He hardly even had a moment to appreciate the shield that he had strapped to his forearm, before light engulfed him once more, bouncing off the crystal in every direction until it seemed like he was standing in the middle of a miniature sun. It got brighter and brighter, though there was no heat to it. It was brighter than sunlight, though it did not burn him. Aside from the fact that he had to close his eyes, it was like the light wasn’t even there. Until finally, the crystal shattered into an infinity of shards, scattering into the black abyss like stars in the sky, until it was brighter and more brilliant than the Milky Way on the darkest night. He couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet anymore, but he didn’t fall. He simply floated, hovering in light like a supernova, as if he was truly in space for just a fraction of a moment.
As quickly as the light appeared, it just as quickly began to dim, until Allambee could make out the details of the world around him fading back into view. The ground and the sky gradually grew more and more distinct, and he once again found himself standing in tall grass. The glow of the symbols had died away, and aside from the gleaming silver shield strapped to his arm, it looked as if nothing had happened at a cursory glance, though he didn’t bother to see if the tall grass hid any evidence. There was nary a sign that anything had actually changed, though the others had moved from the positions Allambee had left them in.
Siobhan was splayed out in the grass like a cat in the sun, even if the sunlight was actually moonlight for the moment. Jack was sitting, reclining back on his hands. Gabriel stood at a respectful distance, his thoughts rather clearly focused elsewhere.
“Did any of you even do anything while I was gone?” Allambee huffed, his free hand on his hip.
There was a moment in which nothing happened, and then Siobhan very, very slowly lifted a hand out of the grass, her middle finger extended. Jack sighed dismally, hiding his face behind one hand, and Gabriel coughed against one fist, politely masking the beginnings of a laugh.
*
“You knew him,” Siobhan observed that morning, safely standing in the storage room in the manor. “Not just in passing, either.”
Gabriel shrugged, his hands linked together in front of himself. “Yes,” he answered simply. In that one word, he sounded conflicted, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether or not he should elaborate.
Well, if answering her questions was easier than simply talking about it, Siobhan could work with that. “A family member?” she guessed, and when Gabriel nodded stiffly, she added, “Older brother?”
“We don’t have older or younger siblings,” Gabriel returned. “We just have… siblings.”
“So, what, you’re just made all at once in batches?” she wondered.
“Essentially,” he confirmed. “Michael is my brother. I have other brothers and sisters as well, though Michael is the most…formidable.”
Siobhan heaved a slow sigh. “Great,” she huffed. “Good to know.”
“Things get ever more complicated.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Everything became something of a flurry of activity after Allambee got the Scale of Eden. As long as he was wearing it, he was stronger than ever before, and the shield blocked anything that came at it. Gabriel assured them that it would even be able to block whatever a seraph might decide to throw at it. Though Allambee was the only one who could wield it—Gabriel had stopped Siobhan from even touching it, as none could wield a Piece of Eden who did not undergo the trial for it—it was still a valuable asset to have.
It was certainly a sight, watching the other Vampire Lords hurl themselves at him one by one, only to be deflected like magnets bouncing away from each other. Harendra, at his most aggressive, didn’t manage to make a single dent in it, and he was sent flying halfway across the yard. Even Dask’iya’s fire dissipated against the Scale, rolling off of it like water and leaving Allambee untouched behind the shield’s protection.
There was little time to celebrate, though. Once they had the Scale, they moved on immediately to the next one.
“So you just…know where they all are,” Siobhan observed two days later as Gabriel set her down on her feet at the location of the next trial gate, just as Dask’iya released Jack a few feet away.
Much like last time, there was no evidence that the patch of forest they were standing in was the location of a gate, save that Gabriel said it was. He hadn’t lied the first time, so it seemed safe to assume he wasn’t lying then.
The forest was quiet, though Siobhan couldn’t say it was peaceful. It was too quiet, in a slightly uncomfortable way. As if the entire forest had taken a breath to wait for something and still had yet to release it again.
There were evergreen trees in every direction, and the ground was carpeted in fallen needles and pinecones. Not a single creature stirred, blanketing the woods in a silence that wouldn’t have been out of place in a tomb.
As unnerving as the silence was, though, Siobhan was glad for both the quiet and the location. There was nothing to get hurt when another angel inevitably showed up to make life difficult, and trees had proven useful in the past for making it very difficult for angels to maneuver. Even archangels.
“All angels do,” Gabriel explained mildly, waving it off with a flippant gesture, one hand flicking loosely through the air. “The information is a part of us.”
“What, like genetic memory?” Jack asked, brushing himself off.
Slowly, Gabriel shrugged. “We don’t have genetics in the traditional sense, but that is a way to look at it, I suppose.”
“You may look at it however you please,” Dask’iya interjected, “on your own time. Until then, we are here for a purpose, are we not?”
To his credit, Gabriel waited until her back was turned toward him before he rolled his eyes, and Siobhan and Jack muffled their laughter politely.
Once again, Gabriel began to focus, clouds building in the sky above, visible in the gaps between branches, swirling and silver in the moonlight.
“What am I looking for?” Dask’iya asked, the question directed at Gabriel, though most of her attention was focused on the sky above.
“The Fang of Eden,” Gabriel answered, his tone distracted. “Be quiet.”
Though Dask’iya’s expression twisted in distaste, she closed her mouth.
When Gabriel dropped to a knee and struck the ground, Jack and Siobhan were ready, and they hardly even flinched when the lightning struck through the trees and thunder rattled the forest so emphatically that pinecones shivered across the ground. Not quite so laid back as Allambee, sparks danced around Dask’iya’s fists, but she had no time to get worked up as symbols burst into light across the ground and Gabriel snapped, “Declare your intent.”
“I have come to seek the Fang of Eden,” Dask’iya stated clearly, staring downward as the symbols twining through the grass and along the trunks of the trees grew brighter and brighter.
When light engulfed her and she vanished, Jack and Siobhan tensed, looking around warily as they readied themselves for the fight they knew was coming.
“Move!” Gabriel barked abruptly, just as a shadow blocked out the moonlight that made it through the branches. Siobhan leapt one way and Jack lunged the other, and an instant later, Michael landed in a crouch, the ground cratering beneath him as broken branches and pine needles rained down around him.
He stood up slowly, straightening up to his full, admittedly impressive height. His eyes narrowed as he focused on Gabriel, but before he had the chance to say anything pretentiously offended, Siobhan punched him square in the throat and sent him staggering back into the nearest tree. Jack, already behind the tree trunk, seized one wing in a white-knuckled grip. Before he had time to grab a second wing, though, two free wings started beating at the air, shaking Jack loose and letting Michael stumble free.
He wasted no time with conversation after that. Instead, he simply grabbed Siobhan by her hair, picked her up by her throat, and threw himself into the air with her dangling from his hold like a ki
tten as she clawed at his arm and thrashed.
“You’re as fast as him?” Jack asked, his tone sharp and urgent.
“Faster, on a good day,” Gabriel replied, staring upward through the broken branches.
“Then let’s hope today is a really good day.” Jack held one arm out expectantly, necessity turning into unexpected trust.
Gabriel paused for a moment, hesitating, before he picked Jack up under his arms and launched them both skyward.
Soon enough, they were pulling up even with Michael, and with a toss, Gabriel heaved Jack toward Michael. Jack latched onto two of the wings, heaving downward on them with all of his strength.
Michael began to drop in an instant, his two unhindered wings struggling fitfully to keep him aloft. He released his hold on Siobhan’s throat, and she barely even began to plummet before Gabriel snatched her out of the air. He returned her to the ground before darting into the air again.
Michael and Jack were halfway back to the ground when at last Michael managed to seize Jack by the back of his shirt and rip him free. Jack latched onto Michael’s armor before he could begin to fall, and instead, the archangel simply grabbed him, folded his wings in tight, and dropped, intent on using Jack as a makeshift springboard to soften his landing.
Gabriel grabbed a handful of Michael’s hair, pulling him up abruptly only a few yards from the ground. Jack wormed his way free of Michael’s hold and dropped, landing on his feet with a grunt and stumbling three steps to the side.
He sprinted out of the way when Michael caught Gabriel around the neck and threw him at the ground like a football, branches breaking in his wake.
He was still close enough to the ground, though, that Siobhan could jump up and grab his ankle. He thrashed to kick her loose, but he was drifting downward just enough that the rhythm of his wings stuttered as they got caught in the branches of the pine trees, and finally, he landed, Siobhan letting him go and rolling out of the way as he did.
Jack lunged in to punch him, only to duck out of the way at the last instant, cringing as Gabriel slammed into Michael with a reverberating impact that landed Michael on his back, carving a shallow trench into the grass and the dirt as he slid. Jack and Siobhan both broke into a run toward the back of the newly made trench.
With a thrash, Michael folded himself nearly double, landing a kick in the middle of Gabriel’s chest. Weakened by the awkward position, it wasn’t enough to really wind Gabriel, but it was enough to get him to recoil, just enough for Michael to drag himself away. Before he could take to the air, though, Siobhan grabbed onto two wings on one side and Jack grabbed two on the other side, and combined, they managed to catch him off balance enough to slam him right back down to the ground.
They held his wings down as he thrashed, their heads ducked away as both archangels went at each other like wildcats. They were snarling at each other all the while, accusations flooding the short distance between them.
“We would have forgiven just one transgression,” Michael snapped. “You could have come home!”
“As if home was ever particularly forgiving of transgressions. You remember what happened last time!”
Their argument continued until Michael worked one wing out of Jack’s hold and began battering at him with the appendage, forcing Jack to retreat. Siobhan followed in short order, as she couldn’t hold an archangel still on her own, least of all when he had two wings free, and Gabriel vaulted away before Michael could quite literally throw him aside.
Michael retreated. It was a gratifying thought, at least. Last time, he had barely seemed remotely bothered by them. To instead see him launch himself into the air to get space from them was most certainly an improvement. He hovered over the trees instead, his gaze flickering between the gaps in the branches.
Chest heaving, Michael surveyed them from above, tense as a drawn bowstring and ready to lunge into action the instant he saw any of them as much as twitch in the wrong direction. When that didn’t happen, he flapped his wings slowly, rising higher over the trees for a few seconds until he slowed to a halt once again, a look of consternation on his face.
Michael seemed like a statue in mid-air, save for his wings holding him aloft. Much like the last time they’d met, he cocked his head to one side, as if he could smell something unusual or was listening for a particularly quiet sound.
Siobhan had never heard an angel swear before, which was sort of impressive, considering she only ever met them when she was trying to kill them in reasonably creative ways. So it was a bit jarring to hear Michael bite out a terse, “Shit,” before he spread his wings and vanished.
Gabriel landed, his wings relaxing in increments behind himself as Jack returned cautiously to Siobhan’s side.
They waited just long enough to make sure that Michael was gone before Siobhan held both hands out to her sides. Without any further prompting, Jack slapped a high-five against the hand being brandished in his direction. Gabriel tapped his own palm against hers after she waggled her hand expectantly at him.
With that handled, Siobhan sagged back against a tree, uncaring for the bark that tugged at her shirt, the sap that stuck to her arms, or the pine needles that rained down on her head. “No more aerial combat,” she decided after a moment. “I’m not built for it.”
“Deal,” Jack groaned, doubling over with his hands on his knees. “I could live the entire rest of my life without being that high off the ground ever again.”
“Aww, come here,” Siobhan crooned, crooking a finger and ushering him closer. Once he was in range, she curled a hand around the back of his neck and reeled him in for a brief kiss.
“I didn’t think it was so bad,” Gabriel supplied once they separated, with innocence so powerfully earnest it could only be fake.
Siobhan and Jack flipped him off in tandem, and he snorted a laugh against his fist.
After that, all that was left to do was to wait for Dask’iya to reappear. If it was anything like last time, that was why Michael had left in as much of a hurry as he did.
*
Dask’iya was not actually sure what she had been expecting. A gladiator arena, perhaps. Or maybe an enormous maze. She expected something that she would have to fight. She didn’t expect to find herself walking into an endless black abyss, with snow that she couldn’t see beneath her feet and the smell of frost in the air around her.
The farther she walked, the louder the crunch of snow beneath her feet got. Soon enough, she could see it, snow piling up around her ankles and floating gently in the air. There was no sign that she had been in a forest only moments before. There was no sign that anything like forests even existed in this world, wherever it happened to be. There weren’t even any snowcapped mountains in the distance. There was nothing in the distance, save more snow fading away into darkness. She couldn’t even tell if it was just the end of her line of sight, or if the snow was bleeding into the abyss she had just stepped out of. Frankly, she had no desire to try to experiment with it, and she carried on walking ahead.
There was a pile in the snow ahead of her, barely visible save for the way it sparkled in a way that snow did not. As she got closer, she saw that it was not a pile, but a coil, and as she got closer still, it resolved into the form of a snake, curled upon itself in the snow, fast asleep. With scales like countless diamonds, it blended in almost seamlessly, save for the way it sparkled.
There were no other creatures in sight, and she recalled Allambee’s retelling of his own trial. All signs pointed toward the snake being who she needed to speak with.
Cautiously, Dask’iya prodded it with her toes, gently at first, and then with more force when it didn’t budge. She crouched beside it and gave it a brief rap on the top of its broad, flat head with her knuckles, and still it refused to move.
Slowly, Dask’iya looked around at the snow. The snake was probably cold, she reasoned. They were coldblooded creatures on Earth. Why wouldn’t this one be the same? If warming it up was what she needed to do, then she h
ad just the thing.
She stepped back a few paces, and in an instant, the ground around the snake erupted into a near perfect circle of flames, a scorching blue at first before their temperature evened out to the more typical gold and orange.
For a moment, nothing happened. And then she heard a rattling sound, quiet and slow before it picked up in speed and volume as the snake began to stir. Finally, it lifted its head to stare right at Dask’iya with eyes like snowflakes swept along midnight plains. Poking ill-fittingly from its mouth, Dask’iya could just see the ends of two silver fangs.
It tilted its head this way and that, examining her from every angle before it finally lowered its head to inspect the ring of fire it was coiled within. “A bit flashier than how I’ve come to expect to be awoken,” it observed in a soft, sibilant voice, “but I won’t fault you your expediency.”
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