Overburdened ]
He opened his eyes to a darkness so thick and black, it was like he hadn't opened them at all. The air around him was still but for the even breathing of the body at his side. Too shallow and quick to convince him she was anything but half asleep. Despite overlapping layers of wards and the added reassurance that they were the only two souls who knew the location of their loft, Leena, like him, often toed the line of half consciousness even behind locked doors.
Cris eased up from the bed with caution, sweeping the wealth of a thick down comforter aside. Its bleach white cotton ate the shadows and turned them grey to his eyes. Legs swung over the mattress' edge, he rose with an exhale of effort, the trip up from the floor long where he'd spent the last three hours convincing himself to relax. Shoulders hunched in, the muscles of his back pulled to strain. A frown settled, even in the dark, and he slipped out of the bedroom's open door with a half glance sent over his shoulder at what he was leaving behind.
The stairs down were cold on his bare feet, Marks above and below his ankles lending their aid to his silence as he descended. Star- and moonlight spilled in from naked, superfluous windows on all sides, and the skylights above. Dust motes caught in moonbeams, drifting like molted feathers, disturbed when he moved through them. Lofts had never been high on his list of comfortable abodes. There was something unsettling about having a pane of glass at his back and very little usable barriers at his disposal. He'd taken solace in New York at the fact that the ground was some fifteen stories below and he'd familiarized himself with escape routes within days of settling in. In the end, that had not been enough. Though, even now, even in the dark, even glamoured and warded, he smeared a palm across the nape of his neck as he took in each invisible window, chilly as sheets of ice and just as clear.
Padding into the kitchen, a ten by fourteen rectangle of stone tiles sectioned off by a horseshoe of squat cabinets and a stainless steel refrigerator, he flipped a switch that sent a sterile fluorescent halo down into the sink. Its left well already had a mug standing in it. He picked it up and turned it in his hand. An absurdly jovial bumblebee flitted across its shiny side, a trail of black dashes describing its loopy trajectory. And he smiled.
The mug itself had appeared in their cupboard months ago, without warning. Perhaps not so coincidentally, about two weeks prior to that, he'd brought home a small paper bag overflowing with red tissue paper. Inside had been the mug that stared at him now from the eye level, glass cupboard above the sink. White ceramic emblazoned with a pink, hand drawn heart, a messy bullet hole gored through its center. Leena had called him ridiculous, she had called it ridiculous. But he had seen it on the shelf the next day, and twelve days later, it had company.
He opened the cupboard next to it and took down the half empty bottle of whiskey he kept there. It had taken months to whittle down, and it had been with him through several dive motels and sleepless nights, a bite of comforting fire down his throat when it was too late for a tea kettle. Two glugs equaled a shot. With the mug in his hand, he turned his back on the overhead light and rubbed the scowl wrinkling his eyebrows.
The thought slipped in on a wave of absolute silence, when even the hum of the refrigerator to his right went quiet: Your time, young Nephilim, is running out. He pressed his open palm to the center of his chest instead. His heart beat strong behind his ribs, a muted hammer, rhythmic and even, and his hand came away clean when he looked. He remembered the rune that had sat there in blood on his skin like it was there now. A crude zigzag that looked like it had been gouged into existence rather than inscribed with careful precision.
Demons lied, he told himself, sipping a measure of whiskey from the mug. That was if they had the brains to formulate thoughts, and a mouth that worked well enough to articulate them. Most of the demons he'd come in contact with had not been highly intelligent beyond their natural instincts to rend and destroy, though an Eidolon could be crafty in its pursuits. The liquor burned his tongue, and so he swallowed.
The demon that visited him was not an Eidolon. Cris was certain he hadn't seen anything like the buffalo headed beast before, nor had he felt a presence so innately oppressive, as if by simply being near it, he was forced to stiffen up and buckle his knees against the strain. A creature like that wouldn't have batted an eyelash at terrorizing lesser beings. As loath as he was to think of himself as one, he couldn't deny that without a great deal of aid, he would be outmatched against a demon of that caliber.
But why? Like the demon's warning, why swung round the interior of his skull on a loop. He turned the mug in his hand, picking at the curved outline of one of the bumblebee's four wings. Every time he chased that thought, he ended up in the same place. Why?
---Why not? always came the response, along with a spike of irritation driven hard into his temple. It was not his place to understand why, but to accept that it had happened. Frowning, Cris gulped down the rest of his whiskey and wiped his mouth with the outside of his thumb. He remembered the soul-deep chill that had stolen his breath and made him clutch the beast's lapels to stay upright. There had been no malice in the warning, only indifference, the cool delivery of a parent well seasoned to the antics of too many children.
He set the empty mug on the counter behind him and dug his phone free of his back pocket. A scrape of his thumb awakened the dark screen and he watched, a moment, as a pair of shooting stars fell across the hyacinth twilight hanging over the Grand Canyon. Two fingers against his brow, he opened the Contacts menu and scrolled until he found Robert's number.
It was worth looking into for the mere fact that for two months, he could not go one day without idly visiting the incident, like he could find something new in his memories. Like he could make sense of it now without the stain of another Nephilim's blood all over his hands or the look of sweet relief eroding the marble of Marion's last expression as he died. Was it guilt that ate at him? Over working with a demon, voluntarily killing one of his own kind? He had broken the Accords several times over, but never, ever, the Law. A long, slow exhale steadied his hand as he keyed two simple texts:
I need to discuss something with you.
As soon as possible.
Stuffing his hand through his hair, and his phone back into his pocket, he left his modest mess behind on the counter and returned to the comfort of a mattress on the floor, and a dozing Angel within arm's reach.
Before he changed his mind.
He opened his eyes to a darkness so thick and black, it was like he hadn't opened them at all. The air around him was still but for the even breathing of the body at his side. Too shallow and quick to convince him she was anything but half asleep. Despite overlapping layers of wards and the added reassurance that they were the only two souls who knew the location of their loft, Leena, like him, often toed the line of half consciousness even behind locked doors.
Cris eased up from the bed with caution, sweeping the wealth of a thick down comforter aside. Its bleach white cotton ate the shadows and turned them grey to his eyes. Legs swung over the mattress' edge, he rose with an exhale of effort, the trip up from the floor long where he'd spent the last three hours convincing himself to relax. Shoulders hunched in, the muscles of his back pulled to strain. A frown settled, even in the dark, and he slipped out of the bedroom's open door with a half glance sent over his shoulder at what he was leaving behind.
The stairs down were cold on his bare feet, Marks above and below his ankles lending their aid to his silence as he descended. Star- and moonlight spilled in from naked, superfluous windows on all sides, and the skylights above. Dust motes caught in moonbeams, drifting like molted feathers, disturbed when he moved through them. Lofts had never been high on his list of comfortable abodes. There was something unsettling about having a pane of glass at his back and very little usable barriers at his disposal. He'd taken solace in New York at the fact that the ground was some fifteen stories below and he'd familiarized himself with escape routes within days of settling in. In the end, that had not been enough. Though, even now, even in the dark, even glamoured and warded, he smeared a palm across the nape of his neck as he took in each invisible window, chilly as sheets of ice and just as clear.
Padding into the kitchen, a ten by fourteen rectangle of stone tiles sectioned off by a horseshoe of squat cabinets and a stainless steel refrigerator, he flipped a switch that sent a sterile fluorescent halo down into the sink. Its left well already had a mug standing in it. He picked it up and turned it in his hand. An absurdly jovial bumblebee flitted across its shiny side, a trail of black dashes describing its loopy trajectory. And he smiled.
The mug itself had appeared in their cupboard months ago, without warning. Perhaps not so coincidentally, about two weeks prior to that, he'd brought home a small paper bag overflowing with red tissue paper. Inside had been the mug that stared at him now from the eye level, glass cupboard above the sink. White ceramic emblazoned with a pink, hand drawn heart, a messy bullet hole gored through its center. Leena had called him ridiculous, she had called it ridiculous. But he had seen it on the shelf the next day, and twelve days later, it had company.
He opened the cupboard next to it and took down the half empty bottle of whiskey he kept there. It had taken months to whittle down, and it had been with him through several dive motels and sleepless nights, a bite of comforting fire down his throat when it was too late for a tea kettle. Two glugs equaled a shot. With the mug in his hand, he turned his back on the overhead light and rubbed the scowl wrinkling his eyebrows.
The thought slipped in on a wave of absolute silence, when even the hum of the refrigerator to his right went quiet: Your time, young Nephilim, is running out. He pressed his open palm to the center of his chest instead. His heart beat strong behind his ribs, a muted hammer, rhythmic and even, and his hand came away clean when he looked. He remembered the rune that had sat there in blood on his skin like it was there now. A crude zigzag that looked like it had been gouged into existence rather than inscribed with careful precision.
Demons lied, he told himself, sipping a measure of whiskey from the mug. That was if they had the brains to formulate thoughts, and a mouth that worked well enough to articulate them. Most of the demons he'd come in contact with had not been highly intelligent beyond their natural instincts to rend and destroy, though an Eidolon could be crafty in its pursuits. The liquor burned his tongue, and so he swallowed.
The demon that visited him was not an Eidolon. Cris was certain he hadn't seen anything like the buffalo headed beast before, nor had he felt a presence so innately oppressive, as if by simply being near it, he was forced to stiffen up and buckle his knees against the strain. A creature like that wouldn't have batted an eyelash at terrorizing lesser beings. As loath as he was to think of himself as one, he couldn't deny that without a great deal of aid, he would be outmatched against a demon of that caliber.
But why? Like the demon's warning, why swung round the interior of his skull on a loop. He turned the mug in his hand, picking at the curved outline of one of the bumblebee's four wings. Every time he chased that thought, he ended up in the same place. Why?
---Why not? always came the response, along with a spike of irritation driven hard into his temple. It was not his place to understand why, but to accept that it had happened. Frowning, Cris gulped down the rest of his whiskey and wiped his mouth with the outside of his thumb. He remembered the soul-deep chill that had stolen his breath and made him clutch the beast's lapels to stay upright. There had been no malice in the warning, only indifference, the cool delivery of a parent well seasoned to the antics of too many children.
He set the empty mug on the counter behind him and dug his phone free of his back pocket. A scrape of his thumb awakened the dark screen and he watched, a moment, as a pair of shooting stars fell across the hyacinth twilight hanging over the Grand Canyon. Two fingers against his brow, he opened the Contacts menu and scrolled until he found Robert's number.
It was worth looking into for the mere fact that for two months, he could not go one day without idly visiting the incident, like he could find something new in his memories. Like he could make sense of it now without the stain of another Nephilim's blood all over his hands or the look of sweet relief eroding the marble of Marion's last expression as he died. Was it guilt that ate at him? Over working with a demon, voluntarily killing one of his own kind? He had broken the Accords several times over, but never, ever, the Law. A long, slow exhale steadied his hand as he keyed two simple texts:
I need to discuss something with you.
As soon as possible.
Stuffing his hand through his hair, and his phone back into his pocket, he left his modest mess behind on the counter and returned to the comfort of a mattress on the floor, and a dozing Angel within arm's reach.
Before he changed his mind.