Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“This is the fanciest infirmary I have ever been in.” Michael wandered around the room in fascination.
He inspected the state-of-the-art equipment, took note of the crisp white curtains and bed linens, and gazed into a tile floor polished to a sheen so fine he could almost see his reflection.
Fully stocked glass-front cabinets lined all the walls, bursting with tinctures and salves and countless bottles of potions alongside modern medicines.
“We need to get on this level,” Uriel agreed, shifting on his assigned cot to better gaze up at the skylight that cast the room in a gentle afternoon glow. “Just being in this room already makes me feel better.”
“I think Camiel’s healing had something to do with that.”
“Maybe so,” Uriel admitted cheerfully, already feeling the sedative effects of the tincture the brunette angel had practically poured down his throat. “She looks good, right?”
“Don’t let her husband hear you pining,” Michael said diplomatically. He had never had much interest in the appearances of women, but he had to admit Camiel had always been a beauty, even among Seraphim.
“Please, Rebecca would kill me first,” Uriel chuckled. “But really, I think Cami was utterly shocked to see us.”
“It has been quite a few centuries.”
“I wonder why Judas helped us,” Uriel mused, bouncing through topics like a toddler on a sugar rush as the medicine loosened his tongue and his grip on the present.
He tried to peer around the room, twisting to look under the neighboring cot as if he expected to see Zaj hiding there.
“He broke my arm on purpose, you know. To make Zucchini bring us here.”
“Zajezjahval,” Michael corrected automatically, then realized what Uriel had said. “Wait, what?”
“That’s what he whispered to me. Weird, right?” Uriel laughed as Michael filed that information away to address later. Then the black angel’s medicated gaze sharpened on Michael. “Are you alright?”
“Maybe.” Michael groaned, running his hands anxiously through his wild curls. “No, not really.”
“Being here can’t be easy for you.” Uriel spoke softly, his tone already slipping back into a drug-addled fog.
“He must despise me, and I don’t blame him. I don’t even know how I feel about seeing him. What can either of us say, after we betrayed each other?”
A soft sound from the hall caught their attention, and Michael strained his hearing until he could discern the steady click of hard soled shoes on the tile.
A spike of adrenaline raced up his spine when he realized who must be headed their way, and Uriel gave him a sympathetic look.
The door creaked open at his back, and Michael tensed as if waiting for a blow.
The footsteps didn’t falter, rising in volume as they steadily approached, until they came to a stop at his side.
“Uriel,” a rich, smooth voice broke the hush that had fallen over the room, and Saints above, Michael’s knees went weak. How long had it been since he had heard that voice outside the confines of his memories? “I was horrified to hear that one of my own manhandled you this way.”
Michael swallowed hard, trying to force his body to cooperate, to turn and say something, anything, but anxiety and a lingering flare of resentment kept him frozen in place.
“To be fair,” Uriel raised his good arm and jabbed an accusatory finger at Lucifer, “I would’ve been safely up in Heaven if we hadn’t been sent to track down Jeho’s stolen property.”
Luce winced and sighed. “Circumstances are… more dire than you realize. This wasn’t a decision we came to lightly.”
“I hope not, since now they want Mags tried by fire for treason.” Uriel frowned.
Luce made a pained sound, and Michael turned at last, terrified and bracing himself but desperate to stop Luce making a sound like that again. His knees gave another traitorous quiver when he finally saw him.
Luce hadn’t changed whatsoever in the time they had been apart; he was still as handsome and regal and purely divine as he was in the memories Michael treasured. If anything, time had only sharpened his beauty like a finely crafted blade.
“Lucifer...” He openly stared at him, reaching out as if to touch him, only to draw back his trembling hand at the raw power rolling off the other man.
It was like a living shield blocking him from getting too close, and Michael tried not to feel too offended, because he knew he deserved the rebuff.
“Well,” Luce cleared his throat, ignoring Michael as if he hadn’t spoken, though the King’s own voice tight with emotion. “I am deeply sorry for that, but I can’t begrudge Mags her free will. Let’s look at that arm, shall we?”
Uriel hesitated, then shifted so his injured arm was accessible to Luce. “I’ll try not to scream,” he muttered bitterly.
“Here.” Luce snapped his fingers, and a thick piece of rope dropped into Uriel’s lap. “I’m going to sedate you, but you’ll likely burn through it before I’m done.”
“I always was a quick healer.”
“Unfortunately, that’s working against us here.
” Luce frowned as he assessed the damage carefully, prodding and stroking Uriel’s bicep and feeling the way things shifted beneath the skin.
“I’m going to re-break your humerus, but I’ll have to open the flesh to make sure I properly sever and reattach the fused bone and ligaments.
I’ll need to use a special salve to prevent your wound from resealing while I work, so you’ll have a lovely scar when we’re finished. ”
“Rebecca will love it.” Uriel grinned.
“Wonderful.”
Michael stood frozen, torn between wanting to touch Luce and cursing him inwardly for the audacity to have somehow gotten more attractive. Luce refused to even look at him. He gazed directly at Uriel, eyes never even shifting towards Michael, and pretended the blond wasn’t even in the room.
“Please, Lucifer,” Michael’s voice shook as he stepped closer to his former lover and winced when he hit the wall again. It was like a living thing pressing at his shoulders to keep him firmly away from Luce.
Uriel cleared his throat as Luce reached for his arm. “Mike, maybe you could step out?”
They both started at his words, Mike at the dismissal, and Luce at the blatant acknowledgement of his presence.
“I just mean,” Uriel pressed on quickly, “that I don’t want you to see me crying like a child. I have my reputation to uphold.”
As if he hadn’t seen Uriel shattered both physically and emotionally before? It was a thinly veiled attempt to spare him this humiliation, and Michael seized it gratefully.
“Yes.” He gave a quick nod, setting his hand on Uriel’s good shoulder briefly before he turned and fled the infirmary. He remembered seeing a garden as they descended the cliffside. If he followed this hall, surely he’d come across the courtyard at some point.
Uriel watched the door for a long moment after Michael pushed through it, clearly distraught.
As much as he understood there were deep, untended wounds between Michael and Luce, he couldn’t help but feel protective over his stoic friend.
He turned a small frown on the King, that biased part of him angry with Luce for refusing to even acknowledge the other man.
“That was decidedly harsh,” he said, voice soft but steady.
Luce flinched, long fingers tightening on the jar he had just summoned from a cabinet across the room.
“You speak out of turn,” he said at last, voice taut with an emotion Uriel couldn’t name. It was somewhere between anger and anxiety, and it gave him pause.
“You’re right.” He tried to shrug, and gave a little gasp at the pain that lanced his arm.
“Try not to break yourself more, when I’m about to try and fix you?” Luce asked drily, and Uriel offered a weak grin.
“Apologies,” he chuckled. “Camiel gave me a potion that almost had me forgetting it was broken.”
“Ah, that would be one of mine.” Luce beamed with pride. “I made it for battlefield surgery, when we needed to alleviate the shock to get the wounded to safety quickly. It’s essentially a sedative that targets and numbs injuries.”
“If only we’d had that one back when I nearly lost my wing at Babel, eh?”
“That was actually what inspired me to start developing it,” Luce admitted with a sly grin. “You were crying like a child then, if I recall?”
“I essentially was a child,” Uriel said, a bitter cast to his tone, and then sighed. “Ah well, that’s the past. Sometimes it’s best to let go of the past, right Luce?”
“Nice try.” Luce frowned, giving him a stern look as he poured a measure of ruby liquid from the jar to a glass and passed it to Uriel. “You know very well that this isn’t nearly that cut and dry. Drink this, it’s more of what you had earlier.”
Uriel accepted the glass and tossed the contents down in a single swallow. “I think you need to talk to each other,” he tried again, stubbornly.
“Uriel, I still consider you a friend,” when he answered, Luce’s tone was hard and cool, “but if you press this subject with me, it will not be a pleasant conversation for either of us.”
“He just wants a chance to make amends and try to...understand.”
“He has had several millennia in which to try!” A cool wind swept the room, sending the curtains fluttering and the glass cabinets rattling. Luce turned away sharply, swapping the jar of sedative potion for a metal tin of salve to occupy his hands.
Uriel waited, gazing at Luce with something close to sympathy. When the wind settled and the curtains drifted back into place, he reached out with his good hand and touched the King lightly on the arm. “Luce...you hurt him too.”
“I did no such thing,” Luce snapped, turning away from the bed and pacing across the room to rummage through a cabinet. “He is the one who refused my requests to speak then, so why should I entertain his now?”