Consequences
Affliction War, this, Affliction War, that, how about we acknowledge that the war is the reason we now have to bend the knee to DAEMON?
Azazel, despite our first interaction a week ago, is an excellent teacher.
They’re also sort of funny in their own weird, fucked up way.
“You said you had an idea for a disguise,” I huff out, wiping sweaty palms on workout clothing.
“I did,” Azazel says, the lights reappearing overhead.
Evidently, they had meant what they’d said about ‘asking nicely.’ Though they’d yet to explain magic in the last few days, it was apparently part of it.
“Care to share with the class or will I need to go on a magical journey to find out?”
“Are you ever not a sarcastic asshole?” they ask, the uncharacteristic swearing piquing my nerves.
“Something happen?” I ask, sobering as I watch them approach.
“Not yet,” Azazel says, sounding weirdly nervous despite the monotone.
“You have premonitions?” I ask, frowning.
“No, you fool. You painted a target on your back and Loki has yet to collect.”
“Oh,” I nod. “I honestly forgot about him.”
And I had. Sort of. I hadn’t forgotten what he’d said. Nor the horrific video that preceded it.
But I had forgotten that Loki might be out to get me. What with spending so much time with Marla and Trish, I’d filtered the small, egotistical man out of my mind.
“How on—” Azazel trails off, sounding genuinely exasperated. “You can manifest shadows as solid objects, yes?”
“And call forth the damned to use as physical objects, teleport with shadows, and a myriad of other things I’ve yet to discover.”
Azazel stares at me with what I imagine is annoyance.
“Make a suit with your shadows. Hide yourself in something that will evoke fear in your enemies.”
For all of their oddly violent rhetoric, I know Azazel is the real deal.
They’re a legendary figure who has to be nearly forty now.
If they even age at all, that is. But they do, legitimately, mean for me to terrify my enemies.
And, when it comes to a confrontation with Darkrend, I suspect it would be helpful to have psychological warfare on our side.
“Fine,” I say, nodding. “Yeah I can do that.”
“You sound as if you are trying to build your own confidence.”
“Because I’ve only ever used these things for weapons. I’d rather not gut myself, even if I’ve managed to wrangle the spirits. It still hurts.”
Which is a blessing because those assholes had been the ones making a mockery of my healing factor. After the last few days spent messing with the shadows and spirits they’ve finally go of the reins.
Instinctively, shadows curl around me. Ideally, I could just coat myself in void, but then it would just look like a silhouette of a six-foot five woman. And that’s only scary to the misogynists.
Instead, I think about the name. My name. My new name. Hiraeth.
Guilt, sorrow, and all the other emotions I’d stuffed into a box begin to surface. All the things that I’d kept putting off. Kept dismissing. Even with Marla and Trish, we really hadn’t talked about it.
“Good,” Azazel’s voice comes from somewhere beside me. “That is genuinely off-putting. Combine it with everything else and I suspect we may make a legend of you yet.”
I hear my own laugh, but it sounds distorted and demented.
“That is also quite something,” Azazel says and I see them cross into my line of sight. “Do you know what you look like?”
“Longing,” I say, and Azazel nods.
Longing is amorphous. It’s indefinable. When it’s combined with grief and guilt, it becomes downright horrid.
It becomes the embodiment of pain.
Azazel waves their hand and a reflective surface appears.
And, yeah, it definitely looks worse outside my mind.
The wraith-like creature that stares back at me is horrifying.
The cloak that I manifested is tattered and flows to its own breeze.
My skeletal arms would be common on a decomposing body with flaps of dark, necrotic skin still attached.
My head, though, is reminiscent of Mary’s—a hood with a void where my face would be.
“I should note,” I say, hearing the strange timbre of my voice, “that I can no longer feel my body the way I did before.”
Azazel seems to consider this for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter.
“Did you just—” I start, but they cut me off.
“You became darkness. Incredible.” Even with the show of emotion, they still sound bored.
“Is that a thing?” I ask, and Azazel literally shrugs.
“Some can, but not like this. Not the way you do.”
I move forward and feel like my body is being squeezed through a tube. Not exactly painful, but weird. And I hear Azazel huff another monotonous laugh.
“You move like shadow itself. Fascinating.”
The entire manifestation feels natural. Which is odd given I didn’t know I could do this five minutes ago. And, just as instinctively, I release my hold on it.
Unfortunately, I don’t nail the landing, managing instead to fall flat on my face. Sand enters my nose and mouth, leaving me sputtering as Azazel crosses the space to stand over me.
“You will want to work on that part,” they say helpfully.
“Fuck,” I grunt, spitting out another mouthful.
Azazel freezes as footsteps crunch along the sand behind us. I roll onto my stomach in time to see familiar boots that trail into a familiar cloak.
“Hiraeth,” Bloody Mary’s face is hauntingly beautiful as I stare up at her.
She looks as haughty and annoyed as she had the last time I’d seen her.
“Yes?” I ask, not getting up from the ground.
“Kneel,” Azazel hisses from behind me, but I ignore the mage.
“May I have the room, Red Mage?” Mary asks and Azazel almost sprints out of the colosseum.
“You’re interrupting my training time,” I mock, rolling onto my back and sitting up. She watches me situate myself before leveling an annoyed look at me. “And you look pissed again. Come to accuse me of something new?”
“Detective De Luca’s funeral is today, and I wanted to invite you along with me.”
Azazel douses both of us with a magic that provides a veiled disguise for anyone not looking too closely. I almost ask what the fuck this magic even is, because neither person had yet to actually explain themselves. But my mind is already going at a million miles a minute.
I hadn’t even let myself think about Percy’s death. It was—is still too much.
Trish and Marla had tried to get me to open up about it, but after the third or fourth redirect, they’d also let me stew in it.
But, for some reason, Mary actually seems remarkably understanding. Her disguise, if you squint, makes her look like some blonde movie actress. Which is annoying because she still looks really damned good like that, too.
I don’t bother to ask what I look like.
“Will you be okay?” Mary asks as we ride the elevator to the surface.
I glance at her before returning my gaze to the closed doors.
“Do you care?” I know the answer is petty, but I’m still annoyed. And pissed that I’d let myself feel something for this woman who, for all I know, only sees me as a weapon of war.
“Deeply,” she says, but doesn’t look back at me.
“No,” I huff, looking down at my feet. “I haven’t been okay in a long, long time. Which I’m sure you all knew.”
I shoot a glance at her.
“We have only been keeping an eye on you for the last few months. And only since September have I, and I alone, been watching you.”
I let that sink in and wait for the rise of panic or fury.
Except nothing but a soft warmth grows in my chest. Because it means someone had been there during the worst moments. And during the times where it’d mattered.
Fucking sap—it’s not like she’d intervened save for those few moments. Not like she’d made her presence known. And she hadn’t taken me in like Trish and Marla had.
Not that she even knows about them.
“Do you stalk all of your new recruits?” I ask, watching the final light ding at the street level.
Mary strides past me, the non-answer fairly damning all considered.
You’re not special.
I knew that, but goddamn does it hurt to realize.
The ride in the private car is nice and awkward. Mary, now with witnesses, no longer deigns to give me the slightest amount of consideration. Instead, she reads something on her tablet that she procured from God knows where.
Eventually, though, we pull up to what I expect is one of the last Catholic churches in Nye Verden.
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, staring up at the sculpted chapel as we walk up the stairs.
Some old bitty scoffs at me as we walk by and I almost flip her a middle finger before remembering that I should not cause problems at a funeral.
Especially not this one.
I follow Mary up a flight of stairs, and we move along the rows until we find a spot that overlooks the auditorium.
My mind runs into an icy wall when I see the open casket.
“Oh,” I huff out, feeling my legs thrum with pins and needles.
A hand gently prods at my lower back until feeling returns to my lower half. I glance over and see Mary giving me an indiscernible look before she retracts her hand.
Percy looks peaceful. And, from this far away, I can imagine she’s just sleeping. Ready to get up and fight another day.
“Do you want to say anything?” Mary asks and I nod wordlessly.
I follow her back down the other side of the staircase and we step into line behind what has to be a hundred other funeral attendees. Either Percy had a big ass family or she was beloved.
Probably both.
My attention finally leaves the casket and searches the faces for anyone recognizable. It would take someone exceptionally powerful or diligent to notice our disguises, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
“Fucking cretins,” I hiss and Mary stiffens beside me.
Bellick and McRoberts stand nearby another section of what I imagine are NCPD employees.
“Who?” Mary asks and I nod at the two bozos.
“Corrupt cops,” I say, trying my best not to seethe.
“Noted,” Mary says before turning back to the shortening line.
I continue to search the crowd but don’t see anyone out of place. But there’s a suave-looking man standing beside Percy’s parents.
We’d never been introduced, but I’d seen them in a few photos over the years.
Anthony. He looks devastated, and I wish I could say something. Anything.
But then it’s our turn.
Mary steps past quickly enough, but I freeze at the foot of the coffin. She looks a lot more dead here. A lot less happy.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, staring at the dark hair and hooded eyes.
“I’m sorry for not telling you. But I need you to know it was for your safety.
I just fucked up in the end. I need you to know that I never wanted you to be afraid.
I know you’re in a better place now, though.
A place that doesn’t have all of this shit going on. ”
The casket blurs a little before I feel a hand tug at my waist.
“Goodbye Percy—” I say but freeze when I see it.
“We need to go,” Mary whispers, and I nod, letting her pull me out of the line.
We make it down the flight of stairs to the street before she turns to me.
“She had no arm,” I hiss, glancing behind us at the attendees, but no one watches us leave.
“Yes, she lost it in—” Mary begins, but I shake my head.
“Omen took her biological one. But when she—” I huff out a breath. “When she died, Omen had torn out her bionic one.”
“I do not understand.”
“She wasn’t buried with her bionic arm. She’d been in DAEMON right before Omen had hunted us down. Omen had wanted her. She’d been tracking her. She’d asked for Percy in exchange for letting me go.”
Mary watches me like I’m going insane.
“She could store information on that arm, Mary,” I say, glancing around us before continuing. “Whatever she had on that device was enough that Darkrend sent Omen after her.”