take this coin, you will not be left without the means to control your life. Wielding a Beacon of Light is nothing more than the power to protect yourself and others you find yourself inexplicably wanting to defend. Taking this coin is a choice, and there are pros and cons like there are to every choice in life," Uriel said, looking at the coin in his hands. From this angle, I saw the back contained the carving of a simple star, radiating light.
A few seconds of silence grew between us before I worked up the will to ask about said pros and cons.
"The demon you carry inside grants you strength to use however you see fit. But it also demands your attention and fills you with the inescapable desire to feed. It's the number one thing that leads you to kill. The Beacon of Light would only offer you greater strength in defense of yourself or others. But the coin does not drive you to kill to replenish it," Uriel said.
Those were some serious tradeoffs to consider. Not having my full strength at my command for any purpose was terrifying. But to never again know that demonic hunger. . . well, that inspired something entirely different inside of me. And I suddenly felt like the light had come on the room to reveal the place where I'd been standing in darkness my entire life was, in fact, a prison cell.
And maybe holding that coin, I wouldn't be stuck looking out the window. I could be outside that window.
"My longevity," I said.
"Would remain intact. As the Denarians do not age, neither do wielders of Beacons of Light," Uriel said.
"My. . . family. If I'm no longer a succubus, I couldn't lead the Raiths," I said.
"Leave control to one of your sisters. Elisa is every bit as driven and nearly as cunning as yourself. I've no doubt she'd keep the White Court moving without you," Uriel said.
I finally got thirsty again and took another drink of the water Uriel had placed in front of me.
"What of the Winter Queen's bargain?" I asked.
Uriel shrugged. It was strange, I noted, to see a cosmic being with so much power express such a free gesture.
"I suspect you could argue the bargain was to ally the White Court and Winter Court. If you're no longer a succubus or a member of the White Court, to me, that screams null and void," Uriel said with a grin.
I shook my head thinking things through.
"The queen would just marry off Elisa to Harry if she took my place as head of the family," I said.
"Would that bother you?" Uriel asked.
I started to affirm that but stopped myself. Because admitting such a thing was terrifying, only second to Uriel's raw power that I'd seen twice in this dream now bordering nightmare.
"There's no way she'd allow this. The queen would stop me," I said, looking away from the coin.
Uriel frowned, not at me, but my words.
"Lies, Lara. She can't control you. An alliance is not the same thing as a dominion. You did not bargain away your free will. It merely works to her advantage for you to think so," he said.
I found a strange reassurance beyond my ability to put into words when I listened to Uriel say that. It was like he offered me a piece of myself no one else could touch. Was that the power of free will?
"Looks like our time is about up. You've overslept, and it looks like you have a new choice to make," Uriel said, leaning back in his chair.
Fear strode through me again, and I frowned. What was he talking about?
"Your future step-daughter is in danger, Lady Raith. I'm eager to see what you'll choose to do about it," he said.
And without warning, I bolted awake in my bed. A loud clap of thunder boomed outside the manor, I was sweating profusely. Rattling obnoxiously on my nightside desk was a piece of jewelry identical to the one I gave Maggie.
My brain realized Uriel's words, and it felt like lightning struck my head. She was in danger, and my choice was obvious.
Grabbing a couple of knives from under the bed, I clothed faster than I ever had before and ran down the stairs.
Maggie called for help, and goddammit, I was going to answer.