Chapter 24 #2
Gavriel frowned. “It might be able to get through Rafe’s. But not mine, or yours. It doesn’t know those keys. The Maker Hall is safe for now.”
“Why would Rumple’s locks be the problem?” I asked, alarmed. “How would the shadows know his keys?”
“Well, I sort of… have a portion of the void inside me.” Rumple ducked his head sheepishly. “I more or less ingested it when I was in the Abyss, and there’s no way to get it all ou—”
“What the actual fork, Rumple!” I yelled, jumping off the bed and looking down at my privates. “Did you give me a spiritual STD? Void scabies? What the heck kind of antibiotics is this gonna take?”
They both sighed, rubbing their foreheads like they were getting twin headaches. Well, a headache sounded a lot better than shadow crabs. Bitsy was itching just at the thought. With a growl, I stalked toward Rumple. He saw the danger and began backing away.
“Rumpelstiltskin Johnson the Third, are you telling me that it wasn’t just you in bed with me today? Are you honest to glob going to tell me I did the dirty with the VOID?!”
Gavriel caught me from behind, his arms swooping under my armpits and holding me back just as I was about to leap on Rumple and show him what all those WWE reruns had taught me. Piledrivers and hulk smashes and crab sandwiches. All of it.
“Calm down, Feather. You’re getting hysterical.”
Across the room, Rumple’s eyes went wide, and then he started laughing. “Bad move, Gav. Never, ever say that to a woman.”
I was already in motion, but Gavriel realized what he’d said and shifted. Instead of my heel connecting with his balls, it hit his thigh.
“Ow!” How could a thigh be that muscly and hard? “You damaged my foot with your tree trunk legs!” With an amused snort, Gavriel set me on the sofa, where I rubbed at the sore spot on my heel.
“I didn’t let the void interfere when we were together, Feather,” Rumple said, sitting just far enough away that I couldn’t smack him.
“It surfaced a couple of times when we were… warming up. But I suppressed it during. And honestly, I’m positive it wasn’t thinking about anything other than how you felt—”
I slapped my hands over my ears. I fucked the void.
“Technically, you already had a little of the, um, void in you, love,” Rumple admitted sheepishly. “When I remade you in the Abyss, some of the smut I carried found its way into your body…”
I relaxed a little, remembering. “So, I was already void-inoculated? Like, I had some inactive Abyss germs inside me?”
“Inactive?” Gavriel scoffed. “Look at you. It’s moving around right no—” He stopped talking when Rumple shot him a glare.
“Nope,” I said, firmly denying what Gavriel had suggested.
“It’s like a vaccine. Or the Borg. Any Abyss material has been fully assimilated.
” I’d always known that believing I was safe from danger was the most important part of keeping myself from turning into a woman-shaped deer in the headlights of certain death.
I was determined to think of myself as void-vaccinated, not void-contaminated.
Anyway, the thought of having some of Rumple’s genetic material in me wasn’t entirely…
Oh, cold crap on a stale cracker.
Genetic material.
“I forked my brother.” I stared at Rumple’s groin and tried to summon actual remorse. All I could manage was horror and humiliation. My cheeks felt like they were going to burst into flames.
Both of them looked at me like I’d gone around the bend.
I covered my face with my hands, but felt them poking around the edges of my thoughts.
They saw the moment when Imriel had called me sister.
To my complete mortification, at least one of them saw the way I’d used Mike Oxbig on Revel’s golden knob.
I sobbed. “Rumple. You’re my brother. We can never fork again.”
“I’m not your brother,” he said soothingly. “I am the First of the Celestial Children. The Maker of All pulled my material directly from the ether long before she created my siblings.”
“But Arabella… she’s in me, too.” I wanted to hide under the universe’s largest rock.
How had I not put this all together before now?
Because you were horny, Feather. Because you cared more about getting some of that girthy shadow dick than doing what was decent.
And the tail, and the tongue. And those horns, too.
You just wanted to get nasty with all those sexy, smutty, pokey bits.
Although those parts were made of the void, and I knew I wasn’t related to the void at all, so maybe if we did want to mess around again, we could just use the extra appendages to—
“Feather!” Rumple yelled. “Didn’t Arabella tell you she was different?
Unique? She was also made of a different core material.
Created to be a Great Sacrifice from the beginning.
” I felt my blood pressure start to go down.
She had said something like that. “Not related,” he insisted. “I swear on Esther.”
I relaxed entirely. That was a vow I knew Rumple would take seriously.
Gavriel was sneering at us both when we finally turned back to him. “Are you two done? Can we finish trying to figure out a plan?” Rumple sighed, and sank deeper into the other love seat, nodding for Gavriel to go on.
“I’m listening,” I said. “For now.”
For an instant, Gavriel’s expression was aggrieved, just like the old days.
It was so fun to annoy him. “Where were we? Ah yes, we have to assume the creatures know everything about Sanctuary. They had thousands of years to pry open Seraphiel’s mind and explore.
So they will know all the back ways and hidden passages. We don’t have much hope.”
I got up and started to pace. “Pfft. You tell me about hopelessness when you’re waiting in a line for the port-a-johns at an outdoor music festival in New Mexico, after you’ve had four beers and an extra-large lemonade.
A hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade, and seventy desperate women in line in front of me.
I know hopelessness. And this isn’t it.”
I grabbed the soul knife I’d left on the table. “Let’s list our assets. We have a soul knife,” I began, and then Gavriel pulled another one from his belt. “Two soul knives! That’s a good start.” I looked around the room. “What about the powerful feathers and stuff?” I pointed to the mobile.
“We need to leave Gavriel’s feathers here, love.
For one thing, the energy balance he’s achieved is nothing short of miraculous.
And dangerous, to be honest, if we try to dismantle it quickly.
This space is protected from anyone with ill intentions, or who doesn’t know the password.
If something goes wrong, we might be able to return.
So we’ll leave the box and the mobile as they are. A backup plan.”
I tapped my chin, thinking. “Okay, so a plan B and two soul knives. Nothing else? Don’t we have anything?” I made a strangled cry when they both shook their heads. “This is impossible. If only we had a wheelbarrow, or something.”
“We have glitter,” Rumple said sardonically. “Lots and lots of glitter.”
“Of course!” I shouted. Everything clicked into place, at least in my mind. “So, here’s the plan…” I sketched it out. They both stared, in awe of my genius, I assumed.
I assumed wrong.
Gavriel spoke first. “That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard. We’ll all die within seconds.”
“Will we, though?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest. I had fashioned a cot sheet into a fresh, improvised toga, and it kept slipping down, exposing the tops of my breasts.
Distraction was going to play a large part of this plan, and I thought this was an effective way of demonstrating that.
Gavriel was sure having a hard time not staring at my tits.
When I said so, Rumple snorted. “You might be right, little one. They will never see it coming. No one ever would.”
“Because it’s unimaginably stupid,” Gavriel stated, then almost fell to the ground, whimpering in pain.
Rumple kneeled to help him up. “What is it, Gav? What happened?”
I knew. “Sucks to have that vow on your wings when you want to be a giant basshole to me, doesn’t it?
Cruelty, friendship. Which side ya gonna pick?
” His shocked eyes met mine. “A true friend, like Sunny, doesn’t ask why when the poop starts to pile up.
They just ask what kind of shovel, how deep a hole, and who’s buying drinks after. ”
“I’ll make us all glitter cocktails if we can get out of this alive,” Rumple mused, grabbing the enormous glitter sheet-bag.
Gavriel still looked like he’d been smacked in the head with a two by four, so I took him by the hand and placed a gentle kiss on his palm. “It’ll be okay, Gavriel. You’ll see. I’m not as smart as you, and I’m not as strong. But I am one thing that has always worked to my advantage.”
His pretty brow furrowed in thought. “Creative?”
I gave his hand another kiss for that sweet thought. “No, babe. I’m unpredictable.”