And then, he noticed Sean and Sinead.
He blinked at them, head cocked to one side, wings still partially extended behind him. In return, Sean and Sinead gaped at him, as if… well, as if they had just seen the archangel, Gabriel.
“Guys, this is Gabriel,” Siobhan informed her siblings pleasantly, and behind her, Jack was very nearly strangling himself into silence as he tried not to laugh. “Gabe, this is my sister, Sinead, and my brother, Sean.” She pointed to one and then the other as she introduced them.
Bemused, Gabriel lifted a hand and waved briefly before his hand fell back to his side. And then, to make things even better, Anael landed behind him a moment later, wondering, “Why is everyone just standing here?” before she realized that the newcomers were perfectly normal, everyday human beings, rather than something on the more supernatural end of the spectrum.
Siobhan repeated her introduction for Anael.
“They have wings,” Sinead eventually managed to breathe, so quietly the words were hardly even audible, her tone awed. “So many wings.”
Siobhan grinned. “What was that about me being delusion?” she asked as sweetly as she could manage.
“And me being an enabler,” Jack added helpfully. “Can’t forget that part.”
“I think I’m going to pass out,” Sinead managed faintly, as if Siobhan and Jack hadn’t even spoken.
“Please don’t,” Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “If that’s all I’ve been badgered out here for, then I’m going to take myself back inside, where I won’t cause a scene.”
“Wait wait wait!” Sinead shouted abruptly, skittering forwards a few steps, heedless of the way Sean tried to grab her arm and pull her back. “Can—” She paused, hesitating, before she swallowed and steeled herself. “Can I touch them?” she asked, breathy with wonder.
Gabriel looked reluctant at first. Sure, he was willing to let Siobhan quite literally climb all over him, but he knew her. He didn’t know her siblings from a hole in a wall. But then, he sighed, and one pair of wings spread, arching forwards slightly.
With a look of awestruck wonder on her face, Sinead carefully trailed her fingers along one of his wings, cautious not to disorder any of the feathers.
Anael watched curiously for a moment before she silently extended one wingtip towards Sean, watching him with an expectant sort of amusement.
Sean jerked back from wherever his thoughts had drifted, most likely several thousand lightyears away. He blinked at Anael’s wing. Blinked at Anael. And then at her wing again, until she tittered delicately, and he finally lifted a hand to trace his fingertips along one of the long primary feathers.
With a force of will, Sinead pulled her hand away from Gabriel’s wing, finally allowing him to fold them to his back again and step away. Sean continued marveling over Anael’s wing for a moment before he too pulled his hand back, clutching them together tightly behind his back to keep himself from reaching out once again.
“You’re a vampire,” Sinead stated blankly, staring at Siobhan. It was followed by, “Your eyes are sort of glowing,” in much the same tone. “Like theirs.” She looked at Gabriel and Anael as she made the observation. “But not his.” Her gaze swung back towards Jack again. “Are you an angel, too?”
Siobhan snorted before she could help herself. “Ah, no,” she replied. “Not even close. It’s…” She trailed off, and then cleared her throat. “It’s a really long story,” she settled on with a sigh. Explaining vampiric angels to her siblings just seemed like a step too far, as if their brains might implode from the information. They probably wouldn’t, but Siobhan wasn’t willing to risk that, and she supposed it wasn’t imperative for her siblings to know it anyway. Filling them in on every detail of how the world was possibly ending seemed cruel, unusual, and unnecessary.
Sinead wilted slightly. “Oh. Okay.” She paused, mouth still open to speak but hesitating to form the words. “Can we see you again?” she finally forced out in a rush. “Soon?”
Siobhan found herself nodding without any conscious thought. “Of course.”
A grin split across Sinead’s face, and she engulfed Siobhan in another potentially strangling embrace. She reached a hand out to beckon expectantly, and with the utmost reluctance, Sean joined in on the hug.
Watching them get into Sean’s car again and drive off was harder than Siobhan had expected it to be.
*
Everything was quiet on the balcony. Barton was sound asleep. Jack was browsing on his phone. Siobhan was pointing out constellations for Anael and explaining the stories to her. Gabriel seemed content to listen.
And then, he cocked his head to one side, his expression bemused. “Wait. How come you didn’t just show them your fangs, if they didn’t believe you about being a vampire? Wouldn’t that have been easier than having them drive all the way here with you?”
Siobhan looked at him, blinking slowly.
…That hadn’t occurred to her. Possibly the most obvious solution, and she hadn’t even thought of it. She glanced over to Jack to see him sinking down in his chair and practically burying himself in whatever he was reading, and she was gratified to see that he hadn’t thought of it either. At least they were both idiots, rather than just her.
She cleared her throat sharply and tried her best to sound prim, offended, and matter-of-fact as she informed Gabriel, “If they couldn’t even decide whether or not my eyes had really changed colors, how was I supposed to expect them to accept the fangs without question?” She folded her arms and stuck her nose in the air, only to immediately have to drop her arms and grab the balustrade as she nearly unbalanced herself and almost fell off.
“They already thought I was delusional,” she carried on blandly. “Who’s to say they wouldn’t have thought I started wearing fake fangs to make it more convincing? So bringing them back here was the only sure fire way to make sure they believed me.” She nodded once, firmly, as she finished speaking.
“…Uh huh.” Gabriel patted her on the shoulder, not even bothering to hide the smirk on his face. “Whatever you say.”
Never before had Siobhan wanted to punch him in the face quite as much as she wanted to punch him just then.
CHAPTER SIX
“I used to sunbathe now and then.” Siobhan flopped backwards on the bed, sprawling over Jack’s lap. Her gaze was focused on the window, the curtains drawn over the late morning light and seeming to glow.
He lowered his notebook, peering over it at her, and he dropped a hand to his lap to begin running his fingers through her curls. “Okay?” he coaxed, once it became apparent that she wasn’t going to keep speaking without prompting.
“I sort of miss doing that,” she sighed, squirming her shoulders against one of his legs as she got comfortable. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a night owl and I always plan to be—duh—but there’s still nothing quite like that feeling of being slowly baked.”
“The sunburn would’ve been milder, and it still would have taken longer to heal,” Jack reminded her wryly. “You would do that gross flakey thing. Like a giant snake.”
Siobhan’s tongue poked out of her mouth, and she blew a raspberry at him. “And then only the Vampire Lords could deal with me,” she sighed, more than a little overwrought in its woefulness. “They have experience with giant snakes, after all.”
Well, there was a mental image.
Jack shuddered melodramatically, finally setting the notebook down on Siobhan’s chest, using her as a table as long as she was taking up his lap. “Ew,” he decided, very succinctly.
“You’re the one who made the comparison,” she pointed out, the tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth once again.
“It was a horrible idea,” he conceded. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
“So, what, you just regularly expect me to start spouting out inanities?” Siobhan wondered wryly, eyebrows rising.
“Most of the time, yeah,” he replied ca
ndidly, and he quickly picked up the notebook to use as a shield as she tried to swat at his nose.
Feigning a sulk, he whined, “You’re always so violent. You’re going to give me the wrong idea one of these days.”
“Will not,” she returned primly, folding her arms over her chest and squirming her shoulders as she adjusted her position. “I’m adorable. Not even just to you, but objectively speaking.”
Jack snorted behind the edge of the notebook to hide a laugh. “Your modesty has always been one of your best features,” he drawled wryly.
Siobhan sat up slowly and swung a leg over his lap so she could straddle his legs. Leaning close, she placed a swift kiss on the end of his nose, one cheek, the other, the end of his chin, and finally on his lips. When she drew back again, she batted her eyelashes and wondered, “You mean, you don’t think I’m adorable?”
Jack stayed steadfast for about half a second before he slumped slightly, bumping his forehead against hers. “Precious,” he agreed. “And you’ve got me wrapped around your finger.”
Beaming brightly, she assured him, “I know,” as she tucked her head under his chin, pulled her arms in close to their chests, and got comfortable. “I’m going to take a nap now,” she informed him cheerfully just before she closed her eyes.
Jack blinked at her, silently noting that her current position made it rather hard to write in a notebook. With a long, slow sigh, he set the notebook and his pen aside. “I guess I am, too.”
He curled his arms around her and let his eyes drift closed.
*
“How’s your head?”
They were barely awake when Jack asked. Neither of them had even bothered to open their eyes yet.
Siobhan made an incoherent noise and pawed at his face before finally cracking an eye open. “You are such a worrywart,” she sighed fondly, and he opened one eye to look down at her. “You need a new hobby,” she informed him wryly. “One of these days, worrying about me is going to get old.”
With a yawn, she levered herself up and away from him. She stretched her arms over her head and climbed off of the bed, offering a cheerful, “Well, come on, we’ve got a day to fill before we can actually go outside and do anything,” over her shoulder. She motioned for him to follow her.
With that said, she turned and swanned her way out of the room.
She didn’t actually answer his question, and that in and of itself was pretty telling.
With a sigh, Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and followed her out of the room.
*
It was the middle of the afternoon when Gabriel found Jack and Siobhan feeding Barton in the kitchen and informed them, “There is another archangel attack. The signal is getting louder again.”
For anything else, the timing might have been inconvenient, but as it was, the fights to (ideally) convert or (if necessary) kill the archangels had to happen so quickly that the daylight wasn’t an especially pressing concern. Vampiric archangels seemed less affected by sunlight on the whole, and Siobhan and Jack could put up with an extreme sunburn for a few hours.
(Well, mostly Jack. Siobhan intended on sitting herself down somewhere shady, wherever they were headed.)
Siobhan scuffed the toe of one of her boots against the floor before she nudged Barton’s bowl. As expected, he rapidly finished off its contents before anyone might try to take the bowl away from him.
“Alright, let’s go,” Siobhan sighed, ignoring the bowl as she tapped her thigh for Barton to follow her. Alistair would make a fussy, disgusted noise and pick it up later.
*
Wherever they were seemed small by the standards of a city, and yet still too large to be called a town. It was a very in-between sort of place. Not filthy, but not pristine. Not beautiful, but not entirely unfortunate. Not chaotic, but not calm.
Jack and Siobhan clustered in the shadows of a shop when they arrived. It was calm still, though a police car and an ambulance tore past after a few seconds, and they had a good idea of what had summoned them. Without wasting time, Gabriel dropped to his knees to let Barton snuffle at his arms and hands. Freshly fed, Siobhan didn’t even have to scold him for letting his attention wander as he stayed on task.
After a few moments of vigorous smelling, Barton burst into a sprint.
Though he paused every so often to scratch at the unfamiliar feeling of a sunburn setting in, the mutt did his duty all the same. Barton led them down a busy main street, through an alley that seemed bizarrely clean, and along several side streets, until finally they came to a street lined in cookie cutter townhouses. Each one was two stories, longer from front to back than from side to side, and pressed up against their neighbors like cattle at an auction. Cars lined the street on both sides, and empty spaces had been claimed with deck chairs and anything else large enough that people would be reluctant to simply run it over.
Their most recent angelic problem was easy to spot.
“Which one is this?” Jack wondered, shading his eyes as he looked up at her.
“Samael,” Gabriel answered. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his wings, readying himself for whatever was about to happen.
Samael, like Oriphael before her, looked eerily identical to Anael when it came to her body type and the shape of her face. But as pale as Anael was, that was how dark Samael was, with skin the color of black coffee. Her hair was such a pale shade of blonde it was nearly white, and it was coiled around her head in two obscenely long braids. Her wings were white but faintly iridescent, gleaming pink and purple and blue and green and gold as the light shifted across the feathers, and her eyes glowed a strange, vibrant shade of pink that Siobhan had not yet encountered anywhere else at that point in time, save for possibly in photos of a few exotic flowers.
She was hovering over the street when they arrived, her expression impassive and her eyes hollow. Loud and clear, Siobhan could hear the signal buzzing, rattling, like it was trying to shake Samael’s skull apart and bring everyone else down with her.
She was calmer than Oriphael had been. Certainly, she was still trying to destroy the street, but the damage was localized still, and she didn’t start shrieking like a harpy as soon as she laid eyes on them. She was hardly even moving as she observed them, save for the slow, occasional flapping of her wings to keep her aloft.
Siobhan didn’t take long to appreciate the difference between them, though, instead dropping down to a crouch on the sidewalk before she sat back on her heels and then sat down entirely in the shade of the nearest building. Barton stationed himself in front of her, his head low and his teeth bared, like some sort of sentry or a gargoyle. He was only partially shaded by the building, but evidently defending Siobhan trumped any urge he might have had to get out of the sun.
Jack patted the mutt on the head and took up a defensive stance beside him.
Unlike others before her, Samael wasted no time. She lunged at Siobhan without preamble, hands outstretched and grasping. Jack and Barton pounced in tandem, and the three of them hit the ground in a tangle of scuffling wings and limbs. There was a pained, outraged shout as Barton closed his teeth around the base of one of her wings and shook his head like a hungry shark, ripping feathers loose and scattering droplets of shimmering blood across the ground.
Samael’s head impacted the ground a moment later as Jack slammed a hand against her head with enough force to knock her backwards.
Her wings flared open, ripping free of Barton’s hold and forcing her up and away from the ground quickly enough that Jack stumbled backwards to avoid being head-butted. Barton skittered several steps back, dancing backwards the length of her wingspan before she could smack him with one of them and send him reeling.
Gabriel hung back, staying at the fringe of the confrontation until his interference was necessary. The odds of her being able to seriously hurt Jack and Barton when they worked in tandem were slim. The odds of Gabriel accidentally hurting her more than he intended were much higher.
Jack
retreated for only a moment before he threw himself at her again, his hands slamming into her shoulders and forcing her down to the ground. His knees landed on her abdomen and, with a gasp, all of the air was forcibly ejected from her lungs. She thrashed weakly for a moment until she managed to take a full breath again—or, at least, as full of a breath as she could with Jack still kneeling on her chest.
As she began to move to throw him off, Barton leaned over her, snapping his jaws at her nose, forcing her to recoil towards the ground again. Notably, he didn’t appear to have any intent to actually bite her. Or at least, not her face.
It was only a short-term distraction, though. Samael gathered her bearings once again, and Barton yelped and scampered backwards, shaking his head quickly after she punched him square in the snout. Jack lunged for her arm, but as his weight shifted, she snapped her wings open, tossing him off of her and propelling herself back to her feet.
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