Chapter Fifty Four

"Penryn!" Hugo's melodramatic moan wakes me only slightly – it's him clambering over the bed towards me that does most of the work. "Penryn! The sun's awake! Tumblr is asleep! The time is now!"

"Hugo!" I groan, burying my face into the pillow. "It's… dawn. Go away for another hour, please."

"Look, honey bunches," Hugo squawks, planting his ass on my pillow and making himself comfortable, "I'm not real negotiable about this, because you stole the bed from Bay and I, so we had to find somewhere else to get it on."

"Hugo!" Bay calls from elsewhere in a whispery voice, sounding horrified.

"Oh, you know it yourself," Hugo scolds. "And Penryn's a big girl. She can handle it. Besides, Bay, do straight guys ever keep their traps shut? No, they don't, so why should I? After all, I've got the most beautiful partner of them all."

"Hugo…" With only a crescent of my vision, I watch Bay sink onto the couch, his cheeks considerably redder than usual.

"Oh, stop being so self-conscious," Hugo harrumphs. "You're distracting me with your sexiness! Oi, Penryn, get up. I've got coffee with a Starbucks blend – you can either drink it or have it poured all over your head."

"Fine, fine," I grumble, pushing myself up on sore muscles, reluctantly creeping from the warm swaddles of comforters that'd warded against the winter chill the few hours I'd been able to sleep. Stretching, I yawn, "The hell is so important to you, anyway?"

"Well, you see," chats Hugo excitedly, flipping open the lid to his laptop, "last night you seemed pretty freaked out even before Pigeon-Bat came along and fucked everything up again. Surprise. So after Paige got situated, I sent out a distress call on Tumblr for your benefit – and the good bloggers responded. There's nothing greater than memes in bed. Plus, Starbucks. BAY! GET PENRYN HER STARBUCKS!"

He clicks up a delightfully blue website as Bay plods good-naturedly around in my periphery. I cock my head to one side, not fully understanding the excitement stirring in Hugo's goofy little brain.

"Wait…" I scrunch my eyebrows together. "You told the internet about me and my problems? …Why?"

"Because you needed to be cheered up," Hugo sighs, as if it's terribly obvious. "You're a celebrity now, Penryn. You're a princess." He bats his eyelashes at me, grinning from ear to ear. "Everyone wants to please a princess. Come, now, look at all this hype about you. You."

"Because I'm a princess?" I mutter, rolling my eyes.

"Because you're a heart in need." Hugo grins wider. "Oh, who am I kidding? Because of Raffryn. Just take it. Look at this shit. You are one loved little girl."

He shoves the laptop onto my lap, cheerfully resting his chin on my shoulder to look on with me. Hesitantly, my fingers move to the touchpad, and I scroll through the world Tumblr has to offer. Bearing a steaming coffee, Bay kneels curiously beside me, his dark eyes considerably brightened by the grey light piercing through the window drapes.

After a moment, he comments, "Hugo, this is a weird site."

And it reminds me over and over again why I never truly indulged in this whole Tumblr thing. I scroll through captioned gifs, polite poems ending in death, dark humor jokes, smiling faces of a thousand colors, more art of Bryon in flower crowns than I can count, and several extremely detailed Raffe pinup posters I feel uncomfortable just looking at, never mind Hugo hanging on my shoulder and making every lewd comment he knows.

"He's got a rose this time!" Hugo gasps, pointing at the most recent to the Raffe set. "Holding it in his mouth like a certain Spanish gentleman. Scroll down… oh, God, he's got no pants, keep scrolling!"

"Is this a pornography site?" Bay wonders, sounding troubled. "Why do you spend so much time on here, Hugo?"

"Bay, please." Against my shoulder, Hugo makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. "I go on this site for things like that."

He points towards yet another drawing of Bryon in a flower crown, except, this time, he's watching a crowned Hugo and a tiaraless Bay laugh together, arms intertwined. In the next picture, he's kneeling before Bay with a flower crown held up in offering, saying, "You are worthy."

"That's a good reason to be on the site, if you're Hugo," I conclude. "For every adorable thing, though, there's a Satan worshipper. Or someone that takes some rights movement and shoves it in your face at every possible moment. You seriously can't win on Tumblr."

"Mmm, true," Hugo acknowledges, "those bloggers are always a little irritating. I think it's worth the risk, but obviously, not all are daredevils. Did you know that Lucius has got his own fan base? It underwent a serious growth overnight with the apocalypse. Oh, look, there's a post about it! Click!"

Skeptically, I click onto the video link – and it's worth my while. The words What Lucius Fans Think of his Childhood appear on the screen, followed by a looped gif of flower-crown-Bryon and flower-crown-Lucius dancing side by side to cheerful, happy music. Next appears the title What Lucius was Probably Actually Like. "When I was in the third grade…" Some female voice sniffs as an animated Lucius rubs at his nose. "People treated me like a criminal… BECAUSE I KILLED SOMEBODY!"

It's awful, the gif of a tiny, angry Lucius stabbing an only somewhat-startled Bryon repeatedly in the chest, but I can't help but laugh at Hugo's demonic cackle.

"That's terrible," Bay grunts, furrowing his brow. "That still doesn't convince me."

"Oh, well, too bad." Hugo shrugs indifferently. "Go back to the main site, Penryn, I think there's another sexy Raffe beneath it…"

This time, as we scroll past the archangel who yet again is lacking sufficient coverage, his backside only hidden by his wings, Bay lunges forward and places a hand over Hugo's eyes. Grinning, the boy doesn't protest one bit, seeming delighted rather than annoyed.

"Ass shot or ab shot, Penny Poo?" Hugo wonders against Bay's hand.

"Ass shot," Bay rumbles.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Hugo's voice grows almost territorial. "I will cover up your eyes, mister!"

Onwards we continue, purging through a sudden flow of adorable Audyon, several of the drawings including Hugo, Paige and I – one stands out in particular, of Paige sleeping on Bryon's chest, Audiat hanging upside like a bat from the rafters, me sprawled out across the floor, and the light of Hugo's computer lighting up his face and everyone else around him. As we venture further down the dashboard, Bay's chest begins to rumble with laughter at a post I find remotely troubling.

"Oh my god," I whisper, cupping a hand over my mouth.

"It's the exact same bitch face," Hugo whispers in awe.

The first string of memes is a bunch of pictures that look like they'd been taken at one of Lucius's dad's meetings. The demon's expressions are all flat, but they range from bored to pissed to done with life. Perfect bitch face. Perfect, impassive bitch face. Captions like, "Oh my god I hate my life", "Did that bitch really just say that", "That scarf with that shirt?", and "Kill me now" all loom beneath his face.

Further down is first an exclamation of surprise from another blogger, and a chain of captionless photos of Emilio… with the exact same bitch face.

"That's creepy," I whisper, looking at the compared pictures at the bottom. "…Why do they look exactly the same? It's not like… like they've got a similar face or anything, but the expression is just…"

"How peculiar," Bay muses, smiling at the screen. "It adds a whole new twist on Lucius's respect for Emilio, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about, big teddy bear?" Hugo chuckles, his chin grinding into my shoulder as he shakes his head.

"I just noticed last night that Lucius would always lift his head when Emilio would speak, that he watched Emilio rather than Raffe or even Theobella when threats were issued." Bay shrugs. "I'm not really sure why. Just something that I noticed."

"Huh." Hugo purses his lips. "You notice strange stuff, Baymobile. And – Penryn you scroll that motherfucker down."

Frightened by his almost demonic change in voices, I do as he says, to find a strangely drawn Raffe staring at me – his eyes twinkle, lively and somehow realer than the rest of his pencil-drawn figure. Another oddity is that it only seems to be half of Raffe – though he sits in a chair, he's not really sitting, as his body seems to be cut off at the hips. In his hands, he clutches a piece of paper reading: "Hello Penryn! I hear you've been feeling under the weather!"

In the next frame, his radiant grin turns sweeter, sappier. "I couldn't let you go without saying this, because, well…" Scrolling down, I reach another frame, this one of Raffe casting his gaze downwards, blushing like a high-schooler with a crush, scratching at his neck. "I'll never be able to say it to my version of you." Growing more brave in the next picture, he smiles broadly again. "And that version of me will never be able to say it there, either, so I might as well say that I'd never hurt you."

"Awwww," Hugo coos. "The fact that he's the Mermaid AU makes this so much better."

Next picture, he smiles warmly, eyes almost filled with life. "You're my Daughter of Man. I love you. I always will. Even if I act like a jackass, there's probably a reason behind it."

The following one makes me laugh out loud, despite the warming glow in my heart. "…Probably," the card reads, accompanied by another blushing Raffe torso.

"So don't be sad. Don't cry or mope or wail. Because even if that guy's an asshole…" The next frame warms my heart even further. "I'll always love you!"

A moving image of him skipping away on two arms instead of legs follows, looking so absolutely absurd it ruins my tingly glow with the ugly sort of laughter it provokes.

"What the hell?" I choke out through guffaws, rubbing away tears. "Who the actual…? What…?"

"Okay, okay, long story." Hugo presses a hand down on the shoulder not already holding his head to calm my giggles. "A trite thing to do in fandoms is to make the characters into mermaids, right? And so that happened in real life fandoms." His fingers flurry over the keyboard, searching Tumblr's infinite resources for a new topic. "And then this genius person realized that in that AU world, instead of getting his wings chopped off, Raffe would've gotten his tail chopped off, and made this brilliant post."

It's two pictures in a row; the first is of me pushing legless Raffe around in Paige's wheelchair, him with his arms crossed over his bare chest and his lips stuck out in a pout, and me rolling my eyes in exasperation. The second is of Raffe and I navigating through a crowd of merpeople using one of the little propeller things that scuba divers have, me holding onto his shoulders and, for the most part, hiding where duct tape attaches a limp fish tail to his torso stump. A speech bubble from Raffe says, "It's the newest fashion at the aerie," which isn't exactly the way I remembered it, but close enough. Obviously, he's referring to all the he-angels with seashell bras.

"Wow." I cock an eyebrow. "You know what? At least it's not a pinup of Raffe. So this struck up a movement?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Hugo scrolls through fanfictions and fanart alike. Pictures of Raffe sitting on a stool to look some weird man I suppose is Obi in the eye, of me holding him like a puppy as he swings fists and proclaims himself as mighty Wrath of God, of a shark tail emerging from the place a fish tail belongs, of him sitting beside a Scruffy fish and lovingly straightening the scales on an admittedly beautiful but probably quite smelly fish tail, of him perched on my shoulders as we run from low demons, and of more pictures of him put-putting along on the little diver thing with an expression of utter focus.

"Here, look at this gif!" Hugo cries, hovering the mouse above one of a tailed Audiat linking hands with a disgruntled Raffe and spinning him around in your typical white girl fashion. Each and every time, Raffe's terrified expression as she releases him with a torrent of bubbles grows funnier.

My favorite out of all the mermaid Raffes is a set of gifs of various ways Raffe could walk, all of them containing awkward movements partnered with extremely focused faces and flexing biceps, titled things like, "The Eternal Handstand," "Horror Movie Zombie," "Penguin Waddle," "The Transportation Worm," "Moving Push-ups," "Shut up Penryn I Know What I'm Doing," and "Look Michael No Hands!"

"Why do you find such pleasure in this site, Hugo?" Bay wonders, utterly perplexed, for the millionth time. "At least there are no more nudes of the archangel, but – oh, I spoke too soon, what's this?"

It's another one of the comic things with shirtless Raffe drawing giving me a pickup line: "Hey baby, are you my enemy? Cause tonight, all you'll be saying is 'Please have mercy.'"

Ruining it almost immediately in the next set of frames are Dee-Dum, leaning on his shoulders, reminding the half Raffe that he's rather lacking in essential male anatomy.

Beneath that post, another punch in the feels awaits.

"Oh, man…" Hugo's mouse hovers over a link in a masterpost after reading the title. "Damn. That hits me hard in the nostalgia. Remember that, Bay? That little musical thing?"

Bay nods wordlessly.

"What?" I wonder, glancing from boy to demon curiously. "What musical thing?"

"Better days, that's what." Hugo shakes his head, sighing heavily. "Geez. See, back way ol' when, the Nephilim were ridiculously cheerful. Like, you have no idea. Santa's elves level of cheerful. My Little Pony level of cheerful. The few army squads that assembled would sing musical numbers together to help build camaraderie; that's how cheery. This was a filmed one, a 'Stick to the Status Quo' little number poking fun at the angelic rules, back in the days when Emilio was just a kid."

"His elite group, if I remember correctly," Bay rumbles, voice gravelly with emotion. "Each and every one of them hand-selected by Bryon himself. Each and every one of them took the place of Emilio's father. They're almost all dead or too gone to attempt to revive."

"They all just deteriorated, didn't they?" Hugo sadly sighs. "After Femi was promoted, lost all its heart. Arabella with her teenage pregnancy, Daine being caught up in that and then reverting to drugs to escape his depression, Auréle's suicide, Miguel with his drinking problems – no one except Emilio has really survived, and that's because he had to tend his sweetheart's cancer back in Spain, and got stuck there because she was too fragile. Jesus. That makes me sad."

"They used to be the best of the best," Bay agrees sadly, his eyes pooling with emotion. "People wonder why it's hard to go on for eternity. You see things like this happen to good people singing puny songs from Disney movies together. And after all that's happened to Daine… he didn't escape it at all."

"Yeah." Hugo nudges Penryn with his elbow. "You hear about that, or should I recap?"

As I shake my head, Hugo exhales grimly.

"When he received the news of Ogden's betrayal, he apparently scared one of his kids half to death and then hit the bar pretty hard. Being leader of that town, he could boss around the bartender and get as many shots as he wanted. However, as he was doing so, his wife went into labor. Nephilim babies are weird, they're much more difficult than normal babies and need more experienced staff to deliver them, but he was so wasted when he came home he ignored the one crappy nurse he didn't send off to the battles and passed out in the front hallway. The crappy nurse did something wrong, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but his wife died in childbirth."

"Oh my god," I whisper in horror.

"And to add to that," Bay murmurs sullenly, "the baby almost died, too, when the nurse fainted after realizing her failure and dropped it on the stone floor. That didn't kill it, though the spine's break did paralyze it, so at least it's something. But the boys had run away out of fear of their father, so they couldn't help. We still have no clue where they are."

"Sounds like a day of tragedy," Audiat calls wistfully, her distorted voice making me jump and spill a bit of coffee on my shirt. "Seems no one had a good day."

She pulls a feather from her bushy curls as she adjusts herself on the balcony, smiling in greeting, waving at us. Bay promptly rises and throws open the balcony doors, causing Hugo to hiss and slip beneath the covers beside me, most likely in a premeditated response to the cold air that comes billowing forth. Squealing with joy, Audiat tumbles in more than she walks, bouncing her way over to my bedside.

"I thought you were trying to cheer Penryn up, Hugo!" Audiat laughs, easily regaining her bubbly attitude. "How is swapping depressing tales cheering anyone up?"

"Sorry, Audiat." Hugo grins at her from his cove in the covers. "She asked, and I'm all one for a little gossip."

"No gossiping about people's tragedies!" Audiat gasps in horror, her red eyes going wide. Her tiny hands clutch the tips of my fingers, bringing them to her chest and staring urgently down at me. "Don't let him influence you! Daine is a good man, I know it! And now his world is collapsing and if everyone is gossiping about it behind his back…"

"He'll go crazy," Emilio sums up, folding his wings by his side, feathers turned rosy by the light of morning. He slips a green bubble jacket over his black leather armor to hide his wings, and looks mildly adorable despite his discomfort. "Try to avoid it."

"Hey, Audiat." I smile at her, utterly uncertain how to react to her finger-holding. "Hey, Emilio. Where have you guys been?"

"I was upstairs with Bryon!" Audiat tells me cheerfully, dropping my hands and twirling around to Emilio. "He brought your sister down to breakfast. Don't worry about her, Paige is perfectly fine. She's upstairs in my apartment with – what were their names?"

"Jersey and Koby," Emilio murmurs, his expressive, almond-shaped eyes holding a respectful sheen as he regards the overexcited she-angel. "Jersey was more than happy to babysit. Daine, the one you were so pleased to gossip about, Hugo, is up there as well. After hearing about the creepy Jesus lizard, he refuses to leave Bryon's side."

After a moment of evident confusion, Hugo buries his face in his hand, turning his guffaws into stifled snorts. "What did you call Theobella?"

"You're all a bunch of meanies," Audiat decrees. Slipping a bag off of her shoulders, she holds it out to be, smiling beatifically. "Penryn, I got you clothes! They should all be your size – plus I fixed the leather jacket so it fits you better, too! What do you think? Appropriate?"

Startling me, I hear her voice in my mind – I hope you don't mind, but I briefly screened through a bit of your past, pre-apocalypse, to see fashion and clothing sizes! Using our little secret? I'm sorry if I invaded any privacy!

Instead of answering her mental question, I take the bag in my hands and beam approvingly at her, the soft fabric of cotton a relief to my tired hands. "Thanks, Audiat, you shouldn't have. Any reason for this sudden gift?"

"Well, first off, you needed something other than that maid's dress." Audiat cocks one eyebrow. "I will not have my niece walking around like an anime slut. And secondly, your other pair of clothes needed a wash. Last but certainly not least, you shouldn't have just one outfit." Audiat grins. "It's your apocalypse, not your end of days."

Audiat quite efficiently shoos off Bay and Hugo, coaxing them out of their apartment with promises of some angel by the name of Cassandra making cheesecake on another story – Emilio is more stubborn, causing Audiat's temper to snap and her to go on a little rampant about him needing to respect my privacy. After being scolded about how it was "downright perverted" for him to refuse to leave the room when a teenage girl was undressing, he quickly exited, something akin to a blush blooming across his cheeks.

"That boy!" Audiat huffs loudly. "He means well, he truly does, but ever since…" She falls silent, taking a sudden interest in the ceiling. "Well, he's been clingy, almost, with his job. I hope you don't mind."

"Not really." I shrug, slipping on the t-shirt she'd gotten me, somehow with the words MY OTHER CAR IS AN ARCHANGEL printed across the front. "He's a bit proud. Got his nose in the air a lot. Conventional, too. But I like him."

"He's got heart," Audiat summarizes, "and that's all that really matters, doesn't it? I'd bet every feather I have that he'd never lie, either. Keep him around, Penryn, especially since the Nephilim politics are corrupted by Ogden. He'll look out for any sketchy guys after you, too, and chase them off."

"I used to have one of those friends." I shrug. "I always thought he was a bit annoying, frankly, but he served his purpose, I guess."

Audiat beams, dancing around Hugo's apartment and regarding all of his drawings with a warm, motherly glow. "Well," she says to me, "it's better than having a best guy friend that's frustrated with his friendzoned position. I haven't actually had one – most guy friends of mine are not actually friends – but I hear it's awful."

Perhaps it's this I should find comfort in – no jealous freaks waiting around the corner. "Yeah, at least with Emilio, I won't ever have to worry about him being a friendzoned jerk. He's too old and dignified for – God, that sounds weird. I mean, he's too old for me, and his dignity'd never let him do anything like that."

Audiat smiles sadly over the edge of one of Hugo's drawings, a wistful sheen entering her warm maroon eyes. "Also because he's lost the one he cares about most in the world. So sad! I don't think he'll ever truly love again, poor guy."

Tugging on the snug-fitting sweatpants she'd brought for me, I glance her direction in confusion, trying to understand what exactly she speaks of. "…You mean with his sister?"

Audiat's brow scrunches, and she looks up from the diagram of bird wing she'd been inspecting. "Sister? He has a sister? No, I was talking about his girlfriend… what happened with his sister?"

"Umm…" I pull the leather jacket over my shoulders, enjoying the tickle of the soft inner fabric against the back of my neck. "You know about what happened with the… the things angels were doing to… you know…"

"Children." Audiat's expression softens, and she nods knowingly, her eyes as easy to sink into as Bryon's. "Yes, there were some… awful things going on in aeries that… I was just horrified to learn about. Do you mean that his sister…?" Her eyes widen, and a hand flies to her mouth.

"Yeah…" I lower my gaze to the floor. "She was one of the first, apparently, before Paige. He tore through an entire aerie to get to her. And then he flew from Spain to America to get Daine's treatment. She died before he reached him, though, and he handed Daine a dead body."

Audiat is quiet for a long time. "…That's probably why he's so protective of you and Paige. Oh, see, this is why I can't hate anybody!" She moans and runs her fingers through her hair, causing the clusters of curls to rumple and fuzz. "They act standoffish and then they have these really tragic backstories and it just makes my heart break!"

"But what about his girlfriend?" I press with latent reluctance, quietly dreading the answer. "I thought she was safe back at Spain, but they'd never be reunited again."

Audiat rubs at her forehead. "Well, yes, that was the case, until his town was attacked by – you guessed it – angels. Most of the people he grew up around died in the attack, and no one was sure what'd happened to the one he'd loved, a woman named Sofia. He held onto the hope that she'd survived and had escaped into the national forest that was nearby or something. A day or two before Ogden betrayed Bryon, however, her corpse was discovered, which means Emilio already had that on his conscious when he got the news."

"Do I even want to know what happened to her?" I mumble, growing tired of the heavy ache in my heart and the languor pulling at my limbs, sick of the grief that pulls at a heart.

"You need to understand his pain," Audiat insists, smiling in understanding, as if she, too, grows weary of the misery. "It hadn't been the angels that'd killed her at all. It'd been the same gang he'd been in as a child. They… they raped her to death, Penryn." She hugs herself tightly, eyes downcast. "Emilio was… he was… he heartbroken. He showed me the ring he'd had Ogden forge for her, showed me the teal gems he'd set around the diamond because the ribbon for the cancer she survived was teal. I never want to see him so weak ever again."

I open my lips – but what does one respond to that with? What could possibly summarize the turmoil of emotion in my gut, the painful pinch in my heart? Instead of uttering words that to not capture my agony, I shut my mouth, realizing that Audiat already knows what I feel.

Staring down at my hands, I ponder just how much everyone I know has been screwed with – for some reason, I'd selfishly simply assumed that, because of Sercem Domu's overall serene, undisturbed manner, the Nephilim had escaped the apocalypse relatively unscathed – now, I wonder just how many terrible stories I've missed out on hearing.

"But enough of that!" Audiat trills, waving her hands as if batting maudlin thoughts aside. "How do you like your clothes? Did I pick everything out alright? Is the bra…?"

Swallowing my own pile of mush, I nod, cutting her off. "Everything's fine, Audiat, thanks. The t-shirt is especially pretty cool, gotta say. Since you're treating me, I take it you're going to give me a girl's day like you promised?"

"Well, yes!" Audiat once bounces on her toes, amusingly excited. "If that's alright with you! We can do whatever you like – if you want, we could do nothing at all! It's up to you."

"Well…" I chew on my lip, taking a hesitant step forward on sleepy legs as I do so. "I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"Oh…" Audiat tilts her head to one side, her cherry eyes watching me shake the pins and needles from my feet. "You know, I actually didn't think of that. What if we head downstairs to the café type thing and talk? I'd like to talk."

"Then we can decide where to go from there." Smiling, I attempt to calm the nerves of the she-angel as they make themselves evident in her twitching demeanor. "Alright. I definitely do have some questions that only you can answer."

"Really?" Eyes alight with ebullience, Audiat taps her petite toes together, folding her arms behind her back with a smile that could melt glaciers. "Does it have to do with the wolf upstairs?"

"The wolf up – oh, I get it." Smothering a smile, I mull over the fact that this goofiness of Audiat's is probably exactly why Bryon fell in love with her. "Yeah, some of it."

"Good! Let's go!" Without waiting a second longer, Audiat flies out the door, her bare feet dancing over the floorboards like a cat's tiny paws.

Nothing of particular concern is spoken of beyond that point until we reach the café she'd spoken of – she tells Emilio off again for trying to accompany us, but when he informs her that he's actually not stalking me but rather going to the training grounds to meet up with a student, Audiat falls silent and doesn't speak much for the rest of the way. It makes a rather awkward flight downwards, but her chatter revs back to life once we reach our destination.

The cliché retro café is poorly designed when compared to other nooks and crannies throughout the she-aerie – then again, it's not quite so awfully thought out as Bay's hidden floor.

No walls separate it from the rest of the activity areas on the floor – towards the bottom of the Triangle, the halls had been admonished to allow for wide open spaces like this in all the room the center area had taken up. From this little corner, I can easily spy on everyone else around it – the fitness center, the armored dummies, and the half-empty dueling circles.

Emilio faces off with an unfamiliar boy in one of the circles. Judging by the easy yet merciless dance of Emilio's blades around the child and the brunette's bent up sword, I guess the he's getting trained just as I had.

The actual shop is run by a single dude that looks depressed with life. Clusters of random booths cling to the counter, with barely enough room to walk through. The cushions seem to be made with stones, and the entire area smells of sour creamer. Though perhaps the design had been presented as such so that she-angels would enjoy watching each other become sweaty as they exercised, the only other creature occupying the café is a rotund woman with more chins than I'd think possible in a world of man-eat-man.

"Sorry about the location!" Audiat sighs, settling into the uncomfortable chair opposite me. She hands me not coffee, as I don't want to dispel the taste of Starbucks, but a cheese pastry on a cheap plastic plate. "The men will start to trickle in once the sun rises a little bit more to get rid of their hangovers through violence, so I'd like to trickle out of here before then. Look, Titaniel's here already. Wow, look at that! Wonder what happened to him?"

Following her gaze, I watch the giant angel dance around one of the dummies, his swords crashing against the armor. Gashes arch up and down his biceps, unlike anything I've ever seen.

"Why does he have two angel swords?" I wonder in a hushed voice. "Is he just special?"

"That's how he became an archangel, actually." Audiat's voice is low, cautiously neutral. "He didn't like the way his commander was running things, so he ran a sword through him. And then, to add insult to injury, he claimed the old archangel's sword forcefully and forcefully took his place in heaven. Not. Fun."

"Yikes." Thoughtfully, I watch him dance around the dummy, utterly mutilating it as he does so. "Should we be talking with him around?"

Audiat cocks her head to one side, puffing out her lips. "He's focused as he can be, so it should be alright. I doubt he'll hear anything over the sound of his swords against those dummies and his own testosterone."

"If you say so," I mumble, stomach sickening as he effortlessly slices through another straw dummy, cleaved muscles rippling. "You know, I think it was Lucius that carved him up last night… Paige mentioned something about him getting angry at a guy with terrible eyes…"

"I heard about your predicament with Lucius." Audiat's eyes soften further. "How is that going?"

"I mean…" I trail off, sighing heavily as I gather the thoughts pirouetting through my mind. "He's an asshole, but he did heal Paige up, and, although he's been nothing but trouble, he usually doesn't purposefully bother me. All I've got to do is stay away from Raffe."

"It could be worse," Audiat agrees, pursing her lips indifferently. "Now, at least, you know that Raffe's affections are genuine, and he doesn't just want to feel you up."

"Yeah…" The excellent flavor of the pastry doesn't truly occur to me as I mull over the topic. "With all that's going on, I can't help but wonder if it's a good thing, you know? Lucius did say that all he wanted to do was to get the angels off of Earth, and the only way to do that was through Raffe."

"…What's it like, with Raffe?" Audiat wonders curiously, setting her chin down upon the table, staring up like a raptured kitten. "I've always thought he's a jerk. King of jerks. Drunk king of jerks. But, evidently, no."

I watch her stir the coffee with a signature touch of awkwardness. "…I'm not sure, to be honest. It probably had something to do with his corny sense of archangel humor. He's just… different."

"It's cute." Audiat tilts her head to one side. "And do you think you can patch things up with him, even after…? After whatever it is that happened with Theobella?"

Another bite of the pastry disappears. "I don't know, Audiat. I have no idea. It's up to him, more than anything."

"That's fine." Audiat beams, graciously changing the subject. "I remember one time with your uncle, he disappeared without any warning. Turns out he was sleeping under a mountain the entire time – once I got past utter amazement, I grounded him for a month."

"You… grounded him?" I echo, baffled.

"That's right." Audiat nods seriously. "I stole all his exotic spices. He wasn't allowed to make tea for a month. That was the month I swear to God he almost went crazy. I caught him gnawing on cinnamon sticks more than once. He would nibble on tea leaf plants when he thought I wasn't looking."

Something is absurdly amusing about that. "That's adorable. Seriously adorable. …Can I ask you something? Was my uncle a goofball around you?"

"Oh, yes." Audiat smiles into her coffee. "Not at first, of course. At first, he was… you know. He was wise and stoically calm, a being that felt otherworldly, despite the fact that I'm older than him. It all started out with an addiction to hats. He saw me waddling around swathed in all sorts of clothing and I kept trying to find hats and then – he found them, and found a lot more. It was so cute. There is nothing better than the massive dragon you saw out there wearing a little cap."

"Oh, I know that addiction!" I grin, remembering his nitpicking over hats in the emporium during our day in Sercem Domu. "Are there any hats big enough for him when he's a dragon?"

Audiat shrugs. "No, but as long as he's got one scale hatted, he's happy. Back when it was safer for him to go large, he'd do it all the time, and always wanted a hat. I used to fall asleep on his belly after stargazing with him. He was like a sauna. The cold didn't stand a chance."

"Was Ogden around back then?" I wonder, furrowing my brow. "I mean, do you remember what he was like back then? …Did he ever seem like he was going to betray Bryon like he did?"

"I knew him." Audiat's voice hardens, and her hands clench around her coffee cup. "And we weren't on bad terms. I was always more close with Sariel, of course, but I respected Ogden as Bryon's second father even so. It seems my trust was placed in the wrong hands. Why are you bringing this up, Penryn? Did he do anything to harm you? Maybe to convert you?"

Slowly, I shake my head, peeling a flake of the cheese pastry from its skin. "He was always kind to me. I still don't understand why he did it."

"If I find out, I'll let you know," she mutters darkly, staring broodingly into her coffee, as if provides an answer for her. "Penryn, you'd better pray that nothing happens to your uncle or messes with his state of leadership. Ogden speaks better than a man with a tongue when it comes to persuasion, and he's very thorough. He'd have you killed, not only because you'd actually serve a big threat as Bryon's heir for those still loyal to the Youngs, but to infuriate Sariel and the rest of those that love you. Another reason to stick by Emilio; he's just itching to snap the traitor's neck after what he's done to my husband."

"Is Ogden really that bad a guy?" I glance over the edge of my pastry, not really wanting to know the answer.

"He's not a bad guy, but an ambitious one." A shrug sends Audiat's curls rippling. "It's not as bad as a madman like Uriel, at least, but his goal is to expose the entire Young family as monsters. He believes that you've lost your touch, and will do anything to show the rest of the Nephilim that. He will blackmail and he will plunder. In his eyes, the Nephilim are his children – and he will not let a weed poison his crop."

"Maybe Emilio should be more concerned with Paige, then." Anxiously, I glance across the open room and watch as the Spaniard grabs a fistful of the boy's brown hair and pulls him onto his feet. "I can fight back. She can't."

"Actually, no, Bryon's helping her with that." Looking at me through her white eyelashes, Audiat smiles slyly. "Did he tell you it was possible for a favored to compel their patron?"

My eyebrows shoot up. "He mentioned it once in the passing, I think. Wait. He's teaching my baby to call on the Devil's role model? Why?"

"Because the Devil's role model isn't actually all that bad." Audiat smile brightens. "He's loyal to a promise, at least, and if you bind him, he'll do as you say. He might do a little overkill, of course, and demolish a civilization, but it's not like Sunnyside Lunatic, who'll annihilate everything on Earth for no exact reason. Bryon always had the better patron…"

"That's reassuring, knowing that she's at least got something," I admit. "But I still think Emilio should be more focused on her than me. I mean, after all, she's a little girl, and Sariel's easily more attached to her."

Audiat finishes her coffee with a mewling sound of pleasure. "And because of that, Bryon's made sure she's under supervision, don't worry. He's a very capable man – he can protect her, you know, even in his sleepy state, so you can relax your guard slightly. As long as Bryon's around, you won't have anything to worry about."

I'm about to respond with something, reminding her that it's my duty to worry about my little sister, when a loud, thunderous outbreak of voices interrupts us both. The few she-angels that'd been jousting together back away nervously, allowing a clear view of both Emilio and Titaniel.

The shouts they usher are angered and thoughtless – they carry no true meaning other than exclamations of hatred. It seems that they're arguing over a demolished practiced dummy. Though Titaniel towers over Emilio, the Spaniard doesn't seem at all slighted, even with his neck craned back. I can't tell which of the two warriors I fear more.

"Oh, dear," Audiat sighs titteringly, standing up and casting a remorseful glance at her coffee. "I knew having them in the same room was going to start trouble. Stay behind me, Penryn."

It's not difficult for me to follow her orders, leaving behind the cheese pastry and staying safely in the rear of the petite she-angel. Many of the angels pass incredulous glances to Audiat as they scurry from the floor, escaping the archangel. The sable-haired boy Emilio had been training slinks off, his thinking most likely akin to mine – who wouldn't want to escape a pair of time bombs?

"Emilio, Titaniel!" Audiat snaps, her high, gentle voice not calming the tension, but if anything, adding to it – both of their heads snap towards her, both pairs of oval-shaped eyes narrowing in resentment.

"Find someone else to nag on," Titaniel growls, his voice gravelly and terrifying, holding none of the mellifluent harmonies I'd grown to expect.

"Don't tell her what to do," Emilio snarls, his accent butchered by the feral sound rumbling in his throat.

"Both of you, break it up," Audiat commands with an unfamiliar growl in her voice. "We don't need to cause a scene, and we certainly don't need to rip this place to smithereens."

Titaniel laughs, a slow, rumbling thing, devoid of any true emotion. His eyes are so utterly expressionless, they're almost unseeing, like a Greek statue. "It won't take more than a single strike for me to –"

"It will take a hell of a lot more," Audiat sighs tersely, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Emilio, I saw those fists clench. If they stray from your side, I will make sure that they'll never stray anywhere but their mounts on my wall."

"Now, now," the archangel growls, playing a sadistic game almost as if he could feel pleasure, "don't make the little bitch have to punish you."

"Take that back!" Emilio snarls, thrusting his face into Titaniel's.

"Got a crush, monkey?" Titaniel sneers, his eyes betraying the cruel, emotionless intelligence egging the boy on rather than petty anger. "You could be beheaded for that, you know. Not that it'll be much of a loss. What's one more?"

Emilio's hands fly up to the blades at his back, and something in me twitches. As the silver arches curl over Emilio's shoulders and into his ready position, Titaniel reaches up and unsheathes his pair of swords, also equipped on a pair of back scabbards, identical to Emilio's. His blades, too, slice down into an offensive position. Seeing both men preparing for a duel reminds me that, although his skills are impressive, I can't see Emilio killing an archangel.

"Emilio, back down," I order him.

Chocolate brown eyes swing to me, shocked.

"Emilio." I stare at him, attempting to put the same stone mask over my emotions as Raffe. "I ordered you to back down."

His hesitation is agonizing, nearly as terrible as the conflict in his eyes. The desire to fight is so strong, his heart seems to sing with it. A tremble shakes the blades in his hands as the obedient soldier wars with his passionate attitude.

"Emilio."

He closes his eyes. Very, very slowly, he backs away from Titaniel, sheathing his swords as he does so. Though fury stiffens his back and keeps his lips drawn in a thin line, Emilio obeys his orders like a good warrior, falling in line behind me. A warm glow of pride heats my heart when he opens those eyes and gazes down at me with, instead of resentment as I'd expected, something I would only call pride.

"Weakling," Titaniel spits, brandishing his sword like a pointer towards Emilio. "Afraid I'll wipe the floor with you?"

"Titaniel," Audiat warns.

"Get out of the way."

I'm not utterly sure what happens. All I know is that between point A and point B, Audiat is a whirl of white and red, like a candy cane. Judging from Emilio's rapid blinking, he doesn't understand, either.

She now stands over him with a sneer of disgust curling her lip, watching as the archangel moans upon the floor, his otherwise blank eyes filled with a question I also wish to know the answer to. How had Audiat slammed him on the ground so quickly?

Audiat crouches in front of him, retaining none of her former bubbliness. "How did I do that, you're wondering. How could I do that? Little old me? Good question. If I can do that, imagine what this guy will be able to do. Now get the hell out of here, before I change my mind and crush your skull."

"Emilio, go find the kid you were training," I whisper to him, glancing back at his overly serene face. "Get back to it, alright? Sorry about this."

Emilio rolls his eyes and mouths, "Not your fault."

Without another word, he stalks off. I watch him go, studying the roll of his shoulders with each of his strides, wondering how comfortable it is for him with his wings hidden on the inside of his armor like that. The way he walks, the sound his feet hit the ground, the character in the square shoulders of his – the Emilio strut, I suppose I could call it. I smile, watching him go, glad to have diffused the situation without making an enemy out of the dangerous Nephilim.

"Don't touch me." Calm, bloodcurdlingly calm. I turn to see Titaniel rising to his feet, Audiat hovering awkwardly over him, as if her help had been refused. "Very well, Audiat, you win this round. Continue sipping your coffee and whisperingly discussing that Ogden character, and of Raffe's affections. I'm sure it's of no concern to me, is it, Penryn?"

His blue eyes flash for a moment, and I feel my breath leaving me as our gazes meet for a tantalizingly long stretch of time – his brilliant blue eyes are like diamonds. Though they themselves are large and capturing, I realize as my knees begin to feel weak, his eyes are almond shaped, and, had not all emotion been at a loss to him, I would've called them expressive – my knees feel weak at the loss of that tiny, essential component, my breathing becomes soft and airy.

He could snap me between his thumb and index if he wanted to. Without Pooky Bear, I have no defense against him. Even with Pooky Bear, he'd only find amusement in my death, like a cat playing with a mouse.

"Leave," Audiat instructs coolly, her cold, hard voice jarring me from the terrified stupor of a bird caught in a snake's gaze. "Get out of here, and don't come back. Breathe a word of this to anyone, and I will make sure that the demon from last night finishes his job."

And, upon her words, a slight tingle of courage returns to me. I'm not helpless to him. Even if I can't outfight him, there's more than that to a battlefield.

I watch, transfixed, as Titaniel reluctantly slips his swords back into their sheathes, his muscles flexing as he does so. With nothing more than a chuckle, he turns on heel, flexing his wings slightly. My heart drops to my shoes with recognition, but I can't quite place it.

His wings, though radiantly white, aren't brilliant and wide like Raffe's – they're cleverly built, lithe and lean. Though their slender shape isn't quite as magnificent, it's just as effective. I know it is. I've seen wings like those in action, but not upon his back.

Titaniel walks off without another word. And, as his feet carry him to the hatch, I notice that he's got a strut I find vaguely familiar – not exact, not precise. But the motion is there, the same graceful twist of his steps. The moment those slender white wings carry him through the skylight and out of earshot, I turn to Audiat expectantly.

She meets my gaze curiously, as if wondering why I appear so freaked out. A silent question forms on her lips, mirrored in the furrow of her brow and the worry in her gaze.

I lean over to whisper into Audiat's ear, my voice trembling.

"What are we going to do?" I panic quietly. "Does he know too much?"

"He'll most likely report it to Uriel," Audiat sighs heavily, "which means he'll be onto you and you'll have to get rid of that marvelous shirt, but there's nothing Uriel can do to prove his reports. Titaniel's not quite trusted by the others for obvious reasons. No one wants a leader that's willing to throw all his troops away if it means a medal."

"Oh, okay." I release my tension in a curt exhale. "Doesn't he remind you of Emilio, though?"

Her gaze slips from mine, instead focused on the planes of Titaniel's back as he stalks off. "Don't let him hear you comparing the two."

My heart splutters, and my brow furrows as something happens on me out of chance. "…Who's Emilio's father, Audiat?"

Audiat casts one glance back at me, her red eyes saturated with emotion, her teeth biting nervously into her plump lower lip. After a moment, she sighs, and buries her face into her hands.

"It's why he gets so much respect, being the first son of an archangel in thousands of years," she says at last into the palms of her hands. "Like I said, Penryn, make sure you're not his clockwork beauty."

A load of bricks settles on my shoulders. In my shock, my eyes drift to the dummies – Titaniel's fighting style hadn't differed to much from Emilio's, based upon the same dance of blades. I open my mouth to question further, my eyes round, not understanding how or when this could've happened, but no sound comes out. Why had I not bothered to learn about Emilio's lack of a paternal figure before now?

"There he is now," Audiat notices, sounding somewhat confused, pointing to the stairwell Emilio had disappeared up. "Why does he look… oh, dear, this can't be good."

Even his footsteps sound urgent as he pounds through the room. The brown of his eyes seems duller than usual, as if darkened by the thought of whatever news he brings. His frown is deep, troubled. A trill of terror rings up my spine as I realize that even the swing of Titaniel's and Emilio's arms are the same.

"Audiat, Penryn." His gaze slices through the air like a razor blade. "I need to get the two of you to safety. Terror is spreading as I speak. The aerie is unsteady, and chaos is threatening to break. Before you protest, I refuse to leave your side."

"What do you mean?" Audiat's surprise is tangible. "What? The aerie is unsteady? Like a riot?"

"Maybe." His façade cracks for a mere second, showing me how shaken he really is. "I just watched some servant get his head ripped off because he interrupted the he-angels during their panic. Someone will already have to explain to his mother why they were not there to protect him. I will not do the same to Bryon. Both of you, with me, now."

"What's happening?" I demand, digging my heels into the ground as he attempts to drag me towards the door. "What's going on?"

Emilio glances once back at me, his impassive gaze belittling. "Maion discovered the undecayed body of Gabriel stashed beneath one of the bushes in the library. The he-angels, of course, chose to respond to this in the most logical way possible, so the sooner we leave, the better…"

"Gabriel?" Audiat repeats, incredulous. "How did he get under there? I mean, he's always had a bad sense of direction, but this is a new low, even for him..."

"Audiat," Emilio sighs tensely, dragging both of us towards the stairs, "I sincerely doubt he chose to bury himself under that bush."

As Emilio drags me from the room, I notice that my pastry has been devoured, though I don't recall finishing it. In my confusion, my gaze skips over the small dragon curled around the coffee merchant's neck, and the silent plea in his eyes.

"Don't touch him."

Daine's chin lifts from his chest, his eyes opening and all whims of slumber dispelled. The two idiots that'd been laughing and playing discordant notes on the Queen's black, glossy piano silence with exchanged shushes. The air thickens like butter as eyes all find their way to the once-sleeping leader.

And, for once, Bryon's eyes are shut. His face is tranquil. Though the relaxation might be a comfort in any other situation, for some deep, primal reason, it isn't for Daine. In fact, it only seems more dangerous than the way he'd been before.

"Don't touch him." Bryon's head calmly moves towards Daine, as if to better center his words. "Do you hear me, child? Don't touch him."

"…Sir?" Daine questions, moments before Bryon collapses into fits of wild shrieks, his eyes splaying wide. As he writhes, throwing fists and ripping at his bandages, only the sounds of his wretched chanting can be heard over his shrieks.

"I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU!"

"Told us what?" one of the men cries, rattled, collapsing onto the piano with a discordant howl of the keys.

"NOT TO TOUCH HIM!"

Just as Daine draws the conclusion that this is worst thing to happen yet, Bryon's eyes flutter shut then quickly open again. His pulse thunders back to life with a familiar cadence. With a tremendous inhale, his arms fall from their fits, and his face loses its nonsensical paranoia, instead replaced by horror.

For a moment, Daine believes that, instead of bronze, one of his King's eyes burns blue – but it fades so quickly that he convinces himself it must've been a trick of the blue sky above playing over the reflective surface.

Gasping as if he'd been ripped from a trance, Bryon's eyes turn to his men, agony shimmering there. A single tear slips from one, tracing over the bridge of his nose on its downward descent. He whispers a single, defeated statement that causes Daine's spine to prickle.

"It was me."

Seriously, though, if that Mermaid AU does not show up on this site I might honest to God go bat shit crazy.

Hope all those in the USA had a good Gobble Gobble Day.

POLL: Gabriel. Remember him? Thoughts on his body's appearance?

Ciao,

~ wolfluvermh