Sticks and Stones

by Alexie Aaron

  “Why did you enter the building?” Gabriel asked, manifesting beside her.

  “At first, to see if I could divert the gunman. I was prepared, leading with my armored wing. When I saw he was trigger-happy, I backed into the classroom where I sensed the children and two teachers had sought refuge. I was prepared to act as a birdman shield, but my intent was to get them out of the building.”

  “Which you did.”

  “Just following my son’s lead. Victor and Enos helped me.”

  “Today, how did you know how to transport tons of snow and rock that way? Let alone figure out the demons’ Achille’s heel?” Gabriel asked.

  “Poltergeists. Burt Hicks is studying them.” Mia went on to tell Gabriel about how the knowledge of the half-veil came to her and using it as a one-way portal. “You see, I performed it quite successfully with bluebells earlier in the day.”

  “Bluebells?” Gabriel roared with laughter. “You saved four hundred angels and millions of people with bluebells.”

  “You brought the snow from the mountain down. There was no way I could do that.”

  “Where does all this knowledge come from?”

  “Angelo’s and Victor’s soul information that they shared with me so I could battle the frost giants. Also, from listening to Michael when he’s yelling at me. You see, the grace that was given to me combined with the Blue Star energy gives me this, I guess you call it, angel sight. Combine it with the primal demon way of ordering thoughts, and I could see the solution, or what I hoped would be the solution. Michael was dying. I had to try.”

  “This is the second time in a few months that you’ve sacrificed yourself for an archangel,” Gabriel pointed out. “Do you have a death wish?”

  “No, but when I die, I don’t want to come back.”

  “I’m afraid you’re too valuable to let die, Mia,” Michael said, limping into the room. “Varden prays every night for me to protect you. Dear Michael, take care of my mother because we need her. I have better things to do, so you’re going to have to stop putting yourself in extreme danger.”

  Mia’s nose burned, and her eyes filled up.

  “Don’t cry. Sariel’s not around,” Michael teased.

  Mia blushed.

  “Can you teach Sariel to do that…” Gabriel started.

  “Apport?”

  “Yes.”

  “He will have to take on more Blue Star energy. I took most of his away.”

  “That was some kiss,” Michael said. “Melted all the snow around me.”

  “It wasn’t a kiss,” Mia stammered.

  “You may have to throw stones at him. I think he thought it was a kiss,” Michael teased.

  Mia turned beet red. “I’m going to have to wait until my feathers grow back. They look like a gap-toothed smile.”

  “I could help you with that,” Raphael said. “You took too many feathers at a time.”

  “She was winging it,” Gabriel joked.

  Mia groaned. “If you didn’t hate me so much, I would punch you right now.”

  “That makes no sense,” Gabriel jeered. He sobered and gave Mia the respect he would give his brothers. “You teach Sariel how to use the half-veil and how to take on blue energy, and I’ll downgrade my emotional response when I think of you from abhor to disdain.”

  Mia grasped Gabriel’s hand. “Deal.”

  Michael was proud of Mia. At any time, she could have thrown in Gabriel’s face his miscalculation in taking Beverly Cooper back in time, but she didn’t. Mia also transferred something else to Michael in her rush to save him. He was able to read her heart and found, to his surprise, he was still in it.

  Mirror, Raphael’s assistant, led Mia away to prepare her for having her wings worked on.

  Michael waited until they were gone before speaking. “Raph, we’ve been given an opportunity. She’s opened the door. Let’s reward her.”

  Raphael lifted an eyebrow. “Not your normal modus operandi.”

  “I’ve been thinking that humans need praise and rewards in order to build self-esteem. We knew our worth the moment we were made. Mia is no different than purebred humans. She seeks out Nicholai’s approval. In the past, he was her general when it should have been me. He recently erred and chastised her wrongly.”

  “So how are you going to reward her? She has a wonderful mate, family, and has an abundance of friends. Mia has too much power as it is. She is evolving too fast,” Raphael warned.

  “Let her evolve, but naturally. Give her back her first set of wings.”

  “The ones you ripped off?” Raph asked.

  “I know you kept them,” Michael said. “They disappeared from the floor. Did you think I would have them thrown away?”

  “They are unique,” Raphael said. “Mia’s wings were never fully developed when you took them from her. I’ve tried to implant them on a few others, and they would not take.”

  “Why?” Michael asked.

  “Angels have no demon genes. Mia likes Victor’s wings,” Raphael pointed out. “She’s made them her own. Golden like a…”

  “They suited her when she was a warrior. She is moving beyond that now,” Gabriel said.

  Both Michael and Raphael turned and looked. Gabriel had to have been standing there silent all that time, and they had forgotten he was there.

  “Go on,” Michael said.

  “We have forgotten that, once upon a time, we were tied to Mbengar. We swam together in our infancy. We emerged to serve our Lord. Mia is a miracle, a failed experiment of twisted minds. No matter what’s been thrown at her, she has always remained good of heart, accepting of all creatures, and damned irritating. You’re right to reward her. I’m not sure, had I been tempted as she was, that I wouldn’t have taken the half-million demons and taken control of Hell. We left her. Yet she still heals us. Now, she is our link to Mbengar. No longer will we have to go through Lucifer to speak with him. She is also our link with Nyx. How Nyx is still loyal to the God we worship is a mystery, but she is.”

  “If I give Mia back her original wings, I can’t control what else will come with them,” Raphael warned.

  “I’ll have Altair warn Baxter,” Michael said.

  “About Baxter…” Gabriel started.

  “What about him?” Michael asked.

  “Can you read him? I can’t.”

  “No.”

  “Raph?” Gabriel asked.

  “No. I suspect he is not what he presents himself to be. I can’t penetrate his glamour,” Gabriel said.

  “He has been honest with Mia and told her that he is a villain,” Michael said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Yet she still comes to him to help her sort her mind.”

  “And heal her body,” Raphael added.

  “How attached is she?” Michael asked.

  “Enough that Altair is jealous,” Gabriel said. “I don’t like Altair. Let Mia have Baxter.”

  “Like he’s ours to give,” Michael said wryly. “Raphael, give Mia her wings back, and boost her grace so she falls out of birdman control.”

  “Soren will not like this.”

  “Soren needs to know his place,” Michael snapped.

  Raphael left.

  Gabriel looked at Michael. “Is this a wise move? If Mia is not beholden to the Brotherhood of the Wing, she is once again a wild card.”

  “We need to regain her trust. Once we do, Mia is ours.”

  ~

  Ted looked in on the girls who were sound asleep. When he went into the boys’ room, Varden was still awake. He had been crying.

  Brian was snoring, so Ted scooped his son up and took him to the third-floor playroom. “What’s all the tears about?” he asked, settling on the floor with his son before him.

  “I’m the reason Mommy’s gone.”

  “No. Mommy had to help Raphael with the wounded. Cid said, for a while, she was with Azrael and then was asked back to a meeting. She should be home
by the time you wake up.”

  “I told Nicholai about her and Enos being injured. Brian said they were just sore from practicing hard. But…”

  “If you were concerned, you should have asked Mommy or Enos first. Lazar looked Mommy over, and I saw her right before the meeting, and she was fine. Mommy heals faster than we do. She also can heal Enos. They just got caught up in roughhousing.”

  “I heard Nicholai tell Enos that he suspended Mommy from the flock, and it’s all my fault. I don’t want to be in the flock if Mommy’s not in it.”

  “Suspended means temporary for a specific amount of time. A time-out. Nicholai is giving Mommy a time-out. Remember when Nanny Berta gave Mommy and Murphy a time-out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nanny Berta still likes Mommy and Murphy, but she had to make a point. Give them time to think over their actions. Mommy didn’t get a chance to talk to Nicholai about it.”

  “Brian said I’m a tattletale.”

  Ted put his hand through his hair. “Mommy knew you called Nicholai, and she wasn’t mad at you. She played and cuddled with you after getting yelled at by Nicholai.”

  “But she didn’t know about being suspended then,” Varden said. He started to wring his hands.

  “She knew about it at the meeting. Enos gave her a note. I watched her open it. She read it and decided it didn’t matter and did really well in the meeting. You would have been proud of her. I think if Burt was her teacher, she would have gotten a star.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Varden, you see, adults make mistakes too. Sometimes we don’t know we’ve even made one until it is pointed out. But we can’t let a failure stop us. We Martins pick ourselves up and keep making mistakes until we get it right. Mommy is a great mommy, and she is a wonderful wife. She, also, is a great general and many people followed her and won a great battle. But sometimes, Mommy isn’t a good soldier. She is so smart that sometimes she forgets who is in charge. I’m like that too. She is so beautiful that people forget she is also smart. It’s hard being Mommy.”

  “But I wouldn’t change being Mommy for anything,” Mia said from the patio door. She walked in and sat down on the floor with Ted and Varden. She held out her arms, and Varden rushed into them. He started crying. Mia took off a glove and grabbed Ted’s hand to read what the problem was. “Dear Varden, I’m not mad at you. I’m cross with Nicholai because I thought I had been punished enough. But he has a boss, and he had to listen to him. The suspension has nothing to do with my scrubbing the countryside with Enos.”

  Varden pulled away and looked at her with his mouth open. “Enos said he painted the hillside with your face.”

  “He did. It was fun, but maybe we weren’t cautious enough. Uncle Murphy was supposed to stop us, but maybe he saw we were having too much fun. Adults make mistakes too, even dead ones.”

  “Why are you suspended?” Ted asked.

  “According to Raphael - and I don’t know how he knows this - Soren felt I acted rashly at the preschool after he got the final report from Victor.”

  “Varden thought he got you suspended,” Ted said.

  “Oh no. It was my own doing. You know what? I’m disappointed because I would do it again. In another flock, I would have been lauded. So maybe it’s a good idea I’m having a time-out. This afternoon, I did better. I used my newfound knowledge of poltergeists to, as Raphael put it, ‘turn the tide’ of a battle they were losing. Now how can I be blue when the day ended with a pat on the back from the archangels and I’m with you and Daddy now? I wouldn’t trade my life for the world.”

  Varden hugged her harder. “I’m sorry I tattled.”

  “I forgive you. Not that you need forgiving. Do you think you can sleep now or would like me to make you a hot toddy?”

  Varden smiled.

  Ted raised his hand. “I’d like one too.”

  Ted picked up Varden and held out a hand to Mia who winced as she got up. She winked. “Just a stiff back.”

  Varden, to give him credit, drank half of his hot milk and cinnamon before falling asleep at the counter.

  Mia cleaned up while Ted returned him to his bed. Ted returned to find Mia standing in a coat. “Could we go to the lab? I have something for you to look at.”

  “Sure. You were missed at the barbecue. Your new boyfriend was asking about where you were.”

  “What new boyfriend?” Mia asked as they stepped outside.

  “Dreamy Scott Hogan.”

  “Oh him. No nose, not attractive in my opinion. If you’re going shopping for a new boyfriend, make sure he has a noble nose and curly auburn hair.”

  “I have a noble nose and curly auburn hair!”

  “Will you be my boyfriend?” Mia asked.

  “No. I don’t like girls.”

  “Damn. Did Burt Hicks steal you out from under me? I’d stay away from him; I heard he had a flitch.”

  “I had worse,” Ted said.

  They had reached the office. Ted let them in, and Mia waved at Jake as she walked through. Ted followed his fast-walking wife. She dropped her coat and adjusted her tank top so she could extract her wings, which weren’t the ones she had left with.

  “Your wings…” Ted stammered as memories filled his head. “Are they your original wings?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later. This is more important.” She pulled out of her wing pouch a square metal box. “We have to be really careful with these. They are biological and explode once they burrow under feathers or skin.”

  “Let’s put them in the oops tank.”

  “Oops tank?”

  “It’s where Cid and I blow up our failed experiments.”

  Mia closed one eye to calm herself. She walked over to the large container. “I slowed these things down by dumping high-altitude snow on them. They were manufactured by demons.”

  “Demons.”

  Mia told him what she knew about the battle and the demons involved. She described everything in detail while Ted adjusted the temperature of what would now be the containment unit.

  Mia held on to the box. “Let me put it in the unit. You seal it. I’ll open the box with telekinesis, just in case the contents got a little shook up in transit.”

  Ted held the lid open. Mia placed the box inside. Ted shut it and made sure the unit was secure. He watched as Mia opened the box and, one by one, took out a dozen barbs that resembled the striking head of a flail.

  “You said that these are biological,” Ted confirmed.

  Mia handed Ted her phone. “This is footage Sariel shot after the snow fell and one landed on a demon. See how it burrows like a tick?”

  Ted watched horrified. “Who made these?”

  “Someone working for the Magma Ash demons. According to Gabriel, they were unsettled when North Korea started testing their missiles.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Somewhere in China. I didn’t exactly fly there, so I have no clue. The angels received intel that the beasts were surfacing after they destroyed a village. Azrael, who works with the light, alerted them of the mass killing. Michael led the charge. They fired a volley of these things. Michael didn’t know he was in trouble until the first one exploded, taking out his wing. The other strikes were more terrible. He lost pieces of organs. If his heart wasn’t armored, he’d be dead. Sariel managed to get him to cover. Four other angels were not so lucky. Raphael had his hands full trying to save twelve other warrior angels. He had no idea that Michael was so near death. Sariel insisted that Michael call me.

  “When I found out that they were biological, a memory flashed in my mind from biology class. Acalan and I were supposed to dissect this nightcrawler. I was so creeped out that he put it in the freezer for a while. Then he told me to pretend it was Play-Doh. It was still alive but too slow to wiggle away.”

  “So, the snow not only slowed these things but the Magma Ash demons too.”

  “Yes. I got lucky.”


  “What made you think of using snow?”

  “I saw in the distance a snowcapped mountain. I couldn’t gather the snow, but once Gabriel got it moving…”

  “An avalanche.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can follow your thought process. You got this all from the poltergeist discussions, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I thought that we had established that they were energy. I had blue energy available. I had experimented with it just this morning, moving bluebells from the between, indoors through a portal made in the half-veil. Alchemy, Ted, science.”

  “And magic.”

  “It’s only magic because we can’t explain things like the veils because scientists don’t believe in ghosts, veils, portals, and so on. Remember when I lit Angelo’s wings on fire when I first used my telekinesis to stop him from crashing into the ground?”

  “Fondly.”

  “They gathered a few of these things together to study them. I suggested that you may be able to build something to defend against them once you figure out how they worked.”

  “Mia, you brought me home something that explodes. Either you found a new husband or you’re confident in my abilities.”

  “The latter, I assure you,” Mia said proudly.

  “Is there a problem if I bring Baxter in on this?”

  “No. I don’t know how he would get paid?”

  “I take it I’m not getting paid either.”

  Mia opened her wings and smoldered.

  Ted gave her a dirty little laugh. “I see. But you’re not to pay Baxter the same way.”

  “Ew. Yes, I understand. I’ll owe him a favor. I hear favors are coming back,” Mia said slyly. “They are trading faster than bitcoin.”

  “Gerald?”

  Mia just smiled.

  Chapter Nine

  Mia woke early to find Ted had already gone. She knew he was itching to get started on the demon barb problem. She showered quickly and got to the twins before they disturbed Nanny Berta. She finished feeding and was playing with them in the sitting room when Nicholai walked in.

  “Who let you in here?” Mia asked, keeping her temper under control. She didn’t want to upset her daughters.