“Explain yourself,” Michael snapped, his wings raising behind him in a blatant, threatening display.
“We have been wrong about a great deal,” Gabriel returned, both his face and his voice impassive.
Michael recoiled sharply before his expression twisted into outrage. He lifted a hand, but before his blow could land, Gabriel was simply gone. Siobhan couldn’t see where he went, and she had no time to search for him before Michael’s attention slowly turned to her and Jack.
“You had something to do with this,” he stated, his voice colder than a glacier and just as brittle. Siobhan was pretty sure she wasn’t capable of lying well enough to deny the accusation, so she didn’t bother; she simply raised her fists as beside her Jack rolled his shoulders and got ready to move.
Michael lunged for both of them, and they darted in opposite directions. They shared a wide-eyed, slightly panicked look with each other. True enough, they had killed archangels in the past, but in both cases, they had a way to make it so the archangel in question couldn’t use its wings. In a field with nothing but tall grass as far as the eye could see, that was not an option.
Michael turned his attention to Jack first, and Siobhan surged forward, both of her fists knotted together so she could club them over the back of Michael’s neck while he was distracted. He spread one wing, the rapidly expanding appendage nailing her straight in the sternum and sending her sprawling onto her back in the grass.
Jack hooked one foot around Michael’s knee and jerked, then caught his leg in his hands and pulled. Michael stumbled for only a second before he flapped his wings once, lifting several feet off of the ground and yanking himself free. When he landed in a crouch, it was with enough force that Jack had to backpedal and Siobhan had to tumble out of the way before she hopped back to her feet.
They stood at a standstill for a moment, eying each other as they all calculated the odds. Out in the open, Jack and Siobhan knew their odds of winning were drastically lowered, and Michael did not look especially perturbed by his own odds. But then again, winning was not a necessity. Jack and Siobhan simply had to keep Michael busy until Allambee returned.
(If Allambee returned. Gabriel had been very careful to say if before. But Siobhan didn’t really want to think about it in those terms. She sort of liked Allambee, even if he also sort of gave her the heebie-jeebies.)
The standoff lasted only a moment, though, and then the stillness shattered. Jack and Michael lunged for each other, scuffling across the grass for a few seconds until Siobhan seized Michael by the back of his armor and dragged him away, tossing him aside like she was throwing a cat out of the kitchen. Both Jack and Michael were on their feet again in an instant, ready to fling themselves at each other once again.
There was a moment where Michael simply wove back and forth as Jack tried to punch him, ducking away from each strike, until one nearly landed and he sent himself dodging backward, his wings propelling him at least thirty feet backward. It didn’t take long for Jack to close that distance.
Michael rounded on Siobhan, only for his attention to jerk back toward Jack as Jack grabbed a handful of his braids and pulled, forcing his head around so that he couldn’t even look at Siobhan. Even so, he flailed and thrashed like a snake, until he caught hold of Jack’s arm and wrenched him away, shoving Jack away to land a few yards away. It was enough of a distraction for Siobhan to get close, though not by much.
It was largely a lucky blow when Siobhan managed to slam one elbow back into the archangel’s throat. It was a glancing blow, but it definitely distracted him and had him doubling over, gasping and blind to the way Jack crept up on him.
Jack’s elbow slammed down between Michael’s wings, right between his shoulders, and the archangel stumbled for a fraction of a second, though it was not enough time for Jack to get a hold of any of the wings before Michael righted himself once again. Like a startled hare, Jack skittered backward, out of the way.
Siobhan stepped forward as Jack darted out of the way, only to have to draw to an abrupt halt as Michael swung his head to focus on her. Abandoning her plan to try to get a hold around his neck, she began to backpedal quickly.
The air fled from Siobhan’s lungs in a rush as Michael kicked her in the chest, and she stumbled backward, wheezing. Before she could straighten up again, his wings snapped out to his sides, and her head snapped back as one of them hit her square in the chin. A moment later, she was toppling, the world spinning like a top as she fell.
As Siobhan hit the ground, Jack lunged, his fist connecting with the side of Michael’s face. Finally, the archangel stumbled, giving Siobhan enough time to kick straight up from her spot on the ground, and he grunted as her boot met his ribs. And then he spread his wings and jumped, turning in the air and landing on the opposite side of them. Jack whipped around to face him, drawing a hand back to swing another blow at him, as behind him, Siobhan scrambled back to her feet. The punch never managed to land, unfortunately.
Like a child with a ragdoll, Michael seized Jack by the wrist and lifted him off of the ground, holding him up with one hand. For a moment, he didn’t move, just long enough to let Jack process that whatever was going to happen next was most likely not going to end well for Jack. And then he spread his wings and launched himself into the air, rising higher and higher.
On the ground below, Siobhan jumped, and while she managed an impressive amount of air, Michael was out of her range in what seemed to be only a heartbeat. With no other options available to her, she shouted and hollered, screaming increasingly flimsy insults at the top of her lungs until she finally babbled, “Just bring him back down here!”
Michael ignored her completely. However, as he stopped rising, he paused, head cocked to the side as if he could smell something that did not bode well for him, before his eyes narrowed sharply and his hold on Jack released. Jack plummeted for only a split second before Gabriel soared into view, snatched him from the air, and returned him to the ground. By then, Michael was gone.
Jack brushed himself off, his expression bewildered. “Ah--…thanks for the save, but where the fuck did you go?”
“I could not fight him,” Gabriel informed him blandly, though he offered no further explanation.
“Seriously?” Jack huffed. “You couldn’t even run interference or be a distraction or something?” He planted his hands on his hips. “We were getting our asses kicked out there.”
“Be glad I did not try to assist him,” Gabriel ground out in turn, his wings tensing behind him. Another storm was brewing, and it had nothing to do with the actual weather. Frankly, Siobhan was not in the mood to deal with them posturing at each other, when she knew things could have gone a lot worse than they actually had.
She plucked a few long strands of grass and began to coil them into tight spirals around her fingers.
Jack opened his mouth to retort, only to close it again with an audible click as Siobhan flicked a piece of grass right into his hair. He blinked at her, bewildered, and brushed it aside. A moment later, another piece of grass landed amid the feathers of one of Gabriel’s wings. He seemed too bemused to be truly annoyed after that.
Heaving a sigh that was probably obnoxiously overwrought, Siobhan dropped down into the grass, sprawling out on her back with her arms and legs stretched out around her. “Stop arguing,” she groused, lifting her hands from the grass to point at both of them. Turning her attention to Gabriel, she added, “He’s allowed to think you weren’t helpful; you were very unhelpful.” Ignoring his slightly affronted look, she turned to Jack to add, “At least he didn’t try to kill us.” Her hands fell back to the grass.
In sulking silence, they conceded the point.
*
Allambee proceeded carefully. He couldn’t see any walls around him or a ceiling above him. He couldn’t even see the floor beneath him, though he knew it was there and could feel it beneath his feet. By all appearances, he was simply walking in a black void.
The farther he walked, t
hough, the more his surroundings dissolved into something recognizable, the endless black gradually fading into a crystalline cavern. In every direction, everything was made of dark, gleaming silver crystal, specks of black caught in it, as if someone had looked at the night sky and decided to invert it.
Cautiously, Allambee circled the chamber, pressing fingers to the crystal. It was strangely warm, though he could see no reason why it would be. He lifted a hand and curled his fingers into a fist before he smashed it forward, into the crystal. To his surprise, the crystal fractured, webs of cracks branching out from the divot where his knuckles impacted, like spider-webs in a doorway.
Slowly, though, as he pulled his fist back from the crystal, the cracks began to seal, starting from the center and working outward from there, until the cracks were gone and the divot was once again as smooth as glass, as if the fracture had never even happened.
Like a wolf lured into a cage, Allambee began circling around the outer perimeter of the cavern.
Something moved somewhere deep within the crystal, and Allambee ground to a halt, his eyes focused intently on the gleaming walls.
Slowly, as if emerging from a pool of water, an enormous snake’s head lifted out of the crystal. It blinked calmly, regarding Allambee with a sort of quiet curiosity, before its head disappeared back beneath the crystal.
If he focused, Allambee could just make out the snake’s massive silhouette circling through the crystal beneath him. Slowly, it began to emerge once again, coiling itself loosely in a circle around Allambee’s feet. The message was clear; Allambee was going nowhere unless the serpent decided to let him.
It was bigger than any snake had any right to be, its jaws alone the size of Allambee’s entire torso. It was made entirely of crystal, the same color as the cavern but several shades less opaque. Each individual scale looked as if it could have stopped a round of tank fire without even chipping.
The serpent lifted its head until it was looking Allambee in the face with eyes like large, glassy pools of starlight, pinpricks of silver light caught in endless blackness. The constrictor’s mouth opened, and it spoke in a sibilant voice, neither male nor female, just crooning softness.
“Long has it been since I have had visitors in my cavern.” It sounded neither pleased nor angry, but more like it was simply observing what was; it was simply pointing out the way of the world in that moment. While its voice on its own was not especially frightening, there was something about it that was unnerving, as if both the voice and the creature it belonged to were part of another world entirely, speaking to Allambee only through the most unnatural of means.
Allambee’s eyebrows rose slowly. “I’ve never been a particularly religious sort—sorry if that offends you—but wasn’t the snake in that story working for Hell?”
The serpent hummed in agreement. “True enough,” it agreed, “but that snake was not me, and we do all love a good story, do we not?” It arched its neck one way, and then the other, its head turning with the motion as it inspected Allambee from every angle, in much the same way a scientist might inspect a butterfly with its wings pinned.
“You are neither human nor of Heaven,” it observed quietly, cocking its head to one side. “How peculiar.”
“Are you just going to eat me out of hand, then?” Allambee asked before he could think better of it. Subtlety and restraint had never been what he was most well-known for, and he suspected that misrepresenting himself would not actually offer him any appreciable help. “For not being of Heaven?”
The snake hissed out a laugh that felt like it was creeping under Allambee’s skin, the hair along his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. He was rather accustomed to causing the discomfort himself, as unintended as it tended to be; he did not appreciate the turnabout.
“Oh, no,” it assured him, gentle and playful, as if Allambee were a child asking to play with a wild animal. “Heaven may have crafted me, but I am allied with none save whom I deem worthy. But what brings a demon’s disciple here, hm? Which angel did you capture to let you in?”
Allambee dropped his shoulders and lifted his chin, his chest puffing out slightly as he said, “None. He volunteered.”
The serpent tilted its head once more, his shimmering eyes narrowing slightly. “You tell no lie,” it decided after a moment, “though you overestimate your own importance in the matter.” It cared not for the way Allambee’s mouth twisted into an affronted scowl, and simply carried onward. “Now, if you would be so kind as to answer my original question?”
“Heaven’s decided that all of humanity needs to die,” he stated bluntly, “for reasons that seem like straight up bullshit to me. I’m looking to do what I can to stop them.”
“For your own survival,” the serpent supplied, leaning closer until it was nose to nose with Allambee.
Unflinching, Allambee replied, “That’s a nice perk, but there are a whole host of other people in this world I’d like to save. People who never did anything to deserve what’s coming if no one stops it.”
“Your fellow Vampire Lords,” the snake mused, its head lowering so it could begin to coil inward ever so slightly. “But they are hardly innocent. Why am I to believe that they deserve such protection?”
Allambee’s expression screwed up in confusion. “They don’t need to be protected. Our people need to be protected. Everyone else needs to be protected. I’m not in this so I can bunker down by myself. I’m in this for everyone who doesn’t stand a chance.”
“How noble,” it cooed, leaning its face into Allambee’s for a moment before slowly drawing away again. “How questionable. Does the monster under the bed not usually seek to harm, rather than save?”
Allambee’s eyes narrowed sharply, and his fingers curled into fists at his sides. “If I am a monster,” he began tersely, “then it is because of what I am, not who I am. My reasons for giving up my humanity are my own, but I have no desire to hurt anyone, least of all for the crime of existing in a way I disapprove of.”
“Hm, no,” the serpent mused softly. “I suppose you’ve little room to judge in that regard.”
“Nor do your masters,” Allambee stated blandly. “Not that it’s stopped them from doing just that. But I suppose you would know what that’s like.”
The constrictor hissed, and it coiled its way in tighter around Allambee’s feet, until its shining, diamond-hard scales were wrapped tight around his thighs. “Am I truly the one you wish to mouth off to?” it wondered, low and cooing. “Are you so certain that’s the best idea?”
“You’re the one trying to judge me for wanting to protect people,” Allambee drawled in return, unperturbed by the scales closing around him. “That says more about you than it says about me.”
For a moment, nothing happened as they watched each other warily. And then, inch by inch, the constrictor began to relax, its coils loosening in increments. “You raise a valid point,” it acknowledged, and it sounded strangely amused. “A point that I suppose is worth listening to.”
Slowly, the serpent lifted his head again, staring into Allambee’s face once more. Those massive, star field eyes blinked slowly, once, and then twice. “Your purpose is not wholly altruistic,” the snake observed, “but I concede, it is less for you than it is for everyone else, and I’ve no desire to see the world cleansed in fire.” It cocked its head to one side, looking as thoughtful as a snake could for a moment. “Though a demon’s disciple you may be, and though our bargain is unconventional, I grant to you the Scale of Eden.”
It lowered its head once again and began to slither away, disappearing back into the crystal head first, vanishing inch by inch. It left behind a single massive scale, shimmering silver in the bouncing light of the cavern. It was only as Allambee crouched to get a closer look at it that he realized it was not a scale, but a shield, the edge flat on top and rounded on the bottom, the entire thing large enough for him to fit his entire head and torso behind it.
Slowly, he picked it up, finding i
t nearly paper thin and light as a feather. He flicked two fingers against it, and it rang like a bell, and when he slammed the bottom edge of it into the crystal of the floor, it cut straight through the crystal, leaving a fissure in its wake. The shield itself was unharmed.
He tucked it under his arm and waited, but nothing happened. He wondered, for a moment, if he had still managed to fail the trial, as he once again began to pace around the outer edge of the cavern. Regardless of the direction he went, though, no new pathways were revealed to him. There were no breaks in the crystal. The floor didn’t swallow him up the same way it had swallowed up the snake. Further attempts to break the crystal simply resulted in it fracturing and then repairing itself all over again.
Irritation growing, Allambee slipped his arm through the straps of the shield to free up both hands. In an instant, he felt lighter, but firmer, and while he couldn’t pinpoint what it meant, it struck him down to his very core.
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