George smiled at her. “Perfect timing, and thank you.” He reached into his pocket, withdrew a billfold and grabbed a crisp hundred-dollar bill from it. “Could you make sure not to seat anyone next to us for the next…twenty minutes?”
Amanda’s entire face lit up and she snatched the money from his hands. “Absolutely! Hell, that gets you VIP all night long!”
As she left, he saw her redirecting a couple to a table on the opposite side of the diner, leaving their side practically empty. There was a man at the counter who appeared half sleep, his head bobbing towards the counter surface every few seconds. A woman was at a booth by the window but George didn’t see her interrupting them anytime soon. She was tearfully staring down at her phone, her mascara running as she tried to compose a message. When she was done, she tucked her phone away and laid her head down.
“I’ll prove it, Imane,” George decided as he slid the mug of water closer. “But I want you to be prepared for what I show you.” Imane nodded. Satisfied, he begun to prepare. “Song, be a dear. The salt.”
Song snorted. “That’s how you’re going to show her?” George shot her a look and she rolled her eyes before grabbing a cow-shaped salt shaker, twisting the cow head off and handing him the cow-shaped body.
“Salt?” Zicon asked.
“Can’t make holy water without salt.” George dumped the contents into the coffee mug. Steaming hot water splashed over the side and onto the table. “Hope I get this part right, it’s been a while.” He closed his eyes, held his hand over the mug and whispered the blessing incantation.
George finished by making the sign of the cross over the water. He raised the mug and took a sip, grimacing at the overpowering salty taste. “Imane, close your eyes and keep them closed until I say to open them.”
Imane nodded and did as her father asked.
“The common conception is that holy water is used specifically for blessing things: your house, your marriage, et cetera et cetera. But holy water is also a great conductor for connecting two bodies, two spirits, and two minds because it blesses and thereby cleanses the connections between those two entities. This works a little better for those who are spiritually inclined, however…”
George slipped a hand into his daughter’s. I’m sorry, my lamb,” he whispered before he flung the water at her face.
Imane gasped so hard George thought she was going to choke. Zicon, wide-eyed and shocked, rushed to grab some napkins. “What the fuck, George! Why would you throw hot water in her face? Imane? Imane! Are you okay?”
George didn’t answer because he was concentrating on Imane.
“It’s not hot,” Song clarified.
“What in the hell do you mean it’s not hot?” Zicon shouted as he mopped Imane’s face dry.
“Is your hand hot? Do you hear her screaming?” Song said as if Zicon were slow.
Song was correct. She wasn’t screaming. She couldn’t, even if the water had been boiling. Her mind was absorbing all of the information George was sending her through the holy water’s connection. When he felt he had shown her enough, he released her trembling hand.
“Open your eyes, Imane Elder,” he commanded gently.
She did as he said and her eyes dropped down her wrist, wide and tear lined. She fingered a scar frantically with the pads of her fingers. “That’s what this is…”
“You were a weird Causatum event,” Song confessed.
“You were there?”
Song nodded and with a faint smile looked at George. “It was one of the instances George stopped talking to me. He goes through that whenever I question him, whenever I tell him his plans are idiotic.”
“I don’t think trying to save my girlfriend’s life is idiotic,” Zicon snapped.
“No, the desire to save a life is never idiotic. However, the consequences of that are.”
“What does that mean?” Imane asked.
“It means,” Song started, “you were never supposed to be–”
“Song,” George growled before he shook his head. “Imane, I have a complicated past. I’ve done…things I can’t say I’m proud of nor can I say that if I had the opportunity to do it again, I would restrain myself. I would do anything for my loved ones, even save them when living didn’t seem like an option. That notion, that motivation is the reason I live on this plane, in this realm, with you, instead of my rightful place. But,” George paused to make sure his daughter was paying attention to the next part, “me not being in my rightful place allowed me to meet you, and to learn from you, be a part of your life. This was in my strings of purpose…to be your father.”
“Why–why me,” Imane said, her voice trembling. “Why did you save me?”
George smiled. He reached across the table and pushed her wet hair behind her ear. “No, Imane. I didn’t save you…you saved me.”
Imane finally smiled.
“And tonight, you saved me again. Now, I’ll do the right thing.” George stood, straightened his suit and slid on his hat.
Song raised a brow. “And what is that?’
“I’m going to help save the realm that I abandoned.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You’re going to drink yourself stupid, which I know, isn’t that hard of a milestone for you considering your IQ but please, could you curb your enthusiasm for getting shitfaced tonight? I’m not sure how much more insanity I can take.”
Jon thought that if he rolled his eyes any harder there were going to get stuck. He considered pushing Key out of his way or making him go stand in the corner, the one on the other side of the room, far, far away from him. Instead, he reached for the bottle of soju in front of him and poured himself another shot. “You underestimate me in a lot of ways, Key, but never, ever underestimate how long it takes me to get drunk. We’re talking all night here. I have the stamina of a bull.” He glanced the angel up and down. “Take that how you want.”
“You are incorrigible,” Key sneered.
“I’m rubber and you’re glue,” he shot back.
Jon didn’t know why Key was rushing him to sobriety. Of all the times to be drunk, this was it. Key made a noise of disgust and began to walk away from him but Jon caught him by the wrist and pulled him back. “One question before you scamper off to do whatever Sugar Plum Fairy duties you have tonight. At any point are you going to let my friend out of the closet? Not the same one you’ve sequestered yourself in, but the actual closet.”
“It’s not that simple and let go of me.”
“Sure. Not. Also, since you left him tied up, I’m pretty sure that banging is coming from his head hitting the door.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. You’re overreacting–”
“And,” Jon charged on, “do you have any kind of plan to reverse whatever traumatic damage you’re inflicting on him right now? Is there some kind of fairy bug juice you can give him so he doesn’t trigger in the middle of the market when he sees, I don’t know, a beer bottle since he was HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH ONE?”
“Okay! So I’ll admit! Song’s methods are a little…archaic but the last time I used a pressure point maneuver on him you beat me up! And besides! I have to keep him near since someone,” Key said while giving Jon a pointed look,” couldn’t do the surveillance like I asked. If that person had done what they were supposed to have done, then he’d be at his apartment, across the street and not in my closet. I didn’t want him to go ballistic! So…he had to be…quarantined.”
“Quarantined.” Jon thumbed his nose. “He’s not a virus…he’s a human. You know those pesky little things you have pledged your life to protect?”
“Jon.”
“Hurry up and discuss what we need to discuss. He keeps it up and either he’s going to knock himself unconscious or someone is going to call the law. Oh, wait. We are the law.”
“You keep forgetting you’re not an agent anymore,” Rooke sang from the couch.
“And you keep forgetting that I know how to snap a neck in sixteen differe
nt places,” Jon shot back, annoyed.
Key sighed and hopped on the bar stool next to Jon. He was wearing another pair of those ridiculously tight yoga pants and Jon just sort of wished that he wouldn’t. A burlap sack would do wonders for his concentration.
“I figured we’ve been doing this job without outside intel for this long, we can continue to do without it.” He fingered an empty glass on the bar’s surface. Jon poured him a shot and was pleased when he took it. “I’m going to dissect our current mission. I showed you the letter first because you freak out at the drop of something strange.”
Jon snorted.
“Rooke, hook the halokite up to the screens.”
Rooke did so by pressing a button on his white laptop. A slot, like a disk reader but the length of the laptop, slid open on the side. Gently, Rooke placed the halokite into the slot and pushed the door closed. Moments later the three large screens on the wall flickered on, each one showing something different.
“Our halokites are encoded with information in three dimensions. It takes a special word or,” Rooke said as he tapped his laptop, “a special device to make all of the parts visible on a two-dimensional scale. Here is our current mission.”
Jon stood from his bar stool and walked over to the screens filled with symbols and characters. “I don’t know if you guys forgot, which is crazy since I’ve mentioned it like forty-eleven million times but I cannot read this shit.”
“Oh, right. It’s in Enochian,” Rooke said wincing. “It’s detailing Jin Amaris and Aria Jinni’s demarcation event.”
“Got that memo. What does the rest of this say?”
“It’s what it doesn’t say,” Tahir added. “Or better yet, what it doesn’t say plainly. There is a second level of encryption done in secret by Ahn–”
“Oh, Mr. Do Not Play With Knives?”
“Yep,” Tahir said. “That one and Seff. Square chin guy.”
Rooke pressed a few keys on his laptop and the words on middle screen glowed before they began to rearrange themselves. “This is the middle layer,” Rooke pointed out, “the one affected by the second level of encryption.”
“You guys must really trust each other in Caeli with all of this sleight of hand and super top secret triple layer password shit,” Jon murmured.
“What it says,” Key said in a flourish as he joined Jon at his side “is our mission is still Jin Amaris. Instead of just her life, her soul as well. As I mentioned before, Jin was born with Aria’s soul attached to hers. It was a small fragment but incredibly powerful. Any larger and Jin would have never existed.”
“You’re telling me Jin has almost the entire apple pie worth of soul and this Aria person is this powerful with just the crust?”
“An angelic soul is a hundred fold the weight of a human soul,” Tahir stated.
“Clearly,” Jon muttered. “So, how does this all factor into saving her?” Jon paused. “Oh, the banging stopped. Guess Aiden knocked himself out.”
“Good, the longer he stays sleep the better,” Key admitted. “A successful demarcation event will pry the two souls apart. This is different from Aria’s usual Soul Step because Aria’s soul always had somewhere to return to. Here, there is no home away from home. Jin’s body is the playing field and the prize. With this event, the stronger of the two will take control of the body.”
“Okay,” Jon said, rubbing his hands over his face. “How do we prevent that?”
“We can’t. Jin is going to lose this battle. Since she is the weaker of the two, her soul will get locked away in a soulsphere.”
“A what?”
“A soulsphere. It’s…” Key seemed to search for the words to say. “It’s only done for one other being–Khavah Dantò. She is an Angel of the highest order in The Glory Beyond but her body is not hers–she relinquished her original corporal one when she ascended to her position. She has four “bodies” or vessels that have been given to her that she wears like outfits. They also help us distinguish how much power she has at the time since one body can’t carry all of it. If she doesn’t have access to her vessels or if they are damaged or destroyed, her spirit blooms over all of Caeli like a protective shield. If that happens in times of peace, her spirit is placed into a soul stone while she awaits her new vessel. They’ll be using the same concept with Jin.”
Jon blinked “Sooooo that means?”
“We have to find a new container for Jin’s soul.”
He tilted his head to the side. “What, you mean like a box?”
“No, not a box,” Tahir replied. “She’s not a cat. More like…an urn?”
“That’s not any better!”
“What Tahir is trying to say is a spirit vessel–an avatar for her soul. We’ll have to draw Jin’s spirit to us…in some manner and perform an implantation ceremony…of some kind…”
When Key trailed off, Jon stared at him, his hands held out expectantly. Nothing. “You have no idea, do you?” When Key continued being silent, Jon turned back to the screens and threw his hands up. “Holy shit, holy shit, we’re so screwed.”
“It sounds worse than it actually is,” Key mumbled.
Jon rounded on him. “Sounds worse? You want to do a reverse exorcism on a ghost when you have no freaking idea where it is. You plan on attracting this spirit with what? Birdseed? Breadcrumbs?” Jon screeched. “What are you going to do, pat your thigh and whistle at it while saying ‘C’mere girl! C’mere, soul! That’s a good spirit!’? Oh, god, oh, god. Aiden is going to KILL me.” Jon collapsed in a heap to the floor, his hands laced together over his head, trying to remember any breathing exercises that would lead him away from attempted murder.
“This is the unfortunate part about being cut off from Caelian resources,” Rooke said, dejected. “They have like hundreds of libraries and I’m sure the answer is somewhere in there.”
“Then you’ll need access back to Caeli. Simple.”
The voice made everyone jump. Jon’s head swung to the door to see Mr. Newsboy Hat standing in the doorway with Ms. Bottle Assassin right behind him. The other two came again, including the guy whose face looked familiar to Jon–like he’d seen it in a case file sometimes. Whatever. He wasn’t an agent, remembering perps faces wasn’t his thing at the moment.
“Might want to start the practice of locking doors around here,” George said as he stepped in. The others filed in and he closed the door behind him. Which was wise. If their neighbors knew just how maladjusted everyone in this apartment was, they would have to find somewhere else to live.
“See someone decided to take their meds,” Tahir said under her breath as she glanced sideways at George.
George gave her look, mostly disapproving but altogether disappointing. “My daughter was once a patient at a mental hospital. I would appreciate if you didn’t make light of psychiatric medication or downplay my very reasonable ire as insanity. It’s not.”
Tahir looked angry for a moment until her gaze floated to where Imane stood and her temper deflated. “I apologize,” she said contritely. “But that doesn’t explain anything. Why did you come back?”
“Because I am, and always will be, an angel of Caeli.”
“What does that mean?” Rooke asked.
“It means that I am here to help. Whatever resource I have available, I am lending to you.”
Tahir’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want in return?”
“I haven’t quite figured out how to ask for that yet. But don’t worry,” George said when Tahir crossed her arms across her chest. “It’ll be more of a favor. I’ve learned my lesson. There is no resolution in demanding.”
Song walked from her spot leaning against a wall, her hands held out wide. “This is good, this is wonderful, everyone,” she exclaimed. “George can take my place when I go up yonder to do my duty to the realm. Unfortunately, I cannot be this link that Georgie’o’boy mentioned. They’ll be monitoring me like a hawk while I reacclimatize. It sucks.”
“How do we access Caeli
if everyone here’s access has been restricted?” Jon asked, genuinely curious. He knew that they were full of wonders and ways but he wanted to know how they were going to get around that.
“Easy,” George said smiling. ”With the help of a certain group of snakes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Timnath-Hermes Hall Dungeons
Elysian Territory, Caelian Realm
Ahn rapped his knuckles to the random beat playing in his head against the clear glass pane that separated him in his prison apartment and the rest of the dark black holding cell, fighting the temptation to yawn. A temptation that he was losing. He rushed to hide the reflex behind his fist, blinking away the tears of boredom as people entered and exited the cell with some great purpose of preparation. Ahn sighed at all of the pomp and circumstance. Khavah Dantò’s appearance in Caeli was rare but this was a bit much. You’d think they were preparing a feast in her honor the way people were acting. It wasn’t a feast. It was his damn court-martial.
Despite that depressing fact, Ahn found entertainment here and there–namely Seff and Jerome. Not that their melodrama should be the foremost thought in his mind, but having them only a few feet away made giggling at
the pair unavoidable.
Jerome’s flight to Earth was a common thing Mutare angels did called a rest cycle. Considering what Jerome’s occupation was, his sudden disappearance wasn’t all that surprising. Not that he had completed or turned in any leave paperwork or notified anyone he was fleeing the entire realm for a nondescript amount of time, but Seff was quick to correct that ex post facto. The crazy things love will make you do.
Still, even with all of his fumbling to protect Jerome, the most surprising thing was Seff’s reaction to his departure. Seff was a calm, level-headed guy, almost to the point of annoyance. He kept his voice at respectable levels, he often thought at length before saying anything, and while passionate about his place as a member of The Above and his job (aka not wanting to go to war again), he wasn’t particularly passionate about any cause or political agenda. Seff was more of a servant to his position rather than a man full of ambition.
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 15
