In the End (9 page)

“
Hmm.” Lucien hummed, looking around while one finger tapped against his chin. “That glass vase should do.”

“
Lucien!”

“
What?” Lucien widened his eyes as if surprised. "The World just Ended, the government's completely messed up, who knows how many people have died the world over – do you think paper money's going to cut it? In a month, you'll see very clearly that we've regressed to a barter economy. As such, if I want the niceties of life, I need to lay some valuables in store.”

Lalael stopped abruptly. “Oh.” Lucien watched him work through it, and he could see the exact moment Lalael decided it was acceptably reasonable. They had provided a valuable service, after all. “Yeah," Lalael agreed. "We'll take the vase and a clipping from one of your roses.” Lucien was impressed. He hadn't expected Lalael to catch on so quickly.

“
But that was my mother's vase...”

“
Your mother's gone above. To Heaven," Lalael said with a truly angelic smile. "So which is more important, that you keep the vase and lose your daughter to a spirit nibbler –”

“
Soul-eater.”

“
Soul-eater,” Lalael corrected smoothly. “Or that you pay us for saving your daughter's life? Because my colleague has been known to let them loose again if we aren't paid.” Lalael continued smiling, and leveled his gaze at the poor woman.

She shook her head. “Take the vase.”

“
And the rose clipping?”

“
Take the whole plant, I don't care.”

“
Thank you for your business,” Lalael said to the woman.

“
If I had a business card, I'd give it to you in case of any more instances in which you need spiritual exterminators.” Lucien smiled cheerfully. “But I don't.”  He grabbed the vase and gave a short, sweeping bow. “Adieu!”

Lalael rolled his eyes and followed him out the door.

***

“
No
, Lalael, you cannot put your dirty bit of plant in my –
mine
– nice vase!”

“
I'm not going to carry the dirt home in my hands! It'll be dead by the time we get back to the apartment!”

“
Apparently you are.” Lucien clutched the vase to his chest. It was a pretty thing, the vase, all crystal blue glass with green streaks that spiraled from the narrow bottom and swooped up, graceful and slender, ending at the fluted neck.

“
Please?”

“
You don't want to put it in here.”

“
Why not? I thought that's what I was just asking for,” Lalael growled, holding an end of the long cutting in damp, dark earth that crumbled in his hand.

“
Because...” Lucien paused thoughtfully. “The dirt won't stay around it.”

Lalael glowered.

“
Lalael. Lalael? Don't. Stop it –  Lalael, come on!”

Lalael continued to fix him with wide, blank eyes.

“
Fine!” Lucien stomped out of their clients' yard to the neighbor's house – deserted –  and dumped a cluster of wilting petunias out of a clay pot. “Use this one and stop looking at me like that.”

Lalael smirked as he took it. “I see what you mean by the Rule of Three losing potency as you ascend the castes.”

“
What? You – Rude!”

“
Did you get anything else from the soul eater?” Lalael asked as they began walking down the street.

“
No, just useless blather about being left over from the War.”

“
What did you do with it?”

             
“Broke its neck. It's in a bag in my pocket,” he said, awfully tranquil for someone carrying a dead rodent. “I'll feed it to Antichrist. Train him to eat them so he'll hunt, maybe.”

C
HAPTER SIX

“
Lucien!” he cried, bolting awake from a death-like sleep.

“
I'm assuming that wasn't what it sounded like,” Lucien said. It took Lalael a moment to work through this; when he had, he choked on the drink Lucien had handed him.

“
I was thrashing again, wasn't I.” He set the water aside on the nightstand.

“
That's how I heard you. You kept kicking the wall or something.”

“
You're infallible with the timing, you know.” Lalael said, waving vaguely to the Fallen and the glass of water.

“
I know,” Lucien answered; he grinned in the dark. “What was it about?”

“
I don't know. It was strange. You were hurt.” Lalael moved back against the headboard and drew up his knees, curling around a pillow in his lap.

“
Okay. What sort of hurt are we talking about here?”

“
Really bad. You were standing somewhere – on concrete, so I suppose it was the street – clutching your stomach, and your hands and shirt were soaked with blood. Your clothes were all torn, and parts of your skin looked like they'd been burned.”

“
Nice.”

“
And you fell and coughed up blood and stopped moving. Really, really bad sort of hurt.”

“
I see.” Lucien nodded slowly. “Anything else?”

“
N-no.”

“
What about details? What time of day was it? Were there any indications of the season? What sort of stomach wound was it? What was I wearing? Did I look hot?”

“
I couldn't tell the time of day, because it was dim but not dark. It must have been spring. I couldn't actually see the wound. You were wearing a white shirt, don't know what it was made of, and the pants might have been black or they might have just been burnt. You didn't look either cold or overheated. Your hair was longer, though.”

“
Hmmm.” Lucien tugged thoughtfully on one black curl hanging just over his left eye. “What about you?”

“
I didn't see me. And... and the wound might have been a stab wound, or bullet. Just guessing.”

“
Painful.” Lucien rose from the corner of the bed and reached for the glass. “I'll take this unless you want it left –”

Lalael grabbed his arm. In a moment of clarity he said,  “Don't die.”

“
I'm not planning on it.”

“
Don't die,”

“
I won't.”

“
Don't die,” Lalael said stubbornly. Gently, Lucien uncurled the angel's fingers from around his arm.

“
I'll be fine, I promise. Don't worry about me. Go back to sleep. It was probably just a dream.” He stepped away, towards the door.

“
I'm afraid.”

And he paused. “Of what?” he asked, half turning back.

“
Of dreaming again.”

“
Don't be.”

“
Please don't leave me alone.”

Lucien paused. “Let me get a pillow and I'll sleep on the floor.”

Lalael tossed the one he held in his lap to Lucien's feet.

***

The second vision that night. Lalael saw the details this time, perhaps because he was looking for them now – yes, trees, leaves golden and red like the ones outside in the park just down the street; Lalael had seen them from the rooftop, yet still the bark of the trees was scorched and singed, and most of the leaves blown off... branches lay thither and yon on the ground, a few people gathering the wood for fires. 

Sunlight, of the quality that only late morning, midautumn sunlight can have, clean and crisp. A few groups of people gathered together, talking, arguing, looking terribly worried... Two children, one teenager, and a middle aged woman lay in a row on the ground in the park in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by distressed onlookers; they were spasming like the little girl had been. A silent murmur swept through the crowd as they separated for someone that Lalael couldn't quite see.

Slick-slick-smear, and the four people were getting up while the crowd cheered. Suddenly, Lalael felt a poke in his side and the vision was snatched away.

***

“
Lalael?”

He bolted awake. “Two in one night.” Lalael swallowed. Was this how it was going to be now? “What time is it?”

“
Nearly dawn.”

“
I feel sick.”

“
You weren't thrashing. I woke up and I could just tell.”

“
It was better this time.” Lucien nodded in reply. “Soon. I'll know when, like I did for the girl,” Lalael said with sudden conviction. Lucien nodded again. “The park down the street. A bunch of people, and a few more possessions.”

“
That's not too bad, then. Easy. I'll show you how to do them.”

“
Yeah. Okay.” A silence settled in the room. “Lucien?” he asked tentatively, and cursed how small and lost his voice sounded.

“
Hmm?” Lucien had resumed his prone position on the floor.

“
Do you think...” he trailed off.

“
Usually, yes.” Lucien yawned. “Or were you going to ask something else?”

“
Do you think I'll get back home?”

Lucien's silence was almost painful. “I don't know,” he said at last. “I'll do everything I can to help you.”

“
What if I can't?”

Lucien's night vision allowed him to see Lalael as he sat up, curled in on himself, wings out again and wrapped around himself in a pathetic try for comfort. “I don't know, Lael. You'll have to stay here on Earth, won't you?”

“
Yes.” Lalael lay back down, rolled over, dismissing his wings as he did so. After a few moments, he spoke again. “I told you not to call me that.”

***

A week and a half later, Lucien was again trying to cook over tiny flame. The weather had cooled, and an enormous pile of logs was now stacked against the wall, but Lucien didn't want to touch them until it was necessary. Nor until he'd figured out where he'd burn them. He had acquired a few little two-pronged forks and two chairs and some duct tape: The chairs were back to back about a foot apart and the forks were taped with the tines pointing out towards each other. Between the two forks was draped a single piece of bacon, and beneath that were three strategically placed birthday candles: A small green one, a large yellow one, and one shaped like the number 4. It was a very precarious and delicate set up, but things had stopped falling over or into the fire, and the bacon was finally just beginning to sizzle. Okay, so it wasn't
real
bacon. The power had been out for days now; he'd had to figure out really, really quickly how to preserve what he had and scavenge more, and he was trying really hard not to think about what the food situation would be like a couple months down the line. The bacon, for example, was really more like jerky at this point. But if he pretended hard enough...

Suddenly, his coat and gloves made an unceremonious appearance next to him – flung on the floor. The 4 candle fell over yet
again
and the flame of the green one went out entirely.

“
We're going,” said Lalael.

Lucien looked up at his companion, whose eyes were slightly glossy and staring off into space, head tipped slightly to one side. “Oh. It's time?”

“
Yes.”

Lucien sighed at the bacon and blew out the last flame. “It's always when I've just gotten it working, isn't it?” he grumbled.

“
Never mind.”

“
Fine, fine." He sighed again, gathered up "Antichrist!”

“
By the door. Hurry.”

Lucien shrugged on his coat and followed as Lalael strode out. “How's your wing, by the way?” he asked as they began descending the stairs.

“
Better. Still sore." Lalael shrugged. "Tried flying again.”

“
At least you didn't jump off the roof.” Lucien muttered, eyebrows raised as he pulled on his gloves.

“
I nearly knocked the plants off, though.”

“
Someone's going to steal those if you leave them up there.”

“
Would anyone dare steal from an angel?”

“
They don't know you're an angel.”

Lalael stopped in front of the door. “The plant does,” he said simply. He pushed the door open and darted out into the preordained sunlight.

“
It probably also knows he's crazy,” Lucien said to Antichrist, who had slipped out of the apartment, unnoticed, at their heels.

***

The park, as in Lalael's vision, had become something of a meeting place for the people in the neighborhood. As he'd foreseen, a growing group stood in a tight, crowded ring, around what was presumably the people – the victims – on the ground. Lucien caught up when Lalael stopped a short distance away from the crowd. “Nice day.”

“
Not for them,” Lalael muttered, opening the flap of a bag he'd picked up when they had re-looted the abandoned apartments for food. He'd thought it would be useful. “Here.” He shoved a plain wooden box with a hinged lid into Lucien's arms.

“
Thanks, angelface.”

“
I'll just negotiate for payment, then.”

“
No, you're going to come and learn.” Lucien began shoving his way through the crowd. “Make way! Make way! Experts coming through! You, move out of the way!” The crowd murmured, parted until they had a clear way through. “We are specialists! We'll fix them up, give us a few minutes.”

“
They're sick! Do something!” someone shrieked.

“
For the weather channel's sake, we
are
!” Lalael was pretty sure that was how people swore by things on Earth. That was the only way he ever heard Lucien do it. “Shut up and move back a bit!” Lucien was rolling up his sleeves and pulling his gloves off; he shoved them in Lalael's bag.

“
What did you put in there, anyway?”

“
Stuff,” Lalael evaded.

“
If you say so. Let's start with this one.” He knelt by the child, who looked to be around six years old or so, and Lalael followed.

“
They're all going to
see
if we just do it here,” Lalael hissed. “You said they can't... you know, find out.”

"We'll have to make do. Just look at him; the demon will probably be around his collarbone by now, so if you focus, you'll see it.” Lucien muttered, looking suspiciously at the people around them. He pressed two fingers to the side of the boy's neck. "Soul eater, isn't it? His pulse is too quick."

“
I –  I don't know what to look at.”

“
Just focus,” Lucien insisted softly.

“
I can't. How?” Lalael said in a frantic whisper. Lucien looked back at him.

“
No, not like that!” he hissed, grabbing the hair on the back of Lalael's head and shaking. “They really didn't teach you anything up there, did they?” Lalael winced with pain. “Focus. Really Look,” Lucien growled.

“
I'm still not seeing it.”

“
Oh, for thy
elia
's sake, Look!” The angel gasped at sudden jolt of pain behind his eyes and Saw.

“
Oh. Ohhh.”

Lucien went very, very still. “That shouldn't have worked.” He shook it off. “When we get back,” he said under his breath, fussing with covering the child up with Lalael's discarded coat so he looked like he was busy, “we're going to talk. I didn't think that would... At least, not with how ranked I thought you were.”

“
You used the--! How could you?" he hissed.

“
Lalael," he returned, soft yet intense. "There's people.”

“
Don't ever, ever do that to me again,” Lalael said in a low voice.

“
Snatch the demon.”

“
It's not a soul eater.”

“
No? It's still a ninth-caste, then. Probably an imp. We were right to hurry. Get the damned demon, Lalael.”

Lalael laid his hand on the boy's chest, scowled at Lucien. “I can't do it.”

“
Don't make me say it a third time.” They met each other's eyes and had a swift and silent battle of wills.

Lalael paused, then bent, pressed his ear against the boy's chest. Lucien, with a sudden realization, half-bent too, subtly shifting the skirt of his long coat out so it blocked most of the crowd behind him – between them, Lalael's hand was shielded from the crowd. They wouldn't see.