Chapter Forty Four

Audiat sighs with relief as the other end of the phone picks up, the receiver of her call releasing a sleepy "Mmmm" to alert her of his attention.

"Hugo," Audiat gasps. Without pausing, she rushes forward, eager to get everything out before a nosey angel inevitably knocks on her door for some sort of clarification. "Listen, I don't have much time – tell Ariel to host her meeting sometime within the next two days, to have Satan walking around the halls at the banquet I've been forced to host on Raphael's behalf would be catastrophic. Also, I'm hosting a banquet for Raphael – or he's hosting a banquet, whatever. In three days, I'll be heading your direction with a party of selected angels, and on the fourth day, we'll arrive so long as everything goes without trouble. Prepare the archangel. Make sure he knows all of his – and our – political focuses. I texted you all the details, everything I said and hinted at in the little political meeting I hosted, so please, pass that on to him and explain everything.

"Also, we're going to need Bryon's help." Audiat pauses for half a second. "Tell him to lessen up on the Horse, to allow it to progress slowly and steadily over the USA in a threatening manner. We want this thing to appear at a scheduled time an hour into Raphael's little lunch party, with enough drinks to loosen even his most fierce competitors up a tad but not enough for them to get completely wasted, and have him approach the aerie, rearing and shit. We'll then need Bryon to jump in and – hopefully – finish off the Horse then, at last ending its reign of terror, then have him acting out retreating from Raphael after Wrath of God descends with all his… wrath. He'll march backwards, roaring threateningly at Raphael while backing up, and fade out of sight eventually, as if he'd turned and fled or something. Make sure he gets all of this, unabridged, okay?"

"I'll do my best to pass it along." A massive, exhausted yawn sounds from the other line, causing Audiat to freeze in place. "Anything else, beloved?"

"Bryon," Audiat breathes into the phone, her wings trembling nearly as violently as her hands.

"Yes, Audiat." Concern pierces through the raspy cadence of fatigue. "Do you need a bag? You sound stressed. Is something wrong?" Anxiety begins to tip his words rather than simple curiosity. "Is someone there with you? Are you being threatened? How quickly do I need to come?"

Audiat leans into the phone, wishing with all her might that instead of hearing Bryon's voice for the first time in hundreds upon hundreds of years, she could be hearing it through his chest, feeling the vibrations against her cheek as his words wrap around her like melted butter. A single tear travels down her cheek, and she claps a hand over her mouth to silence her sobs.

"Audiat?" Rabid fear banishes all hints of sleepiness from his voice. "Audiat? What's wrong? What's happened? Are you alright? If you don't respond in a few seconds I'm hightailing it over there, Horse or no Horse."

"Oh, God, Bryon." Audiat's voice cracks embarrassingly. "I wish… I wish you could."

"Audiat," he sighs with relief, her name long, guttural, drawn out like a solemn prayer. "You scared me. Audie…" He sighs and falls silent, and, in that moment, Audiat gets the sense that he's leaning against the phone as well.

"I wish I hadn't dialed the wrong number," Audiat whispers, another tear rolling down her eye. "Bryon, I wanted… I wanted to be able to see you and call your name and realize you were there without ever having to hear your voice. This isn't… I didn't want it to… I was going to show you that I remember what you look like, Bryon. I do."

"Hush, now," Bryon soothes, sounding weary. "Shh, shh, shh, don't cry, I can't wrap my arms around you, which was what I was going to do. But that's okay. I've missed your voice." Audiat catches the sound of him swallowing. "In a way, I suppose I'm glad we're not meeting face to face. I can't remember the last time I've cried – this is the sort of hold you have on me, dearest."

"Are…" Audiat clutches at the phone with both hands, sinking down onto an uncomfortable armchair for support in her weak knees. "Are you alright? Why aren't you out fighting the Horse? Not that I'm pissed about it, it's just…"

"I understand." Bryon's exhaustion begins to register in his words, as if he's only now remembering how tired he is, too. "I need a pit stop. Refuel. Power nap. The Horse is quiet, and so am I."

"Do you have food?" Audiat insists, recalling his energy crash that would follow moving his massive body around each and every time, not to mention the extreme craving for sweet, sugary calories. "Are you safe? If you don't have food, I'm hightailing it over the country to bring you a Snickers bar."

"Mmmm-hmmm." The sound of his groggy assurance brings Audiat back to better days, days curled up against his side, toying with his silky hair as he dozed beside her. "I've got a couple of Nephilim bringing in wagons full of fish. I'll be fine. You… you should get some rest, too. You sound so stressed. So, so stressed…"

Audiat laughs, reminded of the possibility of her door being thrown open at any given moment with a twinge of sadness in her gut. "Not so stressed anymore, I don't think. I've missed you, Bryon." Audiat wipes away at her tears. "Listen, I'm not going to call you back again."

"Why not?" Bryon questions on the other end of the line, his alarm again breaking his tired daze.

"Because next time I hear your voice, I want it to be in person. Okay?"

"Of course." Perhaps it's just a figment of her imagination, but the warmth in his tone seems to be wrapping around her like a blanket, protecting her from harm. "I love you, Audiat. I will always love you. I have always loved you. I can't wait to get you a wedding ring –"

Audiat smiles into the phone as Bryon excitedly explains the wedding rings, not daring to share that she already is aware of what wedding rings are and their symbolic purposes, perfectly content with listening to his explanations.

"…so as soon as I find the time, I'm going to get you a beautiful stone of your choice, and help Ogden forge it." A spark of hesitance enters Bryon's voice. "Maybe not, actually. That might be a bad idea. But…" He yawns tremendously. "But it's something to think about, yes?"

"Of course, Bryon." Audiat's voice is soft and high – she realizes that this soft, rich tone of voice is one she hasn't used since the day she last saw his face. "But right now, you're exhausted. I can hear it in your voice. You need to get some rest, which you can't do if you're distracted by me." Her voice grows even warmer. "If you're tired, you can't show the other angels how beautiful you are when you show up. Get your sleep, alright?"

"Yes, Audiat," Bryon complies, like an obedient child. "I love you."

Audiat clutches at the phone, swallowing painfully. "I love…" She chokes slightly, clearing her throat. "I love you a million times more, Bryon. I love you more than all the stars in the sky. Do you want me to sing you to sleep? I hear you like that Dreamworks movie, the one about the horses, so I learned a song from it…"

"Did you?" Bryon whispers, laughing softly – it's a soft, reverberating laugh that Audiat savors, closing her eyes to drink it in. "This is why I love you, Audiat. When you and I finally get a moment alone, we're going to watch this Dreamworks movie about the horses, and you shall be educated. But for now…"

Bryon sighs blissfully, and Audiat can envision his swollen, purple eyelids sliding shut over his bloodshot bronze eyes as he curls up in on himself, perhaps settled in a cave somewhere, perhaps lounging on a plush rug of an abandoned house, cradling the phone against him, smiling himself to sleep. Taking a deep breath and leaning back into her uncomfortable armchair, pretending that he is by her side, Audiat begins to sing.

"I hear the wind call my name," she sings gently, absorbed in the sound of him breathing, "a sound that leads me home again! It sparks up a fire, a flame that still burns… To you, I will always return…"

"What the hell is she doing here," I whisper, my gaze locked on the white wolf basking in the bright light.

Bay makes a rumble of disgust in the pit of his throat, but refuses to answer, bending over a shelf.

As we'd descending down to the Library, which, as I'd discovered, is not on the ground level but the one above it, I'd imagined rows after rows of dust-covered wooden book shelves, with the particles stirring in the golden light every time you opened a leather-bound tome. In reality, it's much more of a modern theme, with buzzing LED lights hanging from a white-plaster ceiling and sleek silver book cases. Aside from a door labeled in black, bold letters as "ARCHIVES – SELECT PERSONEL ONLY", there isn't a trace of an ancient book.

Admittedly, it isn't completely boring. Ladders lead up to a second floor of books, no stairwells in sight, the only way up the metal rungs or by feather. A few of the whitewash walls have been torn down, and a crew of sullen, muscled she-angels works on placing wood-paneling up instead. Almost as if to up the fantasy mood, trees grow at the intersections of the long aisles of bookshelves, and ivy creeps up the ladders – evidently, someone else had yearned for the dust-covered, ancient library I'd imagined.

In the center of the Library, a harried-looking angel dances around inside of a fortress of books, frantically labelling the spines and placing them in assorted bins. Her wooden desk is carved ornately and well-maintained, its surface glossy enough to see a reflection if one happens to see beneath the mountains of biographies and history textbooks. Behind the angel's desk is most massive tree of them all, a twisting, gnarled oak with vivid falling leaves, its head of branches glorifying haloed by the light beaming in through the balcony.

Seeing as Bay is reluctant to speak about the elephant in the room, or speak at all, I cautiously plod towards the librarian, attempting to judge her personality as accurately Hugo does, yet failing miserably. Best I can see, she has an intense, scrutinizing look about her, much like the condescending glares of the archangels but more arcane. An angelic sword is carelessly tossed onto the desk without a thought, yet in her pocket, I glimpse a notebook and pen, as if such things are more important to her than blades.

The moment I reach speaking distance, the angel looks up at me sharply, her disapproving gaze distinctively owlish in appearance. The silver-rimmed spectacles slide down to her nose as she pauses to turn to me.

"You're wondering about the bitch, aren't you?" the angel questions, her voice quick and toneless. "Well, I'm wondering about the bitch, too. She and her junkies need to find another hideout…"

"What is Jane even doing?" I whisper, craning around the mountains of unsorted books to watch the motionless wolf and a small armada of she-angels furiously scribbling away at notebooks or pecking rapidly at keys, their eyes all dreamy and far-off.

"Recording her information." The angel huffs, pulling a book from the stack and flipping through its pages, pausing at a torn paper, then tossing it into a pile of other stories requiring a loving hand. "She did it last time, too. Practically none of her little puppets survived. That wolf's a genius, and I suppose her work served as a great addition to my studies, but she's also crazy as a loon. Sees no issue in recruiting healthy minds like that and converting them into something craving a parasite in their brains."

"What is she doing with those she-angels?" I raise my eyebrow as one of them slowly keels over, her head falling into the ink she'd been scrawling over parchment and assumedly blurring whatever she'd been drawing. "Why can't they… I don't know?"

"Why can't they think? Here, hold these." The angel hands me a tower of books, causing me to stagger. "Because Jane, with her paws, can't write down her information, not really. She's invading their brains, snuffing out every dollop of themselves they ever had, turning them into machines for her to program and operate. When she releases them, they're just dreamy little dolls, talking wonders about their time with Jane and seducing other angels with less self-control into Jane's clutches. That wolf just works them to the ground over there."

"That…" My stomach tugs violently. "That's not right. There's only so many she-angels, right? What happens if she eats up too many?"

"Well, she's only trimming off the fat at the moment, so Ariel's turned a blind eye." The angel sounds as if she disapproves. "But if we close our gates to her, she'll either start abducting our members or abducting males. Humans don't have the brain capacity to hold even a fraction of her thoughts in their heads." Her eyes quickly skate up and down my figure. "It is a 'their', correct? You do not seem fully human."

"Oh, yeah." Hastily, I nod. "Yeah, I'm… not human. And who… who are you?"

"Metatron, Scribe of God." She takes the tower of books from my arms, balancing it against her chest, and shakes my hand. "Audiat told me to keep an eye out for you. I'm glad I won't have to steer you from that wolf's clutches; you seem to have a decent enough head on your shoulders."

Metatron – wasn't she one of the acceptable angels Audiat had listed? Must be, seeing as she seems to be in the know about me.

"Do you know what she's telling the she-angels to write?" I question, studying the one that'd fallen, wondering to myself if she'll rise again or if she just took an inconvenient nap.

"Oh, mostly just her studies." Metatron waves a dismissive hand. "Biology of the angels she kills, her data on how to trap and kill a soul, approximately how long it takes an angelic skull to disintegrate into dust. She experiments a lot with souls, that one. Tries to trap them, to torture them, to figure out what makes them tick. It's an unhealthy fascination."

"Does she?" calls a familiar icy voice. "Excellent."

I turn on heel to face Lucius, standing at a crossroad of book aisles, smoke billowing off his clothing and my mother clutching his legs the way a castaway might cling to drifting debris. A small child with its hands wrapped tightly around his neck shifts, lifting its head from the safe concave at his collar bone to inspect its surroundings fearfully, and reveals itself to be Paige.

My heart stutters in my chest weakly.

Crying out her name, my legs slam into motion, dashing ragingly to Lucius before the demon can lay a hand on her. A thick boiling of hatred froths in my gut, its passionate ire inspiring a great lust for Pooky Bear.

But before I can reach him, Lucius's body bends like a white twig as he crouches, prying off my mother and setting Paige gingerly to the ground in one smooth motion. Herding Mom towards me with a firm hand, he stands to his full height, watching emotionlessly as they flee from him.

Before I can hack Lucius's head from his body with Emilio's knife, Mom attacks my legs, holding tight and whispering softly to me, warning me not to get any closer. Paige laces her fingers through mine, hiding her face in my leather jacket, refusing to glance in Lucius's direction as he stretches out his wings, a bitter expression screwing up his face.

"What are you doing here?" I snarl, stroking my mom's hair away from her face. "What did you to my family?"

"I saved them, Penryn." Disinterestedly, Lucius plucks a book on display, flipping through his manga comic for sarcastic emphasis. "You might as well show me some gratitude."

"You don't deserve any gratitude, demon." Metatron vaults over her desk, stalking up to my side with narrowed evil-librarian eyes. "What did you save the Young family from?"

"I don't answer to angels afraid of heights," Lucius scoffs, half-shutting his book to narrow his eyes at Metatron belittlingly. "And, after all, this is a public library, open to all races, including demons. So scat, dodo."

Though I don't know much about her, I hadn't expected the reaction this inspires from Metatron – self-consciously, she wraps her wings around herself and slinks backwards, her face reddening rapidly. She stutters incomprehensibly for a few seconds, edging back towards her mountain of books, before turning heel and fleeing him just as my family had.

"Actually, no." Lucius glances up from his book, smiling softly – as he does so, one of the she-angel junkies falls to the ground shrieking murderously, going into wild spasms. Without pausing to comment on the person he'd maddened, the Prince of Hell orders, "Fetch Jane for me – it appears she fled. We have much to discuss, her and I. Now, thank you."

"Listen to me," I insist, pissed off at the way he'd disparaged Metatron and shunted her off, only to get rid of my backup.

"I'm not really listening," Lucius admits frankly, pausing on a page in his book with extreme interest.

"My mom and Paige were in a safe place," I continue, regardless of his rude manner. "They had Nephilim guards. Bryon said they were at the top of the line. What could've brought them down, something so flashy that needed you to save them?"

"The big, bad wolf. He –" As if this reminds him of something, Lucius stares out the balcony window, his sharp face honed into one of intense concentration. Still as a marble statue, his wings black slivers upon his back, Lucius is caught in a cerebral world beyond my understanding. Abruptly throwing down the manga book, Lucius stalks over to the closest tree and snaps off a twig from its lowest branch, staring down the smooth, wooden shaft of the oak stick and bracing it between his fingers, as if testing its strength.

Now evident that he's not going to explain anything more, I shift my weight in annoyance. "The big bad wolf?" I repeat.

Lucius crouches in the dirt encompassing the tree, pawing at it with one slender hand. "Your patron." My mouth opens slightly as Lucius begins to draw in the dirt like a toddler, sketching crude runes into the soft earth. "Evidently, he didn't much appreciate Paige's competition with his alpha sibling. Unfortunately, you'll have to discuss it yourself with him – I'm not on his friends list. I only responded to a deal proposal."

My heart tremors and, instinctively, I bundle Paige tighter against me. "You made a deal?"

"Yes." He kneads at the dirt. "With Arabella."

"She was a nice woman," Paige whispers heartbrokenly. "She – she – he killed her!"

"Not me," Lucius elucidates. "Black Wolf. No, she offered to become my wife if I saved the members of the royal family she'd sworn her life to protect. Too devoted to a cause. Pity the beast tore her throat out, women with soft bodies are much more pleasurable to rescue than zombie mutts."

I watch as he leans down and blows over the dirt, his crisp white lips puckering. "What are you –"

I break off with a gasp watching as the veins webbing beneath Lucius's snowy skin begins to glow in a glorious shade of purple. Paige whimpers as the dirt he'd been fondling ripples and quakes, the runes flashing once with light before slowly beginning to revolve and spiral like a galaxy. I cannot tell where my confusion ends and my astonishment begins as I watch as Lucius splays his fingers over the dirt, sucks in a deep breath as if it may be his last, and, arching his spidery fingers, yanks his hand back.

Every laborious inch Lucius draws his fingertips upwards, the glow in his veins begins to subside and the ground seems to bulge like a growing mountain. I shove Paige behind me and place a hand on the back of Mom's head, watching as the bulge swells like a zit in the soil. My heart thuds in my chest as the demon begins to quiver, heaving his breaths, his hand trembling with the strain of whatever it is he's doing.

Voicing my thoughts, Paige gasps in awe as a little muzzle pokes through the earth, a little wet black nose quivering curiously. My mouth falls open as Lucius falls forwards, panting hoarsely, a thin, glittering layer of sweat covering his snowy skin like a crust of diamonds. The creature inside the dirt mound continues to burrow up from the tree roots, a strange yipping noise issued from its long, slender muzzle.

"The hell is that?" I breathe, frightened to look away from the bald, bony canine emerging from the dirt. An ugly dog looking like a mix between a Dalmatian and a husky shakes the dirt from its furless body, grinning at Lucius and pawing at his suit, getting its dirty feet all over the white fabric.

"Hellhound," Bay informs grimly, padding over, as if just now realizing that Lucius has been here, his answer only a fraction of a second before Lucius's chilling, "Your future."

"Hellhound?" I shrill, unable to run away as I so desire to do. The bald, wrinkly dog-thing blinks at me with jade green eyes lacking pupils.

"It's a talent I'm perfecting that involves souls." Lucius cracks his neck as he stands, picking up the baby monster in his arms and cradling it against his chest, smiling slightly as it cranes upwards to lap at his throat. "However, like any task worth learning, it must be studied before it can be perfected. So I require Jane's mind. I don't require you, so skedaddle."

"Hell you don't," Bay thunders, crossing his arms sinisterly. "You will explain what you meant by that."

Lucius turns to stare at Bay, his expression a glorious bitch-face. Hugo's laughter echoes through the rafters. The boy skips down an ivy-cloaked ladder, chuckling all the way, before strutting up beside me.

"How long have you been there?" Bay murmurs, studying his Son of Man curiously.

"Long enough," Hugo answers evasively. "Paige, Mama Young, I agree with Lucius and his glorious bitch-face, you two better run while you can, things around here are just going to get ugly." Hugo shoos them off, and, without a second word, Mom grabs Paige's hand and beelines for the door, though I'm not sure they know where they're going.

"Come to figure out my secrets?" Lucius hums. "I dare you too. The rest are all too thick to notice."

"Please, girls, we know this." Hugo glances wearily around at Bay and I. "That's a hellhound. I've been wondering where they came from for years. Now… I understand. That's fascinating, how do you do it?"

"By trapping a soul before it has the chance to escape, and forming another body for it." Lucius almost seems to have the adoration of a new father as he tickles at the stomach of the hellhound. "Look at her – she's nearly perfect, almost a wolf. Still, ugliness clings to her, but not as ugly as past failures."

"Bay, Penryn, when you make a deal to become Lucius's wife, he owns your soul," Hugo explains, glancing and fro between the two of us. "Because he likes to get the most out of his business arrangements, when you die, causing your soul to either go to heaven or hell, he doesn't let it leave this plane. He traps it and he channels it. I want to know how you do that, Lucius."

"I wasn't the first," Lucius hints teasingly. "In fact, I learned from the best."

"Wait…" I shake my head in confusion. "Take it back to square one, please."

"Square one?" Lucius barks, his disgust mixing with something almost like disappointment. "Square one is that Black Wolf tried to murder your sister. He didn't like the way things were standing in his everlasting war against the moon, so he decided to remove nighttime's most recent pawn to add an uneven streak to the chess game."

"And so…" I tilt my head to one side. "So the Nephilim guards tried to help, but they couldn't…"

"Arabella locked your family in a room and called upon me in her last moments, pleading for her last living moment to be successful in the special job she'd been gifted by her hero, the Dragon King." Lucius sighs in boredom. "I do despise it when people romanticize death, it's quite naïve of them. She became my wife and I rescued your family. You witnessed me removing her soul from judgment and putting it into a body of its very own."

"I don't understand," I whisper.

Hugo grunts. "You should have that on a t-shirt."

"We could both get one," Bay comments, cocking an eyebrow.

Lucius seems to be growing more and more uninterested in the situation. "Are you all finished? Need we go over colors and shapes again?"

"Look," I snap, "all I know is that you said that one day, I'm going to turn into that little wrinkly mutt thing, and you haven't given me any explanation. Best I can figure, you stole this woman that sacrificed her life to save my family away from heaven and put her in the body of a hellhound, one of your personal bitches. If you don't explain, I will throw you out a window."

"Big talk, small sword," Lucius notes. "Besides, even if she would've gone, and that's up for debate, my friends, dear little Arabella wouldn't like heaven. Heaven is a lie. That is why it is imperative for me to get my hands on Jane's research before the monster does."

"The monster?" Hugo repeats, sounding stumped for the first time.

"I still don't understand," Bay harrumphs.

"And there's the back of the t-shirt," Hugo sighs.

"You are all so disappointing," Lucius decrees matter-of-factly. "Ah, look at that – at least he's up and breathing." Setting the dog thing on the ground without a second glance towards it, allowing the mutt to dive into the piles of books Metatron had been surfing through, Lucius stalks proudly towards the balcony window, folding his hands behind his back. "My, my, aren't you handsome."

"He's talking to a wolf," I realize, watching as a stunning silvery gray canine studies Lucius with as much understanding of him as the rest of us. "Why is he…? Why is he talking to a wolf?"

"I talk to wolves, too." Hugo shrugs. "It's really not that bizarre, Penryn. But that wolf… look at that. Obviously angelic class, grey fur, dappled grey wings – reminds me a bit of that old codger Pepper, hope he made it out okay – with piercing grey eyes. Those devils are serious business. Wonder what he's doing –" Hugo pauses, tilting his head to one side. "Bay?"

"Yes, Hugo?" Bay thrums, his eyes going wide with adoration.

"What are you thinking?"

Bay blinks several times, as if he's unaccustomed to being asked this. "I'm thinking that we found the body of Bezaliel in a patch of moonlight. I'm thinking that Lucius said he was not the first to do this, meaning he's merely reproducing something, perhaps out of petty fascination. I'm thinking that perhaps your White Wolf does the same thing he does if people die beneath the moonlight. I'm thinking that that's Bezaliel."

My mouth gapes like a fish out of water for a few moments as I gather what he'd just said – Bay, the slow Fallen angel with blunt, stupid words, had drawn two and two and two together before me upon Hugo's command without hesitation. And, upon further thought, it makes sense – the White Wolf's words regarding the little child Alex, the little boy experiment he'd whisked from this world and placed into the Garden of Eden to wander forever.

If he truly does not believe in some being sent through judgment, then confiscating each and every soul would mean that the Garden would grow crowded. Hugo's eyes light up with an inner comprehension as my heart burns with acceptance of the theory.

Unfreezing from his deep, thoughtful pose, Hugo pounds on Bay's chest a few times, grinning up at his Fallen angel with an expression that could melt even the harshest archangel's heart. "That's why I keep you around. I complicate everything. You just nailed it on the head, didn't you?"

"Hugo?" Bay questions, laying a huge hand on the boy's slender shoulder, illuminating the massive difference in size between the two.

"Yeah?" Hugo prompts distractedly, already focused on the Bezaliel wolf again, analyzing the creature clinically.

"What does that mean about Scruffy…?"

Hugo's mouth opens slightly as he turns to Bay, his eyes glazed with amazement.

"And more importantly," Bay adds, glancing towards me with a furrowed brow, "what does that mean about grizzled old Pepper?"

"Mom…" Paige digs her heels into the ground, trying to worm out of the tight hand strangling her forearm, writhing wildly. "Mom, stop it!"

Perhaps unlike any other sensible parent, Mom does not even falter as she drags Paige down the hall. The maniacal gleam in her mother's eyes glints from the darkness, and the shadows sharpen her facial features. Her teeth flashing like fangs, Mom grins madly, her jagged nails sinking into the soft skin of Paige's underarm.

"Come, child, we seek refuge," she purrs. "Refuge! Refuge from the beast! From the devil! From the monster! From the wolf!"

Paige furrows her brow as she struggles, wondering if she speaks about different creatures or just one. "Mom, maybe we should go back to Penryn –"

"Betrayed!" Mom screeches. "Abandoned! We flee her! Run, Paige! Run!"

"Stop." Paige struggles as her mother breaks into a run. "Please, stop! I want to go back, I want Penryn! Stop, please! Please?!"

"You heard her."

Mom freezes at the thundering voice issued from the shadows, stiffening as if a bolt of lightning had struck. Fearfully, Paige yanks her arm back, trying to escape the inescapable fruitlessly. Peering imploringly at the angel that'd stopped Mom in her tracks, Paige mouths pleads towards Raffe, trying and failing to keep her breathing under control.

From the shadows he emerges, his two eyes shining like stars, the vividness of the blue saturating his pupils brighter than she's ever seen it, so blue it's more like Wishing Blossoms than the ocean. On his shoulder perches his Nephilim pet, staring maliciously at Paige, her blue eye glowing brighter than his and her bronze eye gleaming like a mirror.

"You," Mom snarls. "Stay away from us."

"You stay away from her." The angel squares his shoulders, glaring belligerently at Paige's mother. "You're hurting her."

"I'm hurting her?" Mom shrieks. "You are the cause of my daughter's misery!" Wailing, Mom chants something in her tongues, falling to her knees. "You are a plague to this family! Leave me alone! Leave us alone! Begone! Begone!"

"I'm not the madwoman that sold her daughters to a demon." Paige winces at Raffe's retaliation. "Let. Go. Of. Her."

Mom laughs shrilly, casting her head back and bringing Paige even closer to her. "You blame me? Why do you think the demon was so anxious to strike a deal? Why do you think he is so insistent on protecting my daughter? Who brought the harbingers of my girl's doom to her?" Mom's hand tightens around Paige's wrist. "Monster! Stay back!"

Raffe's gaze seems to grow even brighter, his anger intensifying their color. "Let her go."

"I will not." Mom bares her teeth at him. "Stay away from me and my family. Leave here and don't ever come back."

And, to Paige's immense surprise, the angel seems uncertain. Mom's sudden gamble for authority has them all off guard, creating a tense, fearful aura as they await a victor in the battle of wills, watching her chest puff in and out angrily and his cool, controlled breathing, waiting to see if her scowl quivers or if his uncertainty grow a larger, waiting to see if she is the first to glance away or if it shall be the archangel to crumble first.

It's Raffe that looks away first.

Mom snarls triumphantly, as if handing the lesser his punishment.

Paige still remains frozen, still abiding the prickle of dread up her neck and the hot fear in her stomach, swirled around like a sheet from the dryer.

The Nephilim tilts its head towards the angel, blinking in something akin to astonishment. Behind those mismatched eyes that make the world feel lopsided, Paige sees the gears clicking, the raw intelligence trapped in the body of a child. And, as that raw intelligence hones in on Mom, it's her that looks away first.

A presence slides over Paige's mind, barely noticeable yet still blanketing her thoughts in its suffocating glaze.

Release your daughter.

Her moment of glory broken, Mom's mouth drops open as she stares at the Nephilim, who'd opened its wings slightly, sitting on Raffe's shoulder like a gargoyle. "But –"

Release her. The dragon's eyes narrow. Now.

Mom's hand unclenches from Paige's forearm, instead flying to her mouth. Wailing in anguish and hiding her face, clawing at her eyes, Mom dashes off, fleeing from the Nephilim that'd brought about the destruction of her self control.

Briefly, the Nephilim watches Paige's mother's flight, its eyes frostily satisfied at the sight of her fleeing, but then the creature's slender neck snakes around, bringing those unearthly eyes to clash against Paige, sending a tingle of horror down her spine.

As the Nephilim arches its neck and closes its wings by its side, curling its tail around Raffe's neck without breaking eye contact, Paige wonders if she should run after her mother.

POLL: Predictions involving what Penryn will discover in the Library...?

Ciao,

~wolfluvermh