Chapter Thirty Eight
Shivering, I grip the trunk of the tree, easing my butt onto the thick branch, and bundle myself up in the flannel shirt as best I can. If I trusted my balance more or the strength of this tree, I'd head up another few prongs of the tree before settling down for the night. This position in the tree isn't awful – I'm fifteen feet high, and there's no way someone would be able to spot me unless they look directly up the trunk because of the bushy leaves, plus I'm snugly out of arm's reach, so at least no one will be able to grab me from the ground and pull me down.
It's not that I'm at ease with being in the tree – I can't see much beyond the leaves stained golden by fall's gentle hand. But, unlike me, most sane people traversing woods at night have flashlights. I hadn't been able to recover mine, and, thus, navigating the tangle of brush, trees, ravines, and boulders had been difficult. After an hour, I'd decided that I needed to start searching for a tree.
I pray I'm far enough from the road to discourage anyone travelling along the road to follow the trail I undoubtedly left in my wake.
Though it may be the crisp autumn that paints the leaves and gently blows them to the ground, drying their colorful skins to husks and putting them to rest on beds of their fallen siblings, it's the winter's first fingers of influence that huffs the bitter wind and makes the trees rattle and hiss like a nest of snakes.
I huddle against the tree, praying that the temperatures don't plummet as far as they could – I don't know where I am, and I don't know if I'm in an area that gets down to freezing temperatures into the late hours of the evening. Squeezing my eyes shut and grinding my teeth, I wish for some sort of company. Instinct tells me that another warm body to snuggle against would guard against the cold much better than this tree's rough bark would.
Peeking through the gaps in the stirring leaves that bob and twist with the nighttime zephyrs, I scan the forest. I'm perched close to the top of a ridge, with the peak of the hill at my back and the steep slope before me. Though my visibility is impaired by the other trees dotting the hillside, I'd easily be able to spot any threats sauntering this way as they crossed one of the many quivering pools of moonlight that speckle the ground. No such movement wobbles over the leaves.
For the first time since I staggered away from the pair of country kids and their crazy father, I allow myself to wonder what other companions are doing at the moment. Sighing to myself, I picture my mom and Paige safely tucked into some distant abandoned ski resort, with buff Nephilim guards attending their every woe. Maybe, by now, Paige will have finished her novel. Maybe my mother finally will be calmed by having a safe place to rest, and maybe slivers of her old self will shine through. Maybe they're happy. If they're happy, then I'm happy up this miserable tree, I try to convince myself.
Hugo most certainly isn't happy. Having me disappear like that on his watch… I don't know if Bryon will blame him, but Raffe certainly will. Additionally, Scruffy's probably clinging to life by his fingernails somewhere, and it'll throw Hugo into a massive panic. Perhaps I'm having a better time alone in this wretched tree than he is surrounded by friends.
Shivering away all of my negative thoughts, I duck my chin into the collar of my massive flannel, and welcome sleep's reluctant arms. Though I don't know necessarily how long I slumber, I know that, when I am awakened by the chilling clicking of metal on metal, it hasn't been nearly enough to rest my brain and stiff muscles.
Jumping at the clack-clack-clack, I awaken with my hand already on the knife. Unsheathing it partly, I unknowingly draw the silvery blade into a shaft of starlight seemingly deemed especially for this purpose. Beneath the tree, a quick, startled crushing of leaves sounds, almost as if the creature is frightened by the flash of steel, haloed by the moon's ivory glow.
The knife doesn't maintain its fright appeal for long.
Creeping back up to the base of my tree in utter silence is a little boy in ragged clothes. My heart skips at beat in terrified recognition of the animal yet stiff way he moves, by the pale skin crisscrossed in purple along his face, and the gleam of silver between his stitched up lips.
My heart hammers in my chest, pounding against my ribcage, as if desperate to escape its trap of bone and blood.
One of the children had snuck up on me while I'd been sleeping.
If it hadn't clicked its teeth, I never would've noticed it was there.
"You weren't kidding when you said the family was ripped apart," remarks a voice darkly from the edge of the woods. Hugo whips his head around in time to see Bryon melt from the shadows, his cloak whisking around his feet in a sudden breeze that sweeps the area. Those bronze eyes burn like brands in the darkened night.
"Bryon!" Hugo throws himself to his feet, subtly rubbing his face to assure that the salty tracks his sparse tears had left in their wake truly are gone, realizing after the fact that he might've only drawn attention to them.
"Hugo." Swiftly closing the distance between them, Bryon wraps his arms around Hugo in a firm, brief hug – praying that Bryon either doesn't notice or doesn't remark, he huddles closer to the man's chest, breathing in his woody scent and relishing the scratchiness of the shirt's coarse fabric against his cheek.
"Thanks, man," Hugo sighs, not wanting to be the first to let go. "You can help him, right? He's not… he hasn't gotten any worse from what I can tell, but he hasn't… improved."
"I'll help him." Bryon pats Hugo on the back as a parting gesture, and breaks apart. "For you, I brought therapy assistance."
Hugo furrows his brow and frowns up at Bryon, but, before he can question what exactly therapy assistance may be, a thunderous chuckle echoes from behind him, somewhat strained with concern. Gasping with delighted recognition, Hugo turns on heel, gazes up at the laugher with stars in his eyes, and attempts to strangle the Fallen angel teddy bear in a hug.
"Hi," Bay greets.
"Hey, Bay," Hugo laughs breathily, closing his eyes. "Oh, man, you are perfect therapy. I'm going to have to warn you, I don't know if I'm letting you go anytime soon."
"Okay, Hugo." Bay returns the strangling embrace with a more gentle touch. "Okay."
Nervously, I drum my fingers along the hilt of Emilio's knife, contemplating pulling it completely from its sheathe. The boy paces to and fro at the base of the tree, snarling silently up at me with a metal-toothed grimace.
As far as he can see, I'm up a tree, unable to escape him – trapped prey. Perhaps he's been following me since the highway, waiting for an opportunity like this. But the only flaw in his otherwise perfect plan is that the first branch on the tree is well out of his reach, so far that, even if it hooked its fingers into the bark and shimmied up a foot or two, it wouldn't be able to grab the limb.
So here I am, the prey, safe unless I try to escape the trap.
Pinching my eyebrows together, I clear my throat, recalling how Paige had woke up in the mass of other children only after I'd called out for her. Names have power. Hadn't Raffe said something similar to that?
"James!" I shout down at him, trying to say something that rings a bell. "Thomas... Scott? Scott! Billy, Bill! Jim! Bruce! Michael! Clark! Luke! Matt! Uh... Clint... David! Tony! George, Adam, Mason! Steve! John! ...Logan?"
The boy doesn't react to any of the names I call out. He blinks slowly up at me, as if trying to figure out why I'm shouting at him.
I rub the hilt in my hand, sighing to myself. I don't want to kill the kid, especially at night, but I don't feel comfortable with him creeping around my tree. Caught in the impossibility of my situation, I study the boy as he studies me – we are both trapped, even though it's I who's up a tree. Bored by the dullness of our ongoing stalemate, I figure that he's trapped as much as I am – beneath those rags, there isn't much meat on his bones, I'd wager. People are probably beginning to become wary of solitary children, which means no more easy meals.
"You're trapped here as much as I am, huh?" I call down to him.
The boy blinks slowly again, almost reminding me of a lazy lizard batting his eyes on a sunny day.
Shivering, I grab the backpack I'd hung on a knoll and throw it over a shoulder, the branch trembling beneath my feet as I crane for the next rack of branches, eager to grow slightly higher than I am now.
"So, the people that took Penryn for an involuntary vacation…" The angel rises from the shredded up body he'd been studying, half-cocking his head towards Hugo. "They did this?"
Hugo shrugs. "I mean, there was only one party going on in this stretch of the woods."
"Do you or do you not know who murdered these people?" Pigeon-Bat questions coldly, blue eyes flashing angrily. Hugo gestures Bay back into a position of relaxation as the Fallen angel stiffens from his slouch against one of the trees.
"I don't know," Hugo answers as evenly as possible. "I was a bit more concerned with the fact that Scruffy was dying in front of me. Penryn's still out there, Pigeon-Bat. All you've got to do is find her."
"She could be running into any sort of trouble right now," the archangel snaps, raking a hand through his hair. "Do you know what a terrible shape you monkeys are in? They're acting like pigs out there. They're taking what they want. And if what they want is Penryn…"
Hugo doesn't reply; rather, he analyzes the situation with a keen eye.
Pigeon-Bat is unkempt and tousled, meaning he hasn't been thinking about his appearance much – even his spic and span wings have ruffled feathers and mud stains. Mud stains? Red mud stains? No. Some are mud. Some aren't. He must've run into trouble along the way, sometime after he heard the news about Penryn, otherwise he would've cleaned them to look organized before the she-angels. His shirt is torn in places with huge, gaping slashes that could solely be left by knives, placing humans as the one and only suspects. Beneath the angel's threadbare shirt, the silvery scars healing up only prove Hugo's point. Ugly purple bruises mottle over his fingers and beneath his nails, meaning that the fight hadn't been too long ago, and he'd hit something too hard for his meager angel fists several times; by their intensity, the bruises seem to have been afflicted a little over three hours ago, maybe refreshed slightly along the way.
Also on his hands are marks that bite much deeper than any of his bruises, red crescents still coated in crusty scabs; perhaps it's coincidence that the crescents lie exactly where his fingers would curl, or perhaps it's a sign of anger, and of self-harm to release some of that anger. Hugo guesses that the angel sought out a gang to beat up on after punching a tree or something else very hard to release some of that fury. But not all of it is gone – his voice is strained beneath its cold, indifferent tones, betraying his inner fury. Bulging in his front pocket are the voice pills. Hugo cocks his brow. He'd kept them. Interesting.
To break the awkward silence, Bryon puffs out a skeptical breath, sending the shadows on his face dancing with the liquid streaks of silver dripping over his brow. "Penryn can take care of herself. And you need to head towards Los Angeles."
"What?" Pigeon-Bat wheels around. "Why? How do you know that?"
"I've got friends in high places." Bryon tilts his head, smiling mysteriously. "A friend's tracked her down. He might be giving her the spook, but, quite truthfully, she couldn't be in safer hands. Paws, maybe."
"Cryptic," Hugo mutters darkly, watching the flash of Bryon's eyes with interest, frustrated with his lack of displayed emotion.
"Any more specification?" Pigeon-Bat urges, taking a half-step towards Bryon. "Los Angeles is a lot of ground to cover, and last time I was there, filthy things were brewing in those streets."
"Towards Los Angeles. Not there completely. And you'll know Penryn when you see her; it'll be a little hard to miss."
"Oh, and Pigeon-Bat?"
Irritation flashes in the angel's eyes as he turns back to Hugo.
"Don't beat up any more humans. Stick to trees and brick walls."
I don't trust it.
Admittedly, I don't see what sort of harm can come from the glow slowly spreading up the mountain the way a red rash can inch up an arm, but I don't see why I should simply believe that whoever is causing the inferno of gentle blues, purples, and greens wouldn't have a reason to hurt anyone with the luminescent plants. Just because Bryon's flowers are harmless doesn't mean these ones are.
Not that these blossoms aren't beautiful – I've watched it from the moment the glow had first started an entire mountain away, as if something had touched down on the distant ridge. I'd studied it nervously as it'd spread like an infectious disease over the woods, an arch of light, a beacon to anyone travelling anywhere nearby. Now that they're close, I can truly catch the smallest glimpse of the grandeur the blossoms provide – the trees' leafy hair gently ripples with soft shades of purple and blue, whereas the foliage swaying at the ground sprouts with gentle orange and green.
My heart hammers as it draws closer, uncomfortably close. If I'm right, and I very well could be, it'd be worth leaving my stuff hanging on the tree and risk the dangers of the child rather than allow whatever brings the drop of heaven with it.
It'd begun with the stars searing in the sky like brands for mere seconds before reverting to their usual brilliance. A comet with a fiery tail had streaked across the sky, the painted flare on the blackness above left in its wake lasting seconds longer than a normal one should've. The little boy had gone rigid as a board, whirling about wildly in place, his fanged mouth dropping open, as if awed. My heart had squeezed at that first sign; maybe he'd never seen a comet before in his short lifespan, and maybe such beauty to him could be a gift from God. The only gift from God I'm praying for is a way out of his trap.
Now, with the glowing beauty on our doorstep, I watch curiously as he takes trembling steps towards the glow, as if frightened to believe what he sees, yet hoping it's there all the same. Puzzled, I tilt my head as the little boy walks stiff-leggedly towards the oncoming glow.
It halts not a solid hundred yards from where he and I are caught in this trap. Flowers drift into the sky, tangles of vines twine around trees, and pollen shines fluorescently. Amongst all the light, a shadow broods at the edge, a massive black silhouette against the shimmering blossoms. The longer it stands unmoving, the more plants grow around its legs, and the denser the illuminated foliage becomes.
My heart hammers in my chest as whispers gloss the air with their thick presence, echoing without rhyme nor rhythm, all in the same monotonous voice. Overlapping, bodiless, and mostly too quiet to be comprehended, they have a haunting effect on the valley, silencing the crickets and hushing the chanting owls. The tangle of the audible words and the unintelligible don't make much sense to me – the words range from something like "My child" to "Let the light beckon" to a particularly loud amongst the quiet "Peace now unto the nighttime gales and bring forth the child."
I squint at the creature dwelling in the light. "White Wolf?" I murmur to myself.
The whispers cut off as soon as they'd began. Silence rules eerily over the forest, the only sound the hiss of wind through the trees. The quiet is broken as the boy falls to all fours, and the creature in the illumination throws out a great pair of inky black wings against the massive glow of plants, their hooked edges splaying up above the canopies and against the half moon.
One final whisper pierces the night, its cadence gentler than that of the others.
"Alex."
Gasping delightedly, the boy dashes towards the glowing lights, and disappears into their midst – not as if he's gotten lost in the jungle or like it'd swallowed him, but like the light of a candle going out, and he's gone.
Alex. That'd been his name. But where did he go?
As I gawk, not comprehending what events plays out before me, a presence seems to slide its mind against mine, almost as if it's turning to face me. Even though the plants grow and prosper around his feet, encasing him, shielding him from view, I can feel the White Wolf focusing his abasing gaze upon me.
I do not appreciate the title 'White Wolf'. It isn't a name at all. I've always liked the name Fredrick, however, so call me Fredrick.
"What are you doing here?" I cry out to him, knife braced though I'm certain it'd do nothing to harm the celestial creature. "What did you do to that boy?"
I relieved him. The poor child would be haunted by his memories for the rest of his life if I'd healed his ailments, and those memories would eventually drive him to insanity. I have seen it occur. His spirit will instead wander my Garden forever. It is better than Heaven, I assure you.
"Is that what's happening to all the children?" I whisper. "Why we haven't been running into any?"
Partially. Your patron has been slaughtering them. I do not delight in sending children through Judgment when they were not responsible for half the crimes they committed.
"Why are you here, talking to me?" I call, trying very hard to keep the healthy fear installed in my thoughts as I speak with "Fredrick" the White Wolf that put the Clockwork Angel through hell, but it only gets harder and harder, with his words massaging my fatigued brain, sliding up and down my thoughts like a cool, slithering slinky. "Don't you have business to attend to or something? Night wolf hippy shit, with dreamcatchers and voodoo?"
Am I a night wolf hippy? The amusement in the mental presence quickly fades into sharp focus. A favorite of mine was very, very troubled by your disappearance. On his behalf, I shall watch over you until the morning light chases me away and shrivels up the paradise I create. There are things beyond both our knowledge creeping through these woods tonight, things he would rather I protect you from as best I can.
"How are there things going on that you don't know about?" I wonder, screwing up my face skeptically. "Haven't you been around since, like, forever? Don't you camp out in the Garden of frigging Eden?"
I have been around since the birth of this era, a time of angels and demons, with remnants of its pasts still stuck to the world like chunks of food on an empty plate. I do not know everything.
"What do you mean, a time of angels and demons?" My curiosity gets the better of me. "What sort of remnants? What past are you talking about?"
Dragons and phoenixes, men turned to wolves, unicorns, and a boy obsessed with the world of steampunk… the hints are all there for someone who can read them. The world changes, and so do its elements, its beliefs and impossibilities. Certain variables are always present in this world of ours, but… I shall not carry you into my search for knowledge.
I swing my legs over the branch I'd been sitting on, peering through the leaves, attempting to get a glimpse of the monster amongst the luminescence. "I'd like to hear. If you're staying until daybreak, you might as well splurge a few of your most invaluable secrets. What are these certain variables that are always present?"
An amused sensation itches at the back of my mind. My favorite has already told you, Madam Young. The cycle of benevolence and belligerence is always present. No matter who embodies it, no matter who ends it at the dusk of each turn of the world, benevolence and belligerence is a constant in this formula of the universe.
"I really don't understand that."
I know my brother under the sun often does not favor Einsteins, but try, Madam Young. Do you have brilliance like your uncle seems to believe? Figure it out. For everything you get right – below me, at the base of the tree in a shaft of moonlight, a black-leafed bush grows, twisting to its fullness at an unnatural rate – a rose shall bloom. Now… show me your intelligence, Madam.
"Bryon said that… benevolence and belligerence was present in everyone, didn't he?" I watch a lovely soft pink rose burst into color below me, its gentle glow of color beautiful in the darkened night. "Oh, don't count that, it's not me figuring anything out. So… you're saying that this battle in us of good and evil is in every version of the world, right? That, no matter what, is always there?"
Consider your rose rightfully earned. That's not the objective I was referring to, however, it's certainly one rule that crosses from one era to another. But there's so much more, child. Use the information I've dropped at your feet. Not a balance of good and evil within, but rather, a cycle…
"How do you know all this?" I question softly, narrowing my eyes. "Don't you spend all your time either chasing Black Wolf's tail or playing with your flowers?"
Believe it or not, I am not actually a night wolf hippy. Even in my days as a monster, I was fascinated with knowledge. I wanted to know my future and understand my past. Every free moment I had, I'd curl up with a good book. Now, with infinite time on my hands and the resources to grovel for answers from God Himself. You shouldn't let yourself get distracted.
"You said a cycle, right?" I frown, looking off into the distance. "Like the cycle of day and night? …Am I just grasping at straws, or…?"
Another rose blossoms beneath me.
"But that doesn't make any sense," I groan, raking a hand through my hair. "With Bryon's theory of good and bad, there's always a bit of both. Night is dark and day is light. There's nothing more known than that."
Perhaps it's not night and day itself.
"You!" I realize, snapping my head up. "You and Black Wolf! Uh, well… Wherever you go, glowing plants grow, right?" He doesn't have time to respond, but the rosebush grows another bud. "You… even though you rule in the darkness, the nighttime, something meaning evil, you spread light. When you stumble up on a scene, you bring goodness, even though you're technically the element of evil."
The rose that blooms is perhaps the largest yet, its petals looking soft as silk.
Benevolence and belligerence sounds slightly less harsh. Let's use that from now on, regardless of the blatant title drop.
"So… you're really just misunderstood, or some shit?"
Or some shit. I am a devil, Madam Young, and don't you ever forget that. No matter how sad someone's story is, no matter how loving they are on the inside, it makes them just that much more dangerous. Because love, child, is an even crueler whip than that of hatred.
"And Black Wolf…" I furrow my brow, gnawing on my lower lip thoughtfully. "He's the element of light, but… because of the light, he always casts a shadow… right?"
I'm not giving you a flower for that, but it is part of the equation. I will assist your plight in telling you that hellfire is his symbol whereas mine is a blooming rose blossom. When hellfire burns, its smoke turns into dark, angry clouds overhead.
"Cloudsthat block out the sky and the sun," I comprehend, another rose bursting to life on its stalk, "and put darkness over everything! So with a combination of the smoke and his own shadows, Black Wolf represents… 'belligerence' even though he's in a sea of 'benevolence.' …How long has Bryon known about this?"
Longer than I. He maintains a very close connection to the Lord, and thus has a greater understanding of how the universe works.
"With the burning bush?"
With the burning bush. As my symbol is a blooming flower, his is a staff engulfed in holy fire.
"Why hasn't he told me about all this? Told anyone?"
He is an old man, Madam Young, though he may not look it, and he has grown weary. He wants you to find your own path, same as he did. He only tries to steer you in a direction that will not lead to his failures. To be truthful, I'm not sure how he will manage that, what with my partner looming over your shoulder.
"Okay. Okay. So the cycle is present in you two," I mull, sighing heavily. "Alright, well, why? If we're already fighting these senses of good and evil inside us, why do we need two giant embodiments that are always brawling it out? What sort of holy purpose does that serve?"
There is still room for many more roses, Madam Young, and much time ahead of us before I slip away, but no one can understand why the Lord is the way he is. Why create Heaven and then go to create Hell? Why create benevolence and then create belligerence? Why must something always be cycling, the light and the dark, why must it always be balancing?
"Can you give me any sort of answer?" I wonder.
I can. The cycle is mandatory, not only because it is what inspires men to do what is right, but because it keeps the world fresh. If things were to remain as they are for all eternity, if your seasons not to change, if your Earth not to spin, life would grow stale, and then life would cease. One cannot exist without the other, but nothing can exist without them.
"How would life cease if seasons stopped?"
The same reason that human bodies must change all throughout their lives to survive as long as you do. Change is as necessary as the heart and all her veins binding us together.
I hesitate at the wisdom in his tones, uncertain once again of just who or what I'm conversing with. "…You aren't the physical moon and sun, though, are you? Just some weird symbols meaning change, right?"
I have no idea, truthfully, what we are. But all I have uncovered in all my years point to Blackie and I being the gears that make the world tick.
"Blackie?"
He has a surreal seriousness in his tone. Blackie.
"Okay, okay," I chuckle, shaking my head from side to side. "At least you've got the good humor to call him 'Blackie' even if you don't know what the two of you are."
I wouldn't call it good humor. He simply hates the nickname, and I, being his enemy for all time, like to see him annoyed.
"The puzzle pieces are all right here, aren't they?" I cock my head, focusing on the sea of light before me. "But you and I... we just haven't put them together yet, have we?"
You haven't. I did a long, long time ago. The wolf pauses. You should get some rest. Allow your patron some time to speak with you individually. He is quite the jealous type.
"I suppose he's a bad guy, isn't he?" I realize, a foreign, unappreciated sorrow dampening my spirit and tone. "The bad guy, I mean. Hellfire… that's what ate up Hugo's brother, isn't it? Was he behind that? Has he been behind other senseless killings?"
My partner is not the "Bad Guy." Neither of us are. We are something much more. But these autumn breezes you feel around us must first exterminate all the dying, austere life around it before spring can bring fresh new plants in vibrant colors piercing through the remains of winter. In order to raise an entire new, fresh economy from an old and dying one, sometimes you must scratch the system entirely to build another. Sometimes, when a civilization has become rotten to the core and has lost their sense of right and wrong, you must abolish them to build them back up from the ashes. And that, Madam Young, is what we are.
"What are you doing?" Luther grunts uncertainly, shifting his weight as his smaller brother dances around the cavern, marking notes on frail pieces of parchment and sending information rattling into the computer screens set at odd angles from one another.
"Oh, you dim-witted oaf, you've just helped me figure something out!" Lucius cries, throwing his hands up in appreciation. "Of course she's nothing special! The Clockwork Angel is just a woman! I've been silly to think of her as anything else!"
"What do you mean?" Luther questions, hesitantly approaching a painting of a massive white wolf snarling viciously over the shoulder of Gandhi. "What is all this?" After a second, he adds, "Does Dad know about this? Does he approve?"
"Research, Luther, research, and no, Dad has no idea." Lucius rifles through folders on a dark-wood desk. "Have you ever heard the term zero? Even you've taken counting, right? All this time, I've been assuming that the Clockwork Angel has been the Zero, and she's not! Not in this equation, not in any equation!"
"What?"
"Zero is always the center of the integers. It's like gravity, best I can explain. I originally derived the term because they had to have Zero emotions, but as I figured out that we are more numbers than we are people, so it – "
"Lucius!" Luther barks, lifting his wings as a flag to the overexcited boy. "Explain slowly."
"You are so ordinary. So boring. Such a slow mind. Fine, fine fine. A Zero is the center of the balance, the perfect midway point, and can only be derived from one with the blood of both good and evil. The good and evil that rotates in this world, that revolves, sometimes needs an axis to rotate around. Most of the time, the good and evil in the world's string of numbers don't need something as powerful as a Zero to nullify both of them, because a Zero is so, so OP. Most of the time, they don't need to orbit around something to remain stable. However, with entities as powerful as I'm dealing with… of course. Of course!"
"The world isn't made of math," Luther sighs, shaking his head from side to side.
"Yes, actually, it is, and we're all variables in one massive equation. Multiple variables, actually, that are added and then subtracted in order of the things we do and the things we leave behind in the massive scheme of our universe." Lucius lifts a folder triumphantly, flipping through it without looking up. "Most of the time, though, God acts as the world's Zero – oh, please, would it help you if I used an equal sign as a better example? Making sure both sides of the equation are the same? The equal sign or the zero, whichever you prefer – it keeps the forces equal, neither force greater than the other, never beating one another, just… cycling, for all eternity, benevolence and belligerence. Oh, wait! Wait! The electron and the proton and the neutron! Perfect example, I give myself a pat on the back for that."
"And... the Clockwork Angel is not a… Zero?"
"No." Grinning, Lucius turns on heel, looking absolutely ecstatic. "She's probably not even associated with the eclipses, either, or the time travel. Actually, this book says she favors the sun, I just thought it was BS until I had an unexpected visitor walk in on me." He tosses a book with a complex title in golden lettering at Luther. "I thought she was an incarnation of the Big Man, just like the other two are practically incarnations – it depends on how you interpret them – but no! She's not even in the picture, not really. She is what drew them originally to the cycle, around and around, she is what lured them to the edges of their sanities and then she is what gave them a world of possibility. She is not what's binding them into their constant warring. She is not what they are cycling around. There is an axis, but she's not it."
"What is, then?" Luther tilts his head to one side.
"I don't know." Lucius grins, as if this is a novel concept. "I really don't! But when you think about it, whoever they are, they must be absolutely clean of emotion and completely omniscient, omnipotent."
"What?"
"Like God. To be that at that Zero position, one of utter balance… one of omniscience and omnipotence, your vocabulary words of the day... you must be like God. Not cutthroat or merciful. Simply emotionless. Instead of black or white or even grey, you must be clear, otherwise the cycle would spin out of balance." Lucius scratches at his chin. "What creature could have that mental capacity? What sort of action would make one prone to both white and black give up their emotions? What sort of creature would do that? And what are they capable of?"
"She was up all night?" Daisy frowns, watching as the little dragon paces back and forth, as if awaiting the rise of the sun so close. "Do you know what she was dreaming about? What could possibly keep her up?"
"I don't know," Thea mumbles grimly, tightening the girth strap of her wolf's saddle, "but I daresay there's something Belle isn't telling us. And whatever it is… it's terrifying her."
Penryn.
I open my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them. As the overpowering white light blazes through my eyelids, I throw up a hand to block it, but the shafts dance through my fingers, barely stopping any of the glare. Luckily, though, as the white fades into color, a pitch black shape forms between the window casting the light and I.
Two blue eyes burst to life on the black.
Penryn, you and I need to talk.
Title drops. Title drops everywhere.
Lucius, Luther, Baelan, and Fredrick the Night Wolf Hippy… suddenly, all these demons in one chapter. This makes me happy.
As happy as that makes me, I've had major stress issues with releasing this chapter, staying up all night to nitpick over every detail. I'm sorry if there actually was a big "whoops" that I missed and I wasn't just obsessing over nothing like I've allowed myself to believe.
POLL: The benevolence and the belligerence… a cycle. One cannot exist without the other. Thus the reason opposites attract... and the reason Audiat and Bryon are so very compatible. Yet here Lucius is, talking about an axis for them to be spinning around. Protons, electrons, and neutrons... thoughts on this theory and who it could very well be? Predictions, maybe?
Ciao,
~wolfluvermh