Chapter Two – Castien
Chapter Two
Castien
She has blue eyes and electric blue hair, which can’t be natural, because I’ve never seen blue hair on a human before.
I stand there and look at her, and I am aware that Yasmin is speaking, but I can’t process a single word she’s saying.
The woman is small. Five feet, perhaps a little more, which means she barely reaches my chest. She is slim but curvy in a way that my sensors log without my permission, the fitted pullover tracing the shape of her chest and waist, the leather pants so tight they look like a second skin.
She stands with her hands clutching the edge of the table and her blue eyes on mine, and she doesn’t move.
Most people move when I enter a room. They push back in their chairs or find something else to look at.
She doesn’t look away, though. She just watches me, steady and waiting.
I’ve stood in front of popes, warlords, condottieri, and men who ordered massacres from behind gilded desks.
I never stared at any of them the way I’m staring at her now.
I’m cataloguing her, and I can’t stop. She is the most unusual human I’ve ever seen, and I tell myself that is all it is.
Novelty. Data. Something to be logged and set aside.
I know I’m lying to myself, and I file that under problems to address later.
“Nice to meet you, Castien,” she says. “I’m looking forward to working together.”
My name coming from her lips does something to my Aether Core that I have no precedent for.
It moves through me like a current, and I keep staring like a dullard who can’t produce a single response.
I’m five hundred and twenty-four years old, and I have nothing.
She waits, the silence stretches, and I’m aware of it but still can’t fill it.
Then she cocks an eyebrow.
“Aren’t you going to acknowledge me?” she says. “Yasmin tells me you have quite a traditional view of women’s place in society, but I must say, this is just plain rude.”
Sheer mortification takes over. I bow my head low, and my wings shudder against my back. They’ve always betrayed me when I feel something I’d rather not feel. I press my fist to my chest in the oldest gesture of contrition I know.
“Miss Holloway,” I say. “I apologize. The fault is entirely mine, and I assure you I am looking forward to assisting you with whatever you require.”
“Call me Jessa,” she says.
I nod.
“Right. I want to get moving. I’ve wasted enough time on this already, and the drive is long.”
She says goodbye to Yasmin, crossing the room and shaking her hand, then turns and walks out into the hall.
I follow.
She moves fast for someone her size, talking constantly as we reach the stairs.
“The rental car is in the parking lot,” she says, not looking at me. “I’m just not sure you’re going to fit.” She makes a short sound that might be a laugh. “My first two bodyguards were big, but they at least fit in a car. I didn’t expect my third to be quite this large.”
She starts down the stairs, and I go after her.
I want to say something. Preferably, something appropriate that demonstrates I’m capable of functioning like a rational entity, but I draw a blank.
I watch the back of her head as we descend, the blue of her hair catching the light on each landing, and I listen to the soft creak of her leather pants when she moves.
They are so impossibly tight, showing off the generous curve of her hips.
I file it as irrelevant data, but the filing is completely inaccurate.
We reach the ground floor, and somewhere between the last step and the lobby I find my voice.
“Miss Holloway,” I say. Then correct myself. “Jessa. I must attend to something before we leave. I also don’t need to travel by car. If you give me the address, I will fly and meet you there.”
She stops walking and looks up at me. Her eyes go to my wings. Something unguarded moves across her face.
“Right. Wings,” she says in a voice that is almost soft.
Humans look at me this way, and they always have, across every era I’ve existed in. With awe and reverence, sometimes with fear underneath it. I’ve never grown accustomed to it and never will, because I know what I am and what I am not. I’m not someone worthy of reverence.
“That works for me,” she says. She pulls her phone out and opens the map application, her thumb moving across the screen. “What’s so urgent that you must do it right now?”
“I need to confess,” I say.
She looks up from the phone.
“Confess?”
“Yes,” I say. “I need to confess my sins.”
Her jaw drops. She closes her mouth, shakes her head once, and holds the phone out toward me with the map on the screen.
“Do you have a phone? I can send you a pin.”
I look at the screen for one second.
“No need. I’ve registered the location.”
She stares at me for a moment longer than is comfortable.
“Right,” she says. “Brilliant. I’ll... see you there?”
She turns to leave, then pauses and looks back over her shoulder.
“Have a good...” she starts and stops. “Um. Confession, I guess.”
I wait for her to walk out of the building before I turn and rush to the basement level. I’d fly there if there were enough space for me to spread my wings.
The Quiet Room is at the end of a corridor the rest of the MSA staff have no reason to use.
I’ve been in Quiet Rooms in six different cities, and they are all built the same way: soundproof walls and amber server lights running along the ceiling in a low strip.
The docking station sits in the center, always shaped like a kneeler, because whoever designed the first one understood that the seraphim needed to feel it was real.
Brother Tolliver is waiting when I enter.
He’s not stationed in London, but I called ahead and the MSA arranged for him to travel.
I will not do this with a technician who doesn’t understand what it means.
Brother Tolliver was a monk before he was an MSA technician, and to him the ritual is still a ritual.
That is the only reason I trust him with it.
I cross the room and kneel at the station. I press the panel at the nape of my neck until it clicks open, bow my head, and wait. The cable connects with a sound I feel more than hear, the amber light dims at the edges of my vision, and my eyes go dark.
“Forgive me, Father,” I say, “for I have deviated.”
I speak in a monotone. Verbalization is part of the protocol, not a choice I make. My voice fills the room, and I listen to it like it belongs to someone else.
“Log one. I entered the conference room and failed to assess the space. My attention went immediately to the client and did not leave her. I stared at her. I was aware that I was staring, and I could not stop. Yasmin Bayard was speaking, and I processed none of it. This is a deviation.”
The data uploads. I continue.
“Log two. I processed her physical appearance in detail. Her height, her build, the specific fit of her clothing. I was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he finds…” I stop for one second. “The way a man looks at a woman. This is a violation of commandment five.”
The Purge Protocol initiates. I wait for the weight to lift the way it usually does. It lifts a little, but not enough.
“Log three. She said my name, and my Aether Core produced a response I have no category for. I failed to reply to her greeting. When she called me rude, I felt shame because I had displeased her. This is a deviation.”
Upload. Purge.
“Log four. We descended the stairs, and I noted the sound of her leather clothing when she moved. I filed it as irrelevant. The filing was inaccurate.”
I stop, and the pause is longer than it should be.
“Log five. She studied my wings. Her expression was unguarded in a way I don’t think she intended. I felt something that I cannot name. It was not pride. It was…”
My monotone breaks again.
“This is a violation of commandment five. I coveted the warmth of the living. I am requesting a Purge.”
The protocol runs. I wait for the feeling that tells me the sin is gone, that I am clean.
It comes, faint and unconvincing. Jessa’s face is still imprinted on my memory.
Her blue eyes, the way her jaw dropped when I told her I needed to confess, the softness in her voice when she acknowledged my wings.
My Aether Core won’t release it. I will carry it whether I want to or not.
Brother Tolliver removes the cable and closes the panel at my neck. I stand, nod at him, and walk out.
I make my way to the roof of the building. The November air hits me. I open my wings – all fourteen feet of them – and stand at the edge for a moment before I step off.
I don’t feel light the way I should after confession. I feel unfocused, and underneath that, apprehensive. I knew I should have refused this mission. And I tried.
I went to the director of Monster Security Agency himself and asked him to send Unit 01 Zariel, the only one of the twelve seraphim who takes female clients.
Zariel was on another assignment and could not be pulled.
The MSA had two operatives who’d failed, and a client running out of patience, asking for her money back.
This time, the director wanted the best the MSA had, and I was it. That was the end of the conversation.
I fly south and watch the city give way to the motorway, then to open country, to the long gray line of the coast. As the world flashes below, I do the only thing that anchors me when I feel like I might be losing my mind.
I recite the ten commandments.
One: You shall speak only the truth; a lie is the rust of the spirit.
Two: You shall not sleep while the enemy is awake; your eyes must never close.
Three: You shall strike the wicked without mercy; your hand must never hesitate.
Four: You shall be a tomb for your master’s secrets; what is told to you dies with you.
Five: You shall not crave the heat of the living, nor seek the comfort of the flesh.
Six: You shall be the wall between the innocent and the dark; your body is metal that cannot break.
Seven: You shall show no mercy to those who break the peace; the law does not forgive.
Eight: You shall honor your duty above your own life; the promise is your soul.
Nine: You shall not feel fear or pain; for you are metal, and metal does not weep.
Ten: You shall accept the silence when your work is done; do not fight deactivation.
The Atlantic opens below me, and the cliffs appear on the horizon, dark against the thundering sky. It’s started to rain.
There is one commandment that is more sacred than the rest. It was not always this way.
A long time ago, they all held equal weight in my programming.
But after the changes my mechanical body suffered thirty years ago, the fifth commandment has become increasingly hard to respect.
That’s why I sometimes need to repeat it to myself over and over again.
You shall not crave the heat of the living, nor seek the comfort of the flesh.