—†— CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE —⸸—
Today’s Earlier Activities
Late afternoon had settled over the apartment by the time we made it to the table. The light coming through the back window was the color of cold ash. The snow in the alley below had stopped falling and just sat there, gray and still. Sarah put two cups of coffee down between us and took the chair across from me. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint knock of the radiator against the wall.
She wasn’t quite looking at me; I wasn’t quite looking at her either.
I’d seen a lot of things in my life that I couldn’t explain, and at some point through all of it, I’d stopped expecting much from the world. Then she walked into my office looking for a missing man. Somewhere between the demons and the hellhounds and a hundred years of dying, I’d ended up here, sitting across a table from her in the gray late-afternoon quiet. Not quite knowing where to put our eyes.
She’d come down those stairs knowing exactly what she was going to do, and I hadn’t stopped her. I wasn’t sorry for that. I just didn’t have words for what it meant yet, and I could tell she didn’t either. That was all right. Some things didn’t need words right away.
I noticed Az and Remy were both absent, but they hadn’t gone far. I could feel them nearby. They were just giving us whatever passed for privacy when you shared your soul with a demon and an archangel.
Sarah tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked out at the alley below. I couldn’t help but look at her. She was beautiful. And the girl sitting across from me wasn’t the same person that I had met only days ago.
“Sarah, I think we need to talk about what just happened.” I reached over and let my hand settle on hers.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said, her voice as small as a mouse.
“Well, I would be lying if I said I didn’t think this was going to complicate things.”
“I know and I hope I didn’t make things worse. But Jay, I don’t ever want you to look at me and think of those awful things.”
“You still have windows waiting,” she said quietly.
“I know.” The icon had been sitting in the corner of my vision for a while. I hadn’t been in any hurry. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
I pulled my hand away from hers, and she wrapped both her hands around her cup.
I pulled the first window open and focused the glowing text off to the side so we could both read it.
☿ ARCANE SYSTEM: QUEST UPDATE
The Mystery of St. Marys Cathedral
HIDDEN OBJECTIVE COMPLETE:
The Missing Father. You have uncovered the fate of Frank Weber and survived the confrontation with Astaroth, the demon who was possessing him.
REWARD: 2,000 Experience Points
Your party has defeated two Hellhounds and you have gained a level! Level 3 to Level 4
REWARD: 1x Fury Rune, 5x Attribute Points available for distribution.
QUEST PROGRESS: 1 of 5 Primary Objectives Complete. 2 of 2 Hidden Objectives Complete
“It looks like it gave you twice as many points as you earned last time,” Sarah said. She glanced up at me and then back down at her cup, “When you — you know. When you saved me.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about being part of the quest,” I said with a chuckle.
“I’m not embarrassed,” she said in a tone that suggested otherwise. I still just feel so weak, you know? I don’t ever want to feel as weak as I did that night, though. The look that angel had in his eyes…
Yeah, those guys were real pieces of work, Az said as he materialized on the edge of the table. He looked down at the dish and walked over, helping himself to a sugar cube. He tossed it into his mouth and crunched it.
“Since when do you eat things?” I asked.
Az looked at the sugar bowl, then back at me, seeming to genuinely consider this for the first time. “Huh,” he said before helping himself to another one.
Remy appeared at the other end of the table near the window. He leaned toward the glass, his armored form catching the last of the gray afternoon light.
“Speaking of which, it seems like the system has given me way more experience for taking out the Hound and fighting Astaroth than it did when I took out those angels,” I said, looking at Az.
“The System scales to difficulty,” Az said, still working through the sugar cube. “Surviving two hellhounds and putting Astaroth in the ground is worth more than a thousand points.”
He swallowed and glanced between Sarah and I with an impish grin. “The System may have also taken into account the full scope of the afternoon’s activities.” He made a gesture with both hands that left very little to the imagination.
Remy walked across the table and knocked him clean off the edge without so much as changing his expression.
There was a small thud, followed by a string of profanity from somewhere below the table.
Sarah had both hands pressed over her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
“The system was also factoring in the extra points earned for completing quest objectives,” Remy said, folding his hands.
Az climbed back up onto the table and straightened himself with as much dignity as a small red demon gremlin could manage.
“You know I thought I was the highest-ranking demon in this damn place. I had no idea that Astaroth was ever here. I didn’t know about the hellhounds either,” Az said as he settled back onto the edge of the table and shot Remy a look while flipping him off.
Remy didn’t acknowledge it; he was already back to looking at the snow outside.
I looked over at Az, who was reaching for a third sugar cube. “Before we do anything with these points,” I said, “I wanna talk about what happened out there on that farm.”
Az stopped with the cube halfway to his mouth.
“You used that ability without me,” I said, looking at the little shit.”
I leaned forward. “You tore yourself out of me, and put that hellhound down, Az. I somehow watched you do it from somewhere I’m pretty sure was the wrong side of ‘alive’ too.”
Sarah, startled by what I had said, looked up from her cup.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “About that.”
“About that,” I repeated.
He shifted on the edge of the table and was quiet for a moment. “I have a limited ability to act without you.” He glanced up at me. “We both do,” he said, looking at Remy. “Jay, you were dying, so I made a call, okay? And I’d make it again.”
I thought about what it had felt like from the inside: the heat tearing through my chest. The blood was being dragged out of me all at once like something had reached in and taken it. I’d been in bad spots before, but that had been something else entirely.
“Thank you.” Az stopped right at the beginning of what I’m sure was going to be a continuation of his self-serving diatribe.
“Really?”
“Yeah Az, you saved all three of us. I was done. I mean I hadn’t given up, but there was nothing left.”
“Five of us.” Sarah interrupted. Honestly, Azazel, you might have saved this whole town. The spirit let us in on a few details about what it planned to do before it would let heaven or hell have the relic.
“Jay, I can’t even comprehend the type of destruction it was describing.”
Az just stood there, staring at her with his eyes wide.
“What does it cost you?” I asked. “Multiple times now I’ve seen you guys project yourselves out like that.”
Az was quiet for a beat. “It’s a significant drain on both of us,” he said. What you felt out there was your Fury and Health being ripped out of you at once. That’s what it took to give me enough substance to do what needed doing. If I had held that form much longer, it would have killed you.”
He picked the sugar cube back up and turned it over in his small hands. Honestly, Mud, I probably should have stepped in sooner than I did. It was one thing to stab those angel fucks when they were trying to kill Sarah.
But attacking that hound solidified the fact that I’m not one of them anymore. But I wasn’t about to let that thing take us out.
“And in the cathedral,” Sarah said slowly, watching them. “When that spirit came at me, the two of you both appeared as angels. Was that the same thing? Because it didn’t look like it had ripped anything from Jay.”
“That was different,” Az said, leaning back on the edge of the table with his arms crossed. “That was a bluff.”
Sarah glared at him, and the room was quiet for a moment.
Listen sister, I hate to say it but neither Remy nor I are anywhere near strong enough to defeat that spirit. That thing talks about being tied to that relic for hundreds of years. But it’s way older than that.
Sarah looked down at her cup. I could see her working through what that meant. “A bluff, then.”
“Well,” Az said, reaching for another sugar cube. “It all worked out, didn’t it?”
“It did,” she said with a soft smile. And it gave me a chance to see what you really look like. I know you don’t like your celestial form, but it is pretty amazing.
“Yes yes, I’m glad you got a chance to bask in all my glory! But I prefer this,” the little demon said, twerking his ass at her.
Ramiel covered his eyes with his hand. “Damn it, Azazel. How do I unsee that?”
I wasn’t sure how to take any of this. Azazel, the demon, had watched me be tortured for over a hundred years. But Azazel, the angel, the celestial, saved my life. Even if his motivations were self-serving, I’m starting to understand the little shit a bit more.
“Don’t,” Az said, pointing at me. “I can see the look on your face, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I said.
“Good,” he said. He set the sugar cube down and his expression shifted into something more focused. “There’s something else we should show you. We weren’t sure how important it was before because of how closely we’re tied to your own stats. But the system gave us our own sheets when that blade bound the three of us together. We’ve been sitting on them for a while. But it seems like now is as good a time as any to go through them.”
Sarah looked up from her cup. “Do you have sheets?”
“We have character sheets,” Az said, and glanced over at Remy. They work a little differently than yours do. And I’m afraid they’re a mere reflection of what we were before. But since it’s become apparent that the two of you are going to end up punching way above your weight, I think we should probably go over them.
“So how about it, Remiel? Are you up for a little show and tell? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”