'Raphael, we're nearly there. Just entering the prison now. Few more minutes.'
The prayer, from another person, this time came loud and clear, uninterrupted by the flit of the dimensional wards. Rafe's relief was such that it wasn't all that terribly difficult to find a response.
'Aw, but Merl and I haven't had time for the tea-party yet!' he whined mentally, broadcasting loud enough so that his technical-nephew could overhear.
'Call me that again and we'll find out how hot a fire has to be to chargrill an angel's wings,' Merlin threatened on cue. His mental voice wasn't quite as smooth, faintly staticky only because of the wards around him that tried to latch onto his human blood. It didn't quite work--not enough to truly keep Merlin from using magic, at least. It tired him more quickly to resist it, but mental speech was a metaphysical skill. The wards were just a bit of interference.
'Barbecue angelwings, eh? Wonder if Old Sulfur Stacks has come up with that one yet.' As lighthearted as the banter was on the surface, there was a grim undercurrent which the pray-er would be able to hear. Rafe and Merlin were ready--more than ready. The Archangel was still seated on his cot, pounding the wall with his baseball with a sort of intense focus, not a smile in sight. Merlin, he could sense, was pacing, pacing and touching certain wards and letting their magic seep into him. Borrowing it.
Rafe wished he could spare the concentration to extend his awareness outward, but he didn't dare even do that. Gabriel needed him too much to waste himself like that. Instead Rafe could only wait, counting off the seconds, for the rescuers to be rescued.
Warden Delafonte Mien had, for the last two days, been in a state of confusion, apprehension and giddiness. Confusion, because it shouldn't have been possible for two men to appear in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol. Apprehension, because two men had appeared in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol. Giddiness, because he couldn't help but entertain thoughts of just how they had appeared in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol.
One of them had been quite obviously hurt, so Delafonte had willingly left him alone, for the most part, to recover while focussing on the old man. Said old man had turned out to be somewhat insane. Or sane enough to pretend to be rather genuinely. Delafonte wasn't sure which.
After two eminently unsuccessful interviews and trying to confiscate a baseball which returned to the black man's hand the moment their eyes were taken off it, Delafonte had turned to simple observation.
The problem was that they kept speaking something that sounded like Gaelic, but wasn't, because the warden was old enough to remember Gaelic and he didn't understand anything more than the odd word or construction. This far, they had discovered ... absolutely nothing.
Which brought them to now, when Delafonte was striding through the halls of his domain to meet a group of people who may or may not have discovered the prisoners he was trying to keep secret, and not sure if he wanted the help or not. He waited with restrained impatience for the room to stop moving, pasting a smile on to greet his visitors. He motioned at the table and the glasses on it. "Hello, all. Welcome to Hammer Lane Gaol. Lemonade?"
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The prayer, from another person, this time came loud and clear, uninterrupted by the flit of the dimensional wards. Rafe's relief was such that it wasn't all that terribly difficult to find a response.
'Aw, but Merl and I haven't had time for the tea-party yet!' he whined mentally, broadcasting loud enough so that his technical-nephew could overhear.
'Call me that again and we'll find out how hot a fire has to be to chargrill an angel's wings,' Merlin threatened on cue. His mental voice wasn't quite as smooth, faintly staticky only because of the wards around him that tried to latch onto his human blood. It didn't quite work--not enough to truly keep Merlin from using magic, at least. It tired him more quickly to resist it, but mental speech was a metaphysical skill. The wards were just a bit of interference.
'Barbecue angelwings, eh? Wonder if Old Sulfur Stacks has come up with that one yet.' As lighthearted as the banter was on the surface, there was a grim undercurrent which the pray-er would be able to hear. Rafe and Merlin were ready--more than ready. The Archangel was still seated on his cot, pounding the wall with his baseball with a sort of intense focus, not a smile in sight. Merlin, he could sense, was pacing, pacing and touching certain wards and letting their magic seep into him. Borrowing it.
Rafe wished he could spare the concentration to extend his awareness outward, but he didn't dare even do that. Gabriel needed him too much to waste himself like that. Instead Rafe could only wait, counting off the seconds, for the rescuers to be rescued.
Warden Delafonte Mien had, for the last two days, been in a state of confusion, apprehension and giddiness. Confusion, because it shouldn't have been possible for two men to appear in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol. Apprehension, because two men had appeared in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol. Giddiness, because he couldn't help but entertain thoughts of just how they had appeared in the basement of Hammer Lane Gaol.
One of them had been quite obviously hurt, so Delafonte had willingly left him alone, for the most part, to recover while focussing on the old man. Said old man had turned out to be somewhat insane. Or sane enough to pretend to be rather genuinely. Delafonte wasn't sure which.
After two eminently unsuccessful interviews and trying to confiscate a baseball which returned to the black man's hand the moment their eyes were taken off it, Delafonte had turned to simple observation.
The problem was that they kept speaking something that sounded like Gaelic, but wasn't, because the warden was old enough to remember Gaelic and he didn't understand anything more than the odd word or construction. This far, they had discovered ... absolutely nothing.
Which brought them to now, when Delafonte was striding through the halls of his domain to meet a group of people who may or may not have discovered the prisoners he was trying to keep secret, and not sure if he wanted the help or not. He waited with restrained impatience for the room to stop moving, pasting a smile on to greet his visitors. He motioned at the table and the glasses on it. "Hello, all. Welcome to Hammer Lane Gaol. Lemonade?"