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grumpygreenwitch · 10 months

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A Tale of Eden 4

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

THIS IS IT.

I was very, very sick when I was writing the tail end of this thing. I’m mostly concerned with if the tone of the scenes here carries through well. It gets very violent, as the truth of things comes out. But it’s a happy ending! For the people who matter, anyway.

As always, thank you so much for coming all this way with me. If you have the spoons, I’d love a few quick answers:

1. Favorite character. 2. Favorite scene. 3. Character you love to hate. 4. Any character or scene that dragged on. 5. Anyone/Anything you’d like to see more of.

They laid there, limp and sated in the warm dark, until Marcus rolled them over and provoked an immediate and irate warble of protest from Aire. “You don’t have to move, my sprite.” The half-troll’s voice was amused. “I rather like the sight of you sprawled there in my bed.”

“Are trolls always this decadent?”

“No,” was all Marcus would say as he found a towel and scrubbed himself clean, tossing it aside and picking up a different one with which he started to rub Aire’s stomach and chest clean.

It took the mageling a moment to realize what had been said. “Oh… Oh! It’s from your other half!” He half-rose on the bed, only to be left wanting when the half-troll meandered into the bathroom, chuckling. “Liiiiight,” he whined, sprawling gracefully on the tangled bedsheets when Marcus returned and offered him a glass of water. “Have you got a whole second apartment in there?”

“No, but I do like to be prepared.” He waggled the glass at Aire, who finally gave up and snatched it. “That was not a fair rule.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, if you wanted fair you should have negotiated in advance.” When Marcus tried to slip into the bed with him, the mageling put up a foot and planted it against the bouncer’s stomach.

Marcus looked down slowly. Aire focused furiously on his water, because when the half-troll looked up the force of his predatory intent felt like heat on his skin. A hand cradled the heel of that foot. “So what keeps me,” the half-troll asked conversationally, “from kissing my way starting here,” he brought the foot up to his face and kissed silk-gentle the top of it, “and working my way up?” “Nothing,” Aire had to admit hoarsely.

“Hm.” Marcus kissed the mageling’s ankle just as delicately. “And once I get up there, and put my mouth where I really want it to be, what then?” Aire’s breath caught, and he slipped fully down onto the bed, blindly looking for a spot to set aside the glass. Marcus was up to his knee by the time he found a nightstand, and all of the leaner man’s body was tingling. In desperation, he brought up his other foot and braced it on the bouncer’s shoulder. “Marc!”

“Ah, twice the possibilities, I’m showered with gifts.” “You’re laughing at me!”

“Not at you, sprite, at your impatience.”

“Marc, you have got to lay me sometime tonight.” “You’re not prepared, sprite, and I’m not… average.” Marcus looked down at himself.

Aire’s gaze helplessly followed and a body-wide shiver took him. He threw an arm over his face in a last-ditch effort to corral his wits into place. “I’m going to strangle you.” “Kinky.”

“Ugh!” He drew the deepest breath he could, and focused on that spot within himself that guttered and tried to go out so often, but never quite managed. And then he thought, keenly focused on a particular body part: open and relax. Marcus paused. “Did you just do magic?” Aire blew out the breath he’d been holding when he felt the magic catch. “You did hear me say half-Chantry, right?” He peeked at the half-troll from under his arm.

“Yes, but that was so unlike a mage. It felt almost gentle.” “It’s small, it’s pathetic and if I try anything too big it fizzles out and leaves me with a five-day migraine. I told you. Eyesore. Why would they bother looking for me, I’m barely a mage. It probably isn’t even visible with you existing this close to me.” “Mm, what did you do?” When Aire didn’t answer, instead going brightly scarlet in the dark, Marcus put down the legs he’d been cherishing and knelt between them, prowling slowly but surely closer. “Aire, what did you do?” “Stop that. Go away.” Groping about Aire found a pillow and threw it at Marc.

The half-troll snatched it out of mid-air, since his sprite couldn’t see him do so, and kissed the thighs he’d grown dangerously close to. “What did you do?”

A frustrated, high-pitched sound of protest answered him, and then finally, grudgingly, “Prepared myself.” Marc burst out laughing. He crawled his way past every sinfully tempting inch of his sprite, pulled on the lip that Aire was chewing to death, and kissed him slowly. “Is this old troll too slow for you?” “Yes! No! Ugh. Lavish me with attention some other time!” Aire leaned up, grabbed Marcus’ head roughly and kissed that smiling, generous mouth. “This is entirely your fault, you’ve got me in a froth.” “I’m so sorry,” the half-troll demurred. “Would it help if I let you control the pace?” “Yes!” “And will you promise not to hurt yourself?” When the question got him a scandalized exclamation he knelt back and put both his hands up in surrender. “Unduly!”

Aire tackled him into the bed and bit him, hard and everywhere, until the half-troll’s last roar left the windows shaking and his lover sprawled on his chest, laughing breathlessly. “Horrible man.” “The worst,” Marcus agreed roughly, then snatched up a ragged breath when his sprite fully straddled him.

“Are your neighbors going to hate you?” “Tenants. Behind excellent privacy protections.” “Do you own the whole building? “Yes. It’s the only way to get a structure fully protected with Fairy magic.” He reached up to brush that dangerous mouth. “Still caring for you, my sprite.”

Aire leaned helplessly into that hand, caught it in both of his and kissed the cup of it. “Yes trade.” Marcus went very still. “Aire, you don’t have to -” “No, but I want to. For you, I want to.” Then he laughed, breathlessly, as in disbelief at what he’d done, clinging to that hand and pressing it to his chest. Suddenly his laughter turned far more free and merry. “And you’re poking me in the butt! Give me that lube, where did it go?”

***

Aire’s second mistake was to accept happiness.

He still tried to sneak into Eden, but the security staff knew him at that point, and they merely waved him on. Which was a terrible blow to his dignity and his sense of being so very good at sneaking, but it still didn’t stop him. Those nights he spent dancing, lost in the ebb and flow of the music and the crowd, a single beat of that immense heart. Sometimes he’d see a bouncer come by, sometimes it’d be Marcus, and he’d scurry off to get himself a club soda, to let the power he couldn’t feel seething inside him settle down until the telltales stopped jumping. Before last call it was always Marcus, and Aire would go home with the Head of Security.

Sometimes he simply showed up at the half-troll’s place just before dawn, crawling into bed and into the warmth of those arms, the safety of that touch. Marcus never asked him to stay, there was always a pass to Eden hidden in a pocket of Aire’s clothing, but every time, every chance, he made sure the mageling knew he was missed when he was gone.

Aire could feel his time running out. Next time, he always told himself. Next time I’ll tell him I’m leaving. Next time I’ll tell him I can’t stay.

But the very thought of “next time” always shattered him and he couldn’t go through with it. He couldn’t think of doing that to the half-troll, to watch his heart break all over again, after so many unkind, indifferent lovers. Aire didn’t want to be like that.

Marcus had left Aire in their bed that evening, sleep-tousled, covered in hickies and wrapped in one of the bouncer’s many custom-fitted jackets, with a pointed reminder to eat something, he was keeping normal food in the place just for his sprite, some of it should be eaten before it went bad. Aire had slept, showered, eaten anything in the kitchen that wasn’t nailed down.

Then he’d summoned up what little magic he could use, and brought his paints and glitters out of the ether.

He was beginning to think that might have been the one act that had betrayed him.

The mageling had made ready for the club by hiding all the marks the horribly mouthy monster he adored had left on him, well aware that it was only going to spur Marcus into putting more of them on his skin. When he stepped out into the night, the winter’s dry chill make him huddle even more deeply into the borrowed/stolen jacket, breathing deeply of the night air and the half-troll’s lingering scent, already coming up with a dozen excuses why “next time” could be “next next time”. He shimmied in simple, unabashed delight on the mostly empty sidewalk, drawing a grin from the couple coming up his way.

That moment of whimsy saved his life.

The shot that should have cut him in half blasted instead through his left side, just below the last of his ribs. Aire staggered forward at the sheer force of it. He hadn’t even heard it coming, and for a moment he didn’t hear anything after, only the faint whisper of the breeze.

The world came back to him in swift, split-second snapshots.

The sound of wings, high above.

The scream of the woman who’d just smiled at him.

The scent of his blood, pouring out of him.

Aire turned the stagger into a scrabble, the scrabble into a run, the run into a full-out sprint. They’d found him. How?! How many?! He was three blocks from Eden and the Sanctuary of the Small.

The small hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight, and he leapt up as high as he could. Three javelins made of light and celestial fire slammed past him and into the street. A car, coming straight at them, swerved wildly, brakes screeching; the far-most sliced a corner off and the vehicle went careening out of control.

They’d been going for his knees. They’d done that before. The landing jarred the wound on Aire’s side into blinding agony that nearly sent him falling once again, but he gritted his teeth. And ran.

Three blocks.

Aire cut a corner as something large and heavy landed behind him, and waved his hand behind him, summoning up the only magic he knew for a fact would answer his call. Shadows, smog, thin threads of fog and smoke rose from the ground and flowed off the walls, hiding him. “He went this way!” A woman’s voice shouted.

Crap!

Aire twisted around a dumpster, charging into a street far too full of people for his tastes; he was well aware that they didn’t care about collateral damage. They just wanted his head on a pike and his heart crushed underfoot. And now they could track his magic, which they’d never been able to do before. Was the Chantry helping them? The Chantry never helped anyone!

He ignored all his useless panicked thoughts, knowing them exactly for that. He ignored the blazing agony, the feel of his blood flooding out of him and soaking the hoodie he’d been wearing under Marcus’ jacket. He sprinted into traffic and was across before the drivers could even register him.

Two blocks.

Somewhere behind cars screeched to a halt and drivers leaned angrily on their horns. “Don’t make them angry don’t make them angry they don’t care don’t make them angry -” A fireball went off behind him, and screaming filled the night. Aire whimpered, ducked his head, and tried to force just a little more speed out of his body, but it was quickly rousing to the fact that there was a very large hole on it, gushing blood. He burst out into the street -

- and directly into a Celestial blade.

The sword went through his shoulder, low enough to mind the bones, high enough to miss the blood vessels. As strikes went, Aire couldn’t have been luckier. It still knocked the breath right out of him, his ears filled with the terrible, staccato drum of his racing heart, with the chaos-filled tidal surge of his blood, with the single, ineffable note that was his life.

The angel was tall, blond, blue-eyed, exactly as mortals expected him to be these days. He was also powerfully muscular, a warrior through and through, and he looked just as surprised to have skewered Aire as the mageling looked to have been skewered. He opened his mouth to call out for the rest of the hunting party -

Aire’s instincts slammed back into overdrive. He grabbed the angel’s face and focused, as hard as he could on a single word, a single concept, one reality.

Soap!

The angel tried to shout, and a mass of bubbles came out of his mouth. He looked, if anything, even more disconcerted. Aire shoved him away and the Celestial staggered back, bubbles and foam pouring out of his mouth, his ears, his nose. By the time Aire stumbled across the street, he’d gone down to one knee and they were coming out of his eyes.

One block.

Aire dove into an alley, crashed into a wall with his bad shoulder and nearly passed out. He hardly recognized the thin, frightened little animal wail as his own when it came out of his mouth.

But Aire had also spent most of his adult life running, hiding and, above all, surviving. He staggered upright. Behind him someone cried out, “Ruachel!” Aire ran.

He crashed through the crowd at Eden’s entrance, staggered past their offended sounds. The bouncers might have caught him if he’d been gunning for the door, but instead he darted into the security booth and collapsed in a corner. “Marcus!” “What in the bright green leaves -!” Someone exclaimed. A hand reached out for him and he batted it away. “Marcus, I want Marcus!”

“Skuld, I smell blood.” A male’s voice pointed out. She had turned away and was speaking into her mike, lifting a finger to buy herself some time. The man speaking crouched by Aire. “I just want to see what’s wrong, kid.” Aire hissed at him, but his strength was ebbing away as quickly as the blood was running out of him. Only the voluminous folds of Marcus’ jacket were keeping his secret still, and he could feel the satin lining growing heavy and damp. “Marcus,” he pleaded. “He’s coming,” the man assured him, reaching for the jacket, and Aire didn’t have the strength to hold him back anymore. “I just wanna -”

In the shocked silence that descended upon them, the only sounds were those of the panicked, confused guests waiting at the door. Marcus charged in like a storm. “Where is -” “Oh, crap,” the other man said. Skuld was staring in disbelief at the blood spilling out of Aire, rich living crimson mingled with the most beautiful gold ichor. The young immortal’s entire chest was bathed in those two colors. “He’s a fucking Nephilim?!”

Marcus exploded into motion, crouching by Aire and dragging his lover into his arm. “You know that secret I gave you to keep,” Aire croaked. “That was the cheap half.” “Shh, don’t talk, Aire.” “Marcus -” “Skuld, close the doors. No one comes in.” “Marcus, don’t do this,” she gaped at him. “No one comes in,” he barked at his people, his voice clipping out every word. “Anyone who wants to, leaves, tab or no tab.” “Holy Moon Mother, Marcus, why -” “Because they’re probably inside already and they’re not gonna give a fuck about collateral damage!” he snapped at the other man. “Aire, hold on to me.” “Marc, I’m so tired.” “Hold onto me, my sprite.” The Head of Security charged out and into the staff elevator. “Marc, don’t do this!” Skuld called out one last despairing time, well aware her boss was absolutely going to put his life on the line for a scrawny Nephilim. The elevator roared upward when Marcus inputted his emergency code, and Aire let out a high, distressed sound before passing out altogether in the half-troll’s arms. Marcus dug off one of his gloves with his teeth and curled that hand around his sprite’s cheek. “Hold on, Aire.” The door opened in front of an angel.

To say the bird stuck out like a sore thumb was an understatement. He wore the flimsy white veils that were mandatory attire in the Ivory Citadel, a painfully white tunic and a long loincloth, golden boots. He was wearing no armor; apparently one measly Nephilim didn’t merit it. Blue eyes went very wide at the sight of a man both larger and angrier than him, and he lunged for his weapon.

Someone nearby screamed.

Marcus lunged forward and grabbed the angel by the throat. Blood, gold and holy and living, splattered out when bronze fingers sank into the angel’s flesh as if it were tissue paper. The bird tried to warp reality around him instinctively, to take on a shape that Marcus couldn’t harm. He looked even more disconcerted when he realized he couldn’t. Marcus yanked him close and took a massive bite out of his shoulder, tunic and all. Golden blood went flying, the angel howled in agony and the half-troll shoved him away into a planter. Both Celestial and plant went down. More people screamed and Marcus ran. He spat out the bit of tunic. He didn’t spit out the flesh.

He could see them then, converging on him through the many levels of Eden, trying to cut him off. He was almost to the Council elevator when a hand clutched at Aire’s head and his sprite cried out. Marcus roared, bent down, and bit right through the wrist of that hand. The doors of the elevator closed between him and their pursuers, and he gently pried that hand off Aire’s head, throwing it casually aside. “My sprite,” he murmured, nuzzling the Nephilim’s forehead, terrified at how cool and pale he was. “My troll,” Aire breathed out, barely audible.

The elevator doors open to the Council chamber. It was a generous loft space, dominated on one side by the immense table where the Council sat if all of their members were in attendance. At the moment there was only one chair occupied, though the minotaur’s paperwork was threatening to devour all the beautifully polished wood. Behind him a tall, stately man in a dark charcoal suit was staring at the city, beautifully sprawled out under a clear night sky.

There was a sitting area to one side, elegantly comfortable couches and chaise longes; there was a kitchen, barely visible past the sitting area, and a wall full of ledgers and archives.

Marcus locked the elevator, raced out, and crashed down on one knee before the step that led up to that archive area. “Before the Council of Eden I invoke the Sanctuary of the Small.”

A woman had been lounging indolently before the shelves, reading from a ledger. Like most Fae, she was painfully beautiful, all the more when surrounded by immortals and inhumans that didn’t need her to cloak herself in glamour. She was all sharp angles and bejeweled colors, wearing a pant-suit that well served those hues. She took one look at Aire’s twice-colored blood and gasped as if Marcus had personally slapped her. “Absolutely not! Eden is not meant to serve as shield to every mongrel and half-breed that comes through -” She’d been stalking toward Marcus and Aire, and the half-troll’s eyes had flashed the brightest, most violent crimson as she spoke, a snarl building up in his chest. Before anything truly unbecoming could happen, the man at the window was suddenly there between them, his back to Marcus, facing the Fey woman.

“I’m sure the Princess is merely off-guard.” Aire shivered. The man’s voice was even deeper than Marcus’, a profound and elegant true bass. “And she of course knows that it is never wise to come between a dragon and what he hoards.”

She flushed a deep, deep silver.

“I was there.” The minotaur had roused from his chair. He was the largest creature in the room by far, and yet he was very small for a minos, his voice a pleasantly accented, Iberian tenor. Solid black except for the tip of his horns and the first vestiges of age around his muzzle, at a rough ten feet tall he was a living statue made of polished black basalt. “I was there when the Council was given ownership of Eden. We had hardly finished washing the blood off the floors and walls when the oath was taken for the Sanctuary of the Small, to truly make Eden neutral ground under the Thirteen Accords. Does Princess Eylygh think we should cast that oath aside now as an… inconvenience?”

What color had seeped into the Princess’ imperious features vanished in a split second, leaving her as pale as ice. “Perhaps I spoke too quickly, out of surprise,” she admitted.

Marcus’ arms tightened around the Nephilim. The man looked over his shoulder at the Head of Security. “My son, are you alright?” “Yes, sir.” The light of fury in Marcus’ eyes was quickly dulling, and he dipped his head respectfully. The motion made him realize why his sire was asking. “Oh. No, it’s not my blood.” “It’s mine,” Aire croaked. “And the two guys he bit.” A tousled head suddenly popped up from one of the couches. “Nick?”

Aire was beginning to believe, against all hope, that things would be alright. He wouldn’t have been able to be surprised if the Chantry itself had come down from the heavens as one and requested his presence as their Magister. “Hello, uncle.”

“Kid!” The man that leapt over the couch was tall and lean and, to put it politely, a hobo. He wore a faded tee and worn blue jeans, battered curb-stompers and a longcoat that had absolutely seen better days. He raked his hands through his black, curling hair and rubbed his face as he rushed all the way down to kneel next to Marcus and Aire. “Nicael, what happened!” “It’s Aire!” the Nephilim protested vaguely. “Right, right, sorry, my bad, Aire. What happened?”

“Um. I repeated myself.” “Aire,” Marcus protested. “Shut up. I chose to. I did it. It was stupid and I’d do it again for you.” Aire’s uncle looked sharply at Marcus at that. “They’ve been on me since I walked out onto the street.”

Marcus was having trouble thinking. The man Aire called uncle wasn’t just beautiful; his was the beauty, the elegance, the raw appeal that broke hearts and minds and souls. Marcus had seen him on the floor, but always from afar; he’d never been so close to the Morningstar. The scent of drought and burning strawberry fields gave him the strength he needed to look away, clutching his sprite tightly. “Bring him over here, set him down. I take it they’re still here?” Aire’s uncle led the way to the couch where he’d been sleeping. “Yes, sir,” Marcus replied as he did so. “I told security to close the doors. No one in, everyone out.” The Princess gasped, but before she could speak he forged on. “I’ll pay any tab that goes unpaid at the end of the night.”

“Ah, what good is a hoard if one cannot use it as a bludgeon every now and again,” Marcus’ father mused, humor in his deep voice.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you still owe me ten bucks, Balthasar.” “I am waiting for an appeal on the result of our bet.” “Appeal from who?!” Lucifer had gently opened the oversized jacket and Aire’s hoodie, his hands sure and steady as he examined the Nephilim’s injuries. “The First bloody Egg?” Aire moaned in pain and his uncle’s full attention came back to him. “Sorry, kid. Alright, here’s the thing. Aire, are you listening?” To a faint nod, he went on. “This is way too bad for a walking solution. So I’m gonna put you deep into a healing sleep, alright?” Not missing how Aire’s hand convulsively clutched Marcus’, or how the bouncer’s entire body tightened up defensively, he added, “and your friend – Balt, what’s your kid’s name?”

“Marcus, sir,” Marcus replied instead. “Okay. Your friend Marcus and Milo,” he looked up, got a nod from the minotaur, “are gonna stay here with you while I go down and deal with this.” “I’m sorry, uncle,” Aire protested exhaustedly as friendly hands helped him lie down. Two people had ever, in his short lifetime, cared for him, truly cared, and now he’d dragged a bloody fight to both of them. “No, no, Aire.” Lucifer caught the Nephilim’s face in his calloused hands. “Don’t you be sorry for wanting a life, kid. Life is will, and will is choice, and you have a right to all three of them. This has been coming a long time. I promise, you’ll be safe by tomorrow.” Gently, so gently, he leaned close and kissed the Nephilim’s forehead. Aire went limp and they helped him lie down, the Morningstar shrugging off his coat to cover him. “It shouldn’t come to it,” he told Milo and Marcus, “but just in case.” The minotaur had gone back to the table. From the far side of his chair he picked up a tremendous, spiked mace, the thorns of it blackened with age and violence. He wielded it like it was a feather. “Go. This is not how I hoped to solve this issue, not at the cost of another youngling’s life. But solve it you must.”

“I think I shall be coming with you, Light,” Balthasar said casually as he followed the Morningstar into the elevator. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you at work. I would not want to miss it.”

Princess Eylygh slipped into the elevator with them. “I am here to represent the interests of my people, nothing else,” she told the two males tartly, typing furiously into her phone and distractedly clothing herself into an elfin seeming.

Lucifer caught sight of the angel’s severed hand off to one side and picked it up, giving Balthasar a look. “Nice.” “That’s not me,” the dragon readily admitted. “That’s his mother’s blood.” “Neat all the same.” The doors opened onto a scene of barely controlled chaos. Before the elevator, practically all of Eden’s security had come together, standing snarling, growling, or quietly seething before the Ivory Citadel’s hunting party. Beyond them both, the rest of the staff was quietly urging the guests to leave, just in case. Some of them were taking their advice. Most of them weren’t. The level of noise was phenomenal. “Balt.” “Of course.” The dragon took a deep breath as Lucifer and Eylygh both covered their ears. “QUIET!”

The bellow rattled every window, cracked a number of glass panes, sent the bouncers directly before Balthasar staggering and caused the angels to skid back despite their best efforts.

The silence that followed was absolute. It felt as if even the decorative fountains had stopped flowing for a moment. “Thanks, Balt.”

“Anytime.” Lucifer stepped forward, offering a hand to the seven-foot tall woman who’d been nearly bowled over by the dragon. “Sorry, Skuld,” he said quietly. “No problem, sir,” she replied, her eyes full of lightning and her attention fully on the angels, even as she shook her head to clear it.

There were seven of them, six of them young, and Lucifer was unsurprised to find a familiar face leading the charge. “Micah.” “Samail,” she hissed out between gritted teeth. Of the seven angels present, she alone wore armor, a silvery chestplate engraved with the Words in her petalon, her every name and portfolio, everything she was capable of doing or denying. She was a short, stocky woman with nearly white hair cut in a curling bob, pale blue eyes and the white linen clothing typical of the Ivory Citadel. It should have made her look washed out, pale; instead she looked as deadly as the sword in her hand.

“Oh, we’re opening up the talks with name-calling, I see.” The Morningstar looked wholly unfazed. His eyes roamed over the Celestial hunting party until he found who he was looking for. “Oi, Stumpy!” When the angel looked up, he threw the hand at her. By default she had to let go of her sword to catch the limb, pressing it to her bleeding stump, the weapon dissipating into thin air. “That’s yours, I hear.”

“Give us the mongrel, and there will be no need of violence.” “Mongrel.” Lucifer popped his lips. “Gosh, I’ve never liked that word.” He leaned back. “No,” he replied casually. Micah laughed in disbelief. “You cannot expect this place will protect him. This is a den of debauchery, a hole in the ground. You little playground for decadence and vice cannot, will not, survive the full fury of the Ivory Citadel.” “True,” Lucifer admitted readily. Out of the corner of one eye he could see that Eylygh was profoundly incensed: the Princess was terribly protective of their little hole in the ground. The Faerie Kingdoms have been paid handsomely to make Eden all but impregnable, and they were all thoroughly proud of what they’d achieved. He began to walk around the hunting party; they weren’t stupid, they turned with him, the deadliest predator in the room. “See, that’s not your problem, Micah. Your problem’s what it’s always been: lack of foresight.” He found the angel who was bleeding profusely from a shoulder and slapped his hand lightly on the wound. They all jumped, but by the time the Celestial howled in pain and realized his wound had been cauterized shut, the Morningstar had moved on.

“I am not interested in your theatrics, Betrayer. I want the Nephilim.” Lucifer stopped to pointedly sniff at another angel, who looked as if he’d been half-soaked and badly hung to dry, and after a moment of confusion came back before her. “And you can’t have him. The funny thing is, you still think this is between you and Eden. This is why you brought a half-flight, unarmored. For show. To brag.” He was leaning closer and closer until he was nose to nose with the shorter angel. “To fucking bully. You think because Sariel got away with it once, that you could too. And when things didn’t go your way, you’re still too ferociously stupid to know to quit when you’re ahead.” “Our Creator has commanded -” “Did they? Well, goodness, why didn’t anyone tell me the Creator was back from whatever navel-gazing coma has devoured Them for the past few millennia?”

The angels behind Micah shifted restlessly, and the first crack showed in that raging, firm facade. Lucifer smiled. “You didn’t tell them.” “I speak for the Creator, I am Their voice. I command -” “You guess, Micah. And your guesses are shit most of the time. You pulled off some good ones when you were still listening to the rest of the family, but since you stopped, oh, I could tell. I’d like to remind you that since our Creator went down Their rabbit hole, They’ve come up once.” He lifted a finger. “Once. For me.”

“How dare you -” “You came after the kid,” Lucifer snarled, and suddenly wings as black as those of the hunting party’s were white unfurled behind him, gleaming with hellfire. “I told you lot to lay off and you still came after the kid.” “You do not command -” “No, but I sure do kick ass. So here’s the deal, Micah. You back off. Or right here, right now. I shout the truth of your little lie about the Creator to the entire club. Sing it right into their heads like a fucking tumor. I’m sure you can kill your birds. They look young and dumb.” The young and dumb birds shifted uncertainly, but Lucifer paid them no mind. “I’m sure you can kill a few of the beings here. But you can’t kill them all. By morning the truth will be out. And if you persist I, the Morningstar, the First Light, Lucifer, the Crown of Hell, will count your stupidity the first, last and only necessary sign of the Apocalyse.” The room had not been silent enough before.

“You would not do this for a single half-breed.” “General Beliale,” Lucifer called out over the deathly stillness. “How stand my armies?” The man that rose from a table next to one of the bars was human, at first. As he rose he put on bulk, and by the time he was standing he was twelve feet in every direction if he was an inch, his hide the color of fresh spilled blood, his downward curling horns a monstrous helmet. His eyes shone with hellfire, and his hands were curled into easy fists. He was clad in tarnished armor that shifted and swirled with madness and bloodlust. “My Prince’s armies stand at the ready,” Hell’s First General assured Lucifer with striking calm. Once a man whose only sin had been to love the art and science of war to the exception of everything else in life, he’d found himself cast out of every heaven, until the Morningstar and Hell had given him the only thing he wanted: a chance to prove himself.

Somewhere in the crowd a half dozen voices snarled eagerly. Something cackled like a hyena on the hunt.

“You would not do this.” Micah had gone pale, her eyes full of disbelief. “You don’t know that you’d win.” “If I may,” Balthasar’s resonant bass said. “We like this world as it is. We like its many kinds of wealth, fleeting, novel, so very fun to collect and hoard. Some fade, some last.” He shrugged elegantly. “More room in one’s hoard for the next bit of treasure. “What we don’t like is what the Ivory Citadel plans to do to this world if you win this conflict. Never mind that we cherish our half-bloods, they have drawn us back from extinction too many times to count; a world where everyone is without purpose but worship of a god that no longer even answers…” He shook his head as if Micah were an errant child. “This is not your affair, dragon.” “I am making it my affair,” Balthasar replied. “And by default my people’s.” His voice thrummed, though not quite as deafeningly as before, through the entirety of Eden. “The Claw of all dragons stands with the Crown of Hell.”

Eylygh scoffed into the stunned silence that followed that proclamation, still typing into her phone. “I’m not so dramatic as my counterparts in the Council. I must look to my people’s safety and benefit first. If you chose to start this long-delayed little conflict of yours, we don’t care. In ten years or ten thousand, there will be another world, another race for us to play with.” She finally looked up at that, her golden eyes unfathomable. “I will not risk my people in such a conflict. We will leave for the Outer Places and wait out your squabble there. And we will take all of our protections upon your precious mortals with us.” She turned the phone for Micah to examine. “All I have to do is press a button, and every nightmare that’s been waiting slavering on the Other Side is free. Isn’t mortal technology just wonderful?” Micah was a marble statue. “You would not.” “Why not? What do we care?” Eylygh scoffed openly. “You have such a weird obsession with changelings, angel. Toss them out and stop worrying about them. They live and die well enough on their own.”

In the quiet that followed, Lucifer saw Micah’s eyes dancing as she struggled to find a way out of the trap. “We.like.this.world.” The words were each a whisper, breaking the silence and the walls between realities as they popped. A creature, a being made solely of bubbles had chosen to speak from the crowd, and every word was a burst, their timing not quite perfect. Those directly around It, robe-clad figures with gaunt features and empty eyes, didn’t seem fazed by It at all. Everyone else staggered away, hands clapped to their ears. “Challenged.us.it.has. Clever.prey.its.people.are. Persist.must.it.” “It must persist,” a dozen reverent voices chorused all around the being. “Crown.with.Hell’s.we.stand.” Lucifer was digging at his ear to try and get the ringing inside it to stop. Balthasar shook his head minutely. If Eylygh was affected, she refused to show it. “Thanks, man.” A ripple of color ran through the bubbles.

“You know,” an all too human voice drawled from one of the bar counters. “Mother’s never had a problem with Nephilim.”

The stranger had been sitting at one of the bar counters, full of rubberneckers and eavesdroppers. He’d turned around to speak, and before the words had finished coming out the counter was empty.

Nothing about him seemed unusual; he was a rugged creature, with his own kind of harsh beauty, dressed as casually as the Morningstar. He slid over the milkshake he’d been enjoying, and pinned a very level gaze on Micah. “Rogue angels, though. Those, Mother minds. Those she minds very much.” “We are sane, Gideonite,” Micah ground out, even though her hunting party had shifted a silent half-step away from the man.

“Are you? You keep picking a fight with kids that, far as I can tell, have done nothing to you except exist. What part of that’s sane?” “End this quickly, Lucifer,” Eylygh suddenly murmured. “Or someone else might end it for us.” She tipped her chin to lead his eyes, and the Fallen Angel caught his breath. There they stood in serried, luminescent ranks. Eden tended to a healthy undead population because one, the club didn’t mind what they were as long as they paid and behaved, and two, the emotions that seethed through the venue every night were… mild. Like a refreshing drink after a hot day out to undead sensitivities.

In the maelstrom of emotion the angelic hunting party and their violence had provoked, and the ensuing, barely controlled anticipation as Lucifer rallied his allies, that mild drink had become a flooding river, summoning them out en masse from their carefully weather- and light-controlled environments. They didn’t move, they didn’t breathe, they were simply waiting for the dam to break, for some unspoken permission to be given. Micah and her birds didn’t even know they were there, at their back, across a space quickly emptying of club-goers.

And that was the moment Micah chose to make a mistake.

Reality barely rippling, she tried to surge past the Morningstar by going around his presence in the club, in that world.

The hand that snatched her back by the throat was black-taloned and impossibly strong. “Let go.” She swung her sword at him; he caught it in his other hand and flung it aside like a toy.

“That was stupid, Mickey.” He reeled her back in place before him, her wings flapping helplessly until a wave of his hand dismissed them, making her gasp. “Let go of me!” Reality faltered and rippled as she tried to break his grip in that world, those nearby, anywhere. She couldn’t. “Pay attention, Micael.” Lucifer tightened his grip until she could barely breathe, and then drove her down to her knees, despite her every struggle to defy him. His voice was a very, very quiet snarl. “I was old before you were a thought in our Creator’s mind. I was powerful before you ever learned that power existed. I fell because They commanded it, that’s how much I love Them. I came back the once to a place I fucking hate hoping to wake Them. Just for that. And at this point I don’t have patience for your little hate crusade. Do you understand? Do you know how many sin-eaters you’ve killed? I do. Who do you think they come to when you’re done with them? There’s a blight on your heart, my sister. You die now, I’m pretty sure I’ll find you waiting next time I go home. Is that really what you want?”

She struggled, swatting at his hand. The angels tried to surge forward, but Eden’s bouncers had beaten them to the punch, led by the valkyrie, who was giving them all a ferocious, triple-dog-dare smile as she and her comrades stood between them and their leader.

Lucifer tightened his grip. “Is it?” Micah knew herself beaten. The realization sank past her disbelief, her fury, her righteousness, her blind arrogance, all the way to what little core remained of her true self, and she stared up at him blankly. “No.” “Alright. So you want to repeat after me. No more harming Nephilim.” She clawed at his wrist; she’d hung onto her hate for so long that she couldn’t bear to let go of it. Lucifer merely tightened his grip until she’d nearly passed out, then let her wheeze in a coughing breath. “Micah. No more harming Nephilim.” “No more,” she hoarsely declared, “harming Nephilim.” “Ever.” “Ever.”

Lucifer picked her up like a ragdoll and shoved her at her people. “Go home, spread the news. And stay out of our fucking club for a while. I’m not feeling particularly inviting to the Ivory Citadel right now.”

***

Marcus woke up in the darkness of his own home, his own bedroom, his own bed, to find Aire playing with one of his hands, running his fingers delicately over the dust-fine bronze scales that began just shy of the bouncer’s fingernails, running away to disappear under his sleeve. Even his nails, neatly trimmed and manicured, shone like polished metal. He rumbled quietly, sleepily pleased, and slipped his free arm under his sprite, dragging him closer, tucking him under his chin and against his chest. “My sprite.” Nothing else, no other words, no other action, could have so easily and completely obliterated the doubts and worries that Aire had begun to nurse through that early dawn. He felt as if he might cry, and pressed that hand to his heart. “My troll.” He felt Marcus press his face to the back of his neck and breathe deeply. “You smelled it on me.” “I did, but I didn’t know what it was.” “Mm, troll thing?” Marcus chuckled. “No, dragon. Trolls can only tell the difference between stones and dirt and such.” When Aire wriggled around and swatted him, Marcus laughed, rolling them both over until the Nephilim was perched on top of him. “There. Slay me if you must, then.” “Oh, I’ll slay you, you horrible -” Aire was already bending over to kiss the half-troll. “Slay you with your own cock, see if I don’t,” he threatened between kisses. “I thought you liked my cock?” “That doesn’t mean I won’t beat you with it!” Belatedly Aire realized he was clean, not a speck of blood or ichor on him, and floating in one of Marcus’ own shirts. He fell over on that broad chest, clinging tightly. “I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

“You’ve brought a very long and pointless slaughter to an end, my sprite.” When Aire looked at him uncomprehendingly, Marcus told him everything that had transpired the night of the attack, beginning with Balthasar’s accounting of the confrontation, and followed by the wildfire spread of the story. A Chantry rep had called in to Eden the following morning, as the ripples of the confrontation reached those who had not been present for it. They had casually mentioned they were happy to defer Aire’s bloodline to his angelic heritage. If the Ivory Citadel had no problem with his existence, neither did they. “They don’t want to further provoke the Light.” Marcus’ father had been deeply amused. “He doesn’t often get directly involved, and many forget he exists. What he’s capable of.”

Milo had offered his quarters beneath Eden to the two of them, but Marcus had been adamant about taking his wounded bird home.

He didn’t, however, tell Aire that his uncle had cornered the half-troll and told him he would wring his neck, be it scrawny lizard gizzard or rough troll gullet, if he hurt Aire in any way, shape or form. While Marcus’ father watched. And laughed quietly. And only to then drag the half-troll close with rough affection and welcome him to the family.

“You don’t have to run anymore, Aire.” By the time Marcus was done talking it was noon behind the curtains, the Nephilim’s hands laced with Marcus’ over the half-troll’s broad chest, and he was nursing a massive hard-on at the sight of his sprite, blithe and safe and stunned at all that had come to pass, gleaming in the gloom like the most precious treasure he would ever guard. “No more hunting Nephilim, not ever again. I told you, my sprite.” He unwound a hand free and reached out to cradle Aire’s cheek, and all but lost his breath when the Nephilim took it in his own and leaned into the touch, eyes closing. “You run a bad risk of being cared for, if you stick with me.” “I don’t even know what to do. I’d always thought I’d spend my life running… Can I stay with you?” “Yes.” “What, just like that!” “Yes.” Marcus grinned. “I’m getting a job.” “I’m sure they’ll suffer you gladly.”

“And I’m helping with the bills!”

“I will lie about them.” Aire started beating him with one of the pillows, and Marcus could only laugh. “You will not!” “I will. Trolls may be terrible liars, but dragons are not, not when it comes to treasure.” He reached up to drag his unruly sprite close, and kissed him until Aire’s murderous intentions had been appeased. “I want you to dance, Aire. I can get you a job at Eden.” “That smacks of nepotism.” “There’s not enough of us all in this world to fill a good-sized sack, sprite. Of course it’s nepotism.” “I don’t believe you. Turn around and take off your shirt. You’re poking me in the ass and I want to see them.” Grinning, Marcus allowed Aire to slip away as he wriggled out of his shirt. The lights came on and he rolled over, groaning in delight when the weight of his lover came to rest on his backside. The most delicate of touches traced the broad scales that marked and protected the run of his spine, and they instantly rose up in ridges, startling a laugh from the Nephilim, musical and sweet. “I mean it, Aire. I want you to dance.” “How do you do that? How do you know me so well?” Aire sprawled on that broad back, clinging to those powerful shoulders. “I know you’re a bird,” Marcus replied evenly, “and I know birds need their flock. That’s what you were looking for in the dance floor every time, isn’t it. To be one of many for just a little while.” “Yes,” Aire admitted without shame. One of the most eusocial of all inhuman breeds, angels didn’t do well alone. They needed to belong, be it to a Flight or a Choir or to something. Loneliness was poison to them. He kissed the back of Marcus’ neck, making the half-troll rumble. “Ugh, you’d be perfect if you weren’t so nice to me.”

“Perfection is overrated,” Marcus declared, half-muffled by the pillow. “And really, do you want me to be mean or do you want me to be rough?”

He got a high, frustrated sound as a response, and a pillow shoved at his laughing face, which Aire pulled away when the half-troll mumbled something beneath it. “What?”

“I said, do you want the job?”

“I want you, Marc.” Aire slipped off the bouncer’s butt and slid under his arm, pressing as close as he could. “Even when I knew I wasn’t free to want anything I wanted you.”

“You have me,” the predator assured him, his voice dropping to the low, low dragon’s rumble it only reached when his hunger had been roused.

“Then the job’s just a perk. Everything’s a perk, long as I have you.” Aire grinned, slow and wicked, at Marcus. “So here’s one for you, my troll. Now you can bite to break skin.”

Rich red light kindled in the half-troll’s eyes, and he kissed Aire until their breath ran out. His unruly sprite still managed to protest. “Just don’t be taking any pieces off!” When the comment made Marcus laugh too hard to keep kissing him, Aire swatted him indignantly. He tried to wriggle away, only to find himself pinned down, that generous mouth running everywhere over the Nephilim’s pale skin.

“Oh, no. No, no, my sprite. You don’t get to offer gifts and then yank them away like a taunt.”

“I said you can, not that you should right away!” Aire was quickly losing any will to resist he might’ve had. It hadn’t been much to begin with, and he moaned helplessly when his shirt was pushed up and out of the way.

“Incidental.” “Ugh, you troll!” Marcus laughed. “Am I? I would have never guessed.” He found a nipple and licked it. “You smell like strawberries, my sprite, do you taste like them too?” “Dare you to find out.”

“Challenge gratefully accepted,” the bouncer growled, and proceeded to do exactly that.

#Eden #Marcus and Aire #Marcus #Aire #Nephilim #religious undertone #modern fantasy #My writing #original writing #modern fantasy writing #profanity #gore and violence

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