Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Humans were so unbelievably fragile. Gabe could admit that he was fairly detached, even for an immortal.
Trying to cultivate relationships was difficult for him—it was part of the reason Foster was so precious to him.
It was inconceivable for him to imagine expending that much effort to connect with a mortal when their existence would be a blink of his own.
The woman on the bed before him was a prime example. At the tail end of her lifespan, only a few revolutions from slipping the mortal coil, they considered her an “elder”. He scoffed. At her age, an angel was barely an infant. He had sweaters older than this woman.
And yet, she was beyond important because Foster loved her. Gabe bent over the woman’s still form, assessing her wounds and probing with his magic to ensure her life force still flickered within. After all he had suffered, Gabe would not allow Foster to lose this woman and gain nothing in return.
The sound of the doorknob turning caught his ear, and Gabe glanced up to see Foster returning with a brown paper bag cradled in one arm.
He snapped his fingers and the bag rose from the boy’s grip, bobbing slightly as it drifted across the room and overturned itself.
The contents spilled across the bedside table for Gabe’s appraisal.
Neatly tied bundles of herbs, expertly cut spheres of amethyst and selenite, a small vial of oil stoppered and sealed with black wax. He moved aside the purple and black taper candles and lifted a jar full of neatly sifted yellowed white powder.
“You’re positive this is bone powder from an Arcanum Praeceptor?”
“The Praeceptor Dominus, in fact. Would you like a copy of the death certificate?”
“Forgive my dubious nature.” Gabe marked the boy’s agitated tone, and reminded himself to be patient. Foster still wavered over this decision. The angel smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring. “The remains of the highest devotees are sacred, and a rare prize to come by. I’ll take your word.”
“I would hope so,” Foster muttered, crossing to the window and staring out over the small courtyard to avoid looking at the hospital bed. A long moment passed as Gabe arranged the spell components, and then he said, “This feels wrong, Gabe.”
“Wrong in what way?” A swell of irritation bloomed in his chest, and Gabe squashed it. The boy was half mortal with an unbearably human heart; his struggles with loss were a natural consequence of feeling so deeply.
“I don’t feel qualified to make this call.”
“You aren’t making it.” Gabe rolled the amethyst sphere between his fingers. “The universe works in mysterious ways.”
“And my uncle.” Foster turned, frowning, and his attention skipped over the bed to land on the small vase of flowers one of the apartment neighbors had sent. “He can do nothing?”
Gabe sobered as a bitter recollection tickled the edges of his memory. “No, Jehovah doesn’t interfere in the designs of fate. Not for mortals.”
“No, just for my dear cousin Christos.” There was a bitterness there that made Gabe’s frown deepen.
“Saving Mary Magdalene was a…different case,” he hedged.
“As if God himself doesn’t have the power?”
“The laws are the laws,” Gabe sighed. “Which is why we’re here.”
Finally, Foster looked to the bed. His expression immediately darkened, eyes going flat and distant. “I wish there was any other way.”
“There is not.”
“I know!” Foster raked his hands through his hair. The vial of peppermint and lilac oil rolled to the edge of the nightstand that trembled in the wake of his overflowing emotion, and Gabe snatched it from the air as it fell.
“Calm yourself,” he commanded the younger man.
Foster glowered at him with tear-filled eyes. “How?!” He wailed softly, and Gabe felt a twinge of sympathy. How confusing and overwhelming, to have a mortal heart paired with the curse of immortality. But there was work to be done.
“I say this with love, Foster.” he came to his side and gripped the boy’s shaking shoulders. “But you—”
A soft, shuddering cough interrupted the moment. Foster whirled to face the bed.
Gabe turned slower, brows lifting in astonishment. “She wakes.”
The boy was by her side in an instant, scrutinizing her face as Sra. Delgado gave another soft cough. Her eyes flickered open, closed, opened again, and fixed on his.
“M-mijo,” she croaked, wincing at the strain, her words muffled by the mask strapped over her nose and mouth.
Foster whimpered. “Abuela.”
Gabe cringed and averted his gaze from the…touching scene. Speak your piece and go, old woman.
“Foster… mi amor…” Her breathing was labored and pained. Foster leaned in close to listen to the whispery words she managed to force out. “Ayúdame.”
“Help you how, abuela?” The boy was on the verge of tears, and his obvious affection for the woman brought a lump to even Gabe’s throat. He turned to the window to allow them some privacy.
“Let…me go...” The old woman rattled and wheezed. “Set…me free, angelito.”
Her eyes slipped shut again and stayed closed.
A long silence stretched over the room, broken only by the steady beeping of the monitors and the soft whirr of the breathing machine.
Gabe ran his fingers over the curtain, picking at a loose thread on the bottom.
This was a hideous plaid pattern and an awful color.
Then Foster began to cry. He couldn’t even begin to comfort the boy; what was he supposed to say? It was terrible, but this was the way it was. They might as well get something back in exchange, it only made sense.
“Gabe.”
He gripped the curtain tight, wincing at the pure desperation in Foster’s voice. The fabric tore in his grasp. “You should respect her wishes.”
More ugly silence. Gabe turned, but Foster wasn’t looking at him. He knelt beside the bed with his forehead pressed to the crisp white sheet, both hands folded around one of the old lady’s as if he was praying with her.
Gabe folded his own hands before him and bowed his head. Ironically, he wasn’t much of a believer in the power of prayer. He had seen too many prayers go unanswered, including his own. He had lain prostrate before his King and pleaded once before, to no avail.
But if it brought Foster some comfort, Gabe could pretend.
“The rebellion with Adam.” Michael kept returning to the same comment, his mind whirling with the implications.
“However many times you say them, the words are the same.”
“Technically I’m just repeating your words.” A sharp tug on his wounded wing had him grunting.
“Semantics annoy me, and you know that.” Luce returned the wing to a proper position for splinting, folded neatly against Michael’s back. “Hold still, you fidgety child.”
Michael made an affronted noise. “I’m not—”
“Oh, shut up, it’s the truth.” Luce scoffed. “You were always so sensitive about injuries, but only after you ignored them and got yourself nearly killed.”
“I suppose I do tend to get... hyper-focused.”
“Hyper-focused? Michael, a bomb could go off beside you, and you wouldn’t notice if you were tracking.
” He pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging to loosen the tension, and picked up a roll of cloth bandage.
“All nonsense aside, you better sit still for me to bind these wings, or they won’t set properly. ”
“I’m not a child, I can keep still without a binding.”
“I have absolutely no faith in your ability to control yourself. You can’t even follow the simple direction to stay away from me.”
“You’re still so arrogant.”
“And you're ignorant.”
They fell into silence as Luce unwound and stretched the bandage, slapping the end against Michael’s chest.
“Hold this.” He began to wrap around muscled torso and tawny feathers, assuming Michael would follow the command. The angel didn’t disappoint, waiting for Luce to overlap the fabric before he let his hand drop.
“You do know you have to explain that Adam comment, don’t you?”
“I have to do nothing.” The Devil tugged the bandages neatly into place, conjuring a pin and stabbing precariously deep to secure the wrap.
Michael gave him an accusatory look and Luce glared back.
“I will tell you, if only to prove to you why you’re an utter imbecile, but I do it of my own will. No one commands me.”
Michael bit his tongue to avoid pointing out the contradiction there, not wanting to disrupt the tense truce they had entered.
Instead, he rolled his eyes and waited for the explanation.
Luce busied himself with righting his desk—or rather, the halves of it.
He shot Michael a dirty look, and the angel glowered right back.
He hadn’t told Luce to try and cut him in half!
The King continued avoiding his gaze, wandering the room and collecting pieces of his office by hand, as if the manual labor was helping him compose himself.
Michael’s wings itched as the torn tendons knit back together, but he suspected the shiver down his spine had more to do with anticipation.
This had to be one hell of a story, if it had led to such a monumental misunderstanding.
When Luce finally ran out of books and knickknacks to collect, he turned and locked their gazes for a long moment, as if he was trying to read something behind Michael’s eyes. “I just can’t understand it.”
Michael folded his hands in his lap, pointedly waiting for him to go on. Luce narrowed his eyes, but continued, “I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve thought the worst of me, all this time.”
He resumed pacing, no longer bothering to mask his agitation in the guise of cleaning. “That I could actually betray you that way…that I could destroy Heaven!”
While he wasn’t quick to anger, Michael still had a temper—and now it stirred itself inside him like a stung bear.
“What was I supposed to think? I came to the Garden at Jophiel’s urging.
I saw you—and I think I of all people would know your face!
I saw that face pressed against Eve’s, kissing her the way you would kiss me. ”