by Amy Lane
Edward stared, both impressed and appalled, and Bel whooped. “That’s amazing! I’m so jealous! Now go somewhere!”
They were so entranced that nobody heard Harry behind them, struggling to hoist his body up the cliff—but they all heard his reaction.
“Fucking Jesus, Francis—why didn’t you just say you could fucking fly!”
Francis set himself down and smiled smugly. “Now you know,” he said, and turned cat again to trot away.
“Where’s he going?” Edward asked, and Bel shrugged.
“It’s gorgeous up here. Let’s go kill seagulls!” And then Beltane turned into a big blond dog, woofing ecstatically and chasing the wind.
Harry and Edward watched them go, shaking their heads. “I’m….” Edward made helpless gestures with his hands.
“Yeah. Me too.” Finally Harry shrugged and held out a small ziplock bag. “Here—put that in your scary freaky little drawer organizer with the number system, and we can eat the lunch Suriel’s going to make and I’ll tell you about the next run.”
Edward took the bag on automatic and was heading for the piece of luggage Francis had crafted him, which they kept in the minivan before the rest of what Harry said caught up with him.
“Okay—so first off, how did you know I even number the compart—”
“Oh my God!” Harry threw his hands in the air. “Could you not even? What? Have I been stupid for the last hundred and fifty years?”
Edward felt a little shame. “No, brother. You’re just not great at planning.”
Harry stared at him impassively, and Edward’s remorse increased.
“Okay, okay, fine. You’re good at planning, just not great at… I don’t know. Schematicking.”
Suriel, who had been looking from one of them to the other, tilted his head. “That’s not a word,” he said, and given Suriel spoke every language known to man and beast, he would know.
“It’s an Edward word, beloved,” Harry said, his grim mouth twisted a little at the ends. “As in ‘go schematic yourself’ or whatever. But what was the other thing?”
Edward shifted uncomfortably. “You, uh, have plans for the next thing on the list?” Because he had a few for a few items, but he had no idea Harry had already prepared.
Harry smiled, the picture of feline smugness. “Go schematic, Edward. I’ll show you my list after lunch. I’m going to go keep those two from chasing the oystercatchers. They’re a protected species, you know.” And then Harry turned cat and scampered off, leaving Edward to stomp to the minivan, Suriel at his heels.
“You’re not going to go with them?” Edward asked, trying to keep the surliness from his voice.
“Why are you angry?” Suriel asked, his voice kind.
Edward paused in the act of unlatching the back of the minivan and sighed. “Not angry,” he said truthfully, remembering that Suriel had been their wise and compassionate counselor for many, many years before he’d been Harry’s lover. “Just… he makes me feel inadequate,” he confessed with a sigh.
“How?” To his credit, Suriel sounded genuinely puzzled, and Edward looked at him with fondness.
“He’s very good at everything,” Edward said with a little laugh.
“So are you.”
“But… but he’s the leader. I thought, you know. I’d be leading this one, because… because—”
“Because Mullins is yours?” Suriel asked perceptively.
Edward sighed and started working the case with the little number compartments out of the back.
“Yes,” he admitted after a moment. It sounded even weaker as he said it.
“Well, I was Harry’s, but that didn’t stop you all from summoning me when he was….” Suriel’s voice dropped. “Bleeding,” he finished with a swallow. Harry had been dying—but had been too stubborn to summon Suriel because of the personal cost to Suriel every time he left heaven. “Everybody needs help sometimes.” Suriel’s voice strengthened. “Even Emma and Leonard needed Mullins and I, remember?”
Edward smiled and put the ziplock bag from Harry into the numbered slot in the case. “I was there,” he said mildly.
“I know you were. It’s my understanding you followed Harry’s plan in that instance too.”
And nothing had gone as planned—but everything had turned out better than their wildest dreams.
“We did,” Edward acknowledged. But then, the painful truth. “But Francis and I got… we got left behind, you know. That’s why Francis was so out of it. Because Cass caught up with us while we were trying to find Harry.”
“Ah.” Suriel stood there, back straight, head tilted. Edward missed the wings that used to hover over his shoulders, but he could, in fact, almost see them, even though they’d been stripped away when Suriel had chosen to return to earth and Harry’s arms.
“What?” Edward could almost hear the words. But not quite.
“It’s why you fuss so much,” Suriel said. “About having three backup plans to Harry’s one. It’s a good system.” His full mouth flashed a quiet smile. “Just remember—Harry learned from that too. And he doesn’t ever want to let you down again.”
Edward swallowed and zipped up the case, replaced it in the back of the car, and pulled out the ice chest.
“Here,” Suriel offered. “Let me get that. You close the hatch.”
Which probably meant Suriel had prepped the ice chest. Cooking seemed to be one of his passions, and as often as he cooked for Emma and Leonard for their family dinners, Edward couldn’t object.
“He’s never let me down,” Edward said after a moment as they headed for the picnic table.
“He’ll be glad to hear it.”
Edward smiled a little. Suriel’s implicit, eternal faith in Harry was a little nauseating—but it was not, in fact, misplaced. Edward needed to remember that.
Suriel opened the ice chest and proceeded to make five outstanding sandwiches with the grace of a dancer. Edward dressed them on paper plates and added chips and sodas around the table, and they finished up just as their rogue familiars trotted toward them.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Edward called, “Suriel’s outdone hims—goddammit, Francis!”
Francis hissed and spat out bird feathers, then had the gall to look surprised as they floated around his head. He turned human just so he could appear innocent and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s feathers everywhere. They stuck to my fur is all.”
Harry spat and changed form. “Of course they stuck to your fur—you ripped them off some poor bird. Oh my God, Francis—not even an oystercatcher—a seagull. Ew!”
Francis spat another feather and grimaced. “He did taste sort of like a garbage bird. Huh.”
Beltane wagged his tail once and then stood, engulfing Francis in a protective, over the shoulder hug. “And what does a garbage bird taste like?” he asked, his human ears practically perking up.
“Like chicken nuggets,” Francis said decisively. “I’ve seen birds eat those, you know, which just proves that they’re not real food.”
Edward and Harry stared at each other, mouths opening and closing helplessly.
“Wash up,” Edward said finally. “All of you. Spigot’s behind the van. Suriel made damned good sandwiches, and we can fit in another stop today.”
Harry got back first, of course, and stood on tiptoes to kiss Suriel’s cheek. “They look wonderful,” he said. “Thank you for making lunch, belo—”
“Beloved my ass,” Suriel snapped. “Now that we know Francis can fly, can you maybe not dangle from a cliff next time? Good grief, Harry.”
Harry twisted his mouth. “Still, uh, upset—”
Suriel stared at him, earth brown eyes alight with irritation, until Harry bent his head. “Of course, Suriel. I shall be ever careful of my own mortal frame. I completely apologize.”
“Thank you, Harry. Sit down—yours is the one with hummus instead of mayonnaise.”
Harry grinned irrepressibly. “Does that m
ean you’re done being mad?” he asked, mischief in his tone.
Suriel and Edward had a rather panicked conversation over his head.
“That depends,” Edward said after Suriel gave an imperious nod. “Exactly what’s next on the agenda?”
Harry cackled and reached into the pocket of his jeans to pull out a battered paper map. “Did we bring our waffle stompers and leather kneepads?”
“Why—are we going clubbing in LA?” Edward asked.
Harry let out a snort of exasperation. “Oh, Bel and Francis wish. I swear, if they’re going to be this obvious they need to make a family announcement and deal. But no. No clubbing. In fact, no lights, no air conditioning, no electricity—”
“We’re going to the desert, aren’t we?” Edward asked, shuddering.
“Oh, not just the desert, brother. We’re going to the Badlands.”
“Oh hells. No. No—can’t we go to a museum? For God’s sake—that’s what I did last time. I just broke into a museum, stole a toenail, and took off before the alarm sounded!”
“Well, your spell would have been damned shitty,” Harry said hotly. “Because you didn’t look at what that passage meant.”
“Great beast of old, stripped to bone, roar again in the sands of home. Help your demon find the sands of home,” Edward recited from memory. “So we bring a little sand with—”
“No. You don’t get it. It’s about reviving something on its home dirt. It’s about unearthing the past and letting it breathe in the present. Pulling that bone from a museum is like showing a made-for-TV historical romance of Mullins’s past. Digging one up in the heat and the grit of the desert is going to give power to the thing. Mullins isn’t getting out of hell unless he airs his dirt, Edward, and we can’t cheat on the items any more than we can cheat on the spell. Now you deal.”
With that Harry took a massive bite of his sandwich, letting out an appreciative sigh. He swallowed and hollered, “Beltane! Francis! Whatever the hell you’re doing back there, stop it and come eat! Did I mention we need to hurry?”
Bel and Francis appeared, looking suspiciously innocent, and Harry rolled his eyes and went back to his sandwich.
“This is really excellent, Suriel. Like I said, thank you.”
Suriel preened, and Edward let out a grunt.
“He’s only irritating because he’s right,” Suriel said, all serenity.
“He’s only irritating because he’s my freaking brother,” Edward growled. But then he sat down and took a bite of his sandwich and calmed down.
God, he was luckier than he deserved, and he knew it.
THE BADLANDS of South Dakota really were as bad as advertised. The decomposed granite under their feet had hardened to cement—cement with little crystals in it that tore through a kitty’s paws and could easily rip through denim.
The four of them outfitted themselves in their stoutest clothes while Harry had Francis scry for the bones of a long-dead beast.
Their first try turned up a rotting coyote, and Harry and Edward refined the spell to bones of stone of a creature that roared, and Francis gave it another go.
Another two miles of hiking and they ended up at a long-abandoned excavation site, while Francis gave them instructions for how and where to dig so they didn’t disturb more bones than necessary.
Beltane was the one who actually unearthed the bone, using a shovel to carve through the hardened soil with a lunge and a heave. Then he bent to wipe the thing down with a cloth until they could see the petrified ends.
Edward stood back and took it in, his great broad-chested brother kneeling in the magenta and orange of the sunset. He felt his pocket, where the mirror was warm and vibrant in his hands, and opened the compact.
He saw Mullins, staring into the mirror avidly, and smiled, giving a thumbs-up. Then he panned the mirror around, showing everything: the stark hollowed-out shapes of eroded hills, the layers of soil exposed by the wind, the stunning vibrancy of the lowering sun.
He finished up with the silhouettes of his brothers, oohing and ahhing over Bel and Francis’s discovery. The guys saw the mirror aimed at them and smiled, thumbs up, as though taking a selfie, and then Edward turned the mirror back to himself.
We found item 13, he printed.
Well done. Thank them for me. The words faded, and then: It really is beautiful there.
Edward took a moment to appreciate the scenery, as he hadn’t when they’d been so driven to search. He didn’t see the heat or the discomfort or the savagery of the wind. He just saw the shadows, the sunset, and his brothers’ dusty triumph.
Some day you shall join us, he sent, sighing when Mullins’s picture went dark.
They packed up and got back into the minivan, where Harry exhaustedly boomeranged them to a campsite, and they all settled down in their animal forms for the night.
When Edward woke up the next morning, he checked the mirror again, and while the picture was still dark, Mullins sent a message.
Someday I shall.
Hope. Dammit, Harry really was right a lot, wasn’t he!
When Hell is Not Hell
MULLINS HAD been born 300 years before the idea of a television had even been conceived. He’d never known the illicit joy that came with watching grown-up cartoons when parents thought their sweet little boy was watching SpongeBob, or of going to a friend’s house to see horror movies that had been expressly forbidden.
But working in hell, doing what he always did, which was laying low, and sneaking glimpses through Edward’s portal mirror, taught him that sometimes, watching something on a little screen could be just as absorbing as living it himself.
It wasn’t that Mullins was unaware of the peril he was in.
Vanth had never been found, and the buzz over where he’d been before he’d gone missing occupied the halls of hell for many weeks. Mullins was keenly aware that one trip to the Marketplace and somebody would place Vanth with the Youngbloods, and the jig would be up.
His only hope was to keep his countenance as serene as it had been since Leonard had left, his face as impassive, his emotions as tightly under lock and key as always.
At first he was terrified.
Menoch was dressing down the scribes of hell, choosing his daily victim, and Mullins—who knew logically that he must fall under the lash at least every eighteen months—was taken by surprise by the pounding of his heart, the sweat under his suit.
It was like unlocking his heart to hope, to the taste of Edward’s passion, had unlocked him to the fear that Leonard had helped him stomp to death in his first month in hell.
Fear only made the pain worse. The demon who was unafraid was the demon who would never truly sacrifice his soul.
So as he stood in line, trying desperately not to attract Menoch’s eye and knowing that desperation had its own stench that would draw Menoch even faster, he found himself remembering Edward’s hunting the day before.
The night in the desert had been beautiful—Mullins had been truly captured by that moment, but he hadn’t expected another that lovely.
The next day he’d been surprised to get a vista of pounding surf against black volcanic sand through the opening of a cave. The tide would eventually rise, blocking the entrance, but for that moment, he could see his family, even Suriel, searching about the sand very deliberately, on hands and knees, sifting every grain.
It was Harry who burst out in a characteristic temper. “Dammit, does anyone have a really ripping illumination spell that will help us find this goddamned grain of red sand before we go blind or drown or both?”
Suriel had stood as Harry was ranting, and spread his arms. Mullins had never really known what to think of Suriel, largely because he’d never been sure what Suriel thought of him. The two had only ever known of each other—until Suriel had fought for his own freedom from heaven, he and Mullins had never actually been in the same room.
It was the stories from the boys that gave them their grudging respect of the other. Harry alwa
ys spoke so glowingly of Suriel to Mullins, and, Mullins was beginning to suspect, Edward had only spoken of the good of Mullins to Suriel. Over the past century and a half, the two beings who had never met had learned to trust each other as allies because they’d learned that the other one shared their singular devotion to the Youngblood family, one member in particular.
Fortunately, it had been a different favorite, or a terrible celestial conflict might have ensued—or even just hurt feelings and bitterness when the boys’ lives hinged on every family member working in concert.
So seeing Suriel in action these days, watching him quietly and competently taking care of things such as food, sleep, making sure everybody was wearing a jacket when it was cold or had water when it was warm, had given Mullins the same sort of protective feelings over Suriel that he’d developed for Beltane after he’d been born.
Not quite as deep as for the three original Youngblood boys, but that was only because he hadn’t known them as long.
In this particular instance, as Suriel stood apart from the boys, arms spread, Mullins was confronted with Suriel’s lack of… wings.
Suriel needed wings.
He’d known that Suriel had allowed them to be ripped off his back as penance for leaving the duties of bondage he’d given himself to for millennia, but the loss had been… intellectual for Mullins.
Now that he saw what appeared to mortals as a very beautiful man with long fire-gold hair spreading his arms as though to embrace all of humanity with compassion, he recognized the loss of wings on a gut-deep level and mourned, just as Edward had.
And then he gasped, because apparently, while the wings had been ripped away, not all of Suriel’s powers had suffered the same fate.
Suriel began to glow.
Subtly at first, and the quality of the light that came from his body made everything else in the cave as clear as cut crystal.
Every rock formation in the ceiling was revealed, some of them grotesque and some of them a tracery of limestone and lava. Every grain of sand was revealed, the obsidian black of them thrown into rainbow relief.
