Guardian of the Abyss

by Shannon Phoenix

  "I can't leave him," Sarah said, crossing her arms and glaring at Thanatos. "I don't trust his highness over there."

  "Do you really think I would miss even one night in my wife's bed for your--"

  "Thanatos!" the pregnant woman gasped, clearly outraged. "You'll be nice to him, or so help me God, I'll call Tallis and tell him to glamor me to be mad at you for all six months of those days in the blue room! I might not be able to stay mad at you myself, but I have my ways."

  He growled at her. "You don't play fair."

  "I can't on this. That man has suffered enough. Too much. Punishing him more isn't right."

  Nazargiel saw Sarah sit back down, her hand touching Abaddon's face gently. "It won't do any good to argue," she said quietly. "I won't leave him."

  "This is your fault," Alexis snarled at Thanatos. "She needs rest and you know she can't be here while you do what you do."

  "Why does everything get blamed on me?" he scowled at her.

  She waved her hand dismissively and turned to Sarah. "Let's hope this works." She took a deep breath and began to sing, "Sarah," she sang the word with sweet clarity.

  Sarah turned slowly, like she was drugged. Her face was slack and open.

  "Sarah dear, you wish to have a cookie and some milk with me. Come walk with me to the kitchens, and know Abaddon will be well."

  As the last pure notes of her improvised song fell away, Nasargiel found he wanted to follow Alexis into the kitchen and have a cookie and some milk. He shook it off with an effort, knowing that it wasn't his true desire, but rather the power of the Siren's song.

  Sarah followed Alexis into the kitchen, chatting happily with her about her pregnancy. She ignored Thanatos as if he wasn't even there.

  "Good god," one of the others muttered. "That woman's crazy powerful." He was speaking of Alexis.

  Then several of them bolted towards the entrance to escape the lair of two of the most powerful people in the world. The Siren and the gargoyle sorcerer... For long moments, Nasargiel held his own, but then the bone-deep fear of magic set in for him, and he sauntered as casually to the door as he could, aware that all of the others had already broken and run. Shutting the door carefully behind him, he bolted as well.

  They stood milling around the pickup truck, the werewolf driver chuckling at them. "Scary, ain't she?" he asked. "Sweet as pie until she unloads that voice."

  "I still want cookies," Tzadkiel complained.

  "And milk," someone else interjected. "She wasn't even singing to me, and I want cookies and milk badly enough to go to town and get some, even if it will scare the local humans into panicked flight."

  "We have a werewolf town," the driver informed them. "You could go there--"

  "Get your asses back in here!" roared Thanatos.

  Startled, most of the gargoyles headed back towards the lair. Nasargiel turned to the driver, "Would you mind getting us some while we do this? I have a feeling it's going to take a while, and though I'm sure the compulsion will have worn off--"

  "It doesn't wear off," he was told. "You either have to work it through, or she has to remove it. Since it's just milk and cookies, I'd work it through. I'll get you some while you do what you gotta do."

  "Thanks," Nasargiel said. "We'd all appreciate that. None of us want to ask either of them to have the compulsion lifted."

  "You're lucky, actually. It doesn't work very well on gargoyles. If you were a werewolf or vampire, you wouldn't eat anything else, or do anything else, until you'd had milk and cookies."

  Nasargiel shook his head. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for those upon whom it did work well. He walked back into the lair, his visceral fear of the Siren clenching hard in his belly. She had looked so sweet, slightly clumsy, and very normal...

  Chapter 17

  Thanatos stood and looked down at his father. He had hated him for hundreds of years; for over a thousand years if the truth were told. It wasn't easy to look that in the face and accept that he might have been wrong. He wanted to continue to justify it. But if what Sarah had said was true, then Abaddon had done the best possible with a horrific situation. He winced as he remembered the tortures she claimed had been doled out on Abaddon.

  But he wasn't ready to just believe her. He didn't know her, and he would have worried about her being alone with his mate if she wasn't so clearly weakened to the point where she had a hard time even standing, much less assaulting his pregnant spouse.

  When the other gargoyles had filed into the room, he grimly stared them down. "You are going to have to hold him down." At nearly identical looks of surprise, he warned them, "He's powerful, and what I'm going to do to him is going to hurt beyond anything you can imagine. It will heal him, but it doesn't do it kindly. The more he's healed, the more powerful he'll get." He placed his hands on either side of Abaddon's face before offering his final caution, "One or more of you will probably be severely injured. Whatever you do, get back on him and help. We may not be enough to hold him still, even as we are. We can't allow the healing to be stopped, it must be completed at all costs."

  Then he allowed his consciousness to flow into the ground, absorbing the power of the Earth. Drawing the power into himself, he knew that he would pay for it later in spades. Yet he would not allow himself to falter. If Sarah had been telling the truth, then he had wronged this man terribly and deserved what he was about to experience.

  * * * *

  Sarah sat at the kitchen and tried to stay awake. Alexis' voice stroked over her, singsong and distant. She ate a cookie and drank some milk, listening to her rattling on. She was getting so tired. Alexis seemed to notice, saying in that singsong voice, "You must be so tired. You must want to just to lie in a bed and not get up until tomorrow."

  She did want a bed. She did want to just sleep. Except of course, gargoyles didn't sleep, and she was a gargoyle now. But she really did want to sleep.

  A roaring bellow shook the ground and rattled the pans above her. Broken from the strange trance that had overtaken her, Sarah bolted for the other room. Thanatos was torturing Abaddon, she just knew it.

  The door banged open as Alexis tugged on her arm, "Sarah, stop! You don't want to see this. Let Thanatos do his work--"

  Sarah broke free of her and rushed into the room. The entire group of gargoyles had Abaddon pinned down. Fear blew through her like a tornado in a trailer park. Ignited by rage, she grabbed one of the gargoyles and threw him across the room.

  "Get off of him! Stop it!" she screamed. "Let him go!"

  One of them stopped her, grabbing her arms. "Sarah, stop! He's healing him."

  Ignoring him, unable to see Abaddon disgraced by being held down, she fought him. Suddenly she found herself being shaken. Not roughly, but enough that it got her attention. She glared at the gargoyle who had spoken to her when they saved her.

  "Let go of me! Let go of him!"

  "Thanatos' healing causes pain. We have to keep him from escaping," the man informed her. "We're not harming him. I'm sorry you had to see this, but he'll be better soon--"

  "You let go of him. All of you. He can't stand what you're doing! He won't fight if you just back off."

  He hesitated. "Please," she cried, not above begging for what Abaddon needed. "Please," she pressed again as he seemed to falter. "It reminds him of them... of what they did."

  "Let go," he commanded, letting go of her arms.

  She leaped over to Abaddon, grabbing his hand and pressing it to her cheek. "Hang in there, big guy," she said softly. "Hang in there. It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. I'm here, I'm alive."

  She closed her eyes and sank into his mind, finding only a sea of chaotic pain. Her own body vibrated in sympathy and she cried out as another roar was torn from his throat. But as she had promised, he laid still. She soothed his mind and began to systematically shut the pain out of her own mind so she could concentrate.

  At last, she was able to pull him into a dream with her.

  "Sarah?"
he asked, sitting beside her. This time she'd brought them to Stonehenge. "What's happening?"

  "We're alive. We're going to make it... eventually. Somehow we got out of our prison, but we almost died again on the beach we ended up on. You..." she choked on the words. She couldn't tell him.

  He pulled her into his arms. "I used my wings. I opened them and let the current pull us beyond the coral."

  "Your wings are gone," she told him, tears falling.

  He shrugged. "They'll grow back."

  She shook her head. "You can't fool me. I know that having your wings gone is almost as devastating as when they ripped out your--"

  "I think it's more traumatizing for you than it is for me," he muttered, kissing her on the head. "You feel my pain, plus your own compassion for it."

  "I'm so sorry," she told him, looking up at him. "You should have let me die."

  "I could never do that," he answered. "My life would be meaningless without you. I would be walking around just as dead as if I'd died beside you."

  "I love--" she was interrupted by wakefulness.

  Abaddon lay beside her, whole and beautiful. She sat up and stared at him. He was amazing. His golden skin once more vibrated with health and impossibly, he had filled out more. Groaning, he sat up, gripping his head.

  A groan of agony reached them. Alexis rushed forward, tears running down her face. She shivered as she stood staring at her husband, who now glowed with light, his muscles and tendons straining in obvious agony. Her hands wrung in front of her.

  "What's happening?" Sarah demanded. "What's wrong with him?"

  "When he heals someone," Alexis told her, "he feels all the pain they endured as their injuries flow into him. He transmutes the pain and returns it to the Earth as energy."

  "No," Abaddon groaned. "I would never have wanted him to suffer to heal me."

  Sarah stepped towards him, and Alexis grabbed her arm. "No! You can't touch him. The energy burns."

  Gently, Sarah took her hand. "Trust me."

  Stepping close to Thanatos, she laid a hand on his arm. It did burn, though it wasn't painful, just unquestionably hot. There were parts of the gargoyle body that could feel pain in the human sense, but hands weren't one of them. So the burning was apparent to her, but it didn't feel like human pain. She could endure it easily.

  She shut her eyes and searched for Thanatos' mind. When she found it, she gave a quick tug and pulled him into a dream.

  He landed in front of her, staggering as he looked around. "What the hell?"

  "We're dreaming," she informed him. This time she had brought him to an open parking lot nearby where she'd grown up. "It makes the pain distant."

  "This isn't possible. Gargoyles don't dream."

  "I do. And I can bring others into mine if I choose to. I could never become lucid in my dreams as a human, but I can now. While I happen to have you here, let me show you something." She opened the door to the building she'd put beside the parking lot. "When I was a human, I could see people's past lives if I tuned into them. Now, I seem to be able to see the current life of the gargoyles I choose to tune into."

  She walked him into the warehouse. Inside, it was set up like a theatre. She gestured for him to sit down, and then sat beside him. "Watch the screen."

  She tuned into him and let what she saw flash by on the screen. He jerked in surprise as his life was played out there for him to see. When it was done, she let him sit in silence for a few minutes.

  "Now let me show you something else." She tuned into Abaddon and played back a part of his life in vivid detail for Thanatos. When it was over, she let him experience intimately the pain of his own betrayal.

  He sat beside her, black tears running down his face.

  She stood up. "I believe your business in the real world is complete. You should be getting back before Alexis freaks out."

  "Wait," he argued. "I have questions--"

  She ignored him and pushed him back out into the tail end of his pain. She wanted to like him for Abaddon's sake, but she couldn't stop herself from wanting him to experience at least some of the pain that Abaddon had endured to try to prevent his mother from suffering.

  She woke still standing beside him, holding his arm. The surface of her hand was blackened, but the black turned to ash and drifted away instantly. She looked up to find that Thanatos had gone rigid with pain again. An instant or so later, he slumped forward to grip the table that Abaddon was now sitting on.

  Her own weakness overcame her then, and Abaddon lifted her into his arms. He clung to her, pulling her close, burying his face in her neck. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling back to look into his ebon eyes. "I love you," she whispered. Then she promptly passed out.

  Chapter 18

  Abaddon held her in his arms and felt wonder and fear in mixed measure. She was so fragile, his beauty. So strong, so powerful... and dying.

  "Which way is out?" he demanded.

  One of the gargoyles pointed at a door and he walked through it, staggering as too brilliant light struck his sensitive eyes. With a yell, he stepped back in and slammed it shut with his foot. "Too bright," he groaned, pain shooting through his head.

  "Let me take her to the inner courtyard," Thanatos stepped forward towards him.

  His grip on her tightened. "Never," he growled. He loved his son, but he had no illusions. He would hurt Sarah to hurt him. His son, just like his creators, had stopped at nothing to punish him.

  To his surprise, Thanatos' voice was thick with emotion as he answered, "I would never hurt her. I would never hurt a baby."

  Abaddon glared at him. "You would do anything to hurt me." To his surprise, his wings, whole and free of pain, snapped out to wrap around Sarah protectively. But he had no time to ponder it as he held tightly to his most cherished treasure.

  "Never, Father. I would never have hurt someone else just to hurt you. And I certainly wouldn't do it now that I have my own wife and son. I couldn't do that to anyone." He stepped forward. "I beg you, let me take her into the healing rays of the sun and begin to prove that I'm sorry for all I've done to you."

  He wanted nothing more than to believe the man standing in front of him. He wanted to accept the seeming change with joy. But this man had been trained by the same sorcerers who had tortured him. He'd learned their methods of torture, and one method was to give false hope, only to jerk him back into reality in the cruelest possible way. "I don't trust you," he admitted.

  Another of the gargoyles stepped forward, "My name is Nasargiel. Would you trust me?"

  Abaddon pondered. He knew the name. He sifted through his memories. "You are my grandson through Adariel."

  Nasariel smiled. "Yes."

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Abaddon told him, his heart aching for his lost child. "He loved you very much."

  "I know," Nasargiel agreed. "He loved you very much, too. He told me stories about you." He looked down at Sarah and back at Abaddon. "It would be my very great honor to protect her while the sun replenishes her. She is treasured by us all."

  His need to protect her warred with her need for sustenance. "Very well," he finally agreed, though handing her over took a supreme act of will. As the other gargoyle stepped out into the sunlight, he had to shield his eyes with his arm as the light pierced him with agony.

  "Father--"

  Abaddon held his hand up to stop Thanatos. "I can't do this right now," he warned. "It's too much. Please, just... not now."

  The door opened and a heavily pregnant human woman walked in. She said something to him, but it was in Sarah's language and he didn't understand it. At his blank look, she prodded Thanatos.

  "This is my wife Alexis, and this is my son, Darius," Thanatos told him, pointing at the gargoyle child that Abaddon hadn't realized was clinging to her pants leg.

  Jumping down, Abaddon stared at her. She was lovely, but she vibrated with Power. He bowed deeply. "I greet you with respect, spouse of my son," he said formally.

  In the other
language, Thanatos introduced him. Then he picked up his son and introduced him. All of the gargoyles in the room stared in awe.

  "Abbin, Abbin," the little boy squealed, squirming to be put down. He waddled swiftly towards Abaddon. "Abbin!" The toddler grabbed his finger, and Abaddon found himself following as the little gargoyle chattered on with abandon in nonsensical baby talk.

  Uncertain, he followed, looking to the child's mother for confirmation. She grinned and gestured him out the door and into the living area. He was dazzled by it, shading his eyes. Having followed them inside, he was relieved when she began to pull cloth over the sources of the bright light until it was still uncomfortably bright, but not painfully so.

  He was pulled over to a pile of brightly colored objects, few or none of which he recognized. The little gargoyle, his tiny wings fluttering, picked up a few items and began depositing them in his lap. Then he took Abaddon's hands and started trying to make him make it work.

  Abaddon picked up the block-like structures and tried to make them stick together the way the boy seemed to want him to do, but it was not so simple as the little lad made it look. Laughing, the little boy shook his head, pulling the blocks out of his hands. He shifted them around and snapped them together.

  Enchanted by the child, Abaddon let his worry for Sarah go for the moment and focused on figuring out the strange toy. Behind him, he heard the woman's voice and Thanatos' as they spoke in low murmurs. He ignored them to focus on trying to play with his grandson.

  "Abbin," he heard over and over again as the boy patiently showed him how to work toys that were far beyond his understanding. "No, Abbin," was almost as frequent... and equally delightful in its own way. A precocious child, one raised free of the torments and terror that had marked the lives of his first children and grandchildren.

  When hours had passed, Darius finally climbed into his lap and gave him a book. That, he recognized, but of course, he didn't understaand the words or the pictures. Alexis came over and sat down beside them, looking over his shoulder. The boy turned pages and Alexis read while Abaddon sat stunned by the sweetness of the child he held. It had been so very, very long.