“Everyone does the rain of frogs, Lael, you have to be more creative than that. How about a rain of gumdrops?”
“Right, whatever strikes your fancy. Correct the memo, Andrew.”
“And any second-rate being with a proper talent for misaligning the temporal resonances can walk on water. Easier than exorcism. Also, we could drown a cow in wine if we wanted to. Give me a break, angel. Look, Andrew,” Lucien turned his attention away from Lalael, who was glowering. “Get them off the street, let them see a bit of razzle-dazzle, then pack them like sardines anywhere they'll fit. Lord Lalael and I get the tinglies, we'll see if we can do anything for the space issues.”
Mara and Andrew were dismissed soon after.
“Do you think that would work?” Lalael asked. “For space? I didn't think of it.”
“Of course you hadn't. It's tricky but not impossible to enchant things to be bigger on the inside than they actually ought to be. Ever heard Occult Physics?”
“We didn't call it 'occult', we called it 'divine', and I only lasted a few weeks in the course. Out of, um... two decades.”
“A mishap involving any given part of the professor's anatomy and the rather embarrassing arrival of a small animal, up to and including the size of an armadillo?”
“Well, yes.”
“Happens to everyone. Why'd they throw you out?”
“It was an octopus.”
“Ohhh,” said Lucien, meaningfully.
***
“Well, this looks...” Lalael hovered above the sea of mist that filled the valley. They had gone flying early the next morning; it was so much faster for them than it was for the humans.
“Rainy. Foggy. Wet. Isn't it lovely?” Lucien glided around the angel, enjoying the way the fog was swirling in the wind generated by beats of their wings.
“Can we still see the winery from here?” The angel turned rose a little higher in the air, looking around. Lucien circled slowly below, just on the surface of the fog, beating his wings as slowly as he could so he wouldn't disrupt the little trails that followed him through the air. The sky was clear and bright and cold above them, and the sun was a mere sliver above the horizon. Lalael took a deep breath of fresh, clean air, all the way to the bottom of his lungs. This was lovely. He hadn't gone flying in too long.
He looked below again. Lucien flew in ever-smaller circles beneath him, trying to draw patterns in the fog with the passing of his flight. The angel calculated momentarily, then pitched himself forward and landed, gently, on Lucien's back. Lucien's wings struggled with the extra weight.
“Lalael! What--?!” Lucien landed heavily on the ground as the fog was blown away by the suddenly stronger, more frantic beats of his wings. Lalael hopped off at the last minute, laughing as Lucien tumbled to the ground, and only laughed harder when he swept the angel's legs out from under him. “No, you can't see it. It's behind a hill,” Lucien said, sitting comfortably on Lalael's back and pinning his arms down. “Disappeared about five miles ago. Now, what do you think you're doing?”
Lalael struggled for a moment. “Thought I'd give you some friendly payback for being such a smug bastard lately.”
“Is that all?” Lucien shifted and settled himself more comfortably. “I haven't been knocked out of the air for nearly three thousand years. What brought the idea on, might I ask?”
“You deserved it. You aren't careful enough with the followers. You encouraged them.” Lalael coughed lightly and wriggled just a little.
“Oh, I see. ...Look, defending myself against a vicious bloodthirsty angel isn't so much fun if he just gives up when I get the upper hand.”
“Sorry.” Lalael surged up and managed to tip Lucien over, but the Fallen used the momentum to bring Lalael under him again, this time pinning Lalael's arms against his own torso by kneeling on them.
“Better, but not so polite.” Lucien drew one of his daggers and carefully snipped a lock of hair as proof and as a trophy while Lalael griped under him without moving.
Lucien's next plan had been to hold the blunt edge of the blade against Lalael's neck and make some theatrical threats of bloody death until Lalael surrendered. However, at that moment, a shrieking blur of white and gold collided into him, dragged him off Lalael (bewildered), and solidly pinned him face-down in the dirt with a knee against his back.
“What art thou doing, vile thing?” snarled a voice in his ear, tugging his head up by his dark hair. “Taking the Angel Lalael away from the great temple with thy treacherous plot to end his life, we see? We knew thou wert an untrustworthy one, indeed we did!”
“Jocelin – ” Lalael began.
“Angel Jocelin, if you please, Angel Lalael!”
“Angel Jocelin, Honored Angel Jocelin, he wasn't trying to kill me, we were just...”
“We saw him with our own eyes, Angel Lalael! The demon – ” Jocelin paused to smash Lucien's head against the grassy soft ground, “ – attacked you, yet again, and had his own knife against your throat!”
“Well, technically, Jos –” Lucien began.
“Demon! Thou shalt be silent!” Jocelin shouted. Lucien shifted, attempting to get a small pebble to bruise somewhere else than where it currently was. Jocelin's knee just pressed harder into his back, and the angel's long hair fell into his face. It smelt of sandalwood.
“No, I shan't. He attacked me. He was just playing anyway. Taking his stress out on me instead of the poor innocent minions, yes?” The grip on Lucien's hair began to relax. “And I deserved it.”
“Angel Lalael, does this demon speak the truth?”
“Yes, J – Most Honored Angel Jocelin.”
Lucien smiled stiffly. “See, Jos? Can I get up now?”
“Don't call us that, hellspawn.” The angel's grip relaxed further in the strained pause.
After a few moments, Lalael spoke again. “Honored Angel Jocelin? He won't fight back, so if you could let him up...”
The other angel's grip tightened again and pressed Lucien into the ground. “We think that thou threatened yonder Angel Lalael into saving thee shouldest thou be caught in thy foul plot!”
Lucien spat out a bit of grass. “I totally didn't.”
“He really didn't. Just... Come along this way, Angel Jocelin, I've –” Lalael looked about frantically, “Why don't we go off together and look at the fog, and Lucien can go home so he doesn't bother you anymore.”
“What is fog of which you speak?”
Lalael blinked. “Oh. Uh. This stuff.” He waved his hand vaguely through the misty air. “The cloudy bit. It's all cold and damp and... fog,” he finished helplessly.
Jocelin let go of Lucien's hair and rose, looking about wonderingly. “We thought it was the world breathing,” the angel murmured.
“Well,” Lalael continued desperately, “If you prefer that explanation, I won't argue with you.”
Suddenly fascinated with the fog, the golden angel didn't notice Lucien scrambling to his feet. “Why is it?” Jocelin asked, gray eyes strangely bright in dreary light.
“Because,” Lucien began, brushing himself off and inspecting a possible grass stain on the cuff of his shirt, “The air, which was wet, cooled below its dew point, because the ground's cooler than the air. We had a bit of an unseasonable warm front come through early this morning.” He looked up at Lalael. “I used to watch the weather channel.”
“The earth breathed?”
Lucien sighed. “If you want it to, Jos.”
Jocelin covered their face with their hands. “We don't want to see Him, we don't! He will see us and then He will know. The earth breathed because of Him.”
Before Lalael could say anything, they heard a wagon squeaking up on the road near them; the fog had muffled the noises of the wheels and the followers until they were quite close. The humans – one of the teams scouring for building materials – spilled out. They looked delighted when they saw Jos and the gods.
“This must be a good place! Their lordships are here to show us! Make sur
e you get every scrap you can find! That boulder rock looks good. Help me get it in the wagon, and if you find edibles, keep your appetite to yourself until we get home, for the gods' sakes.”
Lucien and Lalael shivered.
The followers, except for those trying to heave a really large rock into the wagon, soon dispersed into the fog, which was thinning a little now as the sun rose slowly above the hills.
“Mara's handling them well,” Lalael said, watching.
“At least they listen to her. And you,” Lucien added. “I say something and they all sigh and make moon-eyes at me.”
“That's your own problem,” Lalael said. Jocelin caught his eye and he looked immediately guilty and drew away a little from Lucien. “Hey! You! Are you guarding the wagon or just lazy?”
Jocelin turned and glared daggers at Lucien, who calmly cleaned the dirt from under his nails.
***
Within an hour, the fog had cleared and melted away and given way to watery sunshine, crisp and clear in the way that only cold can bring.
(“The fallen sky is disappearing! We think the new sky must be – what is it? When things are wet and new, Angel Lalael?”
“Young?”
“What is this 'young'? We do not understand.”)
Lucien sat on the wagon with the boy who had, in fact, been guarding it. He had found out the boy's name was Richard, that he was fifteen, and that his parents had been True Believers back before the Apocalypse. Richard remained quiet, all wide eyes, staring at the angels, who strolled together over the green grass, and then surreptitiously at Lucien, and then at the angels again. Whenever he looked at Jocelin, the angel immediately turned back and affixed the boy with a strange, intense look, and the boy seemed unable to move his gaze away. It seemed to Lucien that the angel was peering past the boy's mind, even beyond his soul, and reading something even deeper within him.
“Coo-ee! Howdy there!”
Jocelin's short sword was suddenly in the angel's hands. Lucien jumped off the wagon and ran up to join them.
“Hot damn, I ain't seen another livin' soul for nigh on two months! How you folks doin'?” The speaker came into view from behind a grape trellis. He was a heavy-set man, and his thick Southern accent was occasionally broken by a pause to hack mightily and spit into the grass.
“We're fine, sir, and yourself?” Lalael said diplomatically. He eyed the man's rifle.
“Well, I reckon' I'm just peachy, son. I'm Hal Norton, awful nice to meet you folks.” He held out his coarse, red paw to Jocelin, who stared at it, and simultaneously tugged off his plaid flannel hat to reveal a cap of what appeared to be tinfoil.
“Ah,” Lucien said.
“We're at the winery further down that way, towards the valley,” Lalael said. “If you're looking for other people, there's space there, and some food. Ask for the woman people call the high priestess and if she talks about gods, just... believe whatever she says.”
Mr. Norton nodded thoughtfully. “High priestess, y'say?” he asked. A glacier could have beat him, if speaking was a speed race. “Now, ain't that somethin'.” Hack, spit. “What d'yer mean, 'gods'?”
“You'll have to talk to Mara about that.”
“What art thou?” Jocelin asked, head tilted. “Thou confuse us, and thy words art strange and meaningless.”
“Er, are you some kinda crazy person?” Hal asked.
Jocelin fell silent, blank blue eyes fixed upon him. Lucien and Lalael shifted uncomfortably. “Thou hast metal upon thy head,” Jocelin pointed out.
“Damn straight, I do! If I didn't, the alien rays and laser beams would get into m'head and scramble m'brains like eggs for Sunday breakfast.”
Jocelin looked into the sky fearfully. “Yes. Yes, we know of what thou speakest,” the angel whimpered. “We have seen Him.”
“Joc – Angel Jocelin,” Lalael corrected himself firmly, “It's okay, there's no such thing as aliens.”
“Like Hell there aren't!” Mr. Norton snorted. The vibration rippled across his torso like a tidal wave. “There are too. Li'l mother-lovin' bastards getting' in m' flower beds all the time nowadays. I seen 'em with my own eyes. Them li'l red things with the horns and the tails, jus' like Father Edmond were tellin' us.”
(“Dost you and we flee now?” Jocelin asked, clutching Lalael's wrist.
“No, Angel Jocelin, we don't need to flee.”)
“Red and with horns?” Lucien asked.
“Except for the green 'uns. Blend right into the grass, until ya got 'un tryin' to eat you up. Then you see 'em right clear. There was the time when I were sleepin', and I woke up – ” Hack, hearty spit. “ “ – right, and them aliens were crawlin' all over me. So,” he smacked his lips in satisfaction, “I leaped myself outta bed, and I grabbed m' trusty rifle, and I shot them betitches until not a 'un of 'em moved again, yup.” Hack, spit.
“Fascinating,” Lucien said. “Mr. Norton, I believe the creatures you saw were, in fact, demons.”
“Ah, pull th'other 'un, there's no such thing as demons. I was never into all that religimagous –” he drawled the word into seven or more syllables, “stuff. I got some wild boar smokin' out back. You folks wanna come have a bite?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Against all odds, no one died of starvation.
***
There had been a storm the night before. Lalael liked days after rain, when everything was fresh and cold and still moist from the freezing winter rain.
In addition to the agreeable damp, it was a lovely morning, at least in Lalael's opinion. The trees had lost all their leaves, but the grass continued growing green, and winter birds chirped in the trees, and he was chasing after an angel that ought to have been stuck in a padded room centuries ago. That last point seemed to be ruining things.
It should have been a perfectly good morning walk along a path through the expansive flower garden that had mysteriously appeared around the house the night before, and the house itself had grown three extra wings, third and fourth floors, pillars, and a distinctly sacred appearance. There wasn't any way someone could look at the former house and not think, “That's a temple and something lives in it.”
“Well, Jocelin –”
“Angel Jocelin, if it please you, Angel Lalael.”
Lalael, falling a step behind the other angel, huffed silently, and took comfort by glaring at a cluster of yarrow.
“My apologies, Angel Jocelin,” he recovered. “Are your accommodations to your satisfaction?” Lalael had taken to the formal speech with resignation, contenting himself with rolling his eyes when Jocelin insisted on the inane titles, which was several times per minute.
“We are honored to be such a treasured guest as to be granted our own room, Angel Lalael.”
“You didn't have your own in Ríel?” Lalael never had, except for a brief time at the very beginning, but they weren't going to waste that kind of space on him.
“We weren't allowed in the buildings,” Jocelin murmured vaguely. “Nor in the Army halls.” The angel swayed alarmingly, but regained balance and continued on down the hall.
“Didn't your superiors give you shelter?” Lalael asked, breaking into a trot to keep up with Jocelin's long strides. Abruptly, the other angel stopped and looked back at him curiously, head tilted slightly to one side.
“Superiors?” Jocelin asked. Lalael stared at the other angel for a moment, but his gaze was broken when Jocelin looked about sharply, turned in a swirl of cloth, and continued pacing down the covered walkway.
“Where are you going?” Lalael called as he caught up.
“This is a very strange place,” Jocelin said, stopping yet again and stroking one of the columns. “What is it for?”
“Which place? Which it? The column? The temple?” He added saucily, “The world?”
Jocelin fixed the angel with uncanny eyes. “Any. We want to know.” The angel looked back to the pillar and stroked it again, this time with a fascinated air.
“Inquiring
mind?” No answer. “The pillar is to hold this part of the roof up, and the temple gives us a place to sleep. We have space for people who were further away now, so they can be closer to food and water sources. We're helping people.”
“And the world?” There were the eyes again. It wasn't so much that they looked through you, Lalael thought, as that they looked at you as if you weren't there. As if you were an empty space. A vacuum.
He shrugged. “Who knows?”
“I do.” Another sharp turn, and Jocelin was striding away, leaving Lalael standing in bewilderment amongst the dragon's-wort under the softly dripping eaves.
***
If Jocelin was capable of rational thought, the world would be a nicer place for the people living in the temple, as they all realized within the two weeks following the new angel's arrival.
If Jocelin was capable of doing things other than drawing a random weapon on Lucien whenever the Fallen happened to step too close (and 'in the room' seemed to be the definition of 'too close'), then the world would be a less stressful place, as well.
No, there were no words for Jocelin, the congregation agreed. 'Flighty' wasn't right: It assumed that the angel's mind jumped about from one thing to another relevant or closely related thing and back, when in reality, whatever mind Jocelin possessed worked in a series of horizontal and vertical jolts from what the angel was looking at in any given moment to things that had happened at some other time, or was happening now somewhere else, or in one memorable instance, something that had, apparently, happened tomorrow. The closest thing anyone could come to tactful was “temporally challenged.”
You had to give credit to Lord Lalael, they also agreed, as they watched him scurry after the new angel day after day. He was doing his best, and he seemed to be the only one who managed to get anything coherent out of Jocelin, though you could tell what it took out of his lordship to do so. He'd stopped carrying weapons after Jocelin had said something about it.
Gossip ran rampant every time someone tried to speak to the strange angel. First, a casual comment or query would be placed, followed by a long, blank stare from Jocelin's peculiar blue eyes. The observers would slowly back away, flustered and strangely embarrassed, turning to one another and beginning conversations about the weather, how tedious hand-washing laundry was, or the latest victim of Lord Lucien's impatience. Jocelin would stand, staring for up to half an hour at the spot where the person who asked had been, before wandering off with brisk strides. Hours later, when people had forgotten the incident and were forgetting to shy away from Jocelin, the angel would respond, barking out accusations or answers to the questions.
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