Soundtrack: “Highway of Fallen Kings” – Civil Twilight
Gabriel laughed at me then. A little musical sound, almost a giggle. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat just to make it stop. His “throne” was some kind of arrangement of boxes with a black cloth, and Gabriel, draped over the whole thing. There was a man on either side of him, looking like club bouncers, one with his arms crossed, the other with one hand on something I guessed was a gun.
“David,” Gabriel said, his voice spreading like an oil slick on a pond. “Look at you, just the same as always.”
“Just the same?” I said before I could stop myself.
“Yes. That same half-bewildered look in your eyes. Even if your body changes, that look,” he said, stabbing a finger at my face, “is constant. Windows to the soul, they say.”
My head swam a bit and I swayed from the wind and the cold and the starvation, but I managed to curl my lip into a little sneer.
“Oh really? And how do you know so much about me, Mr. Wonderful? Mr. I-Need-Bodyguards, because I’m too...”
“David!”
Emma was looking at me with a mix of horror and anger and stood up, taking a few deferential steps backwards away from Gabriel’s throne, not wanting to turn her back on her Savior. She strode over to me quickly and grabbed my arm hard, guiding me back around the corner of the cement silo.
“Show some respect,” she hissed at me, her eyes flashing violet. “He’s not what he seems.”
“You can say that again.” I gave a little snort of derision and she gripped my arm even harder, digging her nails into my bicep very painfully. I winced and twisted in her grasp.
“He’s not... he’s the only man with the power to help us.” She was looking deep into my eyes now, and I stopped struggling, getting lost in their perfection. “And I use the word ‘man’ loosely.”
A softer look of awe came over her face that made me pause. What the hell was she getting at?
“What?”
“He’s the one. The one who will save us all. Maybe the world. I can’t explain it. I can’t even put my finger on it enough to put it into words, but he’s different. I’ve seen him do things. Felt him do things. David, I strongly suspect that Gabriel is...”
“An arrogant assbag? A dick who just wants to get in your pants and f...”
I have never been slapped so hard in the face in my life. It knocked the wind out of me and sent me to the ground as my ears rang from the impact of it. Stunned, I simply sat there for a few seconds as another round of dizziness made my stomach lurch and I swallowed down some bile.
“How. Dare. You.”
I’d blown it. I’d beyond blown it. My mouth, which was now hot and throbbing on one side, had just run off and taken a shit on any chance I had with this Emma. I was so pissy about Gabriel being here that I hadn’t given one thought to how Emma looked up to him. Almost worshiped him. I hadn’t given any thought about how she might even be right about him being able to save her people.
He did seem to know an awful lot about what I was doing, jumping between bubbles. Somehow, Gabriel was the same in every one of them. Maybe he even knew how to navigate the foam. Maybe he could reveal how to get home to my Emma. I had to get him talking. Hearing himself talk did seem to be his second-favorite hobby.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Everything feels sideways here,” I said quietly. I struggled to my feet a little more than I needed to, hoping to squeeze out a little sympathy, but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she wasn’t having any of it.
“Not thinking is what you do best,” she spat at me. “He’s our one chance at getting out of this alive.”
“Why? Why are you so sure, Emma?”
“Because...” she started to say, but her gaze grew a little distant and she seemed at a loss for words.
“What’s the deal with the throne? Who are those guys next to him?”
That brought her back.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain.”
“You haven’t explained anything,” I said, my voice rising a little.
“There are prophecies,” she murmured quietly. I stopped my eyes from rolling and kept looking at her. After everything I’d seen, I was starting to believe in things like that. Either that or I was losing my goddamn mind. Or both.
“I had a teacher,” she continued. “She saw him in a vision, and the very next day one of my own students found the exact same prophecy in an old book she’d bought at the flea market. Then my Gran told me...” Her eyes unfocused again and she looked out at nothing.
“Emma?”
“Sorry,” she said, focusing back on me. “I do that sometimes. Anyway, the prophecies. There is one that says the faithful and just people will find their savior in the mountains of the desert when the lights start to go out and the war begins. And that he will lead them to safety.”
“But how do you know...”
I realized that I really needed to shut up and not squash the hope out of her. My face still hurt, and it was a really good reminder to keep my thoughts to myself, at least for now. I needed to get closer.
“Our David would know this, because he’s spent years researching all of this, but maybe you don’t realize what’s going on. Do you remember who the messenger of God is, who announces the end of the world? Which archangel that is?”
I wracked my brain. Between being half starved, being constantly assaulted by the wind on a dirty mountaintop, being whalloped in the face by the woman I loved (or a close approximation), and about a billion emotions having a drunken brawl inside me, I was drawing a blank.
“Angel, uh...”
I remembered seeing a golden angel on top of a church, with a horn, and something about him blowing the horn to announce something. The second coming? Or the end of the world, like she’d said? Or maybe those were the same thing...
“Gabriel,” she breathed, with not a small amount of reverence.
Well that figured. Didn’t that just fucking figure. She thinks he’s...
Oh. My. God.
But I couldn’t let my anger and disgust get the best of me this time. If I wanted information, I had to swallow my pride, and my vomit, and play along and talk to the guy. I needed her to let me get close enough to do that.
I nodded, my gaze hard. The look on her face told me that she mistook it for my finally understanding the gravity of the situation. Perfect.
“I understand. Take me to him,” I said, my voice low and dark. Kind of like Batman. As she led me back into his “holy presence,” I felt my fists clench up and my jaw tighten and my eyes turn into lasers.