Chapter Twenty Six
It starts out like any other of my more recent dreams, with what I believe is a scene of the past.
Audiat struggles, screeching slightly. Her teeth are bared in a malicious grimace, her red eyes wide with terror. Both of her arms are being gripped almost lewdly by two male grim-faced male angels, and her wings splayed out like an insect on display by another pair. I notice that, if their hands accidently stray to areas on her body that should be forbidden, they do not rush to remove them.
Hovering a slight way above the struggling Audiat and her guards is Raffe, his face more cold than I had ever seen it. There is a steely glint of fury buried in his nearly black eyes, and his eyebrows are furrowed in anger.
Audiat, managing to lash out and claw down one of the angels' faces. "Why are you doing this?" she shrieks, eyes imploring Raffe for an answer, her terror lifting her high voice into shrill tones.
"You know very well." Raffe's voice is deathly quiet. "You, seductress, are at God's mercy. I doubt the Lord is smiling."
"What?" Audiat screeches, struggling to wrench her wings back. "Why do you even care, Raphael? Is this about Simon? You are inventing something from nothing! Nothing at all!"
Simon, I remember in the deep recesses of my memory, was the name Bryon took as he'd posed as Raffe's servant. My chest tightens with horror.
Raffe's face twists bitterly, his scowl deepening. "Simon has served me well these past years, you whore. Never did I imagine him being stolen from his own mind, least of all by you. I regret having to execute him a thousand times more than I regret sending you to the Pit. Have fun in Hell." Raffe waves a hand towards his men, dark satisfaction distorting his otherwise handsome face. "Do it."
My horror exceeds new disgusting levels as Audiat screams with agony. One of the angels had planted his hand square on her back and yanked his wing backwards, causing an awful scrape of flesh and bone. After having done his duty, the angel retreats with wide flaps of his speckled roan wings, becoming the audience of a gruesome display rather than a torturer.
Audiat's anguished gaze is murderous as she glares defiantly at Raffe – instead of crippling Audiat or breaking her spirit, the dislocation of her wing only seems to kindle a building rage deep in her red eyes, much like Raffe after the removal of his wings.
"You arrogant bastard." Audiat spits at Raffe. "How dare you! How dare you lay a finger on me!"
"Technically," Raffe drawls, "I wasn't the one to do it." He waves his hand again, eyes shining – though he has malice sparkling there, black as midnight, it pales to the rage of Audiat's fiery gaze.
"You are at the mercy of the Lord," Raffe intones, blinking lazily, a cruel smile pulling at the corners of his lips.
And then his angels drop Audiat.
For the first time, I get a glimpse of how high in the air Raffe and his goons had been – their wings had been scraping the stars, with a pool of blue at their feet and an ocean bottom of fluffy white clouds. My point of view tails Audiat as she falls, kicking, writhing, screaming, through the air towards the ground.
But as she spirals downwards, something begins to feel wrong – not with what I'm seeing, or something wrong with Audiat, but something in my own head. It feels as if someone is slowly sliding a shard of cold metal into my temple, slipping it through my brain. As the headache continues, my mind feels only colder, an icy-hot sort of pain. It waxes and wanes as she rolls through the sky, shrieking curses towards Raffe, but in its worst intensity, a sound resembling radio static muffles the sound of Audiat's screeches.
The pain grows as Audiat nears the clouds, and her attempts at flying frantically only adding to the agony. The cold pressure ices through my brain, and the static never ceases, half-drowning her cries. In the exact moment she passes through the cloudy blanket, my mind is clear, as if the condensation can dispel whatever is happening to me.
As a bronze blur slams into Audiat the second she leaves the downy clouds, throwing her plummet off by a few feet, the headache is slight and the static is nonexistent, allowing me as clear a view as I can receive.
The stranger, someone with bronze wings attached to their arms, locks his legs around Audiat for balance, and his hands go to her wings. Audiat bucks and shrieks, her panic doubling as the stranger grasps her wing's knuckle. She whips a single arm around, grabbing one of the man's flat, long, metal feathers, ripping it from its binding chains – considering only a dozen of the massive plates arm each wing, it might be a problem should he need to fly again.
Somehow, despite her tussling, the stranger manages to maneuver Audiat's wing back into place midair. It slides back into its socket with a sickening pop, and Audiat gasps with relief.
She pounds her beautiful red wings robustly, pausing her plummet abruptly, only a hundred yards from the ground. From this point, I see that, on Earth, a seam had split in through the plain she hovers above, an unnatural canyon of wicked, supernatural black, like an inky mouth sipping at the air. As I watch, it seems to widen, sucking up a tumbling morsel greedily.
With his momentum, the strange, bronze-winged man is tossed easily from Audiat's back, taking a fistful of the downy feathers around her wing's joint with him as he falls. Now, he seems to be struggling to fly, but without the crucial feather Audiat had nicked, he can't do anything but slow his fall.
As the stranger plummets closer and closer to the cavernous lips, the static grows at an alarming rate, my vision fuzzing and ears nearly giving out to the hiss and crackle. My head is screaming and, if I had lips, they would be amplifying its shouts. I can only muster the concentration to half-pay attention to what happens next.
Audiat lifts the bronze feather in front of her face and gives a horrified squeak, her eyes rounding with horror, and cups her mouth. "Bryon," she whispers, and then tucks her wings against her body, tipping in the air like a missile, and rocketing after him.
The stranger is so close to the Pit – and that's when things get a little bit odder. The moment pauses, like a scratched DVD, and allowing me to mull over my uncle's terrified face as he gropes at the air, desperately flapping with his artificial wings – half dazed with the icy pain drilling in my skull, I can't help but wonder if they were made by Hugo or some other genius of the time.
Though the paused second lasts not very long, not very long at all, a cold voice like an axehead being dragged over cement grates in my ears. "IF YOU FAIL." A stone fist clutches my heart, even as the events continue to unfold, this time, the static being pierced with visions, images, slowing Bryon's fall.
As he whips back his arms in an attempt to scoop the air, the static blanks out his face and instead shows little Belle, her face bathed in the red light of sunset, screeching and dashing away from something, casting glances over her shoulders. Out of nowhere, a silver sword impales her, skewering her from above crookedly, pinning the little Nephilim to the ground – it's a sword I know far too well, and, although I don't see who is wielding Pooky Bear, I can guess easily enough. "IF YOU FAIL."
The pain in my head is unbearable, the frigid pressure building beneath my bones, as if my brain is going to either freeze solid or explode.
The next image is one of my mother, sitting beyond a barricade of bodies, all of the corpses marked with her signature lipstick runes. The carcasses have no preference of species; in fact, amongst the angel and the human, I'm rather sure there's a wolf, a cinnamon-colored wolf with such familiar coppery eyes glazed and lifeless. "IF YOU FAIL."
For milliseconds, we return to Bryon and he draws ever closer to the blackness, each inch he drops bringing on the pain with more intensity. A whispering chorus rings in my ears, layers upon layers of words being uttering in the same moment, forming an unintelligible mass of hisses by the cold, grating voice.
The static flashes over my vision, bringing momentary images of burning and crying children and smoke staining a pair of snowy white wings grey before flickering back to the dancing static specks. Instead of a blatant roar in my mind, the whispers all seem conjoined, hissing murmurously, "If you fail… if you fail, if you fail…," repeatedly, overlapping and gradually growing in volume until they're practically shrieking.
Bryon falls further, his last yell of absolute terror piercing momentarily through the static before he falls quiet once more, drowned out by the maniacal whispers. The static overwhelms his face, and this time, I'm watching Sariel.
The golden-winged angel is matted with dirt and grime and blood, his shoulders hunched and his feathers dull. Emptiness occupies his once-bright eyes, as if the graves he kneels before had consumed all his soul once the inhabitants had departed from our world. A single tear leaves a clean path in its wake through the dust coating his cheeks, perhaps the only shining thing he bears. "IF YOU FAIL."
A last desperate flap scrapes the air, the lopsided bronze feathers attached to a beast pawing at the wind, clinging to the slightest chance of life. Over the whispers and static dancing in my periphery, I see Bryon's gaze fix on Audiat, so high above, silhouetted by the sun and beating her wings once more. And then, gazing up at the she-angel he'd saved from the fate he'd doomed himself to, Bryon seems to soften slightly, his bronze eyes melting in the heat of the sun. Tucking his arms – and his wings – by his side, Bryon plummets the last twenty feet with the dignity of a sacrificial Prince Charming.
Static and its grey flickers bring Paige stumbling down a snowing alley, dragging her bare feet over the ice, blanketed in a layer of snowflakes. As she trips and falls against the alley floor, the snow continues to fall, sheathing her little body in white and sealing her off from the rest of the world. Paige makes no move to rise from her algid coffin. "IF YOU FAIL."
The bronze gleam flares up with the burning sun, the reflection as bright as a star itself. It almost seems like a final farewell, that bronze blaze, winking into the sky – perhaps it reaches Audiat's gaze, so that she knows she was the last thing he saw before he plummeted into the Pit. Or perhaps he's more focused on the beautiful sky above him – the puffy clouds swirl and shift, and beyond them, the blue atmosphere seems almost surreal, it's so vivid, with the sunlight shafting through, molding around Audiat's black shape from above. Even the susurrus voices echoing in my ears cannot distract me from the elegance of such a moment, even the agony in my brain cannot detract from the beauty of a fallen moiety.
A final string of images flashes in my eyes as Bryon is slowly swallowed by inky black, each one more hideous than the last – Hugo dangling from bloody shackles, red liquid dripping down his arms. Audiat being forced onto a bed by a stronger male angel, his sloppy kisses tracing down her neck regardless of the little she-angel's struggles. Obi's head mounted on a spear behind a fat pig with a juicy red apple in its mouth, the shadows of socializing angels flickering on the wall behind it. Humans wearing only the most destitute of clothing bound in leather, an angel's whip cracking in the air, goading his bone-thin slaves forward. "IF YOU FAIL."
The final metal feather of Bryon's slips into the blackness, and my world shifts into utter pain.
Though it's a dream, the icy throbbing in my forehead feels strangely real, as if a nightmare of this potency can affect reality. The pain drilling at my temples is unbearable. Darkness drapes over my vision as if I, too, had fallen into the Pit; instead of the cold voice, a hollow ringing noise is all that one can hear. The headache grows so terrible I can feel myself screaming, feel my mouth open and the muscles in my throat straining to reach louder notes – but am I really yelling? There is nothing but the ringing in my ears and the pain that ever grows in my head, there is nothing but the darkness engulfing me and the cold nothingness that I am.
Am I dead? Can a nightmare kill a person? Can a nightmare drive a person mad? If I really am screaming, why is nobody waking me up? Is it a dream at all?
Abruptly, in the midst of the shadows and the never-ending ringing in my ears and the tremendous pain about to explode beneath my skullcap, another voice sounds, this one perhaps the exact opposite of any voice I'd heard before. I don't quite hear it, either – rather, my mind recoils from the shock of its thick, hearty bellows. Some of my headache resolves simply by hearing his booming voice, so thunderous and mighty. The regal thrums of this voice are so much more alluring, so much more powerful than the grating down below.
"YOU WILL NOT FAIL."
I open my eyes to see the black turning into static, the static turning into color. The blackness of the Pit is closing its sucking lips, sealing them once more. The splitting seam into Hell itself is stitching itself back closed, but the tear can't shut before something escapes from the dark confines.
Perhaps it had dove after Bryon when my vision had been black. Perhaps instead of Audiat framed against the sun, it'd been this one. Or maybe it'd emerged from Hell itself. Whatever had happened, I am grateful for it now.
A beast as black as the shadows rises from the darkness with sweeping flaps of his snowy white wings, rocketing from the Pit with grace and speed. His jaws clutch the scruff of Bryon's shirt, and with each flap, he carries Bryon higher, further from the Pit. Eyes as pale and blue as the vivid sky shine impassively, dragging Bryon closer and closer to the sun.
"NO!" The frigid voice returns, its furious screech bone-chilling. "FATE MUST NOT BE TEMPERED WITH; YOU MAY FAIL. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE CONSEQUENCES."
My mind had not known true pain before – now, both warm voice and cold battle one another within the tight confines of my noggin. How I am aware of this, I don't know. I simply know that one presence's company brings pain and nightmares and a hellish headache, whereas the other's brings warmth and relief from the pain dealt. The pain it causes me doesn't seem to matter to them, though – the cold voice whispers away, while the warm doesn't utter a word, but I can feel them.
I scream louder than ever. My brain is going to burst; I swear it is. After all, a bone can only hold so much pressure. The blackness has returned, the complete, pitch blackness, and both of the voices' strengths do not seem to lessen. They ram against one another with bullish tenacity, mental snarls echoing around in my skull. The two forces seem to grapple for control of me, for control of my dreams, two beasts pitted against one another in the tight confines of my mind.
It's an impasse.
Drowning in pain, I attempt to ignore the voices, the whispers, and the cries until one of them shouts out my name.
"Penryn!" Raffe's nearly desperate shout is almost enough for me to wedge my eyes open. His rough hands cupping my face, however, make me reluctant to do anything that might disturb their placement. Therefore, it isn't him who wakes me up, it's the headache and its throbbing agony. I rest my case.
Light spills into my untried eyes. I groan sleepily, a groan that quickly transforms into a wail of anguish as the headache grows a thousand times more intense. I try to curl up in on myself, to clutch my head with my hands as if I could make some difference on the pain.
"Penryn!" Bryon's shuddering sigh of relief brings back sharp memories of his plummet from the sky, and of the black beast that'd risen from the depths. "Oh, thank God in Heaven and all his goodness! Can you hear me?"
I don't respond, cuddling against the warm bare chest I've been presented to, relishing the heat it provides with its muscular arms wrapped tightly around me. Ignoring the world, I try to focus on calming the tempest raging inside.
"Penryn?" Raffe's voice husks and the chest I huddle against vibrates mightily, but his tone more gentle than I've ever heard it to be. The softness of it sends shivers down my spine and hot prickles over my skin. "Penryn, what's wrong? Does something hurt? What's the matter?"
I try to summon my head from its warm cocoon against his heart – the constant tha-thumpa tha-thumpa tha-thumpa drumbeat that keeps Raffe breathing is bizarrely beautiful, and it raptures me in a way that the conversation simply cannot compare to. However, the memories it awakens causes a tear to trickle down my cheek.
"Penryn?" he's more alarmed now, but the gentleness is the same – gentle and velvety, so soft I could sink into it. Such a relief, the soft, tender voice, after the booming and the grating. No side effects of agony, no additional torture. Merely Raffe's mellifluous voice and his gentle cadence. I sigh against him, my breath shuddering, and another tear spills over. Much to my horror, my shoulders shake slightly.
Another hand touches my arm, the fingers soft and slender. "Penryn," murmurs Hugo, "seriously, give us an answer. We need to know what's wrong so we can fix it or beat the shit out of it."
"Head," I croak into Raffe's chest, finding the words difficult to get out, as if I'd been screaming for hours on end without so much as a drink of water. "Hurts… so… bad…" My shoulders shake increasingly violently, but I bite back sobs, not allowing anything more than tears to reach the surface.
"Her head," Raffe informs. He bundles me against him, rocking me gently from side to side, his lips brushing my hair as he speaks. "Her head hurts, really badly."
"Shit," Hugo mutters, the thump of his footsteps carrying him from one side of the room to the other in endless pacing – I can hear another someone quickly exit and shut the door behind them, maybe to go get a doctor or something.
"Don't cuss in front of Paige," Raffe murmurs, one of his hands stroking hairs from my face, even the soggy ones that'd gotten caught in my stream of tears. His other hand still cups my cheek, gently guiding my tears into his chest where no one can see them.
"Why…?" I whisper, trying to look into his eyes. "You're… here…"
"Hush," Raffe chides softly, pressing me against him once more. "I came because you were screaming. You sounded like you were in pain, like you were being tortured. Were you being hurt, Penryn?"
I hesitate – then nod into his skin, still attempting to stem the tears. There had been an intruder in the dream, for sure. Two intruders, to be precise, but one had been particularly malicious, more set on waging war with the colder influence.
"By what?" Soothed by the vibrations in his chest, I feel myself relaxing with Raffe's every word, and the headache lessens more and more. "What's been hurting you, Penryn?"
"I – I – I don't know!" I whisper into his chest.
"Ryn-ryn?" croons Paige's voice. I can hear a squeak of springs traversing over the bed, and then her little hands are brushing my hair from my face with Raffe's. "Ryn-ryn?"
"Baby," I whisper, pulling back slightly to catch a glimpse of her pale skin and stitched up face. My lips quirk back in a smile at her wide, concerned eyes fringed with her long, doelike lashes.
"Bryon?" Hugo's voice sounds from another corner of the room, voice puzzled and not addressing me. "What are you doing, man, peeking out of the blinds? This is not the time to watch the sunset, treehugger."
"She woke up the moment the first drop of sunlight lit up the sky," Bryon murmurs distractedly, his voice barely carrying. "That's trademark of a demonic influence."
I freeze in Raffe's arms, stiffening with terror at my uncle's words – a stone settles in the pit of my stomach, and I am reminded of how much more aggressive the static and the voices had become, nearer and nearer I drew to the Pit.
"She started shivering," Raffe reports, not raising his voice from the tender cadence. The hand cupping my face trails over my skin down to my shoulders, and he rubs at the tensed muscles, working down my back in massaging circles.
"But it couldn't be a demon," Hugo whispers, his voice still not soft enough to be inaudible. "I mean… she's not possessed or anything, and, unlike angelic bastards, demons aren't just messenger boys."
"She's strong." Bryon sighs deeply, sounding more like an old man with a weary soul than usual. "There probably was a demon or something along those lines" – the rustle of shuffling blinds comes again and I picture him staring at the rising sun, puzzling over the orange and pink cresting over the mountains – "and she fended it off until daybreak."
"Not alone," I whisper. Raffe repeats what I'd said again.
"Penryn?" Bryon's footsteps draw him closer to me. "Can you tell us what happened? Is your head getting better with the sun? It should be, but if it's not, we need to act immediately."
"I can talk." Swallowing bravely, I pull my face from its protective cove and meet my uncle's eyes. It's not a bad alternative, and I can't help but wonder what would've happened had I met his gaze sooner – the bronze there is soft, warm, and glowing. Even Raffe's soft cadence has not the effect of the almost fatherly aura Bryon holds.
Bryon kneels in front of the bed, his cloak fluttering around his feet as he brings our eyes to the same level. "Are you absolutely certain? You don't want to strain yourself."
"Yeah." I swallow, ignoring the painful tightness in my throat. "I want to know what… what happened… why you're all here…"
Raffe's arms tighten imperceptibly around me, and he leans his face against my hair, as if my requests bring things to his memory he'd rather forget. Bryon, too, shifts his weight, and Hugo pauses from his pacing about in the corner.
"I was retrieved by Paige," thrums Bryon, the bronze power of his gaze captivating me as he speaks. "She was frantic, because you'd started thrashing about as if you were falling, and she couldn't wake you. By the time I'd reached the scene, you were still, your head clutched in your hands and your body curled around it. You were groaning lowly. It was…" The vendetta of his atypical honesty and his fierce desire to shield me from any worry plays out in his eyes, their battles sparking along the bronze gleams. "It was frightening, Penryn. Truly frightening. I couldn't wake you, and I'd brought smelling salts with me in case it'd been a horrendous nightmare of some sort."
"He fetched me about then, wondering if I knew what was happening," Hugo pipes up. The boy slips two fingers in between the blinds sheathing the windows, allowing light as golden as a sunflower's petals to spill through the cracks where they band over Raffe's skin like a tiger's stripes.
Bryon nods, the orange light haloing his head, turning his hair as bronze as his eyes. "I had hoped he'd know what was going on, what with his research. But then you started screaming."
"It was awful," Raffe admits, his lips at my ear. "You didn't stop, didn't falter even as I screamed your name, and only occasionally gasped for air. You started thrashing again, throwing out balled fists and almost hitting Hugo across the jaw –"
"Almost?" Hugo barks in disbelief, rubbing a purple spot on his face reproachfully.
"She grazed you," Raffe dismisses, not so much as glancing in the boy's direction. "Quit milking it. But, needless to say, before we had anyone else whining about broken bones, I had to… restrain you."
"He tackled you," Hug informs, still seeming miffed about the bruise. "Pinned your arms by your sides and put his weight on your knees so you wouldn't kick. Unfortunately, though, angels don't weigh much, so you managed you managed to hit good him in the babymaker a few times."
"She doesn't need to know the gory details," Raffe growls.
"So," Bryon continues before Raffe and Hugo can continue with their feud, rushed to head off Hugo's response, "there you were, screaming in terror for two hours. We all thought you'd go hoarse, but, evidently, that was not the case. It wasn't until daybreak that you stirred, awakening –"
"With this really creepy gasp," Hugo gushes. "It was like the first breath of a vampire come back to life creepy. Like – like you'd just been drowning or something. Pigeon-Bat jumped out of his skin. If I hadn't been so very, very worried about your health, I would've been laughing my head off. And I still snorted a bit. That funny."
A pause follows this remark, a pause allowing for Raffe's reverberating growl to thunder through the room, a pause to heighten the coppery competitive gleam Hugo hosts as he glares the angel down, a pause for Bryon to screw up his face and look from Raffe to Hugo as if wondering who he should aid, and a pause for me to ponder their words.
Bryon's fall had felt like mere seconds, to be truthful, the images and people moving over my vision lasting even shorter. But the time of pain, the time when I'd been submerged in the blackness of Hell – I don't think it had been hours, but could it have been? The pain, never increasing or decreasing in ferocity, could've facilely jotted out the restraints of time, or perhaps the darkness had blanketed my vision so completely I had no shadows I could watch creeping over the ground to mark the passing hours. Such a length of the torture would explain my aching brain.
Finally breaking the silence, Bryon questions, "Penryn, what happened? Just tell us what you remember."
I swallow, knowing this question was coming. "Remember when I said I have… funny dreams?"
Bryon nods his agreement, bronze lights flaring up once more. "Dreams that showed you things that happened in the past, correct?"
"It started out as one of those," I explain begrudgingly. I'm not sure I want to say exactly what I'd seen – the startling brutality of Raffe sending Audiat and ultimately Bryon tumbling into Hell still blazes in the back of my mind, frightening enough without the additional influences. Besides, in a moment of sudden camaraderie between the two, reawakening sour memories of their past relations and grudges seems unwise.
"Penryn?" Raffe prompts, cuddling me closer as if to keep me in a protective shell.
"What did you see?" Bryon murmurs, tilting his head, a companionable smile playing over his lips for the first time.
"It – it was when…" I swallow, locking my eyes on the band of muscle bound in caramel hide wrapped around me. My voice grows quiet, hushed by the uncertainty of how the news will be taken. "It was when Raffe tossed Audiat down into the Pit."
As I'd anticipated, an awkward, grisly silence coats the room in thick, tarry discomfort. Raffe's arms stiffen around me, his hand freezing on my hair. Hugo sucks in his cheeks, eyebrows shooting up, as if the boy's realizing just how sticky the situation is going to get.
However, Bryon seems unfazed by the time he'd plunged into Hell. "Go on."
"At first, there wasn't anything." I cast another uneasy glance towards the arms around me, uncertain upon whether I should try to relax Raffe or worm from his grasp. "Audiat was – she was fighting and snarling, trying to throw off the other angels. Then her wing got dislocated" – I had not known it was possible for Raffe to tense up more – "and she sort of hung there and then she… then they released her." If Raffe gets any more rigid, he'll be Pinocchio.
"This is getting awkward," Hugo mutters, shaking his head and escorting himself to a corner of the room. I can't help but agree with him – though there is no physical change in Bryon's appearance, his aura betrays his rising hackles.
"Go on," Bryon murmurs again.
"And then… as she was falling, trying to flap… it started coming." I shiver, and the movement seems to restore some of Raffe's flaccidness. "It started out sort of as a static sound, kind of…"
"Fluctuating?" Hugo provides helpfully.
"Fluctuating," I agree, smiling frailly at him. "But as she fell further, it started affecting my vision, too, with the same staticy thing. My head" – I lift a hand and press it against the ever-dulling pain at my temple – "started hurting then, like someone was filling it with ice, like a chilly headache. It hurt pretty damn bad," I admit.
"The closer she drew to the Pit, the more the static seemed to affect you?" Bryon verifies, his brow scrunched as if something isn't quite adding up.
"Well, yeah." I frown. "Yeah, I guess so. And when you fell in the Pit, it was just… awful."
"Bizarre." Hugo taps his fingers on his chin, staring up at the ceiling. "Hmm. Static is understandable, I suppose, I always compare telepathy to having your own radio station to newbies and it could be possible that there's static on some of those channels. Demonic possessions have very little to do with dreams, though, and I can't see why a demon would be affected by the dream-Pit – they kind of just turn people into zombies. Continue from where you last left off, why don't you?"
"The static seemed to sort of falter when Bryon helped get Audiat's dislocated wing back in place, midair, with his metal wings. Like the thing was shocked or something by him. But once Bryon started plummeting, everything sort of got worse. And then… well, it's weird to say it out loud…"
"I am old, very old," Bryon chuckles, smirk toying with his lips. "I would appreciate anything surprising me. Tell me in the most accurate way you can what you experienced."
"In the static, I saw things, people moving and talking, all sort of like warnings," I explain. "Many different of things. They're kind of fuzzy – I remember seeing all sorts of things, but I can't really grasp any of them. But I do remember that they were horrible, each and every one, and that they were all tailed with an awful voice, yelling, 'If you fail.' Closer to Hell, there were whispers with the same voice all overlapping and rasping out things that I couldn't hear."
Silence ensues. I half-consider continuing on my tale without waiting for a response, but Hugo halts any conclusion I dare make.
"That doesn't sound like demonic possession of any type," he decides, scrunching his face and staring up at the ceiling quizzically. "Nothing. Man, this isn't a possession, whatever it is."
"Maybe it wasn't a demon," Raffe suggests. "There are many things in the Pit, many things that might be repelled by sunlight. It's impossible to know."
"It was demonic," Bryon intervenes, "but it wasn't possession. I think I may have this figured out, but I can't be sure. Penryn, tell me, what did the voice sound like? Did it sound like someone was grinding an ice block on a cheese grater?"
Blinking at such a simple yet accurate description, I nod.
Hugo's eyes light up. "That sounds a lot like White W–"
Bryon pauses his speech with a single hand, palm lifted in a silencing gesture. "Lucius," he corrects, tone unnaturally even, eyes brooding and lips pulled back with an overall dislike of his situation. "Lucius, Hugo, it sounds like Lucius."
My heart skips a beat. "What? How?"
"That, I don't know." Bryon tilts his head to one side. "To me, it seems plausible that the demon someone received word that you were to track him down. Being the daughter of one of his past clients, he may have a particular interest in you. Or he could be trying to frighten you from your path, shaking you off his tail. Whatever it is, he was not trying to harm you, no matter what the side effects had been, and for that, I am grateful. What happened next?"
"But what about –"
Again, Bryon holds up a hand and stops my sentence. "We'll discuss after we hear the main story. It keeps things simple. I'm just putting a theory out there. For all I know, Hugo or Raphael is scoffing at me for being an idiot."
"Not really," Hugo hums, but he smiles encouragingly at me.
Feeling flustered, I mutter, "Well, there's not much more to the falling bit." I swallow, narrowing my eyes, trying to capture the precious dreams, but it's like trying to catch slippery fish with nothing but my bare hands. "I mean, you fell down into the Pit, and the pain…" I shudder. "It was awful, nothing I've ever known. That's probably when I started screaming. I guess I stayed down there a lot longer than I thought if I was yelling for hours."
"Dreams tend to have a short sequence of events stretched over a longer duration," Hugo informs me. "Doesn't mean much in your situation, but it means something, and that's what counts."
"Uh, right. Well, then… I suppose you two know what happened next, what fished Bryon and I out of the Pit." I glance from Raffe to Bryon uncertainly, still slightly afraid that the pair's tempers will combust with the help of sparks from the past.
"I do." Raffe's voice is grim. "I don't understand what happened next, but I remember it."
"Black Wolf." Bryon's voice is quiet.
"Was it Black Wolf?" I gasp. "He didn't look very much like a wolf!"
"Flying wolves don't really look like wolves," Hugo laughs. "Probably because it's against nature's laws and shit like that for a land animal to fly. They hunch over and bring their paws to their chests. Look a bit like demented bunny rabbits with wings to me. But Black Wolf in particular looks funny, doesn't he, with all that muscle an brawn bunched up like a lil bunny?"
"Yes, it was Black Wolf," Bryon answers with an amused smile and a roll of his eyes. "He dove from above even the angelic – ah, the angels, and caught me before the Pit could trap me inside. Felt terrible in there, it did, like something was fundamentally wrong with everything. But he dropped me off on the ground beside it and took off into the sky. Wasn't long before he confided in me a BS way to get rid of only male angels."
"That's right, you two were buds? Actually," I hastily correct, seeing Hugo slice a finger over his throat, shaking a violent no from behind Bryon, "just allies, silly me. Well, when the wolf thing lifted you up, I heard another voice. I dunno if it was his voice or whatnot –"
"Might've been, if it corresponded with the rising sun in the real world," Hugo speculates.
"– but he said something about how I wouldn't fail. And the headache started hurting less, going away. The other cold voice shrieked about how the future couldn't be changed or something or another, but he was fading pretty goddamned quickly. And then he was gone altogether, and I woke up here."
"That really is weird," Raffe murmurs thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't really –"
Before he can finish his sentence, a sharp knock echoes through the room, the fist emitting a sound so strong it rattles the door on its hinges. Frowning, Hugo peeks out the blinds, and his eyebrows shoot up.
"There's a rowdy crowd in the square," he reports, looking to Bryon for guidance. "All Nephilim, best I can tell, and all pretty grumpy looking. Ogden is marching back in forth, halfway between beastie and not beastie, like he's keeping them under control. The Watchers are in the air, they look like they're flying off, and there's no sign of the Wives. Can't see who's at the door."
"What?" Bryon stands abruptly, all thoughts of discussing my dream shoved aside. "Raphael, stay inside, out of view. If it's a riot, do not show your face. Penryn, Hugo, you may want to listen in."
Mind swimming with questions – could it really be a riot, amongst these friendly people? – I nod at Bryon, unfolding from Raffe's embrace to lean forward. A single one of Raffe's arms wrap around my shoulders, but otherwise, I am liberated.
With each step towards the door, he refines his expression and stance more, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw into a straight line, hardening his eyes and balling his fists. As he swings it open in response to the angry knocking, he looks more like a dragon than I'd ever seen him.
A man with stag antlers protruding from his blonde hair greets him, the man's blue slit-eyes, leonine tail angrily coiling around his feet, and hunched build portraying a half-morphed Nephilim.
"Have you heard?" he rumbles with Daine's voice, but then seems to hurry to correct himself. "Of course not, sir. Of course you haven't."
My mouth drops at the form with the claws curling at the ends of his fingertips and the neck padded with the beginnings of a furry pelt. Could it possibly be Daine? Evidently so.
"Daine?" Bryon's voice is sharp. "What the Devil are you talking about? Weren't you supposed to be fetching supplies for my niece? What's with this crowd, and where are the Watchers going?"
"The Watchers are following their wives to war," Daine dismisses, waving one hairy hand. "I was going to get something for Penryn, a tonic to ease her headache and a few books to research her ailments, but my wife distracted me with the latest report. It's on repeat on one of the radio stations. It's what's got all my people riled up."
Bryon studies the crowds intently, and I, too listen to the furious cries echoing in through the doorway's restraints. "Ogden's holding them back, keeping them quiet," he notes, observing something I cannot.
"He came with me, if you remember, to help carry supplies. He thought it'd be best if they didn't disturb Penryn, or any other of my patients."
"God bless him," Bryon murmurs graciously. "But what's going on, Daine? Enough evasion."
Though he'd been instructed not to evade the truth, Daine doesn't look all too pleased about being the one forced to deliver the news. "It's the Nephilim in Africa that has everyone on edge, sir, the nomads. You see, an angel group was authorized – we're not sure by who yet, sir – to attack a small traveling pack of women and children heading towards water for bathing. They were escorted by two warriors and two warriors only – Ashanti and Femi."
Bryon sucks in a breath, his eyes wide. "Not Femi."
Daine locks his pale blue eyes on the ground, blinking frequently. "The angelic bastards wiped out every single one of the traveling party, sir, before moving on to terrorize the larger pack of travelers. They slaughtered the women, children, infants, and… and Femi."
"Femi?" I whisper, aiming my question to no one in particular. It is Hugo who answers in a hushed tone, his face wrought with poorly concealed grief.
"Femi was who a lot of people nicknamed Bryon Jr.," Hugo explains, something astoundingly similar to tears turning his eyes shiny. "He was actually the successor of Bryon's throne, should something have happened to your uncle. Good man, Femi. Didn't deserve to die."
"This is unacceptable," Bryon snarls. "I refuse to accept this."
"And such… such is life." The heavy Mexican accent makes it extremely difficult to distinguish the words of the man staggering forward. Hiccupping, the man saunters forth, this one pint-sized and with grey mottled wings hanging crookedly by his sides. Swinging a bottle to and fro, he smiles drunkenly at Bryon. "The thing about people is that they don't get that candles can light up the darkness, but candles have wicks. Wicks. Or candles get blown out. 'S what happened to Femi. His candle got blew out before his wick was done near finished."
"Miguel." Bryon sighs, frustration causing him to clench and unclench his fists. "Go bother Emilio, why don't you?"
Miguel peers at Bryon with unfocused vision. "Wonder what people'll do when your light goes out, huh? Darkness 'gain, won't it be? Wonder if you'll reach the end of your candlestick, or if something'll…" He blows on Bryon's agitated face with spittle-flecked breath before swaggering off once more.
"Damn him," Daine rumbles, eyes tailing the drunkardbefore focusing once more on Bryon. "People are going to want an official statement, King. If not, they'll take matters into their own hands."
"And I know where that will go." Bryon kneads at his forehead. "Excuse Hugo and I for a minute, Penryn. We need to get something done. Hugo?"
Flicking his fingers in a mocking salute towards me, Hugo slinks out the door after Bryon, and slams it behind him, locking Raffe, Penryn, and I together.
"Ryn-ryn?" Paige's voice is worried – she, too, can't really follow through with events. Her hand at my shoulder tightens around my T-shirt, clenching the fabric to release her tension.
"It's okay, baby," I croon, breaking from Raffe's embrace altogether in order to wrap by arms around her. "It'll all be okay." Penryn seems grateful for the hug, and quickly returns it, looking up at me with big, inquisitive eyes.
"I don't know," I whisper, hugging her to my chest. The pain in my forehead has subsided, but the shadow of its agony still frightens me. "I don't know what's going on."
And there we sit in silence. Raffe seems elsewhere, caught in his own universe, watching the golden sunlight filtering through the blinds slowly dull into a yellow, and then into its usual white, perhaps listening the conversations outside. I, too, am caught in an imaginary realm, replaying scenes of the past in my mind of the days before all this madness. Paige is quiet in my lap, each roar of the boisterous crowd echoing from outside seeming to frighten her more than the last.
At long last, the door opens again, emitting a weary and shell-shocked looking Hugo. Raffe stands at his entrance, seeming eager for news.
"Goddamn," Hugo grunts as he enters, shaking his head from side to side. "I can't believe that just happened."
"What?" Raffe presses, stepping closer, blue eyes urgent for the updated version of things. "What happened?"
Collapsing in the only wooden armchair in the room, Hugo looks exhausted. "Well, for starters, Bryon officially declared war on the aeries of Africa and 'all those that decide to stand beside them', regardless of any prior plans. Because who needs silly things like strategy? That's one thing."
Raffe inhales sharply, and I can't help but wonder if he has archangel buddies in Africa. But before he can question further, the door swings open again to admit my uncle.
But it's not like the uncle I'm used to, with twinkling eyes and an ever-welcoming smile. His face is hard, angry, cruel, almost. He doesn't stride about with his friendly gait as he beelines to the center of the room – even his step seems more hostile, alert, ready to react to any stimuli, any at all. The bronze eyes once that'd scintillated like two disks now are dull, iced over and vacantly determined, as if all the laughter had left them.
As he studies the room, his gaze more of a glare, I find myself wondering what'd happened to the Bryon with the silly flower beanie.
"Judging by the way you're glaring at me, Raphael, I'd say that Hugo's already broken the news," Bryon estimates. It's not like his voice has changed in some tremendous way. In fact, it's honestly changed very little. But the fact that it's callus and cold at all is shocking enough for I grip Paige a little tighter to my chest.
Raffe crosses his arms over his chest and sneers silently at him.
"Well, good for you." Bryon dismisses Raffe's anger without a second glance. "Hugo, do you believe that it'd be safe for Penryn to approach Lucius even after this bizarre a dream?"
Hugo, who'd buried his head in a hand, drags his fingers down enough so that he can just see over. "Yeah, should be. Like you said, he hurt her unintentionally. Didn't really mean to harm her."
Bryon nods, eyes calculating this without emotion. "When do you think that you'll be ready to set off for Jane's den?"
Yawning, Hugo answers, "Tomorrow morning, if Scruffy doesn't have anything to do. You want me to leave that soon?"
"Daine's leading the Sercem Domu forces in Emilio's absence," Bryon informs, his cynical eyes already landing on me. "Daine will be unable to continue his research of Paige, and, therefore, staying here any longer will be pointless. The sooner you get to Lucius, the sooner Penryn and Paige can get to safety."
"Makes sense." Hugo stretches, popping a bunch of his joints. "Can you gather what research Daine's already taken and deliver it to me, see if I can have a crack at it?"
"It's already on its way." A ghost of smile softens Bryon's face for half a second before it focuses again, this time on me. "Penryn, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get moving eventually. Emilio is pretty pissed at being left behind, he doesn't know he's got a special mission yet. Nonetheless, he's ordered you meet him in the courtyard at eleven o'clock sharp, trauma or no trauma. That gives you two hours to recover. Need be, I can make him skip it altogether. Do you think…?"
"I'll be fine by then," I assure. "The headache's gone already. Let me get dressed and I'll be set. Good to go."
Bryon's warrior façade crumbles. With a resonating sigh, he walks towards me, smiling and shaking his head, expression soft as Silly Putty. "Strong little Penryn." He claps one massive hand to the top of my head and kisses my forehead, bringing on quite a bout of ambivalence. After repeating the process with Paige, he draws back, rising back to his full height.
Before I know it, his expression is stony again and he's rounding on Raffe.
"You will stay with Penryn until Miss De La Flor arrives – that's Emilio's mother. She will watch over Paige and Penryn, make sure that nothing else weird happens. I trust her and her judgment completely. You will go to Ogden's forge quickly, quietly, not causing a ruckus of any kind that may rub anyone the wrong way, and help him tinker you a sword."
"I don't need one of your steel swords." Raffe's refusal seems to silence the room even more. "The metal is heavy and the edges are dull."
Bryon's eyes narrow belligerently. "You'll find that Ogden is no amateur with his metalworking, Raphael. Don't insult him again, or else you'll be insulting me too. You need a sword for when we go to the Seraphim, or a weapon of some sort, in case things to awry."
"You can take my sword, since she'll let your filthy mitts hold her." My throat dries as Raffe continues to provoke Bryon's anger. "If things go awry, I'll either be able to use her or these." He lifts his wings slightly, allowing the scythes to slip slightly from their sheathes.
Bryon takes one very controlled inhalation, his eyes flashing with anger. Stepping closer to Raffe, he seems to grow more and more pissed with each breath the angel takes.
"Let me summarize something for you," Bryon growls through gritted teeth, "since you seem to be unable of figuring it out for yourself. After a tiring day of socialization and greetings and keeping Nephilim from killing you, Raphael, on my way to bed after a late night, I find myself stopped by both my disappointed parents. And then, after, oh, three to four hours of arguing over your life for you against two very, very convincing points of view, I drag my feet to my room, prepared to hit the bed and hopeful to get a good few hours of sleep – unlike the night before, mind you, when I was arguing from sunset to sunrise with Daine over the sense of keeping you here – when Paige staggers up, telling me that my niece was writhing in bed. Then, after several excruciating ages of waiting for something to happen, she wakes up and tells me her chilling tale, bringing memories of all the reasons I hate you to life once more. But before I have the time to brood over her dream's mysteries, all of Sercem Domu is waiting in the sunshine to bring me the news of my best friend's death and their bloodthirsty passions to bring those who'd slain their fellows to their knees. Now I've declared war on an overwhelming force with nearly no affirmed backup, no true strategy, not the slightest bit of organization, or any idea of what I've gotten myself into. If you want to start a fight, continue on with giving me sass. Go ahead, screw yourself over. I dare you."
Bryon glares at Raffe. The nickname "Dragon King" rings about in my mind as Raffe falters, edging back from Bryon's powerful glare.
"Good," Bryon thunders. "We leave at sunset for the Seraphim, Raphael, so you'd better have your blade ready by then, and anything else you plan on taking with us."
He storms from the room, cloak fluttering behind him. The sunlight bathes him gloriously as Bryon swings the door open. Pivoting back, he meets my gaze. It could be light gleaming off his bronze eyes or maybe the figments of my imagination, but there seems to be a saddened note to it, a bittersweet farewell.
My mind sears with pain, and a vaguely familiar voice rattles in my thoughts, a voice from my dream, its warm vibrating tones sounding mournful, a voice spiced with trembles of melancholy.
War is such a terrible thing, is it not, Penryn Young?
The moment we've all been waiting for: Raffe drives Bryon to the end of his wits.
After a few chapters of the calm before the storm, the toil has begun. I wanted to have a bit of Bryon sweetness before he became so utterly focused on the task at hand.
POLL: Penryn's dream held a few mysteries, but I'm here to name just a couple: What was Lucius's goal in such a thing? Was it actually Lucius? And who do you believe it was that warded him off? Is it a coincidence Penryn dreamt of Black Wolf on the night she did, with a war waiting in the coming day?
Ciao,
~wolfluvermh