Warning: Violence and disturbing content.
They were only halfway to Koprivnica when she felt Edvardiel's exhaustion. He had the stamina of a human, she realised, if a human were that strong and fast. He needed breaks. He needed sleep. She wondered how much energy he had left.
"Why don't we do that thing where you disappear and reappear?" Issa asked as they stopped by a run-down hut for the night. It was odd for her to rest at night—as an Acolyte, she'd always started her hunts at night and then rested every three mornings or so depending on how tough the human resistance had been.
Edvardiel only looked confused. "Disappear and reappear?"
"Remember the time I was outnumbered? And you nearly shot yourself?"
Edvardiel chuckled. "I remember that very well." His eyes sparkled and unexpected joy rushed through their bond, as though the memory were precious to him. "It was the first time someone had ever called for me."
Issa struggled to remember what she'd said. She'd cursed him more than called him, and yet here it was, a seemingly fond memory for him.
"You're very odd," she said.
"You've been many of my firsts," he said. "My first summon. My first friend."
"You first kiss," she said dryly.
He glowed but didn't deny it. "I like you, Issa. I like you a lot. You're good."
He didn't hold anything back, did he?
Issa squirmed.
"I'm not sure you know what good is," she said. He was looking at her as though she were something special. As though she weren't hell-bound. As though she didn't have the blood of countless lives on her hands. "I don't remember being nice to you."
"I do," Edvardiel said. "You gave me your dagger. Your daggers were the only things you had and you gave one to me. I didn't even know what they meant to you back then."
"You healed me first," Issa said.
"You took bullets for me," Edvardiel said. "Bullets."
Issa hated to admit it, but… "It was Lilith's poison."
"Was it?" Edvardiel said. "When your veins glow blue it means you're fighting the poison, doesn't it? But when you jumped in front of me, there was no glow. You wanted to do it. You'd have done it anyway."
It was disconcerting, how differently they remembered the same event. In his mind, she'd been a protector. In hers, she'd been a sidetracked kidnapper.
Issa shook her head slowly. "I don't know about that."
"You did," Edvardiel said and she didn't argue the point. If he wanted to think she was good, she'd let him. Then he wouldn't realise what a horrifying creature she was. Issa found herself sickeningly grateful for his lack of worldliness. She liked that he liked her. And he wouldn't like her if his idea of good wasn't warped.
Issa wished she was half as good he thought.
"Anyway," she said, dragging the conversation back to her original point. "You need someone to summon you? You can't appear or disappear without a summon?"
Edvardiel paused. "Perhaps it's possible without a summon. But I imagine it would require a lot of glory."
They were not wasting his glory. Not under her watch. "How does the summoning work?"
"You were my first summon so I'm not sure," Edvardiel said. "I think someone would have to call for me or think of me and I would need to hear the call and answer it."
Interesting. "What if I went ahead to Koprivnica and then summon you? Won't that save us time?"
Edvardiel frowned at her. "Aren't you tired?"
"I need to sleep maybe every three to five days," Issa said. "I've gone two weeks without it." That had been the hellish siege in Romania. The mountains had given the humans an enormous advantage. They'd spent months there and Issa was sure they still hadn't gotten everyone. She hoped they hadn't gotten everyone. "Not something I want to repeat though." She'd nearly dropped dead from the sheer exhaustion, bullet holes and poison gas, not to mention she'd been bleeding from every possible orifice.
"I suppose hell-dwellers don't need much sleep," Edvardiel said thoughtfully. "But I'm your Keeper now, which means your energy will match mine. Unless you're amplifying that too." This time, she knew she didn't imagine the pinch of envy in their bond. Edvardiel was envious of her power.
Issa paused at the doorstep. "This is your power," she said. "Seriously, I'm the last person you should envy."
Edvardiel coughed and his glow crackled like fireworks. "You really do feel everything." He sounded mortified.
"I told you, I'm not always paying attention," she said, as she tried the door. "But so far it's just been the two of us and lots of snow, so it's hard to miss. Come on, let's go in."
They'd been standing at the steps of the hut for a while. The knob wasn't budging so she kicked the door open and strode in.
Edvardiel entered but didn't take off his jacket, hovering near the door.
Issa took off her coat and shook the snow out of her hair. "What are you doing?"
"It feels odd to be in someone's home," he said, looking around. "I was forbidden to make any kind of contact with humans when I was sent to Earth."
"Sent? Didn't you fall?"
"I was sent once," he said. "Before I fell."
Issa hesitated. She'd deliberately avoided asking but now he was the one broaching the subject. His mood was relatively calm…
"Why did you fall?" she dared.
Edvardiel opened his mouth and then closed it again. There were so many conflicting emotions shooting through their bond that Issa could hardly keep up. Anger, betrayal, defeat and, strangely enough, hope. He wanted to talk about this. But something like shame and fear seemed to be holding him back. "I think…" he said. "No, I hope it was a misunderstanding."
Issa remembered the swollen mass of half-healed muscles and broken wing bones on his back. It had looked like a punishment from Hell. Heaven had given him something like that over a misunderstanding?
"You mean you didn't actually do anything wrong?"
His ghost pain throbbed between her own shoulder blades.
"Do you think intentions matter?" he asked.
It was something Issa was too afraid to think about. "I don't know."
The silence that followed felt cold. His demons were too close to her own.
Edvardiel shut the door and began to remove his jackets. Some of the zippers were frozen and his fingers glowed gold as he melted them. There was still some snow in his hair and as he reached up to brush them away, Issa marvelled at how he managed to make something mundane look so beautiful.
She ambled around the dusty hut. There were things scattered everywhere, half-packed bags, and on the way to the main bedroom, a fallen bookshelf. She pushed it back up with minimal effort, stepping back as books spilt out of it. Something squeaked and she looked down to see a hand-stitched bunny with one missing button eye.
She bent down to pick it up when she saw a small, bloody handprint on the bunny's round body. Her mind flashed back to the past. Heavy rain. A little girl crying as she hugged a toy bear to her chest. Issa saw herself as though from the outside, wrenching her blade from the mother's chest before turning to the girl.
"Issa?"
She swallowed and rose slowly. She'd felt nothing on that day. Or on any other day. A little boy sleeping in his mother's arms. Another little girl playing in the woods, unaware. An old man with a toothless smile. The teenager from two days ago—
"… the bed in the master bedroom or the other one?"
She blinked down at the bunny. What had they been to her but flesh and bones to be cut down?
"Did you hear me?" Edvardiel poked his head from one of the bedrooms.
His eyes darted to the bunny and his anxiety spiked through the bond. When she looked down at the toy again, the bloody handprint was gone.
"Well? Which bed do you want?" Even if she didn't feel his stress, she could hear it in his voice.
She gave him a hard stare. "Where are the bodies?"
He didn't quite meet her eyes. "What bodies?"
"You know what bodies," she said. The three bodies near his void had disappeared too. "We keep walking through places of massacre. But we haven't seen any bodies. Not even bones."
Edvardiel went very still. Then hesitantly, he strode over to her and took her hand. Instead of cradling hers its warmth, his hand seemed to drain it from her this time. "You mean like this one?"
A child's body lay on the ground, crushed by the bookshelf, a little hand on the bunny.
Issa's muscles froze.
Edvardiel knelt and gently rested a hand on the child's back. The small body dissolved into golden dust.
"The soul has moved on," he said. "It's only a shell. I didn't want you to be upset."
"Upset?" she repeated, her voice cracking. She wasn't upset. She was furious. "Where are the other bodies?" Where there was a child, there were parents. Siblings. She'd hunted enough humans to know.
"I already blessed them."
"Where were they?"
Edvardiel ran a nervous hand through his hair. "At the doorstep. In the living room. Outside of the house."
"How many bodies have you blessed," she spat the word. "while we were together?"
"I wasn't keeping count—"
"Don't give me that bullshit."
Edvardiel flinched. Then squared his shoulders. "Three hundred and forty-two."
Her mind spun. Three hundred and forty-two?
"How long have I been blind?"
"Issa—"
"I asked you a question, seraph."
"Since we left the cathedral," he said finally.
That was… That had been… Issa backed away from him and sank down against the wall, her head in her hands. Three hundred and forty-two since the cathedral?
"Why?"
"You said I reminded you of a guardian angel," he said softly, a faint glow on his cheeks. "I wanted to try being yours." He knelt down before her so that they were at the same eye level. "I'm sorry."
A burst of desperate laughter bubbled forth from her.
"You keep throwing that word around," she said. "What are you sorry for? Existing?"
She hadn't expected it to hit home. Edvardiel was very good at keeping his face still as a statue, she'd give him that. But their bond was an invasive, horrible thing. She staggered to her feet, too haunted by her own demons to deal with his.
Three hundred and forty-two.
If they'd walked past this many bodies in two days, how many had she left in the wake of a century?
The walls closed around her and Issa couldn't breathe.
She was out the door before she knew it, running and running, the snow and the wind tugging her hair and the moonlit angel dress.
"Issa!"
He would never catch up to her. Not in this cold, not when he was so drained.
Of course all of it had been an illusion. The peace. The warmth. Maybe even the friendship.
What had she expected? She'd been a soldier of the Apocalypse. Joyful freedom was a pipe dream. Free will was excruciating. At least when she'd been Lilith's slave, she'd had no need to think. No choice but to focus on her survival. Being free meant having to justify her survival, over and over again, to prove that she deserved to live, despite everything she'd done.
Issa wanted to live. She wanted it so badly that she was overcome by the absurd grief of breaking her chains. There was no way to return to Lilith of her own free will—not without knowing she'd chosen to be a mindless soldier again. She would be guilty forever.
"Did you miss me, my dear?"
It was a demon. Blue and silver scales glinted around her neck, a gigantic mace in her hand.
"I could drag you back," Lilith spoke through her lips. "After all, you summoned me."
"Issa!"
She started as Edvardiel's frantic worry blazed through her. He was wasting his glory and he wasn't wearing any jackets. Or shoes.
"I see your mission," the demon grinned, still speaking with Lilith's voice. "I shall welcome you with open arms, my Acolyte."
Shadows stirred behind the demon and Issa realised that there were dozens of them. Dozens and dozens with their Acolytes at their heels.
Edvardiel stopped next to her, doubled over and panting, his glory flickering on and off like a broken light bulb. His lips were already turning blue.
"Stay behind me." Issa reached for blades that weren't there. Fuck.
The gun.
Shakily, she reached inside the magical angel dress and pulled it out.
As the demons surrounded them from all sides, Issa looked at the puny thing in her hand and wondered if it had any bullets.
They were well and truly fucked.