“Sarah… it has a nice ring to it at least.” Seraphim spoke in a little voice, too small, she was sure, for Gabriel to have heard. She reached down and touched her injured leg, the pain was gone and she could feel the flesh beneath starting to heal. ‘He was right, it will take hours.’
She traced the wound with the tips of her fingers, the ichor that ran throughout her body in place of blood, gradually ceased to soak through her bandage. ‘If he was right about this, then… the source of the curses?’ She shivered and shuddered.
It led to ever deeper questions. ‘He knew what I was, or what I could be, at least. He knows we exist, and had weapons to kill me whichever I was… strange.’ Seraphim told herself and looked to the open door frame that opened up out into the hall.
The priests she knew over the course of centuries only carried weapons fit to use on her, no spares fit to harm a demonic entity. ‘But he? He carries both, and together. So many questions…’ It kept her eyes focused on the doorway as if that would compel him to appear and speak to her.
She brought her left hand up to her head, ‘How long has it been, humanity has changed so much? Towers of glass, flying chariots of iron in the shapes of birds? Weapons that can wound a Seraphim, perhaps… kill one? In the days of iron and fire, had I not been injured I couldn’t have been taken… it’s all so different…’ Seraphim swallowed.
‘Why… why can’t I remember?’ How many times she’d asked that question, but over the years it lost some of its urgency. What did it matter why she couldn’t remember if she couldn’t go anywhere anyway? But now, set free and seeing the world of man so changed? ‘Now who knows what matters? Any question might mean the difference between staying away from a place like that again, or being carried back to it… or not?’ Seraphim swallowed hard just a moment before Gabriel returned to the room.
In his hand she saw he held a book. It was thin, and on the cover, a caricature of a man and woman wearing leaves for clothing were reaching upward, and a snake dangled a fig downward, just out of reach.
He turned the book around and held it out to her. “Can you read this?” He asked her.
She looked down at the slender green cover on the book, the lettering was unfamiliar, but the scene nagged at her. Still, she didn’t reach for it, as if the serpent on the cover might try to strike her, she kept her hands away from it. “No. No I can’t.” She shook her head.
“It figures. It says ‘F is for Fig.” Gabriel explained, “it’s meant to teach angels and demons modern languages the way human children learn them.”
Seraphim reached out with a tentative gesture and closed her fingers over the picturebook of the garden and gently pulled it from Gabriel’s grasp. “And why do you have this exactly?” She looked up at him, and as she asked the question, his face went blank.
“Because I sometimes need it. Why else?” He answered her question with a nonanswer and a question, and watched the way ‘Sara’ bit the lower right corner of her lip and then focused her attention on the book in her hands.
Before she could ask him something more, he took out his phone and brought up the streaming service. “Here.” Gabriel said and held the phone out horizontally to her.
“What is this?” She asked, and shifted her bite to the middle over her lower lip as she studied the screen. Letters began to appear and were recited one after another.
“It’s part of a crash course.” He answered.
“How and why would you crash a course?” Sarah asked of him, looking away from the screen and back up to his face again.
“Idiom. It’s an idiom. It means a lot of learning in a short period of time. This will teach you how to read these letters, and a few other things while I’m out.” Gabriel explained and when she didn’t take the phone, he set it down beside her. “All you have to do is let it play.”
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“It is a child?” Seraphim asked. “Will it grow to be the size of the thing on your wall?”
For a moment Gabriel stood there, dumbfounded, he reached up and scratched his head as he tried to puzzle out what she meant.
Realization struck.
Hard.
‘The t.v. on the wall…’ He smacked the palm of his hand to his face and did his pathetic best to smother his laughter.
“Did I say something foolish?” She asked, raising one pale eyebrow.
Gabriel forced his laugh to halt, with little success for several seconds, but he began to shake his head before he answered, until he could finally explain, waving his hand back and forth in front of himself. “No… no you’re fine. No, you really have been away from the world. The thing on my wall is a television, that device is a cellular phone, they’re not quite the same thing. ‘Play’ refers to allowing the things on screen to just keep going. Here. Just watch and follow along in the book.”
“Okay…” She said with a tentative air, “And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure you weren’t followed.” Gabriel answered, “Just wait here until your leg heals, when I come back, I’ll bring more books and a change of clothes.”
“Followed?” She shivered, “Is that possible?”
“Yes, it is. A captive Seraphim able to draw on the Thousand Eyes and call up the demons of Satanael? They already scrambled two jets after you, I don’t doubt they’re already searching. Your saving grace is that they have no idea where you were going. Maybe they’ll try my brother’s place, but it’ll be a good long time before they catch on that he and I are related...I hope. We’ve got time…I think, but I’ve got to be sure.” Gabriel explained, “Just-” he suppressed his exasperated sigh, “Just watch that and study the book, I’ll be back.”
Seraphim gave a tiny nod and focused on the screen, the book opened in silence, and she began to look at the pictures.
As he made his way out of the room he could hear the video go on as the introduction music faded, “A is for Apple, it may-”
The noise vanished behind him a moment later when he sped up from a walk to a near run.
‘Damn it, Michael! You clean up one mess for me, one god damn mess, and then you pull this on me…?’ Gabriel groused at his deceased brother, ‘You cost me enough in life… you big idiot… but how I wish you were around to cost me more…’ He couldn’t keep the anger in place that he longed to feel, his annoyance at his brother was dwarfed by the impact of his death, and it was only the long familiarity with his residence that let him find his way through the blurring water in his eyes.
He went to the living room and over to the small corner at the far end sat an old military radio, he flipped to the encrypted channel and began to speak, “This is Luther. Do you read, over?”
For a moment the silence lingered.
“This is Luther, do you read, over?” He repeated himself.
“Damn it, Joan! I know you’re there!” Gabriel shouted into the handset.
“Then why the hell are you asking? Let a girl work, I’ve got a living to make and I don’t stand by waiting for you to reach out to me like a jilted lover waiting at the altar!” A feminine voice snapped back.
“Miss one damn day…” Gabriel groused and rolled his eyes. “This isn’t a pleasure call.”
“It was the wedding day, asshole.” Joan clapped back. “Now what do you want?”
“Just take this down and get back to me!” Gabriel groused, ignoring the snarky question, and then rapidly listed off their numeric code.
“47 26 22”
“47 27 14”
“63 34 16”
“66 3 19”
“225 5 15”
“252 23 8”
“521 17 3”
“Reference?” She said, all snark gone from her voice.
“One eight, two eight, last four, four five two zero.” He answered.
“Oh… fuck.” She swore and then he heard the click of her disconnect.
He set the handset down. It wasn’t often he used the Apocrypha for coded transmissions, but if he did, it was serious.
“Good old Joan.” He muttered to himself and leaned back in his chair. “Michael, Michael, Michael… you’ve put me in a world of hurt on this one…” Gabriel reached up and rubbed his brow with thumb and forefinger. Joan’s answer would tell him a great deal, but no matter what answer she gave, he couldn’t think of a way to a favorable outcome. ‘You don’t scramble fighter jets with cursed weapons unless your target is a very high priority, and there’s not a lot of places I can take her that won’t be as bad or worse than the Theresans. Just Purgatory, and that’s all.’
So many governments used spirit beings as resources of one kind or another, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes not, angel, demon, or some other creature that was more inbetween, a powerful Seraphim would be highly sought after across all borders.
‘The real problem is that the church crosses all borders, like a modern empire, bound in only by the loyalty of their believers…’ Gabriel set his teeth on edge, his pulse racing as he waited and the time stretched out from one moment to the next.
“Luther this is Joan, do you read?” The voice came over the radio again, and it sounded almost panicked. Joan was breathing hard into her handset.
“I read.” He answered and sat up, slapping his feet flat on the floor.
“Same.” She said, referring to his use of the Apocrypha.
“401 27 1”
“516 26 15”
“Luther.” She said his handle and he could hear her swallow.
“192 2 7.5-9” She said, and then repeated the number sequence several more times.
“Shit.” Gabriel whispered. It was the only word he knew by numeric reference alone. Because it was the only way to say, ‘Demon’ using that code.
“Be careful… asshole.” Joan whispered, and killed the connection.
Gabriel turned off the radio, set the handset down, and rose to his feet. ‘This is going to get very ugly, very fast.’ He told himself, and went to go find Sarah a change of clothes.