Mission Log, Day 25, Monday, September 27th, 1999 (continued)
Oh, what silly creatures are we angels. Driven by the holiest drives and hindered by the same. Especially this thing called love.
Somebody's gonna get themselves killed over it.
Take my love for Gabriel. Now we aren't talking smoochie-smoochie kissy-kissy type stuff. We're talking all-consuming, blind-to-all-else Love with a capital L. The kind of love that makes an angel bug-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth crazy with devotion. The kind of love that when said angel hears the tiniest little hint of communication, flips head over heels to obey, and when that message is a full blown order...well, do you blame me that I blazed out of Thenaire's War Tether faster than an ofanite on eighteen cups of coffee?
I didn't exactly abandon my companions, but then again, I wasn't rightly in a mood to watch the brewing nastiness between Rook and Arashiel. Long story short, Rook was being a self-absorbed putz, and Arashiel was being...well, Arashiel. Not that I blame her for this one. I don't exactly blame Rook either, but...he's got some strange ideas about teamwork. With him it's either all together as one finely-honed single-minded unit, or completely separate, not even communicating with each other.
That's what tonight was all about. He came out of the interrogation room, saw Arashiel waiting there to talk to him, and completely ignored her, refused to answer her questions, or even talk to her. And Arashiel's questions were good questions, like, "Did you ask her about Jael's murder and the bomb?" and stuff like that. Something of his response smacked me of the absolutely immature--I mean reliever immature here--and I could hardly stand to watch it, much less not say anything. Except that I had business to attend to yesterday and Rook was near the bottom of my list of concerns.
In the end, Thenaire got involved and Rook finally revealed his plans. He promised Strassen no harm would come to her, but she could not leave unless she renounced her service to Fate. Nor did he try to stop Arashiel from going in to talk to the woman. That little crisis averted, I headed back to Boulder by wing.
What in Heaven was Rook thinking, promising safety to an unrepentant Soldier of Hell? When he brought her in he seemed determined to get information out of her or kill her trying. But there was such a stink...Jael herself seemed quite upset and angry about the whole thing. And now that Jael is upstairs in trauma.... This isn't Rook doing this. This is Rook doing what he thinks Jael would want him to. Okay, that makes sense. Rook respects Jael and Jael's opinion, unlike the rest of us. Even in her absence--especially in her absence--he would try to honor her wishes.
Nevermind that War is not Creation and would never pass up an opportunity to gather information on the enemy.
Like I said, love. Ain't it crazy? It's enough to make a raven shake its head in wonder.
Not that Arashiel is likely any less crazed by love right now. As I understand it, she and her sister go way back, make me look like a fledgling in comparison. Not to say one or the other has never been killed before, I'm sure, but still...she can't be exactly stable right now. Besides, this wasn't just some random death, or even combat. This was premeditated cowardly terrorist-style murder. I can't even imagine what's going through her heart right now.
Besides Love. And hate.
I flew over Rocky Flats on my way back to the Tether, gathered my thoughts on the message. Another raven brought it to me. Isn't that cute? I didn't even know we had any raven relievers of Fire. Maybe Gabriel thought it would be ironic and all, a raven messenger delivering to her one-time raven messenger.
Anyway, the raven spoke. "She says, 'Go home and return to your work. One of the lost must be saved and cruel must be punished. Revenge is the Lord's, and is mine.'"
And so I left in a hurry. Thinking about it now, the message could be a tiny slap on the wrist for allowing myself to be distracted by this Victoria Strassen/Rook/Arashiel business and not going after Daspit. But I don't think so; Strassen is directly connected to Daspit and could definitely provide crucial information about him. No, it seems more likely that the message was one of urgency. Something was either going on right now, or would happen very soon, and Gabriel needed me to be there. And as for the message itself..."One of the lost must be saved, and cruel must be punished."
One of the lost, huh? The lost could have something to do with the newly released denizens of the tapestry, but they'd never been referred to as "lost" before. More often the "lost" were angelic outcasts, or the Fallen. The Tsayadim, perhaps? I shudder to think so. I'd hate to have to return that sword I have stashed back at Giles' tether.
So a fallen/falling angel, then. Irad? He certainly seems to be up to his tattoos in trouble with Judgement and the Sword and Nightmares, might need some saving. Saving from his hunters, or saving from his fallen self? Ooo, that would suck. Why would I have to be the one to redeem him? Let Arashiel or someone else fix his emotional butt. [sigh] We do as our Bright Lady wills us.
Now that I think about it, that makes sense. Matt overhead some angels conspiring in the Great Library, saying "He" must be informed and "the Lost One" must be found. Could they also be talking about Irad? That would be after he killed those two Laurencians in Yellowstone, and after the Triad interrogated me and I wouldn't talk about it. Hmph. I wonder what they could want with him? Besides his head on a stake, of course.
And the other part of the message, "...cruel must be punished...." Cruel, not cruelty. I started to write it off as reliever error, but have since reconsidered. Suppose that really was how Gabriel said it, really was how she heard it in her vision? That means that's how God said it, and God doesn't make mistakes...it could be important, and if so, will make itself clear when the prophesy unfolds. No sense in agonizing over it now. No, best to check in at the tether and make sure all is well, then set about finding Irad. If I was right, he be in trouble right about now.
In fact, I was wrong...sorta. But more on that later.
I was in such a hurry that I about flew in the window before realizing Giles had a guest. Too late to hide; Giles called me in and introduced me to Adriel, of Dreams. His choir wasn't immediately apparent; I guessed Elohite by his puckered lips and tight butt cheeks.
Lo and behold, he was here to talk to me. Apparently he just admitted a new patient to his dream care facility (I didn't even know there was such a thing) who has constant nightmares about vomiting corpses and ravens and rings of fire.
I grinned and fluffed. Oh, stop, you're making me blush.
He puckered a little tighter; he didn't seem too pleased. I felt a wave of satisfaction from the couch; Dinhabbah lay there, still handcuffed but awake, smirking to no one in particular.
Smirking?
Adriel interrupted that line of thought. "The dreams are not active dreams, despite the disturbing imagery and pervasive mood of terror. And they are not on Beleth's side." Which, by the expression on his face, was only barely the case. "I do not appreciate your tampering with dreams, and had I known, would have put a stop to it."
Whoa, hold on here. Tampering with dreams? Not exactly. And although I appreciate an angel doing his job, he apparently doesn't realize I was only doing mine. And I've had quite enough interrogation in the last few weeks to last me a century or so; where does this angel get the autority to come barging in here like a one-man Triad and condemn me, tell me how not to do my job? I bit all this back, something I've learned lately, and said simply, "He deserved it. Cruelty must be punished."
He sniffed. "I received no word that tampering had been authorized."
I narrowed my beady black eyes to bore a hole through that bland little head. "I did not alter his dreams. I merely altered his waking life." I turned to Giles. "Where's Irad?"
He didn't know, but filled up my Essence before I left Dreams to stew in his own self-righteousness.
Not that I knew where to start looking for Irad, although my gut instincts led me to the Board, Rook's fighting school. Thank you, guts; he lurked there in the shadows just beyond the light, waiting. I cirled down to talk to him but Rook pulled up first, got out of his car to go in.
He almost didn't see the fist coming, ducked and rolled at the last moment. "Bastard!" Irad screamed as he turned. "You got her killed!" He launched again.
Wordlessly, Rook ascended.
I couldn't believe it. Rook, leaving a fight? With a demon, no less? Irad screamed again, pure rage, put hs fist through the window of Rook's car. No, no, this would never do. There weren't enough windows on this block to ease that kind of anger.
"Hello."
His head snapped around to glare at me--made me glad I'd landed out of reach of that bloody fist--then looked away. "Coward!" he spat. That was directed at Rook. I shifted, waited. "He got her killed. He wouldn't release Strassen, even though they warned him to."
"Warned him to?"
"He got a phone call from them, just before she was killed."
I sighed. That was definitely the Rook I knew. "Irad...it was only her vessel."
He stared at me again, less hatred this time, more pain. "Does that make it any better?"
For him? I thought about it. "No. No, it doesn't."
We stood in awkward silence a while, waves of raw emotion rolling off of him and breaking on the shores of my heart. He wasn't even trying to manipulate me and I still felt it. Ah, Arabis, how frightfully stupid of you. I knew perfectly well what a Habbalite was capable of. God knows Arnu had done it to me more times than I could count.
"What are you doing here, little raven?"
I squinted at him, composed my answer carefully. "I was looking in on you. You haven't made many friends lately."
"You mean all those malakim...."
All those...? "I heard you killed only two."
"That's because the rest ran away," he laughed bitterly. Apparently it was a common affliction lately.
"Well, they could be rather unhappy with you presently."
"Let them come. I won't stop them. Who cares? What's the point?"
Um, warning. "I'd rather you not let them tear you limb from limb."
He looked at me askance. "Is that concern in your voice? You were the one who said no one could help me."
I backpedalled. "Me? I'm not concerned, no, no. I'd just...rather you waited to suicide until after you've helped me out. It's purely selfish on my part."
"Helped you, huh?"
"Yeah. See, I'm supposed to take out Daspit, only so far as I know he's a worded demon, or close to it, and I don't know if I can take him out single-handed. Thought I could use you, being an ex-worded demon and all--"
I cringed inwardly at the "ex-" jab, saw him flinch slightly. But he let it pass. "You need me to help you take out Daspit?"
I shrugged non-committally. "It couldn't hurt."
He grinned. He knew I was playing games with him. Heck, he was probably a master of games, wrote the book on games, could smell a game a mile away. But he didn't seem to mind. "Very well. What next?"
I shifted forms, handed him the cellphone Rook gave me. "We keep you out of harm's way in the meantime. No suicide missions before then."
"I'm not suicidal. I just wouldn't fight back right now. There's a difference."
Semantics. We walked together for a while in silence. He seemed awfully tall next to me, even in my human vessel, yet smaller in stature, momentarily shrunken from the inside out. How long were he and Jael separated, only to be close again yet separated by time, change, and Rook. Now she was gone again, and although still nasty and haughty, some of the confidence seemed burned out of him. What was the point, him coming back this far only to have one of the things he still cared for ripped away again? So he lashed out, at Rook for want of any true villain, and now slurked along beside me, withdrawn, sullen, thwarted.
I cleared my throat. "I'm going to the tether to visit Jael. Anything I can do for you while I'm there?"
He looked at me, through me, looking for more games. "Tell her...tell her I'm sorry. That's all."
Thrice-damned Love.
I was still in my human vessel when we returned to the tether. Unfortunately, Adriel was still there, too. Ah, well, no sense in hiding from him. I introduced him to Irad and apparently that name meant something to him, too. I don't recall how it came up in conversation, but next thing I know Irad and I suggest that Adriel take a peek at Victoria Strassen's dreams.
Oddly enough, the suggestion met with very little argument, except from Arashiel of all people. "Someone should ask Rook if that violates his promise to her."
You gotta respect the girl. She may have her own opinions about what goes on, but she's honorable enough to stand up for Rook's wishes even after he gave her the royal shaft treatment.
"He's heavenside. I'll go find him and ask." Besides, that way I don't have to explain that I'm really going to visit Jael.
Conversation moved on to other matters, particularly little barbs between Irad and Adriel about who would actually get information out of dreamwalking the woman. Dinhabah remained on the couch, manacled and silent. I moved near, pitched my voice low so no one else could hear.
"So what happened?"
"I'm not at liberty to say," he snarked.
I looked at the manacles. "Let me see if I can find something to get those off."
Irad seemed back to his old self. I rode the Heavenly 605 home.
Asking Rook seemed to be the simplest item on my agenda, so I felt around for him, followed my instincts again. I ended up on the edges of Gabriel's domain where Fire met Dream before I spied him flying purposefully out over the desolate landscape.
Here we go again.
His answer was, of course, the more difficult one. Yes, he would consider spying on her dreams a violation of his promise to protect her, although he seemed to think we would do it anyway, and seemed appropriately irritated and disrespectful toward us. Whatever. I still thought we should do it, but out of respect for Rook's wishes I would take the coward's way out and refuse to have any part of whatever the others should choose to do. I was frustrated with Rook, mad at myself for not choosing between my friendship and what I thought was the right thing to do. I didn't even care where he was up to now. Maybe trying to find another ethereal to remove the Geas on his soul? Let him go, I say, and when he is still missing in three weeks maybe someone will care enough to wonder what happened to him.
My trip through the Bazaar proved no more helpful. The manacle maker knew of no way to remove manacles but through key or Superior intervention. So I headed for the Halls of Creation already feeling a little low.
It's not hard to find a dragon sleeping in one of those rooms. I poked around the room a moment, looking at sketches and paintings and sculptures of dragons, touching finely-worked pieces of pottery. Didn't see any weapons. Of course, what weapons would you need with claws like those?
I knelt down before her, careful not to touch the unconscious form, and found myself at a loss for words. I shook my head, took a different approach. "Irad says he's sorry." I took a deep breath. "Not that I know what he's sorry for. But he could use a little reassurance right now, so, uh...hurry up, will you? No dilly-dallying."
That said, I hurried home.
I heard voices beyond the door when I returned, one female but not Arashiel. I shifted to raven, came out to see Adrienne was back for a little visit. No matter. I needed to have a word with Giles. We retired to the kitchen where he made himself a cup of tea.
First, a call to Arashiel. Completely unsurprised by Rook's response, she assured me she had no intention of letting anyone dreamwalk Strassen. I didn't mention Rook's little foray into the Far Marches. He'd have to answer those questions himself, and I didn't need to aggrivate his affairs with an already aggrivated Arashiel.
But what I realy wanted to ask about was Dinhabah, and Adrienne, to a lesser degree. Had they said anything about what happened, where they'd been? Not much, as it turns out. Not that I expected either one of them to be particularly talkative, especially if one or both of them happened to in collusion with Daspit.
But I learned a thing or two. When I told Giles I'd found no key to unlock Dinhabah's manacles, he chastised me. The manacles were not artifacts, as it turns out, but the result of an attunement which binds a celestial with its own dissonance. No key existed which could remove these manacles. Second, the only celestials who posessed such an attunement served either Judgment or the Game. In other words, Dinhabah's little confrontation was with his own allies.
That demon he murdered. Someone of the Game figured out he did it and took offense. Damn it, I really need to get him to talk to me!
I started to hint to Giles about Dinhabah's situation when Matt came down the tether with big news: he just came from the Marches where something they call the Scourge is leaving dead ethereals in its wake. Whether they were our dead ethereals, and what the Scourge was, Matt did not know. He thought it all had something to do with Uriel, whom he suspected to be "the Lost One" of which the conspiring angels in the Library spoke. I disagreed, told him my theory about Irad, but we came to no resolution. Then again, Dinhabah might have some input into that as well....
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