The snake shook its head slowly in quiet disappointment. “Not one for small talk, then,” it observed wryly.
“I have places to be,” Harendra replied reasonably. “As we’ve learned in the past, wasting time could prove detrimental.”
“To your underlings, doing your dirty business back in the snow,” the snake acknowledged. “Why not simply leave them at home, then? Would that not be better for them?”
“We require the archangel to open the gates. My underlings, as you call them, keep him in one piece and guarantee his cooperation,” he sighed in return, in a tone that implied it was common knowledge. “Besides, I doubt there is a way to truly keep Siobhan from getting involved once she decides to stick her nose somewhere, and where she goes, so too goes Jack.”
“So you will just…let them do as they please, regardless of whether or not it is dangerous to them,” the snake stated, its eyes like knots of wood narrowing slowly. “A fine shepherd you shall be.”
Harendra scoffed and rolled his eyes. “If the other vampires and the rest of the people in the mortal world are my flock, then I must tend them as I see fit, yes?” He waited just long enough for the serpent to nod. “Trying to control their every action would make for a truly miserable flock, I suspect, and I would prefer to strive for quality of life over longevity. Besides, it’s not as if they’re helpless.”
“A reasonable goal,” the snake agreed, with surprising ease. “Though one would think longevity would be your goal, given what you are.”
“I’m already immortal,” Harendra pointed out. “Further immortality is not something I trouble myself with. If others wish it, they can acquire it for themselves by any number of methods.”
“Dangerous methods,” the snake corrected mildly.
Harendra shrugged. “Most things in life are dangerous,” he reasoned. “If people wish to do those dangerous things, far be it from me to stop them. I will help pick up the pieces again, if that would be best, but as I said, outright controlling the flock holds little interest to me.”
“So you say.”
The snake hummed thoughtfully, coiling tighter around Harendra’s arm for a moment before it loosened its hold again. He could easily imagine it coiling tight around his neck, if it decided in the end that it did not like what he had to say.
“Would you say you’re a patient man?” it asked eventually. “I would hazard a guess that the answer is no.”
“You’re building to a point,” Harendra stated blandly, ignoring the question when it felt pointless to answer. “Dancing in circles around it does not change whatever that point is, and I am not a snake charmer.”
If reptiles could roll their eyes, it would have.
“Frankly,” the snake sighed, sounding ever so world-weary and put upon, “I’m just not certain you have it in you to tend to the flock you wish to tend to. A smaller flock, perhaps. Or one less prone to…antics. But a flock that encompasses the world?” The snake scoffed. “I have my doubts.”
“Is there only one way to tend to a flock, then?” Harendra wondered, unimpressed with that apparent declaration.
“There is not,” the snake answered easily. “There are countless. But all, I should think, require something at least resembling patience…”
The snake trailed off, and Harendra’s eyebrows slowly rose expectantly.
“With you being one of such…limited patience,” the snake continued slowly, its head weaving from side to side, “are you quite certain you’re the proper fit to tend to this flock?” Its head dipped low and came up at a curve, so it almost looked mischievous as it peered up at Harendra. “Who’s to say you won’t start slaughtering lambs when they get too bothersome? Who’s to say that your patience won’t fail when they start asking you too many questions? I do, after all, know the dangers of questioning.”
Harendra’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he tapped at his thigh with two fingers of his free hand. “There is a difference between patience and self-control,” he explained, in a tone that made it rather apparent that he had run out of the former. “It is possible to have one while lacking the other. My self-control is not in question, so my lack of patience speaks of my level of irritation, not my behavior.”
The snake hissed out a stuttering laugh. “So you say, but what of your unfortunate reaction to simply being woken up?” it asked pointedly, lifting its head higher and cocking it to one side. “There was little self-control there.”
“No,” Harendra agreed easily. “There was not. We were at war when I went to sleep. I lived war. I dreamed war. In my mind, I was either going to be awoken by a Vampire Lord to continue the cycle or by someone who wished to kill me or use me. So where do you suppose my thoughts went when I woke up and I was not greeted by another Lord?”
“Even so, it’s not a moment that speaks highly of your self-control,” the serpent argued mildly.
“I did not actually kill them,” Harendra pointed out, his gaze hardening, “and I have more than proven myself since then. And if I must let them question me until I feel like they’re driving me mad, then so be it; I will tend my flock as best I can, and I will have mitigating forces at my side.”
“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” the serpent conceded, dipping its head once in something that was almost a nod and almost a bow. The gesture almost seemed to convey some form of respect, though Harendra was not going to credit any of the trial keepers with actually being capable of such a thing. “And your intentions, at least, are in the right place. You may go forth with the ability to tend your ever-expanding flock.”
The snake didn’t leave or vanish. Instead, it began to slither through Harendra’s hand, curving its head to one side as it did. It held the pose for a moment, in a manner that looked slightly awkward, and it took a few seconds for Harendra to realize that it was solidifying back into plain wood.
When its eyes vanished and the wood-like pattern of its scales returned to actual wood, Harendra gave it a brief swing through the air before resting it over his shoulder. Already, light was beginning to surround him, and a breath later, he found himself once again standing knee-deep in the snow.
Siobhan, Jack, and Gabriel seemed no worse for wear, though they were huddled together to stave off the cold. Gabriel had two wings partially wrapped around himself, the other two partially extended behind Jack and Siobhan. All three of them were glaring balefully at Harendra.
“A cane?” Siobhan groaned. “That’s all?” She stomped a foot into the snow. “We came here for a cane.”
“A shepherd’s crook,” Harendra corrected before he casually leaned over to give her a gentle thump on the top of the head with the straight end of it. He had a reasonably good idea of what its purpose was, but there was no harm in testing it.
She blinked at him, bemused, and then very quickly perked up, as if the cold had been leeched out of her, as if it had never even been a problem to begin with. “Oh,” she mused wonderingly, blinking at the crook. “Well, I guess it’s alright, then,” she conceded, her voice dropping to a mumble. “Can we just get back to the manor?”
Harendra gave Jack’s shoulder a prod with the crook and, after a moment’s pause, gave Gabriel a tap as well. As both of them rapidly recovered from their approaching hypothermia, Harendra nodded once in agreement. “There’s nothing else to be accomplished here.”
*
Experimentation had to be done, of course. One of Gabriel’s dropped feathers was collected (regardless of Siobhan grousing, “I was using that as a bookmark”), and Regina drew the pointed shaft of it down her arm, pressing hard and digging it in deep, until blood poured over the skin of her forearm, dripping on the ground.
Harendra tapped the straight end of the shepherd’s crook against her shoulder, and everyone present, be they a Lord or simply an average vampire, gathered as close as they could to watch as first the bleeding slowed and stopped, and then the skin scabbed over as it knit itself back together, and finally the scab rapidly healed and flake
d off, leaving not even a scar behind. The entire process took a matter of seconds.
“Can it still be used as a weapon?” Allambee wondered dubiously. “Or is the healing thing automatic?”
Harendra lashed out, catching the hooked end of the crook around Allambee’s neck and using it to hurl Allambee down to the ground with enough force that the ground seemed to rattle with his impact. Allambee wheezed in the grass for a moment, limbs splayed out around him, until slowly he levered himself up onto his elbows. “Yeah, you made your point,” he groaned before he rolled over and tumbled onto his back.
Notably, Harendra did not bother to use ‘the healing thing’ on him. No one questioned that decision.
Dask’iya did, at least, offer Allambee a hand back up to his feet.
It wasn’t until later, though, after the crowd had dispersed, that Siobhan wondered quietly to Gabriel, “Do you think it would work on the people from Chambersburg? The cane, I mean. Or the Serpent. Whatever it’s supposed to be called.”
“I imagine many of the bodies have been disposed of by now,” he pointed out, but she seemed dissatisfied with the answer. He paused for a moment, thinking the question over to offer something like a satisfactory answer, though he suspected it would not be the one Siobhan wanted.
“Not after so many days, of that I am certain,” he answered eventually. “Pieces of Eden bestow great power, but they do not offer the ability to perform true miracles. I am not even sure if it would work if it were used immediately after. If the Serpent of Eden can restore life, then it has been a very closely guarded secret.”
“But you don’t actually know,” Siobhan pressed, squeezing her hands together.
Gabriel sighed. “I do not know,” he conceded, “but I would be doing you a disservice if I encouraged you to get your hopes up.”
Siobhan’s gaze dropped to the floor, and her shoulders sagged as she heaved a sigh. “I understand,” she mumbled.
Cautiously, Gabriel set a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “Their loss has never been your fault, Siobhan,” he reminded her. “Were it up to you, you would have saved every soul in that city, and that, at least, is to be commended.”
Siobhan looked up again, smiling hesitantly, before an almost mischievous gleam entered her eyes. Gabriel stumbled back a step when she launched herself at him, her arms folding around the back of his neck, just above where his wings joined to his back.
He stood rigidly at first, his hands hovering at his sides as he tried to determine what he was supposed to do just then. Angels, as a whole, were not overwhelmingly touchy or sentimental with each other. But finally, hesitantly, he returned the hug.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There was only one trial left. Only one remaining Piece of Eden. The trial gate was not located anywhere Siobhan would have predicted, though. It was not in the middle of nowhere. Or rather, it was, but to a much lesser extent than the four gates before it.
They stood on a rough, rural road, staring at Gabriel in bemusement. He shrugged and pointed out, “We can’t really do much about where people decide to build.”
A town was visible in the distance: just a few squared off shapes on the horizon, save for a water tower jutting toward the sky like an exclamation point. If they listened hard, they could hear cars and farming equipment.
“We could very well end up with an audience,” Jack observed, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “This could get even more dangerous than usual really quickly.”
Siobhan punched his shoulder. “Go be negative somewhere else.”
“I would love to, but then you’d be stuck fighting Michael on your own,” he shot back dryly.
Holding her hands up as if in surrender, she conceded, “Alright, go be negative somewhere else, later.”
Osamu cleared his throat gently, and Siobhan and Jack fell silent in an instant. “The Apple of Eden, correct?” Osamu asked, looking at Gabriel expectantly.
Gabriel nodded once and positioned himself in the middle of the road. He closed his eyes and tuned the rest of them out, and Osamu linked his hands together behind his back, watching curiously.
Overhead, clouds began to gather, and Siobhan eyed the town in the distance nervously. There was no way no one would notice. It was a farming town, and even at night, at least half the town was probably outside still.
There was no time to think about that, though. Lightning arced down from the sky and struck the road, and Osamu stated calmly, “I have come to claim the Apple of Eden,” as the glowing symbols began to appear. The thunder that followed the lightning hadn’t even had a chance to stop rumbling before he was enveloped in light, and he vanished.
Gabriel straightened back up, already looking skyward. A moment later, he sighed quietly, with a sort of understated, resigned exasperation, “Oh, no.”
Slowly, Siobhan and Jack looked up.
Two archangels hovered above them. There was Michael, of course. They would have been gob smacked if he had decided not to show up. And another man, with skin like bronze and swept-back hair like waves of copper. His four wings were a dusty gold, and his eyes glowed silver in the night.
Much like Anael before, he did not look pleased. Unlike Anael, his displeasure was not aimed at Michael, but at the trio on the ground below.
“Raphael,” Gabriel greeted quietly. “I don’t suppose you’re merely here to spectate?”
When Raphael laughed, it was with a voice that could have given the dinosaurs pause, with the way it seemed to seep into Siobhan’s bones and rattle the ground beneath her feet.
“No,” he stated simply, rolling one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I’m under orders.”
“Ah, so the seraphim are getting antsy,” Gabriel mused, sounding unperturbed by the realization. “That doesn’t give you pause?”
Raphael rolled his eyes and landed, his arms crossed over his chest and his wings only half folded toward his back. Michael, scowling after him halfheartedly, remained in the air. They were never done arguing with each other, it seemed, and Siobhan couldn’t help but wonder how it hadn’t driven them all mad. She and her own siblings had always had their problems, but at least they hadn’t constantly been at each other’s throats.
“Should it?” Raphael asked silkily, tipping his head to one side as he asked. “I am a soldier, just as you were, before you got this…ridiculous notion stuck in your head. If something has my commanders on edge, it is my duty to fight it.”
Gabriel patted his hands together delicately. “How very original of you. I’m sure it was a very difficult conclusion to come to, involving no thought on your part whatsoever.”
Raphael bristled, his wings tensing. Gabriel looked unruffled by his brother’s irritation.
Ah, well. Siobhan dragged her attention away from them. The dysfunction of angels was interesting, certainly, but not what they were there to deal with. She shared a meaningful glance with Jack, and the two of them began edging away, letting them argue without any interruption.
And then, as one, they both lunged toward Raphael’s back, both of them coming from different directions. It didn’t quite go as planned, as Michael crashed down to the ground just behind Raphael. The ground cracked beneath his feet, and he stretched his wings out behind him. Jack’s head snapped back as he took a wing right to the face, and all the air fled Siobhan’s lungs in a rush and she landed in the dirt as two wings slammed into her ribs and shoulder.
“Now is not the time for this conversation,” Michael stated blandly before he turned, grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt, and hauled him into the air.
Raphael turned and stared blankly at Siobhan for a moment, as if he was stunned that she would dare try to lay a hand on him, before he stuttered back into motion. Before he could make a move to grab her, though, Gabriel grabbed him by two of his wings and threw him. Raphael’s startled, outraged shout grated against Siobhan’s brain like television static on full volume, though it fell blessedly silent as he hit the ground and skidd
ed, carving up the cracked asphalt.
There wasn’t actually much time to react to that, though, before Gabriel picked Siobhan up beneath her arms and carried her into the air. Close to her ear, he informed her, “The two of you should be able to get Michael low enough to the ground that a fall will not kill you. Keep him busy. I will handle Raphael, if I can.”
Siobhan had just long enough nod before Gabriel tossed her toward Michael, Jack still hanging from his grip and thrashing like a cornered wildcat. Siobhan latched on around Michael’s middle, grabbed onto one wing, and shoved it forward with all of her strength. Jack grabbed hold of it, so when Michael released him to instead try grabbing hold of Siobhan, Jack fell only a minuscule distance before his grip on the wing tightened. Siobhan grabbed onto another wing, her grip tight enough that she could feel a few feathers beginning to come loose.
Slowly, Michael began to sink toward the ground, his two un-captured wings straining to slow the descent. Even holding on as tightly as they could, though, both of them were slipping.
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