impudentsongbird | let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

Entry tags:

let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

Book Four: Dark Days
1 | into the breach
2 | finding skulduggery
3 | retreat to the tunnels
4 | into the cacophony
5 | sanctuary in the cathedral
6 | reuniting old friends
7 | kenspeckle's new patient
8 | holy water and disinfectant
9 | objecting to china sorrows
10 | the roadtrip
11 | baffling guild
12 | shenanigans at the safehouse
13 | reassuring fletcher
14 | valkyrie's intervention
15 | solomon's revelation
16 | visiting the edgleys
17 | recalled to the sanctuary
18 | guild's confusion
19 | gabe is busted
20 | the psychic tattoist
21 | envisioning the cacophony
22 | angel's first migraine
23 | the morning after
24 | china and solomon
25 | detectives' council of war
26 | china's foolishness
27 | the collector dethroned
28 | finding crux
29 | skulduggery's vileness revealed
30 | sorrows in aftermath
31 | finding equilibrium
32 | the devil's number
33 | at the carnival
34 | meeting authorities
35 | solomon's confession
36 | the stray soul
37 | sanguine unsettled
38 | solomon's choice
39 | a cowboy underground
40 | in scarab's basement
41 | striking midnight
42 | craven contested
43 | emergency services
44 | on your feet
45 | and don't stop moving
46 | easy recognition
47 | a deuce of an evening
48 | engines roaring
49 | compromising judgements
50 | solomon's conflict
51 | axis turning
52 | thinking circular
53 | blasting the past
54 | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
55 | sanctuary unsanctified
56 | shudder unravelling
57 | catching an angel
58 | layering dimensions
59 | dead men meeting
60 | when it rains
61 | power plays
62 | sing on gold
63 | the valley of death
64 | grand aspersions
65 | no evil feared
66 | new days rising
67 | angelic neuroses
68 | step-brothers working
69 | the many sorrows of china
70 | peacefully wreathed
71 | tarnished gold
72 | the secret in darkness
73 | magical intent
74 | scars worth keeping
75 | benefits of a beau
76 | grand magery
77 | lighting the darkness
78 | old dogs and new tricks
79 | flouting traditions
80 | drawing lines
81 | brothers and sisters in arms
82 | channelling angels
83 | return of the carnies
84 | the death bringers
85 | meriting agelessness
86 | knick knack, paddy
87 | give a dog a bone
88 | americans propheteering
89 | the right side of honour
90 | tailored shocks
91 | hosting angels
92 | elders anonymous
93 | rediscovered strays
94 | changings and changelings
95 | a state of reflection
96 | adding hope
97 | the devil's truth
98 | dead mens' hospitality
99 | lives half lived
100 | next to godliness
101 | devilish plans
102 | beached angels
103 | lights of revelation
104 | heroes worshipped
105 | new devilries
106 | angels under the yoke
107 | brains frozen
108 | father, mother, daughter
109 | parental guidance recommended
110 | driven round the bend
111 | ongoing training
112 | privileged information
113 | reasonable men
114 | passing the buck
115 | gifting magicks
116 | strengths and weaknesses
117 | immaturity's perks
118 | priests and prophets
119 | scaling evil
120 | blowing covers
121 | marring an afternoon
122 | lie detection
123 | five-dimensional pain
124 | reliving nightmares
125 | taking stock
126 | sampling spices
127 | sleeping prophets lying
128 | rueful returns
129 | dead men reunion
130 | medically-approved hugs

The life of an angel was a contradiction in changes and stability. On one hand, they understood very well the way the cosmos was shaped by events within it. On the other, they stood at one step apart from it—or at least had, for a very long time, up until their Master's recent wager with Lucifer. Changes in the recent past had, even for angels, been fast and turbulent, but there were none that concerned Raphael more than Gabriel's abrupt reserve.

In the aftermath of the wager Gabriel had been almost the only one to know where their Lord was at any given time, a fact which had put the Archangel very firmly under Lucifer's radar. Raphael had joked that Gabriel ought to arm himself with more jokes or worse clothes to drive the fallen angel away; Michael had offered the peace of the Garden Coast. (Rafe thought his idea was better.)

Either way, even though their Master was fair hidden, every angel knew that they had only to ask Gabriel and the Archangel would pass on a message.

Then Gabriel had simply blipped off the radar himself. Poof! Gone! No one had noticed at first, because, well, they weren't exactly in constant connection. It was just when Raphael had taken a whim to seek out his younger brother that he'd noticed it, and let it be, because there was absolutely a reason for it. Gabe did not just off and vanish, except that once with his self-exile, and that didn’t count.

But when Gabriel had come back, he had been strangely agitated and yet close-mouthed. The younger Archangel had vanished off to wherever their Master was hidden for a long chat Raphael was dying to have listened into, and yet couldn't (but only partly because it would have been rude). Now he was here, floating among the stars and examining a black hole with unnerving intensity.

For a time Raphael watched without letting on that he was there, but eventually Gabriel spoke. “I’d rather you came to join me instead of lurking, brother.”

Absolutely refusing to feel chagrined, Raphael let himself manifest with an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and ruffled the younger angel’s hair. Gabriel threw a fond, longsuffering glance up at him, but there was something in his eyes, something distracted and sharp, which indicated that Gabriel still wasn’t truly present. Raphael only wished he knew where the other Archangel was.

“Just wondering what you’re doin’ all the way out here,” he said teasingly. “There’s a party going on down there on Earth, Gabe.” There was always a party going on down on Earth. “You oughta be down there bobbin’ for apples and switching up party-hats!”

“I can’t,” Gabriel said quietly, with a sort of seriousness Raphael had, for all Gabriel’s literalness, rarely heard from him. So Raphael fell into the same seriousness, lost his playful accent, and spoke directly.

“Why not, brother? You’ve been reserved of late. I conf—I’m worried for you.”

For a very long time Gabriel said nothing and stared into the slow-turning swirl of the black hole. Raphael waited patiently, his arm still companionably across the other Archangel’s shoulders. Eventually Gabriel spoke. “Did you know, Raphael,” he said, “that the universe you see around you here isn’t the only one our Master has created?”

Raphael was so startled that he couldn’t answer. That wasn’t what he was imagining. He hadn’t been sure what he’d been imagining, but that wasn’t it. “I’m not sure what you mean, Gabriel,” he said after a moment. “Our Lord told me the story of Creation not all that long ago, and he never mentioned anything of the kind.”

Gabriel nodded. “He told me that story as well. And then He asked if I really wanted to know details.” He hesitated. “I … admit, I declined. It’s something He said—about faith. I decided I didn’t need to know details. But it’s true, nevertheless. Just beyond this …” The Archangel reached out his hand and touched that gossamer and unbreakable fabric that supported reality. “There are other universes, even with different versions of us.”

“Different versions of us?” Raphael repeated, appalled and uncertain and entirely confused. How could that be possible? What could their Master want with more than one of any of them? What was going on? Where had Gabriel gone in that time he’d vanished? Then something occurred to him and he smiled with relief. “This is a joke, right?”

Gabriel looked up at him and smiled back with such a gentle understanding that for a moment Raphael felt very small indeed. “No, Rafe. I’m not joking. It was a shock to me too. That isn’t the point, though.”

“Isn’t it?” Raphael asked, feeling as dazed as an angel possibly could, especially when he wasn’t even inhabiting an actual physical body.

“No.” Gabriel returned to watching the black hole intently. “I met some people from other realities. One of them is in a kind of Hell, and he very much does not deserve it. I promised him that, if I could, I would save him from it.”

Which did not in the least explain why Gabe was staring at a black hole, let alone a million other questions Raphael would have liked to ask and for which he couldn’t find the words. Finally he found one. “How?”

“First,” Gabriel said with a sort of tranquillity Raphael had heard in his brother’s voice a million times but never after delivering so turbulent a piece of news, “I’m going to jimmy open a crack in the door through this hole.”

Raphael stared at Gabe, and then at the black hole, and then back at Gabe. He opened his mouth to ask whether their Master knew he was planning this and then closed it, because that was a stupid question. He opened it again to query if Gabriel had asked whether he could go around lifting the sheets and then realised that was also a stupid question, because whether he had or not, their Master probably would have told him to do what he felt was best.

It was equally clear that Gabriel very much planned to go through with this, no matter what Raphael said, and really, did Raphael have the right to object? Surely if this carried a risk, their Master would have already forbidden Gabriel from making the attempt?

“I’ll come with,” Raphael said at last, and this time when Gabriel glanced back the younger Archangel’s expression was startled. A moment later that expression shifted into grateful apology.

“I’m sorry, Rafe, but I’m not entirely certain I’ll make it through, and we can hardly leave Michael here alone.” He grinned. “Did you see what he was wearing last festival day on the Garden Coast? He hasn’t moved out of the eighteenth century yet. How would he possibly handle the rest of the world?”

Raphael laughed out loud, warm but startled, and the sound of it rang through space. Gabriel chuckled quietly beside him, and for a few minutes there was just companionable humour that faded into an equally comfortable silence.

Still, Raphael had a lot of questions. How did Gabriel plan to find his friend, let alone the universe he was in? How was he going to get back? What would he do if he met another version of himself? Or, worse, Lucifer? Finally the Archangel just asked, “Have you figured out how to crack open the door?”

“I think so,” Gabriel said, considering the black hole. “Once I figured out what to look for. I wouldn’t have gotten even that far if it weren’t for some things our Master said.”

Which meant that, in some fashion, this expedition was sanctioned by their Master, Raphael translated, and something tense in him relaxed. “Something do to with this drain here, I’ll bet,” he said, falling into his casual accent once more. “Gonna rip out the kitchen sink, li’l brother?”

“Just to see what’s hiding underneath,” Gabriel said with a grin.

“I’ll try’n keep it open for ya,” Raphael promised, and Gabriel sent him a smile which lit up the very space around them with its brilliance.

“Thank you, Rafe,” he said, and straightened. Raphael took his arm away as Gabriel lifted his hands, not exactly stepping back so much as giving Gabriel space. The youngest Archangel didn’t often reveal his power, but it was always a sight to see, a song to hear, when he did.

As it was now. Gabriel’s voice started deep, lifted high, split and wove and became more melodies than one would think a single being could possibly sing at once. The sound of it made Raphael’s heart soar, made him want to fly and laugh. It was so deep, so light, so resonating that it was physical; it touched the slow turn of the black hole and made it, for just the briefest of moments, still. In that moment Gabriel sent a carefully-aimed bolt of energy into the heart of it.

It was the kind of sight Raphael hadn’t seen in thousands of years, a play of physics and metaphysics which he hadn’t thought possible, let alone imagined. There was an eruption in the centre of the black hole, where gravity was condensed; the cascade of energy plumed upward and was dragged back down as quick, a tear in the fabric of the reality not allowed the time to widen or become a danger.

Raphael didn’t even know Gabe had moved until the younger Archangel was gone, he was so busy staring in awe. With a start the Archangel stretched out his senses and just barely managed to catch a glimpse of his brother shooting toward the hole at speeds few angels could have achieved through such a gravity well. Raphael certainly couldn’t have.

How, he suddenly wondered, was he meant to keep that open if he didn’t even have the speed of thought to track Gabriel’s movements through it?

Desperately the Archangel cast about for something to jam in the door, as it were. There was some dark matter nearby and with a thought he fashioned it into a spear and pitched it toward the centre of the black hole. It struck just as Gabriel flitted through the crack nearly wholly collapsed in on itself; the star’s gravity caught it, pulled it in, and plugged the opening like a metaphysical sink.

Slowly Raphael made every part of himself relax. For good or ill, Gabe was gone on this quest of his, and now Raphael should probably go and round up some of their younger siblings to guard the area. Just in case.

Book Four: Dark Days
into the breach | finding skulduggery | retreat to the tunnels | into the cacophony | sanctuary in the cathedral | reuniting old friends | kenspeckle's new patient | holy water and disinfectant | objecting to china sorrows | the roadtrip | baffling guild | shenanigans at the safehouse | reassuring fletcher | valkyrie's intervention | solomon's revelation | visiting the edgleys | recalled to the sanctuary | guild's confusion | gabe is busted | the psychic tattoist | envisioning the cacophony | angel's first migraine | the morning after | china and solomon | detectives' council of war | china's foolishness | the collector dethroned | finding crux | skulduggery's vileness revealed | sorrows in aftermath | finding equilibrium | the devil's number | at the carnival | meeting authorities | solomon's confession | the stray soul | sanguine unsettled | solomon's choice | a cowboy underground | in scarab's basement | striking midnight | craven contested | emergency services | on your feet | and don't stop moving | easy recognition | a deuce of an evening | engines roaring | compromising judgements | solomon's conflict | axis turning | thinking circular | blasting the past | reviling vile

Book Five: Mortal Coil
sanctuary unsanctified | shudder unravelling | catching an angel | layering dimensions | dead men meeting | when it rains | power plays | sing on gold | the valley of death | grand aspersions | no evil feared | new days rising | angelic neuroses | step-brothers working | the many sorrows of china | peacefully wreathed | tarnished gold | the secret in darkness | magical intent | scars worth keeping | benefits of a beau | grand magery | lighting the darkness | old dogs and new tricks | flouting traditions | drawing lines | brothers and sisters in arms | channelling angels | return of the carnies | the death bringers | meriting agelessness | knick knack, paddy | give a dog a bone | americans propheteering | the right side of honour | tailored shocks | hosting angels | elders anonymous | rediscovered strays | changings and changelings | a state of reflection | adding hope | the devil's truth | dead mens' hospitality | lives half lived | next to godliness | devilish plans | beached angels | lights of revelation | heroes worshipped | new devilries | angels under the yoke | brains frozen | father, mother, daughter | parental guidance recommended | driven round the bend | ongoing training | privileged information | reasonable men | passing the buck | gifting magicks | strengths and weaknesses | immaturity's perks | priests and prophets | scaling evil | blowing covers | marring an afternoon | lie detection | five-dimensional pain | reliving nightmares | taking stock | sampling spices | sleeping prophets lying | rueful returns | dead men reunion | medically-approved hugs

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Paddy had been in mid-sip. Mid-nervous-sip. Nervously imagining what a war between sorcerers might be like, now that he knew sorcerers existed and he could conceivably become involved somehow. He didn't want to be, but he couldn't very well just sit back and do nothing.

That sip he'd been halfway finished with went down the wrong way, causing Paddy to choke and drop his mug. It fell onto the table with a clatter, remained miraculously intact, and rolled off the edge of the knotted wooden surface, where it probably would have smashed into pieces on the tiled floor if Paddy hadn't had the presence of mind to reach out and snag it.

Hadn't he just been internally remarking on how powerful sorcerers were? How much right they had to be arrogant? How much their actions and their decisions affected the entire rest of the world without anyone even being aware of it?

"They're out to do what?" Paddy demanded, ignoring Solomon's last words. His voice, far from the fearful uncertainty of seconds before, was now sharp. "They're planning what? And the Sanctuaries don't know about this?"

That wasn't even a matter of religious faith. Paddy had seen similarly misguided people believe things that, if not worse, were at least as close to it as non-sorcerers could possibly get. But he'd assumed such secrecy only existed in keeping magic hidden from most of the world. He didn't think sorcerers kept secrets like that from each other. A naive viewpoint, perhaps, but all Paddy could do for a moment was stare at Solomon in abject disbelief.

Then it finally occurred to him why Solomon had withdrawn when he realised what he'd said. "You. You were prepared to go that far?"

It occurred to Solomon then that he had, perhaps, become far too relaxed in trusting Paddy Steadfast. He was a good man, and he had helped Solomon when he needed help the most, in a way no sorcerer could have helped him. But to do so Solomon had broken one of the magical communities greatest laws--politically and socially.

From the very beginning, he had never hidden anything from Paddy. From the very beginning, he had been open with him in a way no sorcerer would be with a mortal, in a way no Necromancer would be with anyone, in a way Solomon had never been even with Skulduggery.

He'd forgotten the things he hadn't said. That, knowing or not, Paddy wasn't used to how brutal their world could be.

Even though he couldn't meet Paddy's gaze to begin with, Solomon found he couldn't even lift his head enough to try, and wondered whether shame was something anyone got used to. Maybe only if their name was Skulduggery Pleasant.

He managed a grim, bitter smile.

"I did tell you I'm not a good man." It amounted to a confession. If he tried to change the subject, would Paddy let him? The ex-Necromancer tilted his head just enough to watch the sharpness of the sun in Paddy's soul. Probably not. There wasn't any point in trying, then. "When people die they go into the lifestream. The idea is to use three billion souls to block the link between our world and the lifestream at large, and thereby save the other three billion from death entirely. It's metaphysically possible."

Gabe's reaction had told him that. It was hard not to pay attention to an Archangel's horror.

"Three billion souls, to block this world from Heaven," he murmured in the cadence of a quote. Quoting Gabriel. "I'd have done it. I was prepared to do it. That's what I was grooming Valkyrie for--I thought she could be a Necromancer of sufficient power to pull it off. That's what our ... their ... saviour is about. The Death Bringer. A Necromancer powerful enough to kill three billion people all at once."

He didn't even try to smile this time, but he looked almost in Paddy's direction. "And no, the Sanctuaries don't know this. Only the highest clerics in the Temple know it. It's their most closely guarded secret. That's why they needed to take me back so badly."

The only other Necromancer Solomon knew who had managed to leave the Temple and not be taken was Morwenna Crow, and it was for much the same reason they had left him alone now. She'd grown too close to Meritorious, had become an Elder. She had seen the wisdom in not perpetuating a second war so closely after Mevolent, and hadn't mentioned the Temple's Passage to Meritorious. Solomon wondered if she would have, if she'd had to.

"The Irish Sanctuary knows," he said. "Tenebrae will rightly assume I told them. We can use it to control him, but only to a certain extent. If war is inevitable either way, Corrival will tell the other nations. After that there would be no stopping it."

Three billion souls.

Three billion souls sacrificed to stop the rest from ever dying.

Paddy was glad he was already sitting down. He might have collapsed to the floor otherwise, with the way the strength flowed immediately out of his legs. As it was, he put the mug down before he could cause any more damage to it, and sat back with his face in his hands.

Solomon had said before that he wasn't a good man. It was almost the first thing he'd said, back when Paddy first met him. That he wasn't a good man, and that he'd plotted the deaths of others for the sake of his own power. Paddy believed him even then - believed, at least, in the physical truth of those words. He hadn't believed Solomon was beyond saving. Still didn't, if he was being brutally honest with himself.

But three billion people.

Of course the Sanctuaries didn't know. Not even sorcerers could be arrogant enough to ignore something like that. How could anyone... how could anyone wake up in the morning, knowing that their grand purpose in life was to murder half the world, and go on like there was nothing wrong with that? Like they were actually doing the world some great service?

No deaths. No births. No life. No hardships, and therefore no victories. Free will would stagnate. Life would stagnate.

At least, Paddy managed to remind himself, Valkyrie's given up Necromancy as well.

Everyone was afraid of death. Paddy was afraid of death. It was natural, it was human, it was why humanity had survived for as long as it had - being afraid of the unknown kept people safe. Overcoming that fear was what life was all about, what made life worth living. You couldn't become stuck in that fear, as Necromancers had. You couldn't just... rid yourself of the source of that fear. It was wrong. It was immoral. Until a few minutes ago, Paddy would have said it was impossible.

"Solomon..." Paddy had absolutely no clue what to follow up with, so he stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "Solomon."

Nope. Still nothing. Paddy's throat felt too dry to form words, or at least any more words than that. His head was starting to swim.

War, essentially, was inevitable.

Maybe that was how things were meant to be. At least now the Irish Sanctuary knew, thanks to Solomon. Maybe that was Solomon's purpose. Maybe that was why Solomon had seen Saint Gabriel, and been offered a way out. A way to be saved. Maybe a cult as deeply evil as the Necromancers were could only be eradicated through a preemptive attack.

And maybe not.

"This... event," Paddy eventually forced. This instantaneous mass murder. "It can only happen if there's a... Death Bringer, yes? Has anyone ever been that powerful?"

Solomon had to shut his eyes. The scorching heat of the sunlight on Paddy's oasis beat against his face to such a degree that he actually had to turn his face aside, feeling as if he was in the desert at midday. The fact that Paddy couldn't even speak ... Solomon didn't try to interrupt.

He wasn't sure what it meant, that Paddy tried to say Solomon's name and couldn't. What would have come after his name, if the priest had been able to speak? The shock was overwhelming, but it was just that: shock. There was a surprising, almost disturbing, lack of anger in there. That was the part that shocked Solomon in turn. That was the part that made him not want to lie and do at once--because Paddy deserved honesty, but because he didn't deserve more surprises like that.

It took him a moment to answer. He'd already said he was grooming Valkyrie for it, but she had never gotten far enough to prove whether his faith in her had been well-placed. The others ...

The ex-Necromancer unstuck his tongue. "I was. Technically speaking. There's a specific Necromantic ability--the Death Aura. The Necromancer extends his awareness outward like a bubble, capturing every soul inside that bubble. The larger the bubble, the more souls captured. When he draws his awareness back in, all those souls come with. All at once. It's how the Passage was meant to be achieved, so anyone who can use that power, technically speaking, is classified as a Death Bringer."

He shook his head almost violently. "I was only ever able to use it once ... twice. Because I was terrified beyond all reason. I doubt it's something I'd have been able to use at will even with training, and I didn't want it in any case. I made sure Tenebrae never found out I could."

For a long moment he hesitated. He wasn't going to mention Skulduggery. Not specifically. But Paddy had asked. "The only other person I know who achieved that distinction is the reason I never mentioned it myself. Tenebrae would have had us fight, and I'd have been killed for sure. His name was Lord Vile; he was one of Mevolent's generals during the war. He was the single most powerful Necromancer in history. If there was someone who could have brought the Passage about--it would have been him. He murdered millions that way."

Paddy could feel it again - that mind-numbing haze descending, removing him from the conversation, making him feel like he was experiencing a dream. Or hearing a fictional story. Perhaps watching a movie, a series of events happening to somebody else. Anything other than being delivered cold, hard facts about a man who could use a mind bubble to kill millions of people at once.

The haze was probably for his own good, because whatever possible alternative there was, it would no doubt be worse. But Paddy couldn't think clearly through it. He could barely think the words 'Death Aura,' let alone say them out loud. The feeling was starting to give him a stress headache.

Maybe it would help if Paddy actually tried to think of all this as a story.

He tried. It didn't.

There were a few lucid thoughts that managed to make their way through the haze. At least Solomon was out. Solomon and Valkyrie. Thousands of years of searching for a saviour, and the Temple had only ever come up with what sounded like one. One. Lord Vile. Sorcerers really didn't fool around with their names, did they?

"Millions?" Paddy's voice came to him like it was being filtered through water, and it probably didn't sound much different from that. "Millions? Millions all at once and no one noticed?" He reached for his mug and took a sip, barely noticing that there was nothing to take a sip from. There was still tea in the mug, but none of it got anywhere near his lips, since his lips missed the rim entirely. "What happened to him? You referred to him in the past tense, but you didn't say what happened to him."

The strangled tone of Paddy's voice made Solomon wish there was something he could do for the man other than add to his numbness. There wasn't. Solomon didn't know how to comfort. The most he could do was be honest, and after the life he'd led that was still an achievement.

Unwillingly he still smiled. Grimly, but with genuine if ironic amusement. "There was a little sickness going around at the time called the Black Death. People didn't keep track of causes back then. Someone dropping dead for no apparent reason? They assumed it was the plague, or one of the myriads of other diseases going around at the time."

Solomon hesitated. His chest clenched in that familiar manner it did whenever he thought too deeply on Skulduggery and his being Vile. "He's ... no longer a threat," he said at last. "It's complicated. Only a handful of people know what happened to him. I'm not going to tell you, but only because it won't help you to know right now. Ask me again in a week or two, if you still want an answer."

There was no way he was going to add that burden to Paddy's shoulders until the priest was good and ready. In the meantime Solomon tried to muster a smile and failed. "Well. This conversation took a turn I wasn't intending, I admit."

Of course, Paddy thought numbly. The Black Death. How many other events in world history were actually the work of sorcerers? He already knew of one - Dublin being painted red was going to go down in infamy, and only a handful of people in the world had any idea what really happened. Not even sorcerers had any idea what really happened.

"Why don't I want to know?" Paddy asked. The words came unbidden to his mouth, and before he could stop them, they went on. "Because there's a possibility of him returning, or because I'll understand something?" It had to be one or the other. One or the other, because Solomon was doing his best not to lie, but he was obviously trying to protect something else at the same time. Was that something else Paddy, or - no. "You know what? Never mind."

Paddy rather wanted to go back to the days when he thought he was being visited by angels asking for holy water. Things made less sense then. He never thought he'd prefer that, but this conversation was certainly giving Paddy a run for his money.

"Have I managed to be of any help?" he asked with a weak smile. "Even if it was only by taking your mind off things?"

A week, and Paddy had thought that was enough time to be told everything. That there was nothing new to learn, only more to understand. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Solomon's lips quirked humourlessly as Paddy talked almost to himself, and then talked himself out of getting an answer before Solomon could refuse it. Solomon answered anyway. "You're forgetting I can see your state of being. Believe me, there are some things which won't help you to know right now."

But there might be something Solomon could do for him, he realised suddenly, and looked at Paddy more directly. He had managed to influence Corrival to some degree. He had managed to touch China's soul. He'd soothed Ghastly's emotional pain. Why couldn't he do the same for Paddy?

"You did," Solomon agreed a little absently. He'd never put much stock in talking over one's problems, but every time he spoke to Paddy, even when he didn't come to a perfect solution, he felt more on an even keel. He still didn't agree with the man's perception that he would or should start leading people in a spiritual manner, but he knew more about what might happen. If war was possible, there should be something they could do to prepare--to minimise it, if nothing else.

Paddy's soul was still hot enough to make the plants look withered and ragged, as if sand-lashed. The water's level hadn't lessened at all, but there was only so much it could do against the heat. Solomon hesitated for a moment, and then held out his hand, palm up, just short of touching one of the fronds.

"May I ...?"

"May you what?" Frazzled as he was, it took Paddy an extra moment to recognise Solomon's hand movement. Like he was reaching out to touch something in mid-air between the two of them. If Solomon hadn't mentioned being able to see Paddy's state of being just two seconds earlier, Paddy might not have recognised it at all. "Oh. Yes, of course."

Faintly ironic, that a man planning to do... that to three billion souls less than a month ago was now asking permission to touch one.

Paddy couldn't help smiling. As Solomon had said, the instincts were there; you couldn't change them. By his own admittance, then, Solomon always had the capacity for good. Being this considerate wouldn't have come so naturally to him otherwise. Solomon had traveled so far in such a short time, fighting hard the whole way through, just to get to where he should have been from the very beginning. Where he was meant to be. And now he held a position it was possible to do incredible things from.

Paddy couldn't be more proud of him.

Something changed. Solomon wasn't quite sure what, except that it involved a wash of cooling water across the oasis and a warmth within those waters quite unlike the searing heat of the sun. That warmth, he realised with a start, hadn't exactly come from him, but it was borrowed from him somehow. He could see it in the wisps that flowed off his hand.

He almost said 'never mind', because the change was enough to take the edge off the heat, except that he was still curious about what, exactly, he could do. And since Paddy had already given his permission ...

Solomon reached past the fronds to the root. He wasn't sure what it would do to liven up just one of the ferns, but when he willed those wisps to channel into it like an extra font of water. The fern turned green and lush, and so did the one next to it, and then the one next to that. After a moment Solomon realised that it made sense, metaphysically speaking, for all the plants to have interconnected roots.

It didn't wipe away the sun's heat. Solomon couldn't do anything about that. But the oasis didn't look so weathered under its force anymore. When Solomon withdrew his hand he felt noticeably, though not significantly, drained in a way he hadn't in a long time--as if he was using a muscle he'd only just discovered he had.

The haze lifted. Not completely, not by a long shot. But it definitely felt like a weight had rolled off Paddy's back, a weight he wasn't even aware had settled there in the first place. The world didn't feel quite so surreal anymore. It didn't make sense, but it didn't feel surreal anymore.

It was remarkable, actually, when he tried to reason out what was happening. The problem wasn't gone, and the way Paddy felt about it hadn't just vanished. Nothing had actually changed. But it was a little like going to bed after a lousy day and waking up on a sunny morning - it didn't matter that nothing had changed, you just felt more prepared to handle it. More energised. Less like the problems you were facing ended the world, and more like they were perfectly fixable if you just sat down with someone you trusted and talked things out.

Was it a measure of how Solomon felt? Was he soothing Paddy's soul using his own? It wouldn't have surprised him.

Paddy took a few moments after the feeling faded to let Solomon regain himself again before speaking. "If this doesn't drain you too much, I think you've answered your own question."

At first Solomon could only tilt his head at the priest. He hadn't really had any expectations about the man's reaction, but Paddy's meaning didn't quite make itself clear to him. It didn't show itself in his soul, either, which meant that Solomon was left in the dark.

"Which question?" he started to ask, before the obvious occurred. The question he'd come to ask to begin with. About how to speak to people. He frowned, half in thought and half, well, not.

"Somehow," he said, "I don't think any Necromancer would appreciate me touching their souls. People tend to object to invasions of privacy to that degree." Except Paddy, apparently. Would other Christians like him feel the same way? Were they so adjusted to the idea of a higher power who could see into their very beings that the thought someone might have that ability hardly gave them a second thought? Did they have anything in them of which to be ashamed?

That wasn't even getting into the moral quandary. Things Solomon had never bothered to consider previously had now become important, if only because he didn't trust his moral compass enough to know which answer was the right one. He had to ask the questions, things which to people like Paddy were so obvious, because if he didn't he didn't know which conclusion he'd draw.

"I'm not even sure it would be right," he admitted. "I can't help but see things, but there's no need for me to touch anyone's soul. Wouldn't doing so without permission constitute a breach of privacy?"

Granted, under many circumstances he probably wouldn't think twice about it. But he knew that he wouldn't like it if it were him on the receiving end, that he'd react badly, and right now these were the sorts of questions to which he needed some sort of answer.

Paddy considered that, his eyes on Solomon and yet not as he tried to imagine what it was the ex-Necromancer saw. In Paddy, he'd talked about an oasis in a desert. With the way he looked at Paddy sometimes, that oasis must stretch very far out. It could, for all Paddy knew, fill the entire kitchen. He'd never thought of the human soul as a tiny self-contained spark in peoples' cores, and it was nice to see that belief vindicated.

"That would depend, I think," he answered slowly. "People who need help don't always admit that they do, and they certainly don't always ask for it. It doesn't mean we shouldn't help them. Having said that..." Necromancers. Paddy still felt like he was in way over his head. "Judgment is always the difficult part. Everyone is different, whether brainwashed or not. There is no blanket cure, or one true way to handle things. It's a case-by-case basis. When you touch peoples' souls, are you changing who they are? Or are you just influencing parts of them?"

Solomon's touch hadn't achieved anything Paddy wouldn't have managed on his own, given time. In fact, it felt very much like Solomon was just expediting the amount of time it took the soul to heal itself naturally. It was the same basic principle as giving someone a hug, only with a touch of magic thrown in.

Paddy could well understand why someone might be averse to it, though. Were it not Solomon, he might not have been so quick to agree to it himself.

"Influencing," Solomon said after a moment. That was all he'd intended to do, on all the times when he'd made to touch. But that wasn't all that was possible, he didn't think. Trying to actively change a person through such direct means wasn't exactly something he could experiment with without pole-vaulting over that line.

"Your ferns looked dehydrated," he added, as if that was an explanation all to itself. "Because of the sunlight. I just gave them a little water, so to speak. But someone else I know has a spider-web soul, and when I touched her I think I could have changed the way her threads were woven."

His fingers flexed a little as if remembering that sensation, which he was. Contrasting it, comparing it, figuring it out. "Maybe not easily," he allowed. It had been unstable at the time. "But I think I could have. I don't know to what extent, but it isn't exactly something I can just play around with. The consequences would most likely be regrettable."

Still, it was a capacity to keep in mind, if he ever needed it. Especially now, he realised. Given Skulduggery, and his potential to be Vile. He had had that thought before--whether he should volunteer to be one of those holding the leash. If he could actively manipulate souls like that, bonds like that, weave a net just like the one Gabe was suggesting, then he shouldn't. If something went wrong with those leashes and no angels were around to fix it, he would have to do it himself. He couldn't do that while he was holding one corner of a net.

"I could," he murmured in that tone of realisation. "If I had to, if only to encourage them to change themselves."

Paddy still felt in way over his head. In-depth discussions with members of his congregation about moral dilemmas didn't usually go in directions like this, directions Paddy knew nothing about. It wasn't often he needed to think about what to say, as opposed to just thinking about the best way to phrase it.

But what about when he simply took away the idea of magic? Was it any easier to understand then?

In a way, it was. "Encouragement is never a bad thing, Solomon. Advice, encouragement, nudges in the right direction - it should all occur in all of us without a second thought. Your capabilities are just more... direct than most. What you did just now was the same sort of thing I try to do, except you accomplished it much more quickly."

Which was fine for Paddy, because he would have gotten there himself eventually. It wouldn't work in the same way for someone else, and therein lied the problem. "The thing is, sometimes the process is more important than the end result. It depends on the person. And, of course, the instant you actually change anything, even temporarily... I wouldn't do that, even with permission. Any sort of change in the soul has to come from within, not without."

Giving water to ferns was one thing. Changing the way a web was woven was something entirely different. Hardship was part of the struggle. You could ease someone's burden; you couldn't take it away. That would defeat the purpose.

"As I said," Paddy continued, "case-by-case basis. If it feels wrong to you, then it probably is." And it certainly wasn't something Paddy would want to see played around with, making him ever gladder Solomon was the one who had developed such powerful abilities.

For several minutes Solomon remained silent, because he had nothing immediate to say and he felt no need to do so. It was very rare that he felt comfortable enough with a person to just say nothing and not mind. Cleric Quiver was one of the few within the Temple, if only because Quiver himself was so reserved.

He was taking in what Paddy had said, slotting it into what he had heard and figured out so far. The things he'd known once and rejected, the things which were now important to consider. Paddy might have confidence in his ability to tell right from wrong, but Solomon wasn't quite as sure of his moral compass just yet.

Outside, he heard Dexter's shouts of encouragement (which wouldn't have been the least bit encouraging to Erin, had she been there, he was sure) and Sean's whoops of excitement. It seemed a distant little slice of unreality. A sorcerer and a mortal. A sorcerer teaching a mortal to drive a magical vehicle.

"How would you fight Lucifer?" he asked suddenly, without having intended to say anything at all. The words came out before he could think about them, and he paused. Just like it wouldn't be a good idea to bring up Vile, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to start talking about Lucifer as an actual being. Later, certainly, because if anyone other than the Archangels would be a good source of insight it would be Paddy. "Theoretically," he added. "My father ... said a great deal about resisting the Devil." He smiled, half tightly and half sadly. His father had, at one stage, feared he was the Devil. "How does that work in real life, exactly?"

Paddy was just wondering if they should perhaps go check on Sean and Dexter - some of those shouts were just a little bit worrying - when Solomon spoke again. He blinked, suddenly thrust back into familiar waters, but trapped in an unfamiliar boat being pulled this way and that in a violent storm.

"In real life," he said, "none of us are going to go knocking on the gates of Hell. At least, I hope we're not." Sorcerers didn't believe in God or the Devil, as far as Paddy knew - and why should they? Powerful as they were, they'd never seen any evidence - so it was highly unlikely anyone was going to start mounting a mission to go and try fighting Lucifer. At the same time, however, there was something about the way Solomon asked the question. Out of the blue, like he'd been meaning to ask for a while and only just remembered. Or like he was asking, as a nation's leader, for outside advice.

"It depends," Paddy added carefully, "on whether you mean resisting his influence and subsequent damnation, or fighting against him. What did your father tell you?"

"Well, he did try to exorcise me," Solomon said dryly, and then shook his head. "Either. Both. What does the Bible say? I can't remember. But Da took it all very seriously."

He had to stop, then, looking into what was, to him, empty space. He hadn't really spent much time thinking about his father, even lately, when he had all the reason in the world to do so. Things had happened too quickly, and he'd barely been able to keep up with what was happening in the present let alone consider the past too deeply. Even Lord Vile had been relevant to now, given that revelation.

What had his father said about fighting the Devil? It had been such a long time. As influential as those years had been, and he could barely remember them at all. Those memories were hazy and dust-covered. He hadn't considered them in so long he didn't know if he still could. The thought put a chill into his chest.

"I don't remember," he said softly. "I ... remember that he was very pious. That he was very proud to be so, and refused to submit to the King's Guard no matter what."

"Da, please!"

"I bid you be silent!"

"Ailbe, focus! We cannot allow ourselves to be put aside--not here and now. For your son's sake."

"I'm not--"

"Be silent, demon. Be silent and let my son hear this. We will deliver you from evil, Kian. We will."

After that, after all that and the way Solomon had used his soul, and the man's final words to him had been to live. Then again, Solomon had never doubted that his father loved him. Just his methods. And even then, he had been trying to save him the only way he knew how.

"He believed in man's power to reject evil." The memories weren't exactly coming faster, but now he thought about it, little details he'd never seen before were coming into the fore. He'd asked Solomon not to use magic after the exorcism had failed, as if that restraint would earn him God's grace, but then only a week ago simply asked him to live well. Was it possible for souls to change even after death? Solomon wasn't sure, but it seemed like a big leap.

"Whenever the King's guard harassed us he told me to ignore them. He never fell into the trap of arguing with them. He was never afraid of their judgement. He always said that God would be the one to decide their worth, but he never seemed worried about his own. The most afraid I ever saw him was when he worried for mine."

None of which exactly answered Paddy's question. Or maybe it did, in a way. All the little things Solomon's father had done, things Solomon hadn't known at the time--all the ways he'd acted which Solomon hadn't been able to accept. To stand upright for what he believed. To not be afraid of judgement, before death or after. To live well, so as to make that lack of fear possible. To be dignified, to accept responsibility, to admit one's mistakes.

Solomon realised he was silent, but couldn't find the words to continue. All of a sudden he missed his father with such intensity that it was a physical ache.

Paddy had heard many confessions in his time. Some were required of the person confessing, and therefore not taken seriously - or Paddy had to do most of the talking. Some were conversations that lasted hours. Some didn't start out as confessions, but turned that way when realisations were made. Paddy had learned long ago that while specific techniques and methods and words differed from person to person, the one tried and true way of helping someone was just letting them talk.

It wasn't quite the answer to his question, but it was something Solomon needed to talk about. So Paddy let him talk until he was silent again.

"He sounds like a good man." A little misguided, maybe, but Paddy had met many faithfully religious men who were a tad misguided. Their hearts were usually in the right place. "Brave, as well. You remember more of him than one would think."

Sorcerers lived for eight hundred years. Those born from sorcerers wouldn't have a problem, but Solomon couldn't be the only one who had non-magical parents. That was one of the saddest things Paddy could think of, living so long that your memories of your parents faded. If Sean ever did become a sorcerer, how long would it take for him to forget Erin? To start remembering her as a parent, as his mother, rather than Erin? She'd be dying of old age while Sean barely looked older than twenty-five.

"He was." A much better man than Solomon was. Even when he tried to have Solomon exorcised, it was only an attempt to rescue his son using the limited understanding he had. A lot of pious men at that time would have considered Solomon's life perfectly forfeit for destroying the Devil, so long as the Devil was destroyed. That was why he hadn't spread around just what Solomon's 'illness' was.

The sensation wasn't exactly like a bolt of lightning, but something clicked in Solomon's head. "He didn't consider the sacrifice of others a worthy route to fight Lucifer," he said. "If he did he would have seen my life as disposable to save my soul. Others would have called him selfish, wanting to keep me alive in spite of the risk, but he always looked down on that attitude. He used to say it was exactly the sort of arrogance the Devil wore."

The number of times Solomon had heard their peers sneering at his da, calling him arrogant because of his self-assurance, was too many to count. He was respected, yes, and well-liked to a certain degree, but in those days a pious man was proud in a self-abasing way. Solomon's father hadn't been. He had taken pride in all things he felt he should, and didn't compromise on those things.

And he had looked down on the attitude that more death would serve God. He was far more tolerant of serfs and peasants than most people thought he should be. Everyone employed on their estate was family. That was why Da had fronted up to the King's guard himself, instead of leaving his own men to hold them off while he escaped.

Solomon felt his face warm as his words registered. How must Da have felt, in agony and knowing he was being used to do exactly what everyone else of his faith had done--sacrificing everyone else in faith's name? He put his face in his hands, ran his fingers through his hair, shook his head. Then he brought his hands to his lips, resting his chin against his knuckles.

Responsibility. Self-sacrifice. Honesty, in word and in pride. What else? How else did Da fight the Devil? There was something teasing at his mind; Solomon shut his eyes to try and find it, as if dulling the lifestream would make his mental pictures visible.

"Do you see that, Kian?"

Kian's head snapped up and he straightened automatically, glancing to where Da was looking. He hadn't been paying attention, really. The marketplace was crowded and muddy, and Kian was too short to be able to see much. They had been there for hours, and he was tired of having to peer through wide bodies.

"What?" he asked, and then checked his belligerence with a, "Father."

Da smiled down at him, manoeuvring him in front so Kian could see through into the pen. There was a stallion inside being led through his paces by a breeder, tossing his mane and nostrils flaring. Kian was too young to know much about horses just yet, but even he could tell how smooth the stallion's pace was. He was beautiful, but Kian was more concerned with the warmth of his father's body behind him, his arms around him; the boy felt less like the wind was whipping right through him now. Da's boots and cloak were as muddy as anyone else's, but at least here Kian was protected from the splashes as others walked by.

"Isn't he magnificent, my son?"

"He is," Kian agreed, barely paying attention. Now that they'd come to a stop he was aware of how tired he felt. Why had they stopped? They didn't have enough money left to buy a horse of such breeding. "Da, he'd cost too much. We couldn't afford him."

"That's true," Da said. Kian waited, but Da didn't move or say anything else.

"Why are we waiting if we can't buy him?" he asked after a lengthy pause. Da looked down at him, his dark eyes flashing amusement, but not the sort that made Kian bristle.

"Well, he is beautiful, and this is the only opportunity we'd get to see him, isn't it?"

Kian frowned. It wasn't like there wouldn't be more horses next market-day, he thought, but he didn't ask again. Instead he huddled into his father's cloak to take advantage of the warmth, waiting with barely concealed impatience until Da was ready to move again.

Solomon's chest ached and there was a dampness in his eyes when he opened them, but nothing obstructed his throat. "He loved life," he said simply. "Most pious men then were more concerned with Heaven than Earth. He wasn't. He took the time to enjoy the things he enjoyed."

Like watching a magnificent horse being put through his paces, even when he couldn't afford to buy. Like taking the time to accept a bouquet of flowers from the gardener's daughter. Like diverting from riding home to cut through the meadows, even though it took longer, just so he could ride past the river.

Solomon could barely remember stopping to do anything for the sake of simple enjoyment. It wasn't exactly a priority in the Temple. But that was the point, wasn't it? Everything the Temple was, Lucifer revered. The selfishness, the loneliness, the fixation on the after instead of the now.

"And since He seems to enjoy riding roller coasters and winning piles of teddy bears to donate to hospitals, I'd say those are good places to start."

Ghastly's voice rang so loudly in Solomon's head that it was almost audible. The ex-Necromancer shook his head and then laughed. He wasn't sure why, except that suddenly some things had settled into place, a few more things in life actually made sense, and in spite of his regret and grief it was strangely buoying. Solomon did have things he liked beyond the Temple. That's why he'd been so eccentric.

"Have you ever had a suit tailored?" he asked impulsively. "There's something to be said for having a well-tailored suit. You and Sean are free this afternoon, aren't you?"

Paddy's surprise was broken a moment later by a smile. "I haven't had a suit tailored, no."

He didn't quite understand the change of subject, but he didn't really have to. Some part of him did. Some part of him made the connection between Solomon's nostalgic tales, his being on the edge of tears as he found the answers to his questions for himself, and then jumping immediately to an idea he was obviously quite fond of. He was a little like a child, in that respect. Paddy had often found that people going through such revelations would adopt an almost childlike attitude. It made him smile, every time.

"Theoretically, we're free," he nodded with a glance out the kitchen window. "If we can drag Sean away from the new bike, and if I can convince Erin to let him stay out until this evening."

"You have obviously been somewhat deprived in your life, Father Steadfast," Solomon said with a straight face. "There are few things as satisfying as a brand-new, specially-tailored suit. Fortunately, I happen to be friends with the best tailor in Ireland."

Then he smiled, not exactly a predatory smile but an anticipatory one. "Oh, I wouldn't worry. Dexter needs some new suits too. Between the three of us I'm sure we'll be able to convince Sean to let go of Sheila long enough for other presents. Perhaps not a suit, though." This last was said almost idly. "Suits are wasted on youths his age. But at the very least we can show him the pleasures of having tailored clothes."

Erin, he was sure, wouldn't be all that much of a hurdle at all. Paddy seemed to know how to handle his sister, and she seemed like the type who'd rather her son be introduced to some finer things in life as opposed to being encouraged to tear around the district on a motorcycle. It was a balancing act.

His smile didn't exactly widen, but now it was accompanied by a little twinkle of mischief which looked like it didn't appear all that regularly--but had had potential to, once upon a time. Solomon rose. "In the event his mother does object, we'd better hurry, hadn't we?"

Stephanie had woken up that morning to find her parents asleep in her bedroom.

She'd reacted the way most teenagers would - or at least, in Des's limited experience of teenagers, the way most would - and tried to kick them out. It took her less than a minute to remember the night before, and once she did, she reacted with a considerately humbling amount of shame. Even so, she was never out of Des's sight for longer than a few seconds that morning, and Melissa insisted on driving her to school. Stephanie wasn't happy about that, but she didn't argue.

Des and Melissa had spent most of the night talking about whether they'd even let her go to school the next few days. But in the end, they both agreed that holding her back would practically be the definition of overreacting. They still kept an eye on her, and Melissa still made her promise that she'd come straight home after school was over, but they'd be hypocrites if they tried to so much as pause her education in the meantime.

Melissa had work. Des didn't. He'd given himself the day off, without telling his wife, to try and sort things out for himself. It was only after he made the phone call and stood alone in the kitchen that he realised he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with his day off.

He started by going upstairs to Stephanie's room. Her wardrobe door was still open. The full-length mirror she'd shown them last night was on full display. Without thinking, without even a short pause, he walked over and touched it. Nothing happened. He hadn't honestly been expecting anything to. He still visibly relaxed, and found the strength to take out his mobile phone and dial the Sanctuary's phone number off the little card Corrival Deuce had given them.

He went through five different people before someone could finally give him Skulduggery Pleasant's number.

An hour later, Des was parking outside a small cafe on the outskirts of Dublin that he'd been to several times before. He was parking, moreover, right next to the gleaming black Bentley from last night, against which Skulduggery Pleasant himself was leaning. It took Des a moment after killing the engine, but when he got out of the car, he was smiling. "You were serious about the wig?"

"I don't make promises I don't intend to keep," Skulduggery told him. "Well, not anymore."

He looked a sight. Nicely-tailored suit, which looked as impeccable on him as it did the night before, together with a powdered judge's wig obscuring all of his natural hair. Des managed not to laugh, but it was a very close thing, particularly when he noticed innocent passersby stopping to gawk. "How do you normally handle delicate conversations? Cast spells on everyone in the cafe?"

Skulduggery shrugged. "The novelty wears off soon enough, and people usually only hear what they want to hear. I've never had a problem in the past."

"Really?"

"Really."

Des raised a skeptical eyebrow. "No one's ever asked you what science lab you escaped from?"

"That part is a tad more complicated. I've done fairly well, though."

"Your name is a dead giveaway, you know," Des pointed out sagely.

"And yet, I've never had anyone come up to my disguise and accuse me of being a living skeleton."

He had a sense of humour. That was good. Des leaned against the side of his car on his elbows and watched Skulduggery for a minute, observing without interruption the man who had nearly taken his daughter away from him. A lot less evil than Des had been picturing. Charming, though. Charming, and genuinely friendly. There was something magnetic about him, something that garnered trust. Misplaced trust, almost certainly, but trust nonetheless. Des could see how Stephanie fell under his spell, so to speak.

"I heard someone say you can eat like this," he said. "What do you say? My treat?"

Skulduggery's head tilted to the side. "Financially speaking, perhaps, but am I right in assuming I'll be paying for it anyway?"

"How?"

Skulduggery didn't answer, but he didn't really have to. Des's eyes widened, and with a laugh he couldn't quite help, he shook his head. "I'm not going to kick you, no. I just want a few answers."

"Without your wife?"

Des hesitated, wondering what the best way to phrase his feelings was. He didn't want to insult Melissa, even in her absence, but... "She's very protective. We both are, of course, but she didn't grow up with stories of magic. She's... I think it's probably better if she doesn't know everything. I do know everything. I know as much as Gordon did, if not more. I just want to know how much of it Stephanie has done. And unlike my wife, I won't blame you quite so violently."

Was he upset with Skulduggery? Yes. But Desmond knew very well how stubborn Stephanie could be, and it wouldn't have surprised him in the least if Stephanie could turn even a four-hundred-something year old living skeleton with that stubborn streak.

Skulduggery observed him quietly for a moment, and then nodded. "This is carte blanche, then? You're giving me permission to tell you absolutely everything in regard to Stephanie?"

"I'll blame you violently if you don't."

Was it just Des's imagination, or did Skulduggery actually flinch at those words? Melissa really did a fantastic job. "You should probably know that she sulks far more than is healthy."

"I knew that part," Des nodded, locking his car and stepping around it. "Shall we go in? How do you feel about a cup of tea?"

"I'll take anything," said Skulduggery, following him inside the cafe. "It's you I'm a little more worried about."

Des gave a good-natured scoff. "Me? I'll be fine. Give me a good strong mug of tea, and I can take anything."

~~

He was wrong.

There were no pits of words to describe how wrong Des was.

True to his word, Skulduggery didn't hold back. He didn't falter, he didn't pause, he didn't mince words, never adopted so much as an apologetic smile. He sounded like he was just reading from a history textbook, ignoring the stares his wig was getting and never so much as breaking eye contact with Des. Only once, only once, did he stop and tilt his head. "Are you alright?"

"Hm?" Des swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes, fine. Keep going."

"You're looking very green."

"You just told me that my daughter was in prison. Of course I'm looking green. Keep going."

"You don't want a break?"

"I didn't need a break after you told me a Sea Hag almost killed her. Or when you told me she killed the Grote Gross thingy."

"Grotesquery."

"Yes. That. Keep going."

"You haven't touched your tea."

Des grabbed the mug and a long sip from it, very pointedly, trying not to mind that the tea had long since grown cold. He put the mug forcefully back down onto the table when he was done. "There. Keep going."

"If you say so."

And he kept going, like he'd never stopped. Des couldn't have ignored any of the words even if he wanted to. They were relentless, pounding, washing over him with the power of ocean surf during a storm. He found himself immeasurably glad Melissa wasn't there. Melissa would never, ever have let Stephanie out of her sight again after this. Des was teetering on that very edge himself, fighting a tangle of feelings in his own gut that was bound up with worry for his daughter and sheer disbelief that he hadn't noticed all of this going on. In his mind, he was matching up Skulduggery's story with his own memory of events. Beryl's story about someone chasing Stephanie through Haggard, and when Stephanie disappeared from the family reunion, and all of those times - those single moments, barely remembered - when something had clearly been bothering her and he hadn't asked because it hadn't been his place to ask -

"Stop," he heard himself saying.

Skulduggery did, immediately and without fanfare. "Do you need a break?"

"No." Des looked down at his hands; they were shaking. "It's been a year since then, hasn't it? When did you come back?"

"A couple of weeks ago."

That first visit. Stephanie came into the house with all three of them, all smiles, and Des remembered thinking she hadn't looked so happy in nearly a year. He dropped his face into his hands and didn't respond for almost a minute; when he did, his voice was muffled through his fingers. "Did she rescue you?"

"No. She tried to. By all accounts, she was close. But she never set foot in that other dimension."

"Who did?"

"Gabe."

"Where did he come from? You haven't mentioned him yet."

For the first time, Skulduggery hesitated. Like an actor in a well-rehearsed play, when the script went slightly off-line and he needed to think about his responses again. "Gabe came from a different dimension altogether," he eventually explained. "His family is the sort that go around helping complete strangers for no reason other than they can, and it's the right thing to do. How we met is an entirely different story that doesn't have anything to do with Stephanie."

"What was Stephanie doing? This whole past year? How was she... trying to rescue you?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the details." Skulduggery paused, and just when Des was going to assume he'd finished, the disguised skeleton spoke again. "She was trying to track down my original skull. It was the only Isthmus Anchor left, you see. She was going to use it to open another portal. I know the search took her all around the world, but I'm afraid I don't know much more than that."

All around the world. All around the bloody world. Des took his face out of his hands and gulped down the rest of the tea. Skulduggery left him to it; when the mug was lowered, he finally - finally - looked apologetic. "You'll have to ask her about that span of time."

Des pushed his mug away across the table. "How much have you left out?"

"What makes you think I've left anything out?"

"Because if she's been with you almost every day since this whole thing began, you can't be telling me everything. We'd be here all month."

Skulduggery considered that. "True. I've told you the most important things."

"Every time her life was in danger?"

"Well, no," Skulduggery admitted, and this time he even sounded apologetic. "We'd be here all month."

Something in Des's gut grew tight, and cold. What did sorcerers consider important? "Tell me that you at least mentioned every time the world was in danger."

The slight silence before he spoke was all the answer Des needed, but Skulduggery answered anyway. "The world is, to be perfectly honest, almost always in danger. For every madman you know of, there's at least one who can use fantastically dangerous forms of magic, and at least half of those want to see the world ended. Or changed. Or overrun, for whatever reason. Fortunately, for every one of those, we have at least twenty sorcerers working hard to stop them. And we have me."

"You and Stephanie."

"She's a very good detective, in her own right. Our line of work isn't easy, and there aren't many who can handle the burden. She can, and she does." Skulduggery hesitated. "I haven't been training her because I need a partner. I don't need a partner, for one thing, and even if I did, I wouldn't go for one I had to train. I've been training Stephanie because she wants to be trained, she's very good at the training, and because we make a very good partnership. If one was predisposed to sentimentality, one could say I've grown quite fond of her."

Des closed his eyes. He'd known all of that. Or at least guessed all of that. "And how many people," he asked, remembering Gordon's books, "want the two of you dead?"

"A fair number. Very few of them are actually threats at the moment."

Des was going to be sick. He could feel it. Mentally, he mapped where the bathroom was in the small cafe, and managed it without having to open his eyes. "Why isn't... and I'm not trying to say Steph isn't good, or can't take care of herself. But she's fifteen. Why isn't she..."

He couldn't even bring himself to say it.

For a long moment, there was silence. Des opened his eyes and looked up when it had stretched on for long enough, ready to demand an answer if he had to, and was vaguely surprised to see that Skulduggery was staring off into space. For the first time during their conversation, his attention seemed to be on something else.

"Part of it," he finally answered, "is because I have a certain reputation among sorcerers. In our world, only idiots don't pay attention to reputation. If someone were to kill Stephanie, or have anything to do with her death in any way, they would find themselves on my bad side. People who find themselves on my bad side don't usually live as long as they were expecting."

Something in Des's gut lightened. He wasn't completely sure of what that was, except... well, except that dangerous as this was, as all of this was, Skulduggery's implied promise actually made him feel better. It sickened him all over again, but with the tangled knot of feelings somewhere around the level of his heart, Des was going to take all the comfort he could get. And knowing that Skulduggery would kill anyone who might try to harm his daughter, and that the simple knowledge of that fact was what stopped anyone from trying, made Desmond feel much better than anything else had so far. Skulduggery was powerful enough to strike fear into the hearts of other sorcerers. Stephanie was very firmly under his protection.

Sorcerers may be arrogant as all get out, but Des had to admit that maybe some of them had a reason to be.

"You've turned a shade of olive green," Skulduggery informed him levelly, head tilted to the side. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

Des burst out laughing. Oh, it was a hysterical laugh, and he knew it, but he didn't make a single effort to stop himself as everyone in the cafe looked over. Time almost seemed to slow down; someone behind the counter was walking over to find out if everything was okay, and Des took the opportunity to stand up and head quickly over into the bathroom. Where he was, promptly and unsurprisingly, sick all over one of the sinks.

Edited 2013-05-31 09:16 (UTC)

How, he thought numbly as he stared at his own green complexion in the mirror, did Gordon handle this?

Gordon hadn't had a daughter. Gordon just had a friend who was a skeleton. Every writer needed a writing aid, Des supposed.

His head was starting to swim, a feeling which almost seemed to pound down into his ears and settle somewhere down in his throat. He couldn't handle this. Gordon was built for it; he'd never, for one second in his entire life, stopped believing in magic. So he was the one who met the skeleton, and became friends with him. He was the one who could handle it, who wanted to handle it, and who could write bestselling books about it. Not Des. Des wasn't built for this. Des couldn't handle this.

He took several long minutes to watch his skin tone slowly return to normal; then Des splashed some cold water on his face, washed his hands, and went back outside. Skulduggery had explained the whole thing away already, and no one was lingering at the table. Grateful for small mercies, Des sat back down across from him and wondered what else he was supposed to say. He wasn't usually at such a loss for words.

"It's perfectly fine to be jealous," said Skulduggery.

Suddenly, there were too many words right on the tip of his tongue, all tripping their way out of Des's mouth. "You - what - how dare - do you - jealous of who?"

"Of Gordon."

The words stopped. Des stared. "Me? Jealous of Gordon?"

"Of course. You grew up on stories of magic. You believed you'd outgrown it, moved past it, that you were stronger than your older brother, whom you'd always looked up to before then. You believed he needed help. But you never lost that spark, that hope, that maybe he was right. It was alright to have that hope, because even though it was shameful, it couldn't possibly ever come to pass. Now it has, and you're wondering what else you've missed out on. You're hurt that Gordon never told you the truth, that you've been living a life you might never have had to live, and a part of you thinks it's unfair that he's the one who got to experience all of this when you're the one who made all the right choices. You're so jealous of him that you literally turned green with envy. It's perfectly natural."

Silence descended. Des tried to think, and failed. Eventually, all he said was "You must be a blast at parties."

"I observe. Gordon told me stories, Stephanie told me stories, and the rest isn't a very large leap."

"You act like..."

"Like I don't care enough about individual people?" Impossibly, Skulduggery smiled. "So I've been told."

"Green with envy," said Des weakly. "Nice touch."

"Thank you. I thought so."

In spite of the revelations of the night before, or possibly because of them, Gabe was feeling rather marvellous today. Then again, there were probably other reasons for that as well, and he wasn't about to deprive Skulduggery of all due credit. In all honesty, even though Skul was Gabe's first or second choice for getting a massage, the Archangel hadn't quite expected him to be as good at it as he was. Then again, maybe that was just Kenspeckle's specially-made oil. Or maybe it was their metaphysical connection. Gabe wasn't entirely sure, and in the end he supposed it didn't really matter.

Not that it had been entirely smooth in execution. Skulduggery had been as awkward as Gabe expected in the beginning, so the Archangel had dealt with it all matter-of-factly--because, as far as he was concerned, it was a matter of fact. This sort of injury almost wasn't even an injury, and angels didn't need to be injured to get a grooming to begin with. It was just nice to have once in a while, especially when they hadn't seen each other for a century or two.

But since he did need the attention for health reasons, he treated it as such. Skulduggery apparently hadn't quite realised how literally metaphysical an angel's physiology was, or that their surface tension reflected mundane physics for a reason. It had taken a bit of time to go over exactly what needed to be done, by which time Skulduggery knew for sure that Gabe hadn't been joking when he said it was an endeavour that took the better part of days. It wouldn't solve the aching problem completely, but it did help.

(Gabe wasn't going to mention it, but Rafe had already offered the grooming, if not the healing quite yet, since Gabe had already done his in stages. Gabe had been holding out. The only reason Rafe hadn't actually teased them about it in public yet was because Gabe had threatened to muss up his feathers, and followed through.)

The real problem, the thing that Gabe had actually, genuinely forgotten to mention was the fact that angels enjoyed being groomed. They enjoyed being groomed the same way a cat who wanted to be petted enjoyed being petted. Completely, unashamedly, unrestrainedly.

It had taken Skulduggery a little while longer to get over that perceived awkwardness. In the end, taking into account the night and the first part of the morning, they'd only managed to get Gabe's torso done. Since that covered the bulk of his wing muscles, it was actually a pretty good start. Then Desmond had rung Skul to ask if he was available for a chat, which he had been, and since Gabe had to go into the shelter anyway he thought he'd go in early so he could give Janet his contact details and ask about any sort of orientation.

So he had. The problem was that he'd gone in humming and feeling somewhat more balanced and contented than last time. The problem was that he hadn't noticed the smirks and sly looks he'd been getting. The problem was that he hadn't even noticed the amusement in the souls of the women around him.

All of which meant he'd just been confronted with a situation he was very much not expecting.

"I--what?" he spluttered at Kelly's grinning face, aware his cheeks were red and only just restraining the urge to make them not be red in a fashion which would have indicated something very strange was going on.

"I knew it!" Kelly crowed, chopping three sticks of celery with such speed that Gabe felt anxious just watching her watch him and not the knife. "Girl got laid last night!"

They were cooking lunch. Gabe had never cooked before, so he'd just been stationed to stir the pot of stew. Right now, he was failing at even that, glancing around for some help and finding nothing but grinning faces all around him. Some of the girls, granted, were at least trying to hide it--but not all. Abused women or not, all those present were volunteers or had been at the shelter long enough to be able to tease one another. Especially teasing one another about men.

They'd just found a new target. A new target who was red as beet.

"Oh, come on," said Gloria with a shake of her head, motioning at him with a spoon. She was a resident of the shelter who had simply, as time went on, naturally taken to helping more and more until she was affectionately known as the fourth-floor's den-mother. "You weren't even trying to hide it. You've got that glowy newly-in-love, cat-with-the-cream look all over you."

"I don't!" Gabe objected, and then stopped. "Do I?" He'd seen plenty of people with that very same aura. He just hadn't exactly stopped to look in the mirror before coming to the shelter. Angels didn't need mirrors.

The women exchanged looks. "Yes," they chorused, and laughed.

"I have been told I don't know the meaning of the word subtle," Gabe muttered, looking determinedly down into the stew and stirring it, and not quite able to withhold the twitch of his mouth.

"Whoever said that is one-hundred per-cent accurate," said Kelly.

"To be fair, now we don't have to worry until the honeymoon period is over." Sherridan came over to plop a bowlful of chopped potatoes into the pot. "And at the very least we can be assured Mare's getting everything she deserves. At the very least, this bloke of hers is good for her in bed."

"Having a man who's actually good in bed for the lady is a consolation prize for when she decides to dump him," Gloria agreed.

"How do you know he was good for her in bed?" Kelly asked with a broad grin and a twinkle that made them all pause, look at each other, and then dissolve into giggles at the look on Gabe's face. He tried to explain, badly, that it hadn't been like that, that sex hadn't been involved, that nothing had happened except a massage; at which point Sherridan had protested, "Only a massage!" and Gloria wanted to know if Gabe's boyfriend had a brother.

Gabe had given up, let them think what they wanted, and wound up smiling over his pot as they moved onto equally ribald topics. (He may have encouraged them, just a little, by bringing up 'Dillon's' brother who was both a tailor and a boxer and unfortunately attached; his other brother who was a reluctant politician and extremely good-looking and very much unattached; his third brother who was a roving architect just come into town, also unattached; and finally his youngest brother, recently blinded, not-quite-attached. The conversation had spurred talk of past conquests, right after Gloria had slipped her phone number into his pocket with a wink and a stage-whisper to pass it on to one, or all, of the above.)

That particular topic of conversation didn't die, but it did move smoothly on, as other residents started coming into the kitchen to pick at pieces of the stew. Some of them wouldn't have taken to the teasing quite so well. Kelly sidled close to Gabe as he ladled out the soup with warm smiles, herself passing out bowls until there was a lull in the line for the stew (and a corresponding blockage by the bread and butter).

"You're okay, right?" she asked, and he was almost startled by the concern in her soul, enough to blink at her for a moment.

"Yes, of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Kelly shrugged. "Janet said you were from Israel. Things aren't exactly the same there."

Gabe thought of the real Mary, and of her cousin Elizabeth, and their whispered, giggling conversations about their prospective husbands. He smiled. "I think you might be surprised. Even in Israel, women can find safe places to talk about men any way they want."

"Oh." Kelly looked relieved and curious in equal turns. And, at the same time, assessing. "But you weren't one of them, were you? You weren't lying when you said the two of you hadn't had sex yet. You’re too shy about the topic." She paused for a moment. "Is there a reason for that? For either of those?"

Her tone was not exactly wary, but on that edge of being defensive on Gabe's behalf, and that willingness to defend him--someone she barely knew--made him smile. If he had been human, he might have felt guilty about lying to her about his perceived gender, but he wasn't and he didn't. There had been several centuries when he'd worn his female cloak as his default.

"Yes," he said simply. Her eyes narrowed, but he went on before she could get up too much mental heat, his voice soft. "Not for the reasons you're assuming. Dillon was married once. His wife and daughter both died. He's said outright that what he wants from me is very different to what he had with her, and their relationship was very physical."

"Physical like giving out massages?" Kelly asked dryly, and Gabe laughed.

"Well, no. Sexually physical. And honestly that's not something I've ever been interested in. So it's not something we're interested in." He shrugged. "I have something of an ongoing, but eventually curable, medical condition. Massages help. This was the first time I got him to do it. He'll never let you know, but--" He flashed her a mischievous, dimpled smile that made her laugh. "--he's really rather adorable when he's embarrassed and trying to be a gentleman at the same time."

Kelly caught her breath, and Gabe was warned by the responding glint of mischief just before she answered. "So what I'm really getting from all this, then, is that you're a pure, innocent virgin." She shook her head. "That's sad. That's really sad. I think it's our duty to dirty you up. Make him really gentlemanly embarrassed."

"Or," Gabe replied, "I can just parade him in front of the shelter doors and let you girls do it for me."

They laughed again and the ensuing discussion about platonically embarrassing people lasted throughout the lunch-rush. Gabe kept a metaphysical eye out the whole time. Kelly remained stationed by him, introducing him to anyone who asked and pointing out newer residents of the shelter--people who might benefit from his gentle touch or people who probably wouldn't react well to him for whatever reason. The newest arrival, Gabe was pleased an amused to see, was one Saffron Sweetgrass.

"She arrived last night, about nine o'clock," Kelly said after pointing her out. Gabe watched without staring. Saffron sat alone in the furthest corner where she could see the whole room, her back rigid with uncertainty but her expression a mixture of curiosity and deep, deep yearning she probably wasn't even aware she was wearing. "Father Patrick O'Reilly brought her in, said a friend had asked him to help her."

"I know Paddy," Gabe said with a quiet smile. "He helped me adjust to being in the country."

Kelly nodded. "He's a good man. One of the few men we'd let into the shelter at all, and even then he doesn't go upstairs. Sometimes he ministers to the girls, even the ones who aren’t Christian. We've seen women like Saffron before, but not many--girls on the other side of the class divide, who have been taught that they're better than everyone else, but then are knocked around just as badly. She's not as bad off as some I've seen, though. I've seen abused girls who just couldn't let go of being rich princesses. Saffron at leastwants to be in on things; she just doesn't know how. You can see it in her eyes."

Kelly wasn't wrong. Saffron looked exhausted, like she hadn't slept well, and she moved strangely in the threadbare clothes. On one hand, as if she wasn't used to an outfit that had been stitched up half a dozen times, but clutching it to her as if she wasn't used to her clothes being properly warm, or at least something she’d been able to choose. The way she looked around was with a prey's eye, wary and liable to either shy or be proud if spoken to, but at the same time hungry, confused and curious.

Gabe took note of all this, reminded himself to give Solomon an update, and carried on with his lunch duties.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 85 of 98

let me be the one you call / if you jump I'll break your fall

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject