Leliel braced herself before going back to Donovan’s room.  She spent ten minutes gathering supplies: bandages, damp and dry cloths, water.  Many years had passed since she treated this condition on a regular basis, but the actual procedures were not difficult.  Dealing with the patients required the most strength, and Donovan, she knew, would need everything she could muster.

The delirium experienced by wing trauma patients often caused unwanted exhibitions of their powers.  Sometimes, this was not a problem.  Leliel recalled one angel who caused intense happiness in anyone near him while he recovered.  But for every angel like him, there were fifty more with powers of ice or fire or exploding heads.

Leliel had never lost a patient but she had come very close to losing her mind.

As she unlocked Donovan’s door, she wondered if, in fact, she had.

During the night, Donovan had shredded the door, almost digging through to the other side.  Deep, erratic grooves scarred the wood’s surface, some of them deep enough to see through.

His sheets, torn and bloody, were strewn about the floor, forming a ragged path to his bed.  He slept, though his muscles twitched and he had clawed his arms and wrists raw.

“Oh, Ireul,” she whispered.  He had to be bound, somehow.  Violent sleepwalking was to be expected, but such rages slowed the healing process considerably.  But Ireul’s bed lacked the standard hospital restraints.

It always pained her to watch her comrades fight their delirium, in battles often more horrific than those on the field.  That it was Ireul who now suffered before her caused despair almost too difficult to endure.  He fought so hard against himself every day.  She could only hope that this had made him strong enough to survive this new struggle.

Leliel approached him warily, and began to wash the fresh wounds.  His body shivered under the cloth, but he did not otherwise stir until she had almost finished with the fresh bandages.

“Lily,” he said, hoarse and uncertain.  His eyes were glazed and distant, like when he wove illusions, but Leliel sensed no shift in reality.  Perhaps he had ensnared himself.

As he spoke her name, she recalled last night’s addled ramblings.  The confession of his love reverberated.

“Lily, is that you?  It’s you, right?  Lily, I had the most beautiful dream.”

Now upright, he reached out, grasping at air. “There were tears, but they were good.  The happy kind, and you smiled, and no one was afraid, and there were flowers.  You were smiling, and glowing, radiant, like a star made of milk because you were, you were wearing white, which you never do but I, I,…”

He trailed off, and hushed, folding his hands in his lap, his gaze fixed straight ahead. “But it was just a dream.  I’m sorry.  It will always be a dream.”

Leliel tried not to listen, tried to focus on her task, but his words made her clumsy.  She had to rewrap his shoulder twice.

“Do you hear me, Lily?” he demanded loudly, and she started, dropping the roll of gauze.  “Answer me.  Fucking answer me.”

He seized her as she bent to retrieve the roll, dragging her up to meet his now dangerously clear eyes.

“Y-yes, Ireul,” she said.  “I’m here.”

“You’re here.  You hear,” he said, and let go.  He collapsed onto his mattress, sweating and pale, muttering incoherently.  She wiped his brow with her last damp cloth.

“Continue to sleep,” she said. “Continue to heal.”

She kissed his forehead, and he relaxed, limp but intense, like hot glass.

A strip of wood broke off the door as she shut it, clattering to the ground.

I prodded my belly in front of the mirror, still amazed at the fully healed flesh.  No tokens of the wound persisted, no ugly scab or white scar.  Even the tenderness had melted away, as if the entire business of Donovan gutting me had never happened.  I did not understand how we could fight against someone with such a benevolent power, and I said as much when I went downstairs.

“We’re not fighting them because they’re evil, per se,” said Cadmiel.  “We’re fighting them because they’re wrong.  Besides, her ability to heal doesn’t automatically mean she’s a good person, any more than, say, Metatron’s ability to destroy means he’s a bad person.”

“Where is that guy, anyway?” Sean said.

“I’m not sure,” Cadmiel admitted. “He’s not usually away this long.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Anael said airily. “Shouldn’t we be worrying about those other two fellows?”

“That’s right,” I said.  “But how would we find them?”

“Excellent question, my dear,” Anael said. “I’m working on it.”

“Until then, let’s train,” Cadmiel said. “Come along, Orifiel.”

“Haven’t we trained enough?” Sean groaned.

“Not hardly.  You haven’t even had your first final yet, so to speak.”

“Whaddaya mean, final.  I don’t need no final,” Sean grumbled as he trudged into the backyard.

I started to fix cereal, noticed it was past noon, and opted for the roast beef instead.

“I slept for a long time,” I remarked, to no one in particular.

“That’s Leliel’s doing,” Tialiel said. “I guess it’s a bit like magic Nyquil.”

“Nice,” I said, toting my sandwich to the couch and flipping on the television.

I was halfway into a mildly entertaining Lifetime film about a woman whose baby daughter is kidnapped by passing gypsies, one of whom seems to be stalking the mother but is in fact her long lost husband returned from war, when a news bulletin cut in.

“Oh, man,” I said through a mouthful of bread and meat, “They interrupted the mother’s emotional and dra-dramatic confrontation with her erstwhile gyp-gypsy husband.”

“We apologize for disrupting A Mother’s Heartbreak: The Ann Marcos Story, but we have an incredible situation going on downtown, brought to you by News Channel 13, On Your Side,” a perky anchorwoman announced as the screen cut away to a scene in downtown Vinton, where a vicious accident had taken place.  Cars upon cars had crashed into and on top of one another, some flipped onto their sides or completely onto their backs, others simply sandwiched in between other wreckage.  At the epicenter of all the smoldering metal sat an enormous airship, elaborate and ornate, as if it had come from a different world—which, indeed, it had.

I swallowed hard. “Holy sh-shit.”

The VPD swarmed around the ship, but according to the reporter, they were wary of attempting to board it.  Additionally, no one had yet emerged from the ship, which appeared without warning only a half hour ago.

“It was fucking crazy,” a pedestrian shouted into the reporter’s microphone, his myriad profanities censored by blips of static.  “I was just walking down from the office to get a sandwich, and all of a sudden this huge motherfucker drops right in the middle of the street and all hell fucking breaks loose.  Fuck.  What is that thing?”

“Oh my goodness,” Tialiel said. “How terrible.”

“That’s the ship,” I said. “From my game—er—Septerra, I guess.”

Tialiel called in Cadmiel and Sean to see.

“Wicked awesome,” Sean said. “Let’s go get it.”

“Do what now?  We’re in the middle of training,” Cadmiel said.

“Forget that,” Sean said. “We need an airship.”

“We do not, we have wings.” Cadmiel paused, and conceded, “Well, most of us, anyway.”

Sean ignored him. “C’mon Claris, let’s go.”

“Me?” I said.

“Yes, come on,” He dragged me outside, followed closely by the angels.  He extended his wings as Cadmiel snatched him by the neck, like a mother cat saving a kitten about to launch itself off a dangerous precipice.

“What are you doing?  You can’t just go flying around in broad daylight.”

“Why not?  I’ve done that before.  So have you.”

“Yes, I should’ve lectured you earlier.  And I have thousands of years of experience at concealing myself, you don’t.”

“Don’t you think this is worth checking out?” Sean said, shaking off Cadmiel’s grip.

“I’d certainly like to investigate,” Anael said.

“It’s not like I can hide this angel getup, anyway,” Sean pointed out, and flexed his wings for emphasis.

“We need to work on that, somehow,” Cadmiel said. “But that doesn’t mean you should be handing out solid proof that those wings are not simply the elaborate decoration of a homeless bum.”

“Endless whining,” Sean said. “Let’s go, Claris.”

He picked me up, and I said, “H-hey now, careful.  Are you su-sure this is wise?  You’re recovering still.”

“Remember that talk we had about trusting me?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is exactly what I mean.” He took off, and any reply I had was silenced by the roaring wind.  I glanced down as the scenery shrunk, to find the other angels catching up rapidly.  Cadmiel shouted behind him in vain.

Sean’s bandaged arm trembled under my weight.  I frowned, but he feigned ignorance.  The shaking became pronounced as we flew on, until at length he began to sag.  I clung to him in fear, almost clawing his neck.

“Down,” I said.  “Now.”

“Right,” he said.

He slowed, and descended, with Cadmiel nipping at his heels.  We landed behind a factory, not far from the downtown area.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, boy?” Cadmiel snapped. He slapped Sean upside the head.

“Ow!” Sean winced. “Whatever, Grandpa.”

“I realize that you inhabit your own personal plane of existence,” Cadmiel said, “but surely you’ve noticed that you’re injured.  You should not be carrying anyone while you fly.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“The hell you do.”

“Look, it’s fine.  I know my limits.  I stopped when I felt tired.  So would you just get off my back for five seconds?”

“You shouldn’t have gone—” Cadmiel started, but a look from Tialiel quieted him.

“You don’t have to be hard on him all the time, Cadmiel,” Tialiel said.

“I’m only trying to teach him some common sense.  A futile effort, obviously.”

“Yup,” Sean said, already strutting away.  I trailed after, glancing back at Cadmiel, who had paused for a cigarette.  Once he and the others were out of earshot, Sean muttered, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, fingering my amulet.

“I messed up again, didn’t I,” he slowed his pace so I could walk beside him.

“You stopped,” I said. “I didn’t fall.  It’s fine.”

“Still,” Sean dropped his voice to a whisper, even though Cadmiel remained many feet behind us, “I think he’s right.”

“He does have a habit of that.”

The usual stares followed us when we reached the city, and a couple of daring pedestrians reached out to touch Sean's feathers as they passed. He bore it until the fifth person, a teenaged boy, who tried to take a souvenir instead of just cop a feel. Sean grabbed the boy by the collar of his t-shirt and yanked him backwards, growling.

“You want to give me that back before I break your goddamn neck?”

“H-here,” the boy gasped, proffering it with trembling hands.

“Stop terrorizing the populace,” Cadmiel said, as Sean snatched the feather and then dropped the boy, shoving him away for good measure.

“They started it. Besides, these—” Sean held up the feather and snapped, “are not fucking free samples.”

He jammed it into his pocket and stalked onwards, muttering something about bitches and their need to respect as well as recognize.

The police had blocked off the immediate perimeter surrounding the airship, and were engaged both in repelling the surging crowd and figuring out what to do about it.

“Scuse me, coming through,” Sean pushed his way through the throng until reached the blockade, which he cleared handily.

“Sir, please go back.  You are not permitted beyond this point,” an officer approached him with a sidelong glance to his wings.

“It’s cool, I got this,” Sean replied, and strode forward, despite the officer’s grab for him.

“Sir!”

“Oh, jeez,” I sighed, as more policemen converged on Sean, many of them poised to draw their guns.

“Officers!” Cadmiel shouted. “My brother, he hasn’t had his medication today.  He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not your brother,” Sean said.  He shoved a policeman away from him.  “Would you people quit touching my wings?  Goddammit.  I will kill you all.”

I cringed as about ten guns cocked at once.

“Please, everything’s fine, he’s not a danger to anyone,” Cadmiel said. “We were just taking him on a little day trip from the mental hospital, that’s all.  Dearest brother, wouldn’t you like some lunch?”

“If that lunch includes a portion of your face, perhaps.  Perhaps,” Sean said.  He shrugged off the officers attempting to pinion his arms and hopped onto the ladder on the side of the airship.

“If you climb one rung of that ladder, we will shoot,” the sergeant, a tall, well built black man, aimed his pistol for Sean’s nearest temple.

“Bring it,” Sean said, and began to climb.

“You need to rein him in, now,” the sergeant said to Cadmiel.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Cadmiel yanked on the length of Sean’s hair, and Sean thrashed as Cadmiel dragged him away, hissing in his ear. “We need to approach this with subtlety and finesse.  That does not mean aggravating the local law enforcement.”

“It’s not my fault these guys don’t want to hand this over to the professionals,” Sean said.

Cadmiel rolled his eyes. “I’d hardly call you a professional.”

“Your mother.”

“I don’t have a mother.” Cadmiel threw Sean against a dumpster in a nearby alley.  We gathered there to think of a plan.

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do just now,” Tialiel said.  “It’s possible to fly to the bridge and enter from there, but we’d probably cause another scene.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Sean said.

“Tialiel’s right, it’s just not feasible at this time,” Anael said. “Although who knows what will happen if these people decide to go exploring.”

“I agree that the situation needs to be addressed, but we cannot risk being noticed,” Cadmiel said.

I peered around the side of the alley, at the Italian deli on the corner.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “Can we maybe si-sit down and talk about this?  Sit down while eating?”
 

Sean tore at a meatball sub while I slurped spaghetti and we listened to the continued chaos outside.  The deli worker cleaned the counter over and over, her gaze fixed on the airship.

“Do y’all know what’s going on?” she asked.

“Not really,” Anael replied.

She dropped her rag in the sink behind her. “Traffic tonight is going to be a bitch.”

I focused not on the ship but on the people milling in the street, some panicked, some excited, all confused.  Except one person, sitting at the bus stop next to the deli window.  I could only distinguish his profile—sunglasses hid his eyes, and locks of sandy blond hair obscured his other features.

“Metatron!” I said, almost choking on a noodle.

“What the hell is he doing?” Cadmiel leapt up, but I was already out the door.

“Metatron,” I repeated, touching his hands, which were folded serenely in his lap.

Hello.  Who are you?

“I… it’s me, Claris,” I said, chewing my lip.  He paused, fidgeting, pulling on the back of his palms.

Oh.  Oh.  I remember now.  I am sorry, Claris.  Forgive me.  Please?

“Where have you been?” Cadmiel demanded.

Away.

“We’ve got that.  Where?”

I, I don’t know.  I don’t remember.  Forgive me.

Cadmiel exhaled a long suffering sigh. “Fine.  I don’t suppose you have any ideas of how to get us on that airship over there?  Inconspicuously?”

Metatron cracked his knuckles, and all the noise in my ears faded into silence.

The young man next to Metatron, who had been tapping his foot, was stopped mid-tap.  Cars crossing the intersection were trapped between the changing yellow and red lights, as insects hurtled towards their fated windshields.

I think we can go now.

“Jesus Christ,” Sean muttered. “Stop time, why didn’t I think of that?”

We weaved through the frozen shoppers and cars, back to the blockades.  The police were clustered near the airship’s ladder, their mouths open as though deciding who would be the one to climb it.  Their formation resembled a group of bowling pins, and Sean fancied himself the ball, as evidence by his barreling stride.

“No,” Cadmiel said, as he gently lifted and set down the officers, propping them against the sides of the ship like mannequins.  Belligerently, Sean knocked the cap off the man nearest to the ladder before we started to climb.

When we reached the deck, we found an open door leading to the control room.

“Wait a moment,” Anael said.  He turned the crank by the ladder, rolling it up into a coil.

Metatron smoothed his hair and the sound rushed back, dropping like a bomb.  I flinched as the cacophony of honking and rumbling and pounding of shoes against pavement resumed.

No pilot helmed the ship, though the various electronic panels were lit and blinking.

“I know what you want to do, Orifiel, and I recommend strongly that you restrain yourself,” Cadmiel said.

“I’m not five years old, you know,” Sean replied, withdrawing from the panels over which he had been hovering, twitching with excitement at the amount of buttons begging to be pushed.

The space was very small, and Metatron kept bumping into chairs and the sides of things.  His former grace and innate depth perception had fled him, and, for the first time, he was behaving like a blind person.  I guided him by the hand to the rear of the control room, where the others puzzled over the two exists, each of which presumably led to different places.

“Which one, Claris?” Sean asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I ha-haven’t played Legend of Septerra in years.”

“Ah, where’s a fanboy when you need him,” Sean said.

“Shall we split up?” Anael suggested.

“N-no,” I said quickly. “I’ve seen lots of horror movies and that strategy always ends in tears.”

“I have always been fond of tears,” Anael replied lightly.

“We’ll stay together,” Cadmiel said, with a look askance at Anael.  He opened the door in front of him and descended the steps, motioning for us to follow.

I recognized the ship’s layout, though not well enough to discern our location.  Fortunately, windows lined the corridor, so we could see inside the various empty rooms.  Sean rapped his knuckles along the wall, calling for any inhabitants to show themselves.

“Maybe the owners stepped out for lunch?” Tialiel said.

“Maybe they are all dead and their oozing, decaying corpses are scattered around the lower decks,” Sean countered cheerily.

“We would have detected a smell through the vents by now,” Anael said, with a trace of disappointment.

Eventually we found an elevator, whose controls included a holographic map of the ship.

“Let’s try the cabins,” Cadmiel said, and pressed the button.  The lift, a platform suspended in air without any visible support cables, moved downwards lazily.  Metal bars encircled the platform’s circumference, ostensibly in order to minimize passengers falling to their deaths.

“Helloo!” Sean shouted down the hall.  “Reveal yourselves, melty zombies!”

“Or, you know, not,” I muttered. “That is also fine.”

“Please, there aren’t any—” Cadmiel was interrupted by a loud groan, issuing forth from a nearby cabin.

“Aha.” Sean tromped after the noise eagerly, and flung open the door.  Cadmiel and Tialiel drew their swords.

Much to Sean’s dismay, no melty zombie greeted him, only a man, splayed out across the bed.

The man covered his face with one arm and sighed deeply upon our entrance. “Hullo.”

“Are you a member of the undead?” Sean asked hopefully, as the man was rather pallid.

“Only according to certain rumors,” the man answered, humorless.

“Are you the captain of this ship?” Cadmiel said.

“No.” The man rolled over onto his stomach, and buried his head into the pillow as if attempting suffocation.  “They all went out to slaughter monsters and pillage their remains for subsistence, but I did not feel up to the task, so I elected to remain here and contemplate the meaningless enormity of existence.”

“Productive use of time, that,” Anael remarked.

“I thought so.”

Damien.  His name was Damien, one of Alistair’s plucky crew, although he frequently placed on the low end of the pluck spectrum.

“I’m afraid something has happened,” Tialiel began. “Your ship has been transported to another reality.”

“Is that so,” Damien said.  “I was beginning to think the others had been away for quite some time, perhaps even cut down like so many dewy blades of grass…”

“You seem pretty calm about that,” I said.

“I am a bit drunk,” he admitted, and gestured to the bureau, which was covered with empty liquor bottles.  Yes, this was definitely Damien.

“Do you know how to operate this thing at all?” Cadmiel pressed. “It’s kind of in the way.”

“I can probably figure it out, I watched Alistair work it a million times.” Damien rolled out of bed and managed a tenuous standing position.  He swayed past us and into the corridor, where he bumped into Metatron, who steadied the man’s elbow and said, Please be careful, sir.

Damien blinked. “I have just heard the disembodied lamentation of an anguished soul.  Now I know I’m drunk.”

“No, that’s just Metatron,” Anael said.

Metatron helped the man to the elevator and said, I am not anguished or disembodied.

“The blind leading the inebriated, that’s new,” Cadmiel murmured.  “So you knew Alistair?”

“Yes, he traveled with me and the others on a quest to defeat that villain Necavi,” Damien said. “Now it seems that they are in cahoots, but my thirst for vengeance remains unquenched.”

He waited for someone to ask about why he might require revenge, but when no one volunteered he carried on, slurring, “That foul blight upon our planet destroyed my home village, mercilessly slaughtering my mother, father, and several of my goldfish before my youthful, innocent eyes.”

“Go ahead and kill him when we see him next, I won’t mind,” Sean said, and I frowned.

“He’s different now,” I said. “A little.”

The dim light of realization dawned on Damien’s hazy expression, and he said, “You must be the foreigners Alistair spoke of when he returned to Septerra.  How woeful that I, too, am to be caught again in the intricate spinnerets of destiny.”

“It’s not destiny,” Cadmiel said. “It’s just irritating coincidence.”

Back at the control room, Damien puzzled over the buttons and panels, the dials and levers.

“How’s about we do this,” Cadmiel said. “You tell me how to turn it on, and how to move it around, and then you can go back to lolling about.”

“All right,” Damien said agreeably.  He pointed to a red panel and said, “That’s how you engage the engine, and over here’s,” he pointed to a set of directional controls, “what you use to get it go up and down and suchlike.”

Cadmiel hit the panel and we heard screams from outside as the airship’s propellers started spinning.

“Oh—oops,” Cadmiel said. “Is everyone okay down there?”

Yes.  I will tell them to evacuate.  Metatron went out to the bridge.

I don’t know what he did, but the crowd dispersed hastily, even the police.

When he returned, I asked him about it, and he responded, It was nothing more than the power of suggestion.

He took a seat next to me on the bench, in the back of the room.  Up front, Cadmiel had worked out the ship’s piloting system, and was directing it away from the city.  I peered out the window, listening worriedly for the sound of helicopter blades or stealth bombers.

How are you… Claris.  Metatron’s thought was uncertain, as if he still could not quite remember me.

“Oh, I’m alive,” I said. “For now, I guess.  Yourself?”

I think that I am also alive.  Though sometimes I wonder.

“Su-sure you’re alive,” I said, and put my hand over his heart to feel it beating.  He covered my hand with his.

Because of the heartbeat?

“Also breathing, and thinking and stuff,” I said.  I attempted to pull away, but he held me fast.

Claris, I have a question.

“O-okay…”

What are your dreams like?

“Ah—usually they are pretty scary.  Lots of mon-monsters these days, and blood, and str-strangers.”

Oh.

“What about yours?”

I can’t remember them.  But I know I have them, I can feel it.  I just can’t grasp at them, it is like something takes them away as soon as they are over and keeps them from me.  Frustration tinged his voice.

He eased his grip, but kept my hand in his lap, as though fearing  I would disappear should he let go.

“Lots of people can’t remember their dreams very well.  I gen-generally only recall fragments, myself.”

But, it’s all there, isn’t it?  You just can’t reach it, but it’s there.  I feel as though the fragments have escaped me entirely.

Another thought of his began to form in my mind, but before I could understand it, Cadmiel interrupted.

“Let’s go,” he said.  “We ought to leave the ship in case it snaps back to its own reality.”

He had parked the thing in a field of tall wheat, far from the road and any other signs of human presence.

“What if someone finds it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not our problem anymore.”

“What about Lord Byron over here?” Sean said.

“Might I accompany you on your travels, separated as I am from my own companions?” Damien said.

“You’re more likely to see’em again if you wait on the ship,” Cadmiel said.

“Not necessarily,” Anael said. “If the ship snaps back, theoretically, he will too, regardless of his location.”

“Whatever,” Cadmiel said. “Come along if you like.” He spread his wings. “But I’m not carrying you.”

“I think something is wrong with me,” Lucius said.  He bit the insides of his cheeks, arched his back, and strained his neck, as if trying to extract the answer from his body.

From behind him, Leliel said, “You look taller.”

“I think I am taller,” Lucius’s voice cracked. “Also when I talk I feel like I am playing a broken instrument.”

“You seem to be experiencing puberty,” Leliel said. “Albeit several hundred years late.”  She patted his shoulder, and added gently, “What are you remembering?”

“Bad things,” he whispered. “Screaming.  Feathers, limp and soaked in dark colors.  Pieces of skin.”

Lucius trembled, and turned around, and huddled against her. “They died—they died, and I saw it, and I couldn’t do anything.”

She soothed him by stroking his hair, until he stepped back abruptly, blushing at his proximity to her chest.  The tension was new, but pointed, and he shied from her embrace, despite Leliel’s clear dismay.

“I think I should be alone.” He sunk to his knees before the mirror, hunched over, clutching his sides.

“Do you need anything?” Leliel asked.

He did not raise his chin, but responded softly, “Milk.”

Leliel brought him a glass and set it next to him.  He sipped it, and spoke no more, so she left.

Shateiel reclined on the couch, and he eyed her as she sunk into a chair, morose and exhausted.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he said.

“Things are not good,” she replied.  “Ireul’s condition is… it’s normal, for his affliction, but his power is difficult to tolerate.  Shamshiel, meanwhile, seems to be enduring the latest puberty in the history of known time.”

“It is good of you to care for us like you do,” Shateiel said.  Swiftly, Shateiel’s hands were on her shoulders, massaging. “We are grateful.”

“Ah,” Leliel relaxed against the cushions, lulled by his soft voice and strong fingers. “Thank you.”

“You are tense.  Not that I’m surprised.”

“Ireul, he, he said he loved me, in there.”

The tall man’s nails dug suddenly into the bone, and Leliel winced. “Ow.”

“My apologies,” Shateiel murmured. “But he is mad, is he not?”

“Yes.  Yes, he is mad.”

“So perhaps he does not know what he says.” Shateiel’s thumbs probed into the recesses of her shoulders, and she breathed deeply, shuddering.

“I think that’s enough.  Thanks, Shateiel.”

“You’re welcome.” His fingers raked through her long hair as he drew back.

Leliel walked away from him, but the sensation of his gaze upon her remained until she entered Donovan’s room.

“Hi, Lily,” Donovan said, eyes on the piece of string he was knotting.

“You didn’t sleep long,” she said with concern, and perched on his bed’s edge.

“Mm-mmm.  Had to wake up,” he said.  He dangled the string in front of her. “Strings need knots.”

“Where did you even get that?”

He gestured to the frayed edges of his pillow. “Was in my mouth.”

“That shouldn’t have woken you.” Gingerly, Leliel reached to touch him.  He tensed, and she said, “Please let me see your back.”

Donovan hesitated, considering her proposal, and then leaned over.

“Your wounds are looking better, at least,” Leliel remarked.  She lifted the bandage and saw the muscle tissue reforming over the bone and the raw, pulsing nerves.  Yet smears of dirt and blood crusted around his injuries, and bits of filth marred his skin.

Donovan hissed, and she released the bandage with pursed lips.  “You haven’t bathed since the fight, have you?”

He nibbled on his string. “Before that, probably.”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to take a bath, then.”

Donovan snapped the string. “No.”

“Don’t make me use force, now.”

Donovan fell back onto his desecrated pillow and groaned. “I feel crawly things everywhere.”

“That’s probably the bacteria.” She tugged at his hand, and, to her surprise, he did not resist.

Leliel drew the bath while he fumbled with the zipper on his pants.  She covered her eyes as he shucked them off, along with his boxers.

“It’s kinna funny that you’re embarrassed,” he giggled. “Cause we’ve known each other for some centuries, right?  Lots of years.  Lots.” He knelt down beside the tub, and petted the water.

“Get in, please,” she whispered.

“Yes, my mistress.” He climbed in, and watched with fascination as the tub filled around him.

“You seem euphoric,” Leliel said.

“I feel pretty good,” he admitted, but his movements were too loose, his eyes too bright.  The delirium persisted, but Leliel’s power had dulled the edge despite his breaking free of the healing sleep.

She sponged his back as he upset the bath with little splashes.

“I remember the first time I realized it,” Donovan said.

“Realized what?” she said, haltingly.

“It wasn’t long after I met you, actually,” he went on. “Though maybe I didn’t know know then.  Maybe I just had an inkling.”

Leliel focused on a cake of dried blood near his wingbone, which she dabbed at, carefully, deliberately.

“In the jail—do you remember, Lily, it was a long time ago, the jail, you saw me, when I left, I did horrible things.  To people who probably didn’t deserve them, or at least not that much, maybe.  For all the time I’ve known you, I’ve done so many horrible things.”

He heaved, his breath shortening, and she touched his hair.

“But even that first time… wi, with all the blood, and everything, you looked at me.  You looked into my eyes, and you did not see a monster.  No matter what I did.”

Donovan submerged his head in the bath and began to blow bubbles.  He would not speak for the remainder of her work, and she did not break the silence.

A dull ache throbbed in her chest as she scrubbed.

She loved him, but she prayed to God that his confessions were the mere ramblings of temporary insanity.

Unsurprisingly, God did not hear her.
 
 
 
 

When I was thirteen years old, my middle school held a dance for the eighth grade, our first.  I had spent the majority of my academic career thus far reading library books behind my classroom texts during lectures.  I did not engage with my actual surroundings often, because the environs were rarely friendly.

I was never teased for my weight, like a lot of kids. I was just plain ugly, which seemed to me worse than obesity.  Obesity could be fixed, with enough effort.  There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about ugly.

I possessed only lunch friends, which is to say a few girls who tolerated my presence while we ate and sometimes at recess.  Outside of school we were strangers.

I don’t know why, but I wanted to go to that dance.  Maybe because it seemed like a vital life point, akin to my first word and my first walk across the carpet without crashing into the table.  Definitely my first training bra.

Of course, no one would ask me.  I was the girl boys would walked circles around, their fingers shaped into protective crosses.  I was not surprised or disappointed by this, but I felt entitled to a little depression.  I thought of going alone, just to go, and have the experience, even if it was terrible.

On the night of the dance I dabbed my cheeks with foundation and blush.  My lips shone with several coats of gloss.  I took a black dress with spaghetti straps from my closet, and I brushed out my hair and put it up with a bow.  I examined myself in the mirror—pale, thin shoulders, my dark, shimmering mouth, my red face, softened by layers of makeup.

I decided not to go.

I sat on the deck steps and hugged my knees and thought that no amount of powder and lace would fool those kids.  They could smell ugly a mile away, no matter what it was wearing.

For a long time I sat like that, until someone tapped my spine and I looked up and it was Sean.

“You look pretty,” he said, with a feral grin.

“It’s dark,” I replied.

“Were you going some place nice?”

“No. Nowhere nice,” I told him about the dance.

“I could burn that place down if you want.  Say the word and I’ll totally do it.”

“It’s fine.”

He took a seat next to me and idly played with my hair, amused by how his whole hand could disappear into the thickness of it.

I shuddered and hugged myself fiercely.

“Aw, don’t be sad,” he said, uncertain of what to do when confronted with my adolescent angst.  “I’ll seriously gut them, Claris, I mean it.  Entrails all up in the punch bowl.”  He leaned in and added in a soothing tone, “Blood spattered on the linoleum.  Brain stems on the dance floor, crushed bones in the dip?”

“I don’t want them to die,” I said miserably. “I want them to like me.”

Sean, then fifteen to my thirteen, seemed to me, at that age, to know a great deal about human nature and the world in general.

“Fuck’em,” he proclaimed.  “They’re useless wastes of carbon anyway.  Matter of fact, if any of them had asked you I would’ve had to carve out his heart and, still steaming and beating, feed it to him.  Cause they shouldn’t be allowed to breathe your same air or look at you.”

“Well, they do try to avoid it,” I said, but with the boniest skeleton of a smile.

Sean tapped on my arm urgently, struck by divine inspiration.  “Dance with me, Claris.”

“Wh-what?”

“Dance.  with.  me.”

“I-I don’t know…”

“C’mon, please?” He steepled his hands and knelt before me.  “Promise I won’t step on you. Or I’ll try, like, really hard.”

Neither of us knew how to dance, so we probably looked a bit foolish, swaying around my yard in a pale imitation of the waltz, particularly given our considerable height difference.

But I didn’t think about that, at least not then.

I just thought, “This is nice.”

And that night, when I went to bed, I didn’t feel ugly or alone.  I felt like I had a good friend.  It was this, more than anything, that kept me near Sean.  Yes, he cut up snakes and nailed their pieces to the walls of his shed in order to spell out words (usually HI or KEEP OUT), and he plotted the destruction of mankind on a regular basis and he terrorized squirrels.  But, ever since I met him, he had listened to me.  When a pet died, he held my hand and then constructed an elaborate funeral ritual involving feathers plucked from the chickens across the street and fireflies he caught in jelly jars.  When I was tired, he sat next to me and told me stories, of places from memory or imagination—he couldn’t tell—until I fell asleep.

Not, of course, that Sean was perfect.

But he was still my best friend, and I knew that he was different, and I forgave him for it.  Because I was different too, and he forgave me.  Or rather, he never even cared.  I contemplated these things as I watched Sean and Tialiel take their places opposite each other on the grass.

“As I said,” Cadmiel announced, “Consider this your first exam.”

Sean smacked the point of his sword on the ground.  “Let’s go,” he grumbled.

Tialiel swallowed audibly and nodded.

Cadmiel joined me on the stone benches, along with the rest of the company.

“Why are they fighting?” Damien asked. “I thought you were all friends.”

“It’s just training,” Cadmiel said. “Though I wouldn’t go so far as to call Orifiel my friend.”

“Tialiel’s right, I wish you wouldn’t be s-so hard on him all the time,” I said.

“Someone’s got to be.”

I turned back to the fight.

Tialiel tapped his sword on the dirt, lips pursed, eyebrows furrowed.  His stance belied anxiety, as he fidgeted and shifted his weight, clearly wanting to exist in some space miles away from his current position.

“Don’t worry,” Sean said, misinterpreting Tialiel’s body language as fearful, “this won’t take long.”

“No, it probably won’t,” Tialiel muttered.

Cadmiel shaped his fingers into a gun and said, “Ready?”

He aimed, and his thumbs twitched. “Go.”

For the first ten seconds Tialiel didn’t move except to dodge Sean’s attacks, which he did flawlessly.  He slipped from Sean’s grasp like wind through leaves, fluid and intangible after numerous futile strikes.  Sean hissed, “Stop fucking around.”

“If you insist,” Tialiel whispered, the words almost lost over the whistle of his blade at the back of Sean’s knees.  Disabled, Sean crumbled, and had barely raised his head when Tialiel kicked him in the chest, which sent him sprawling.  Tialiel set the point of his sword to Sean’s throat and said, “Sorry.”

“Okay,” Sean gasped. “You’re pretty good.”

“That was pathetic,” Cadmiel said. “You fail.”

“Hey.  You guys are billion year old war veterans.  Cut me some slack.”

“Have I taught you nothing?  Or have you just not been paying attention?”

“What?”

“What do you know about Tialiel, Orifiel?  What facts have you managed to retain in that dense skull of yours, if any?”

“Um.” Sean glanced sideways at Tialiel.  “He likes to wear dresses.”

“Anything else?”

“Er.”

“I can predict the moves of my opponents,” Tialiel supplied helpfully.

“How does that knowledge help anything, except to tell me that I’m pretty much boned?”

“All of our enemies have powers similar to his.  You must learn to thwart them, either by ingenuity or by awakening your own abilities,” Cadmiel explained.  “Try again.”

Sean and Tialiel returned to their original positions and began again.  Sean quickened his steps, attempting to confuse Tialiel with sudden, random movements, but still, it was like watching water trying to take down a boulder.  It just wasn’t going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

Sean’s rage mounted, evident in the furor of his assault: he swung the sword with less wild abandon than before, but he could never land a blow.  He tore up the landscape, ripping deep gashes along the sides of trees and upsetting chunks of earth where the sword came down.

Sean swore, and dove for Tialiel in a fury, but the other man sidestepped him easily.  Thus, Sean’s sword did not bite flesh but the wood of the tree behind Tialiel.  It was driven in so deeply that sap oozed out around the metal.  Sean howled as he tore the weapon from the tree, and his eyes glazed as he lunged.  Surprise broke Tialiel’s placid expression, but he managed to block the strike.

The tone of the battle changed.  Sean still could not connect a blow, but Tialiel was parrying instead of dodging.  The incessant clang of metal rang painfully in the air, and I wondered when the neighbors, or the police, would call.

Sean swept his foot in a circle and Tialiel tripped, stumbling as Sean grabbed him by the throat, such that he was trapped on his knees.

“Keh…keh,” Tialiel gurgled.

“Okay, let go now,” Cadmiel said, and Sean stepped back abruptly, as if startled out of a dream.

“Did I pass?” Sean murmured, looking at his hands.

“You did something,” Cadmiel said.  “Not sure what, though.”

“He interrupted my powers,” Tialiel said.  “I couldn’t—I stopped being able to tell his next move.”

“Ah.  Well, then, good to see you’re not a dud.”

“Hurr hurr,” Sean said.  “What’s your super power, anyway?  I’ve never seen you do anything.”

“Some of us have subtler abilities than others,” Cadmiel replied.

“Whatever, I’m done with this for now,” Sean said.  “Claris and I are going out.”  He fixed Cadmiel with a defiant glare, daring him to forbid it.

“I suppose you’ve earned a break, having finally demonstrated some useful skill.”

A growl rumbled in his throat, but Sean did not retort.  He stalked up to the back door of the house and said, as he passed me, “Ten minutes.”
 

I washed my face while Sean showered.  It seemed odd that in middle of all this fear and insanity, I was going on a date.  But the more I considered the absurdity of the day, and of recent day of my life, the more it made sense.  I smeared foundation on my cheeks and applied lipstick.  I didn’t much like the sticky mask of makeup, but to go without it did not feel appropriate.

In the bathroom, the water ceased coursing through the pipes.  Quickly, I pulled on my dress and left to wait in the hall.
 
 

Donovan scrabbled at his door like a rabid bear, his clawed hand gouging steadily through the wood.  He had awoken from his latest sleep, again too early, too abruptly, and he howled as he fought to free himself.  Leliel stood outside, her quivering hand on the doorknob.  Each time she put him to sleep, the effect broke faster and faster.  The possibility that it might not even work this time seemed too horrifying to entertain.

Exhaustion nipped at her muscles.  She longed for her own chance to sleep, but she had a duty.  Exhaling slowly, she opened the door, as one would open the cage of a lion who has been denied meat for a week.

Donovan leapt forth and pounced Leliel, such that she was pinned to the ground.  Leliel sputtered from the sudden weight on her chest, and writhed, in a vain effort to escape.

“Hello,” he said.  Leliel stretched her hand out to touch his face, but he caught her wrist, and the claw bit into her thin bones.

“Ireul, I-I’m trying to help you, please—let go—”

“Why do you call me that?  That’s not my name.  I’ve told you over and over but you insist—you refuse—why?  To anger me?”

Leliel whimpered as he cut her palm and blood trickled down her lifelines.

“Because,” she gasped.  “I… I know you have renounced it.  But it is still … who you are.”

He slammed her arm into the hard earth and shouted. “It’s not!  It’s not who I am!  I’m not those people, I’m not that place, and I won’t stand for their fucking names!”

“Calm down—” Leliel lurched forward and pressed her fingers hard against his forehead, using every ounce of strength against his painful grip.

Nothing happened.

Her breath caught in her throat as Donovan rose and hoisted her with him, still clutching her wrists.

Since when did her powers have diminishing returns?  How could he have resisted?

“You must leave me alone for a while, Lily.  I must go out.”

Leliel felt certain that going out was the antithesis of what Donovan ought to do, but she was in no position to argue.  Unceremoniously, he dropped her, and she panted as he left, his mind likely overflowing with plans that were against the laws of society and human decency.
 
 

Sean descended the steps like a collared wolf.  His freshly washed hair was restrained in a ponytail, and he wore pressed black pants, a formal white shirt, and a black jacket.

I had chosen my favorite dress, which was ice purple and patterned with dark flowers.

“Hi,” he said, and took my hand. “Ready?”

“When you are,” I replied.

Neither of us owned a car, but the restaurant was near to my house.

“Do you want to walk or fly?” Sean whispered as he led me outside.

“You’re walking,” Cadmiel said.  He leaned against the staircase and glowered at us.  “Wouldn’t want the air currents to rumple your lovely clothes.  Don’t stay out too late, either.”

“Of course, mother,” Sean said.

“If you’re not back within a few hours, we’re mounting a search party,” Cadmiel said this with deadly seriousness.

“Re-lax,” Sean said. “It’s less than a mile away.”

“Many accidents occur within three miles of the home,” Cadmiel said.

Sean did not dignify this with a response.
 
 
 

The evening was temperate, though the zephyr carried the scent of rain.  The sunset cast a warm glow over the streets, so that the orange leaved trees seemed to glow.  I felt nervous as we walked towards the restaurant, and not the sort of nervous where I was afraid Sean would stab random passers by (though I could never discount that possibility).  It was more like the kind of anxiety which stems from meeting a new person, even though I was with the boy who knew me better than anyone in the world.  We walked in silence, and I knew he felt it too, as he cleared his throat.

Together we stood on the cliffs, overlooking something dangerous, perhaps even more dangerous than the uncertain fate of the universe.  Sean breathed in deeply.

“Nice out tonight,” he remarked.

“Yup,” I agreed.

Nothing more passed between us until we were seated at a table, staring at each other over a plate of wontons.

“You look nice,” he said, though he was looking at the wontons as he spoke.

“It’s dark,” I murmured.

“Claris, even if the sun itself were next to us and you were thusly so illuminated that I could discern the ridged outlines of your pores—you would still look nice.”

“If we were next to the sun we’d be burned to ashes.”

“Woman, I am being metaphorical,” Sean said.  “Don’t make me launch this soup at you.  I will do it.”

I laughed, and some of the tension drained, like air from a punctured plastic bag.  Regardless, I could feel our relationship shift as we talked, but it was subtle, like the way your body moves when you sleep.  I woke up at that table, to find myself suddenly in a strange position.

Neither of us acknowledged it, of course, but we lingered on each other.  For that first hour, I don’t recall my attention straying from him for anything but the briefest moment.  It was a miracle that my food reached my mouth, much less my stomach.

Eventually, the world around me began to dim, until I could no longer see the sesame chicken on my fork.  The aroma of sticky rice and amber sauce, tangy and speckled with seeds, dissipated like a lifting fog.

Momentarily I realized that this darkness was literal, and not a product of my enthrallment with Sean.

Panic, my familiar friend, stirred from its nap.  The egg drop churned in my belly like a maelstrom.  Something was dreadfully wrong.

“Sean?” I said, and reached out in front of me, blinking hard against the moisture behind my eyes.  Whimpering, I scrabbled for something tangible, until my nails scratched stone.

The world had reassembled itself, but differently.

I was in the courtyard of my high school, during lunch break, on w arm, humid afternoon.  My lunch tray was before me, piled with potatoes and a piece of meat that might be called a steak in certain impoverished countries.  Worry, of a kind that I hadn’t experienced in years, pricked at my nerves.  Someone glared at me.  Several someones, in fact—my old friends from high school.

“Why do you keep sitting with us?” one of them said.

“Seriously, it’s creepy.  Are you stalking me?” said another.

“God, it’s so pathetic,” whispered a third.

I wanted to cry, and I heard myself sniffle and clutch at my bookbag.

“When are you going to get it?  We don’t like you,” the first said.  “Now, come on.  This is our table.  Just move, okay?”

“But …” I said miserably.  “I have nowhere else to sit.”

“There are lots of spaces against the wall,” the second averted her eyes, I was crying openly now, shamed and afraid.  I didn’t understand what was going on, why they were doing this, what offense I had committed.  Not three days prior I had slept over at number two’s house.  We had watched movies.

Old emotions coursed through me like blood pouring from a deep wound, and with a similar amount of pain.  I became so caught up in the misery that I forgot myself, I was lost in the contempt of my former friends’ words as they sneered at me.

I rose from the table slowly, feeling like a rock trying to float.  My throat was as tight as a dam, just barely containing a fresh round of sobs.  It wasn’t until I had settled on the muddy grass that I began to notice artificiality about my surroundings.

First of all, no one was moving.

Their clothes were pastel blues and greens and yellows, and blurry, like an Impressionist painting.  I focused on the hurt and humiliation, which continued to writhe, as a mutating virus might, inside me.

A memory.  This was a memory, nothing more.

The courtyard faded, and I returned to the restaurant, shaken but otherwise all right.  Across from me, Sean was not as fortunate.  His nails bled from grasping the marble table too hard, he had broken them with the force of his terror.  His body quaked, and when I looked at him he looked beyond me, at something invisible, at the past.

The waiter hovered nervously, a check in his hand.  “Is … he all right?”

“Ye-yeah, he’s fine—he just—needs some medication, cos, he has se-seizures, sometimes,” I pretended to rifle in my purse for a bottle of pills.  The waiter left the check and crept quietly away.

“Sean,” I hissed, and grabbed his wrists.  “Snap out of it.”

He trembled violently in response.

“I don’t know what’s happening to you right now,” I said. “But whatever it is, it’s done with.  You have to be here now, with me.  Come on.”

Sean gave no indication of having heard me, and his nightmare persisted.

I leaned over the tabled and pressed my palms against the tops of his hands, to still them.

Carefully, I kissed him.  He tasted of oranges.

The spell broke, and I hastily drew away, flushed.  That was my first kiss.

Sean touched his lips and blinked. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sean said.  He tossed a few bills on the table, pocketed the fortune cookies, and motioned for me to follow him out the door.

I complied, scratching my neck as we stepped out into the evening. “One of Donovan’s illusions?”

“Maybe,” Sean grumbled.  He peered into the bushes which circled the restaurant, as if expecting to find our aggressor there. “But I don’t think so.  That was real, it really happened.  It wasn’t some rank amateur’s fabrication.”

I would hardly call Donovan a rank amateur, but Sean did have a point.

“Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now,” I said.  “We should probably be getting home before Cadmiel’s search party arrives.”

Sean glowered into one final rhododendron before replying, “I guess so.”
I swallowed. “I, um, I had a nice time, otherwise.”

“Me too,” Sean paused.  “Did you, did you kiss me, back there?”

“P-possibly.”

“Think you might want to try it again?  ‘Cause I totally didn’t feel it.”

“Se-sean,” I said.

“I’m serious!”

“Maybe later.”

“Aw, denied.”

Sean’s tone was jovial, but his movements were erratic and paranoid, prepared for any enemies in the shadows.  I wondered what memory had visited him and if he had retained it.  In terms of his history, I knew very little about Sean—but then, neither did he.  His most formative years were a mystery to him.  And really, with a handicap like that, how could anyone be anything but crazy?  How could people expect you to know who you are when you have no idea of who you were?

We crossed the sidewalk, almost home.  I edged closer to Sean, as I heard the buzz of wasps from a nearby bush.

It was about that time that an accident happened.
 
 

For reals this time!  I'll try not to take a whole year with the next installment, and sorry this last bit took so long but there were ... extenuating circumstances.

Next time: What new catastrophe lurks in the darkness?  Where are Alistair and Necavi, for serious?  Will Sean ever learn to hide his wings?  What the hell is up with Metatron?  And WHAT ABOUT FRANK?*

(*=sorry, there's still no frank)

If you've any thoughts on the chapter so far, please to be emailing me or posting.  Thanks.