In the End (7 page)

That night was the first night Lalael managed to get a decent night's sleep since his descent to Earth. In fact, when he thought about it, he hadn't been sleeping well for the last four thousand years.

It was also the first night of the Dreams. He had never dreamed before; being an angel, and living in Ríel, his mind had been above subconscious imagery, but he knew what they were and basically what they were supposed to feel like. One of his jobs before the Heavenly Army had been delivering them – as usual, it hadn't ended well.

But this night, a dream came to him, not as a gift, but by itself on light wings.

There was a little house, once white, now stained with soot and smoke. Green shutters were broken off their hinges. The lawn was singed, and the picket fence was in ruins, except for the gateposts and the gate itself, still standing demurely before a cobbled walk and bearing the number 437.

The dream twisted away in gut-wrenching slide like an ice slick.

The images began to speed up: A little girl inside the house, coughing and spasming. An older woman tending her. No sound but white noise like rushing water. The girl silently cried out and scratched at her own chest.

Another slick movement that momentarily smeared the images together. In the girl's open, screaming mouth, a small demon was lodged, slowly climbing down her throat.

Lalael sat up abruptly. He was panting as if Lucien had saved him from falling again, and the sheets were tangled around his legs. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, and swallowed to try to get the dry, bitter taste out of his mouth.

“
I heard you calling out in your sleep. Nightmare?” Lalael was almost unsurprised to see Lucien sitting quietly on the other side of the bed.  The angel nodded, accepting the glass of wine that was wordlessly offered. He sipped delicately, careful not to spill on the crisp sheets. This would be a good time for Lucien to slip him poison, if he was going to. “Wanna talk about it?”

Lalael handed the glass back to the Fallen, no more than a dark and pale shade, like a phantom, who took it with more care than was possibly needed. The angel raised his eyes to the still form. “No,” he said, suddenly feeling uneasy and retreating back into his previous distance. “Thank you for the wine.” Lucien nodded regretfully in the darkness and padded softly out.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Two days passed, uneventful except for an incredibly, incredibly awkward moment involving Lucien waking up to find Lalael standing over him with a kitchen knife and a wild expression. On the afternoon of the second day, Lalael barged into the kitchen from his room and said with surprising heat and passion: “Lucien, we have to go.” And then he was gone, fumbling for keys and shoes and his coat at the door.

“
What? No wait!” Lucien set down the plate of bacon he had been attempting to fry over a candle flame – the power hadn't and probably wouldn't come back on. “Why?”

“
Because we
have
to.”

“
Why?”

“
We just do! Now!” Lalael was getting ever more urgent.

“
Well,” Lucien mournfully looked back at the bacon.  “Should I bring Antichrist? Is the world going end or something?”

Lalael looked at him scornfully and did not deign to answer. “We
have to go
.”

“
We are coming back, right?”

Lalael snatched Lucien's coat off the rack and flung it at him. “Yes.”

“
Where are we going?” He called to the angel, who was already thundering down the stairs at the end of the hall.  Lucien caught up just outside the front doors.

“
Going this way,” Lalael mumbled. Lucien watched him striding swiftly away down the street for a moment.

Lucien stared after him, shrugged, and followed.

***

“
Here,” Lalael said, stopping suddenly. Lucien jogged the last few yards and leaned on his knees to catch his breath.

“
Here where?”

“
This is it.”

“
What's it?”

“
This house, this is the one.” They were standing in front of a little bungalow, which used to be white but now had dark, charred stains of soot and fire on the siding and the dilapidated green shutters. It was exactly the same as the house in Lalael's dream, down to the struggling rose bushes in front of the porch. Further along the road and across the street was an expanse of former-campus, on which was some school of philosophy and religion. On the other side was a string of similar houses.

“
What about it?” Lucien asked carefully. If the angel had gone mad, he thought, he was not sure what he was supposed to do about it.

“
My dream last night,” Lalael said, keeping his eyes on the house as if it was going to run off.

“
You didn't want to tell me.” Lucien tried not to care.

“
Obviously. Why would I tell you? This is it, though. This is the house in my dream.”

“
So?” Lucien said, studying his nails, “Doesn't matter, does it?”

“
We have to go in.”

“
What!”

“
Because there's a sick little girl in there,” Lalael said urgently. “I have to help her!”

“
You
can help if you want, but since I'm evil, I obviously don't do nice things like that.” Lucien shook Lalael's hand off his wrist.

Lalael huffed. “What else do you want?”

“
Nothing,” Lucien said angrily, walking away. “Nothing more at all.”

“
Where are you going?” Lalael called after him.

“
You want to go home don't you?” Lucien replied, without looking back. “I'm helping you get out of the clutches of that evil demon you're staying with. Going to go look at books or something.”

Lalael watched as he walked away. He put his hands around one of the gate posts in a strangling grip and looked back at the house.

“
I
have
to go inside,” he said to himself quietly. “It's important.”

***

The academy, like most of the large buildings, was utterly deserted. Bits of paper skidded through the hallway on a stray breeze near the floor.  Lucien ignored them all as he walked through the darkened halls; streaks of light from outside broke the shadows, the bars of sunlight falling through open classroom doors. His shoes tapped on the linoleum, slowing to a halt at the doors to the archives. The archival library was high, dark, and smelt of musty paper. These books were old, and it was shadowy deep in the stacks. He shivered.

He trailed his fingertips down the spine of one of the books. Dust had just begun to accrue. “Damn it all,” he hissed suddenly, then strode along a few shelves, pulling out books at random. Having collected an armful, he dropped them carelessly on a desk, and pulled the chain on the desk lamp to turn it on. He swore again under his breath when nothing happened, having forgotten... well, everything that had happened in the last few days, except the angel who seemed adamant that Lucien was evil, when all Lucien wanted was... what did he want? Rest? Peace? None of it mattered anymore, and if Rielat abandoned him here for the rest of all eternity, good. But he was starting to realize that the next long while on Earth might not be as fun as it had been the last seven years.

He picked the first tome up off the pile, dusted off the front cover with a few irritated strokes, and opened it to the middle.

***

Lalael knocked on the white door. After a minute, it was opened a crack.

“
Um. Hello,” he said, “Is... Is someone in there sick?”  The door opened further, revealing a short, plump woman with a haggard expression. Her curly, grayish-blond hair was matted, and although Lalael was no expert on Earth clothing of any time period, he was pretty sure that the faded house-dress she wore would have hurt other people's eyes too – it was the enormous pansies.

“
Who're you?” the woman asked.

Lalael shifted from foot to foot. Humans were so awkward to deal with in the best of times. “I just heard..." He hesitated. "A little girl here is sick?  I wanted to help.”

The woman brushed a string of hair out of her face. “We don't need no help from strangers," she mumbled. "Can't pay you. Don't got no money. She ain't got nothin' worse than a fever, anyhow.”

Lalael took a moment to maneuver himself around her dialect. “Oh. Oh, no, I don't want money, but I'll be able to heal her. I'm an – someone who can help.” The woman shook her head, and began closing the door, but Lalael held it open in desperation. “No, I won't hurt anyone!” The woman struggled to close the door, but Lalael wedged his foot against it. “I promise! Just let me look at your little girl! I think she's possessed!” The woman let go of the door abruptly; Lalael stumbled and caught himself on the jamb.

“
She's
sick
. Hurting. Keeps scratching herself and talking strange because she's delirious from the fever.”

Lalael hesitated again, still braced against the door-jamb. “I'll have to look at her to know for sure. But I promise I can help.” The woman hesitated, opened the door all the way, and motioned him in.

***

Lucien awoke. His cheek was pillowed on the yellowed pages of a tome that seemed distinctly offended to have been slept on; the library was now completely dark, lit only by the starlight through the high bay windows on either side of the front door.  It was very dark – no street lamps, no ambient electric light, no candlelight anywhere nearby. Very dark. Lucien raised his head. Thankfully, the night wasn't bad enough to warrant panicking. It wasn't nearly as dark as it could be, although it was very dark indeed. Parts of Rielat were much worse than this, the sort of darkness that was palpable. Thick. Noisome. And just as silent.

The sense of silence in the room sharpened.

Lucien looked down at the book and wiped the pages clean. It had only been a very small patch of drool. Very small. He left it open and made a neat stack of the others, then sat for a few moments with his hands folded, listening to the silence.

It occurred to him that he should really go see if Lalael had had any luck with that sick girl. He moved quietly, skirting the darkest of the shadows, and left the archives. Soon the quiet tapping of his shoes echoed softly back, then faded away.

The pages of the book rustled in the dark.

***

“
What in the name of the weatherperson are you doing, Lalael?” Lucien asked, leaning against the entrance to a room that most certainly belonged to the little girl lying in the bed. Lucien's query had interrupted a feverish chant that the angel had been focused on.

“
Begone!” the angel commanded. He moved to block the room from Lucien's view – pointless when Lucien could easily look over the top of his head. In a hiss, Lalael continued, “You didn't want to be part of this business, so you won't be at all.”

“
Mr. Lalael,” said the dowdy housewife in a mousy voice, “Who is this?”

“
This, madam,” Lalael said, still blocking Lucien's way into the room, “Is my vile, evil, disrespectful... I live in his guest room.”

“
Landlord, roommate, host, and colleague,” Lucien called out over Lalael's head.

“
Evil?” The woman tensed and moved towards the little girl's bed. Lalael whirled around and pounced on her before she could cross a circle of white chalk that had been drawn around the bed.

“
Beginning to be a bit of redundancy, now, isn't it?” Lucien asked. “It could be a song."

“
Perhaps you should wait in another room, ma'am.” Lalael said softly, ushering the woman out the door.

“
'There's a horrible demon in the cabana; he's the evilest thing in Havana," Lucien mumbled to himself. It didn't quite seem to scan.

Lalael continued chivying the mother out of the room. “Your daughter will be fine, just think of it like an extermination, except without the poison –”

“
'His name was 'Lael; he was an angel...'” That worked rather well, actually.

“
What?!” the woman gasped as Lalael shoved her out, dragged Lucien into the room and shut the door in one smooth movement.

“
So what is this?” Lucien stuck his hands in his pockets and surveyed the scene.

“
Listen –”

“
No, just tell me.”

“
It's none of your business, for one thing!” Lalael snapped.

“
I think you should tell me anyway,” Lucien said, picking up a small plastic figurine from the vanity and tilting it about in vague curiosity.

“
Put that down. Where have you been all day?”

“
I would say something along the lines of 'I could ask you the same question', if I didn't already know that you'd been in this room all day, doing who knows what. I was in the library down the street.”

“
What for?”

“
Just like I said, looking for a way to send you back. Since you want to go."

Lalael's scowl wavered. “Sorry.” He moved to the window, and Lucien noted that they'd have to be careful to stay out of certain lights now, because you could tell Lalael's true nature when the moonlight fell on him like that. It glanced off his skin like it was marble – no, not lit: The angel seemed to shine with his own inner light, a bright star in the shadows of the window: Unnatural, untouchable, and clearly, eerily non-human.

“
You should be sorry,” Lucien answered, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “I saved your life, after all.”

Lalael winced.

Suddenly the girl gave a shriek and thrashed once more. Lalael was at her side in an instant, into the circle of candlelight cast from the night table. From moonlight to firelight, in one moment distant ivory, shades of blue on white and black, cold and still as a statue as he looked off into the dark; the next moment he was golden, with the fire reflecting strangely in his eyes, and is hair was a fiery red by this light, threaded by pure, shining gold – two more tells. Humans were so very unobservant.

“
Why don't you want me to go back there?” Lalael asked. The girl sobbed beneath his hands as he tended her. He didn't meet Lucien's eyes.

Lucien shrugged in reply. “I'm staying here. You're the only other immortal. It'll be lonely after a while.” Even a mortal enemy was better than no one at all. “It's been lonely anyway. You don't really have
amicable relationships
in the Lower Realm.”

“
I didn't have any in Ríel either," Lalael mumbled, and his hands shook as he held the little girl's – or perhaps it was she that was trembling.

Lucien was quiet. He kept his arms crossed. “I'm not going to kill you," he said after a few long moments. He was surprised by how weary he sounded. "I'm not going to try to hurt you, or make you trust me and then cast you out. It wouldn't be right."

Lalael was silent. The only sound in the room was the little girl's choking sobs, and then Lalael nodded – just once, but it was enough.