Chapter 17
Azrael
How interesting.
I turned back towards their sacred little sanctuary, my eyes finding that door that led to most all of their secrets.
I twirled my cane and pulled out my pocket watch, a shiver of delight sliding down my spine. So many things to do, so little time.
“Tick tock goes the clock, even for the devil.”
The Favorites, particularly that one, was my key into the true inner workings of this masterpiece Pastor Masters had built here.
If I wanted to know more, get an accurate depiction of what they were doing, I was going to need to use the dear little sinner who clearly had an eye for something… chaotic.
My eyes found the large cross they had hung above the stage for all to see, an anatomical heart placed in the center of it as red as the blood seeping through the girl’s shirt. It was just a glimpse of what happened back there, but it was enough.
I left the church a few minutes after they did. I suppose most would condemn lies in a church, but weren’t lies what this whole place was built on anyway?
I didn’t have a meeting with anyone. Not with anyone in this church, at least, but at the end of a long drive, there was a rose growing wild that I needed to see.
~ ~ ~
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I hummed, looking around their new abode. “Comfortable for someone who isn’t staying.”
It reminded me of the daffodil’s home in the woods. Floor to ceiling windows, dark wood, black floors and accents, granite, with touches from the rose that made it warm. Flowers, her dog and everything that came with the spoiled pup. Lots of pink, but not an overwhelming amount.
“Fuck!” the mountain boy cursed, spinning around.
I stood several yards from the door, my smile stretching across my face. Sneaking up on them was the best part of who I was.
He had been in the kitchen, cooking something for dinner, while the rose had been sitting on the couch, reading, her pup lying beside her, as unfazed as she was.
She flipped a page without looking up. “Good evening, Azrael,” she hummed.
Her plaything glared angrily at me, putting his stirring stick down and covering the pan. “What are you doing here? And how did you get in? Jack designed the security system himself.”
“Pity, and here I thought he was getting better.” I drifted over to the couch behind her, reading a few lines of her book over her shoulder. “Oh, is he not doing it for you?”
“Stimulation of the mind is as important as stimulation for the body,” she purred. The rose put in a napkin as a bookmark, set the book to the side, and turned to face me. “Agenda?”
“Part of the game,” I replied.
She looked me over. “Progress?” she asked, finding my eyes again.
A challenge. She loved pushing and pressing for more information on the assignment that forced them to turn the plane around two weeks ago.
Although, out of them all, she was the least annoying when it came to her line of questioning.
My smile widened. “Working. What is your goal with this school, mountain boy?” I liked to ask that question periodically. I needed to make sure his goals were still the same, still heading down the correct path.
He grabbed a dish towel, his eyes unforgiving. “Control,” he answered. “The more people we train and put in certain positions, the more control we have.”
And in our lives, especially going forward, control was necessary. The more control we had, the less control others did, and wasn’t that the addiction of life?
Our dear father had the right idea, but his main focus was power.
He wanted an empire without adaptation, without change.
It worked for a few years, but in order to remain at the top of the hierarchy, we must become something new.
It was an idea I may never have thought up, but would I ever give mountain boy the credit he deserved?
No. Giving praise was their deal, but it would never be mine.
“I’ve made some calls, mountain boy,” I went on.
“The heads of the six families father dearest hired for our ‘expansion’ have agreed to consider a position at your university. They already passed the Initiation program, but of course, their children will need to be the first ones put in classes when it begins.”
He set the towel down, now on this side of the island, and leaned back, still disgruntled about the security mishap. He should be grateful, I found the flaws in the system, and now Jacky boy could improve once again. “Don’t you think Malachi will feel a little irritated that you did that?”
“I don’t particularly care,” I replied as the rose and her pup joined my left side.
“The one thing he did right was pick those men to run the other sects,” I said the word with a sneer.
“I’ve gone over their records, looked into their backgrounds, their families, their enemies, the associates of their children.
They would be good candidates for your professors.
Of course, they have sworn their silence about the project, for now,” I added.
They understood where I stood in this process.
They understood what would happen if they breathed a word of this even to Malachi.
We weren’t in the business of mercy anymore. That was Malachi’s way of life, not ours. If they betrayed us, if anyone associated with this university crossed us, it would be the last thing they ever did on this earth.
“Their programs are already formed,” the rose put in. “All of their Initiates would have to transfer.”
“This college of yours, while I urge you to hasten the pace, certainly won’t be built by the end of their current wave of flawed Initiates. I hope it will be in session before the next wave applies.”
“Fall? You want me to finish this project in the next nine months?”
“If a baby can form inside the womb and be birthed within that amount of time, so can this.”
He frowned. “We would need to build it and everything.”
I lifted my hands to either side. “We have a building already built in Seattle. Build it up and out or use that as our base and build an entirely new structure across the way. The property is 100,000 acres, deary, it’s quite sad I have to do all the thinking for you.”
He glared daggers at me. “Where is Poppy?”
“My leash isn’t as tight as yours.”
And as if her ears were burning, Evie walked out from the hall, drying her hair. “Azrael? What are you doing here?”
I gave him a knowing look before turning to the rose, but not fast enough to miss his eyeroll. “Outside?”
She nodded, gesturing to the glass doors that led out to their large, open porch.
There was a newfound light in her eyes. A lust for blood and chaos, but it was so much less than what I had glimpsed in the sinner’s eyes. Not so much today, but in the past.
I walked towards the edge of the porch, taking in the trees that surrounded us. Large and bright green. Pine trees. “You picked Washington,” I commented. “And the woods, surprising given his past and yours.”
“He’s working on overcoming the things that he believes weaken him,” she commented, joining my side, her pup heading for the trees without fear.
“The trees weaken him?” I knew what weakened him.
“You know what weakens him,” she replied easily.
His mysterious past. A past that wasn’t so mysterious, not to me.
The poor boy of the forest had been taken off the street after wandering away from his home at the ripe age of four.
The couple who stole him tried to run, disappearing into the woods because they thought it would provide them cover, what they didn’t know was that there had been a small cult living in the trees.
That cult killed them mercilessly, took the boy from their lifeless hands, and raised him as their own. Beating him, doing unspeakable things to him.
If life was a contest, however, and our pasts were measured, his still fell short compared to others.
“How is your game truly going?” she asked, looking over. “You said you were ready to play. Have you been playing well?”
The trees were so dense that the pup had disappeared the second she stepped through the tree line. I couldn’t see even a flash of her blinding white fur through the thick branches. “It’s been 12 days.”
“You aren’t one for playing things slow.”
“On the contrary, seedling, sometimes playing it slow is precisely how it needs to be played.” I studied the trees carefully, considering my options.
Of all of them, she was the most useful, and while there was risk in allowing even a bit of information, that risk would be well placed if it remained in the cracked mind of the woman beside me.
I angled my head slightly. “I’ve found a card I can play,” I allowed. “Someone who will help in my endeavors. Someone who can help end this once and for all.”
“End what, Azrael?”
I smiled, finding her strange, deeply cracked eyes. “Don’t worry, wild rose, I’ll bring you in soon enough.” It was a question she knew I wouldn’t answer, but good for her for testing the waters. “How are you handling your bloodlust?”
She rolled her shoulders. “We’ve come home for a day to ‘recharge’,” she answered. “Things have been busy. This is the first time I haven’t been splattered in blood since we diverted the plane on the 19th.”
“And how do you feel?” I asked, looking over.
Her lip curled slightly. “Like I’d rather have a gun in my hand. It’s like an itch that is only ever relieved for a few hours.”
I turned back to the trees. I could understand that little, incessant itch.
Although mine was far more malicious than hers would ever be.
“Then perhaps you need to find a better purpose than going after the Russians.” The wild rose was something that needed to continuously be challenged.
Not even a good fight with her precious Claim could ease that craving in her mind.
No, she needed to control life and death.
She needed to watch the light drain from the eyes of those she believed deserved it.
I liked watching the life drain from anyone’s eyes, but, I suppose, watching it leave the eyes of the deserving was far better rewarded than watching a civilian lose their life.
Barely, but better.
“Give me one then,” she told me. “Give me a trail, let me in on whatever you’re working on.”
I thrummed my fingers, watching a white flash sprint through two trees to my right.
“It’s not my job to find your purpose, rose.
Your vines grow wild, your thorns are sharp.
If there are no longer any Delepski’s running through this world, then perhaps find something worth fighting for.
Someone in need of saving just like you. ”
They had been busy going after the few stragglers that managed to survive after the raid, along with the family members that lived around the world, but there was still a Delepski left, an uncle somewhere in Moscow.
He didn’t attend the Church of Daylight there, but he did believe in the same things the Delepski’s had.
However, it wasn’t my job to show her the trail.
She needed to find it herself. I would not be the keeper of this new up and coming Shadow, no matter what we shared within us.
She scoffed, turning back to the trees. “I hate assignments. I don’t want to be sent.”
We were similar in that sense. There were many reasons I did what I did, and that was one of them, although I did, from time to time, humor father dearest. “Then search. Search for something worthy of your new life. Sometimes that means diving into the depths of this world and never coming out the other end.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” she pried. “Is that how you found your card?”
The smile grew again. I clicked my tongue. “Fishing is not your strong suit, rose. Go, take your wolf and seek out your prey. For you are the predator, and your teeth will never dull.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, returning her attention to the trees. She was quiet for a long time before she spoke again. “Will you ever allow us to come into this little three-year mission of yours?”
If it’s dates she wanted to get into, then technically since the first day I had attended that church, it had been 3 years, 6 months, and 11 days.
However, since the day I truly first started my mission?
That was more around 10 years, 10 months, and 20 days.
Two months early I had escaped that asylum.
It wasn’t random that it had been only two months.
I did have trouble escaping back then, but I had realized just after I had gotten out, that the reason I had had such trouble escaping was because I hadn’t found what I needed.
Once I found it, it was as if the gates had opened wide. Information held many keys. That information had held mine.
“Patience, rose.”
She looked over again, her strange eyes finding mine. “How long were you patient?”
There it was again, that dangerous little fire burning red just passed her irises. “Far longer than you will have to be.”