Authors: Alexandra Rowland
“
If you don't leave immediately, I'll tell the guards you're raving mad and asking for drugs, and they'll take you to border and throw you out. Trying to sneak resources you don't need? Tsk tsk.”
The woman took a step back. “I'm sorry. I'll leave. I've made you uncomfortable. I can't really do anything to convince you I'm trustworthy, can I?”
“
It's just that you could get me dead, making wild accusations like that. People are scared.”
“
If you want to escape, I'll help you. I know a way out.”
“
So do I,” Lucien said promptly.
“
I mean without flying.”
“
I'm not sure what you're talking about.”
“
Just remember, okay? And if you do go, take me with you. I can help you. I can.”
“
I don't have any reason to leave. This is a good place.” Lucien edged past her and opened the door. “I'm glad you're feeling better. Sorry I couldn't do more for you.”
Her face fell. “Just remember what I said. I
believe
in you.” The hair stood up on the back of Lucien's neck as she walked out the door.
Dangerous woman. They'd been careful – or at least, he'd been careful, but if she'd seen them somewhere else and recognized them, they were shit out of luck. He'd have to find a way to talk to Lalael.
***
Lucien gave Lalael significant looks when he went to the mess to get his breakfast the next day.
By midafternoon, Lalael had limped to the door of the med shed and claimed to the guards that his ankle might be sprained. “What was that about?”
“
Someone knows.”
Lalael sat down heavily in one of the chairs and stared. “How?”
Lucien shrugged and gestured helplessly.
“
Did you do something?”
“
Did
you?
”
“
Obviously not.”
“
Neither did I.”
Lalael covered his face with his hands. “Dammit.”
“
She told me she wouldn't tell anyone, offered to help us escape... Asked to go with us.”
Lalael let his hands drop to the arms of the chair, sliding down in it until he was looking at the ceiling. “Well, we
are
leaving, obviously. We can't stay here. She'll talk eventually. She'll let something slip. She's
human.
”
“
I know.”
“
That's it, then. That's just it. We'll just... When did you find out?”
“
Last night.”
Lalael rubbed his face again and swore, muffled. “We've already wasted too much time.” He got up and began to pace. “You should have found a way to tell me so we could have gotten out of here last night after I came back from the looting squad.”
“
There are guards at the door. I'm not allowed out after nightfall. Not even for emergencies. They bring the victims to me, not vice versa.”
Lalael kicked open the cabinet and began rearranging its contents. Lucien didn't bother fixing it; everything in here was medical and hygienic supplies, and it didn't much matter which cabinet they were in. Lalael couldn't get into the padlocked ones anyway.
“
We have to make sure she can't tell anyone.”
“
We could take her with us. I guess.”
“
What, and lock her up so she couldn't tell anyone?” Lalael stacked towers of alternating blocks of gauze and cloth tape. “Impractical. We don't have anywhere to keep her.” He paused. “We could –”
“
What?”
“
Well, there's one way to make sure she never tells anyone.” At Lucien's look of outrage, Lalael held up his hands, full of bottles of rubbing alcohol. “I'm just making a suggestion.”
“
No. Absolutely not. I don't control your life and you don't kill innocent people.”
“
Fair, fair,” Lalael muttered. “Might come to that one day, though, if this keeps happening.”
“
It's not going to keep happening.”
“
You can't guarantee that.”
“
What if we tried taking her along? Apparently not everyone thinks we're out to kill them, so... We could just send her out and make her find other people who might not kill us on sight if they know what we are.”
“
Are you
crazy?
” Lalael dropped the elastic bandage he was calmly wrapping around a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “And you think that plan will work. Your plan which rests all its weight on being friends. With
humans.
”
Lucien shrugged.
“
What would be the
point?
You turn around and they're dead!”
“
Yeah, and they've also had a hundred kids, and those kids have had kids. I know. But then they'd know us, and we could just... hang out. Forever. The alternative is going in hiding forever.” Lucien shrugged.
Lalael shook his head. “No. I'm not going to risk that. It's too soon. Ask me again in a few decades when things have quieted down. They're too scared and there's too many of them.”
“
And what about her?”
“
She wanted out? We'll get her out in exchange for her word that she'll never breathe a word of this to anyone. Sensible?”
“
Good as anything, I guess. Where will we go? Back to the forest?”
“
I hate nature,” Lalael said vehemently. “I'm going to have enclosed walls and a roof over my head, thank you.”
***
In point of fact, the thing was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. There might have been more after they'd left. Lalael slipped out of the med shed, went to see the woman in question, got directions to a rendezvous.
She then went back to Lucien, in the most scandalous dress she could muster, gave the guards each a cigarette – a bribe which would have gotten her what now passed for a meal of kings if she'd offered to the right people – and asked them very sweetly if they wouldn't mind smoking them across the street so she and the medic could have some privacy.
They didn't mind in the slightest.
The guards didn't even mind when, after a brief, whispered kerfuffle between Lucien and the woman about whether or not Lucien would go for her scheme, the two of them exited the med shed with their arms around each other's waists, gave the guards a pair of merry waves and gestured vaguely in the direction that the woman lived. The guards waved back and kept smoking as conservatively as they could.
Lucien pulled away from her as soon as they were out of eyesight. Her skirt was very short, and it was dark, and he had certain ideas about how to treat a woman in a short skirt on a dark street at night, and it wasn't by giving people any more of an impression than the one she had already independently chosen to provide them.
Sometimes he really missed the Victorians.
She glanced behind them to make sure they weren't being followed and pulled a pair of jeans, a sweater, and a backpack out from behind an overflowing trash can. Lucien looked away while she pulled the jeans on under her skirt. “Right,” she said, when she was done. “This way.” She pulled the sweater over her head as they walked, then peeled back a piece of loose chain-link when they got to the barricade. Lalael was already on the other side.
And that was that.
They went a good distance out from the city. There was a small group blockaded in a winery nearby, and after procuring the woman's oath of silence, they turned her loose near them and went elsewhere, a few miles off from it.
New and interesting kinds of troubles started when the woman – who had first tried to give her name as Silvera Moonsparrow, and under pressure admitted that the name on her original birth certificate was Mara Elizabeth Johnstone – began bringing victims to their house.
It was a nice house – the dining room and one upper-floor bedroom out of the total three had been crushed by brimstone, but it had a fireplace and a roof, and it kept the wind out, once the two supernatural beings had figured out the right end of a hammer.
Neither of them knew how Mara had found said house, but she turned up on the half-scorched doorstep one afternoon a few days later, making a pleading face and wheedling for Louis (she was soon corrected to 'Lucien') to heal a poor, sad, small, helpless, destitute child – only five and a quarter years old! – who was tragically possessed, not to mention orphaned.
Lucien suspected the artful smudges of dirt on the child's face might have been Mara's doing rather than naturally caused, but he did what had to be done while Lalael explained that this was not a thing that they would be doing anymore, and Mara nodded emphatically and said she of course understood, and then she handed over a bottle of white wine and kissed Lalael's cheek and clasped his hands in both of her own and said, very feelingly, Thank You.
Lalael threw her out of the house, but when she brought back another tragedy case the next day, along with another one who was very slightly less of a tragedy, they dealt with those as well, and both of them explained to her afterwards why this couldn't be a regular thing, and she just nodded emphatically and twined the chain of her pentacle necklace around her fingers and swore she'd only bring the really bad ones.
Except it started to be a regular thing, and then people besides Mara started stopping by, and no one was
really
surprised (although Lucien was just a squinch smug) that some of the people who stopped by didn't exactly leave all the way, at which point
Lalael nailed the door shut.
***
“
I didn't tell them a thing,” said Mara simply in the face of divine wrath. She'd broken into their house through the kitchen window in the back, and Lalael was hard pressed for enough planks to nail that shut too.
“
We're not
gods,
” Lalael growled. “Stop it. Just cut it out. We're
not.
”
Mara shrugged. “You're god-
like.
Close enough, in this day and age.”
Lalael threw his hands in the air and stormed off to the other side of the room.
Mara turned to Lucien. “They came to all of their own conclusions. All I ever said was, 'I know some guys who can help with this problem'. It's not my fault if some of your patients weren't wholly unconscious during your little surgical procedure. Emily said – hm, I believe her exact words were that she knew the moment you took the monster out because it stopped hurting so bad and she started dreamed of a bright warm glow, and then she opened her eyes and saw 'a nangel'. She was quite insistent that you both were nangels, in fact. And I was very sure to say exactly nothing whatsoever, exactly as promised.”
“
That still doesn't make us
gods,”
Lucien snapped. A roll of thunder sounded outside. “You're pushing it here, Mara. There are boundaries.”
Mara shrugged yet again. “I don't know anyone else who can put their bare hands into people's chests and rummage around without doing damage and coming out bloody. Seems pretty godlike to me. What else can you do?”
“
Nothing!” they both cried in unison, exactly at the moment a bolt of lightning hit the tree in the front yard, splitting it precisely in half.
All was silent for a few moments. The rain began, pattering against the windows, and Lucien saw Lalael's hair come suddenly alight, and Lalael thought that Lucien might indeed be glowing without giving off any light, and then someone knocked on the boarded-up door to ask if the rest of them could come in to get out of the rain, and Mara picked up the hammer and started pulling the nails out of the planks.
***
“
They're still out there.” Lucien peered out from behind the curtains hanging over the attic window where they hid away from what he now supposed were their followers. They'd been up there nearly the whole time since the storm that the followers were convinced Lucien had called up, only coming down when absolutely necessary and not speaking to anyone but That Damn Woman.
“
Still?” Lalael asked worriedly.
“
I think they've gotten some things from the church down the way,” Lucien mused.
“
That's not bad for you, is it?”
Lucien snorted. “Earth things don't have that kind of enchantment on them. Not even your armor singed me after the portals closed, but your armor wasn't enchanted either, was it.” Lucien crossed his arms, leaning against the window casing, and looked down on the crowd milling about in the front yard.
“
I've been thinking about that lately,” Lalael said quietly. “Home.” He looked down at the meager store of supplies they'd collected, swallowed the lump in his throat, and asked, “What are we going to do when we run out of food?”
“
Fly,” Lucien answered, biting one thumbnail. “There's a sledgehammer in the garage. We'll break a hole in the roof.”
A few moments passed, filled only with the distant chatter of humans. “So...”
“
Yes.”
“
Still down there?”
“
Don't look like they're going anywhere for a bit.”
“
Still being stupid?”
“
Perpetually.”
***
“
Perhaps I should have anticipated this in my initial plan,” Lucien mused. He had something that might have vaguely qualified as coffee-tinted water, and two whole strips of smoke-cured bacon: both peace offerings from Mara. He took a thoughtful, slow sip and pretended really, really hard. “When I was talking about being friends with humans who know what we are.”
“
It's been a week. And. A half,” Lalael said from between clenched teeth. He was suffering the most from cabin fever, and any time he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of the window, he tried ineffectually to beat out the faint light that still gleamed on his hair. Lucien, on the other hand, was simply ignoring the fact that he looked like he was sitting in sunshine even when there wasn't any. “They are building a
church
in front of
my house.”
“
I know. It's a problem.” Lucien took another slow sip of nearly-coffee and tried to pretend even harder. He thought it might possibly be almost working.
Lalael ground his teeth. “They could be repairing their own homes instead of making mine so unsightly.”
“
Perhaps they're trying to appease us,” Lucien said in vaguely anthropological tones. “Perhaps they're expecting us to do something in return if we're properly appeased.”
“
They don't know anything about us!” In reply, Lucien gently put his mug in Lalael's hands and patted his shoulder. “They're never going to go away,” Lalael grumbled into the cup as he stole a sip and made a surprised noise.
Lucien busied himself trying to pry open the window. “These religious types... They're daft, determined little buggers. Always have been, always will be.” Lucien heaved at the window again. “I think it's distracting them from the depression of looking around at how much Earth is terrible.” The window finally slid open with a creak; Lucien took his mug back. “Seems like the only reason any religion got going.” He sat on the sill. “Apparently the front-yard portion of the church will be open air,” he said to Lalael, as if it was an interesting piece of trivia he had come across in the morning paper. In other news, pretending the coffee-flavored water was real coffee seemed to be working rather well. Or perhaps he'd just forgotten what it was supposed to taste like. He swirled it around in the cup. It seemed to be darker, but that was probably just because in comparison, the only other thing to look at in this room – Lalael – got a little brighter every day.
“
Doubtless because they think we'll let them back into the house next time it rains.”
“
You should look at this. Someone knows what they're doing. The repairs to the dining room went up fast, but it looks quite sturdy. And I lied, it looks like they
might
be building a pavilion over part of the yard.”
“
Great. Just great. So we won't see what they're doing.”
“
Ten bucks says that they won't if we tell them not to.”
“
Oh,
now
you want us to take advantage of them! What happened to Mr. No Mara, We're Not Gods, We Will Not Tell You What To Do Except Cheat Us On This Deal, Mmkay? I liked him. I miss him.”
“
It doesn't look as stable as the dining room. It's going to crash on their heads if they don't do it right, that's all.”
“
Oh my gods! He can see the future!” Lalael scathed, looking at Lucien with overly sarcastic shock and adoration. “Tell us, oh wise one! Will our crops survive? Will the rains come at the right times? Will we die?”
“
Fine, we'll tell them that the real gods – the ones who aren't us – don't like roofs over the places of worship.”
“
And you'll reason this how?”
“
I'll say to them, I'll say... 'Well, look at the monotheists! They all had roofs on their religious houses, and what happened to them? They disappeared! Not even dead bodies left behind!' Shousán must not have liked the fact that it couldn't see what they were doing, so it took them up to Ríel to keep an eye on them and make sure they weren't plotting against it.”
“
Clever, but they'll put a roof on it anyway so that we'll take them to the happy afterlife.”
“
Roofs on temples are a sin?”
“
One of the gods is telling us about our dogma! Gasp! Quick, someone write it down and we'll start our own holy book!” Lalael began a dialogue using two different voices. “What'll we call it? We'll call it The Book! That's already taken by those dumb monotheists that put roofs over their stuff! So we can't have roofs at all? No, no roofs at all, you heard the god, 'Roofs are a sin!' Well, since you're putting it that way...” He returned to his regular voice: “And there you have your first argument over interpretation of the newest Holy Book. Not that anyone ever got the others exactly right.”
Lucien's sips of coffee became ever more thoughtful. “You know, we could have fun with them.”
“
And you don't think that'll piss them right off when they find out we're not gods?”
“
They don't have to find that out. We've got enough between us to fake it a little bit.”
“
No. We can't. You were right the first time you told Mara.”
“
Yes,” said Lucien, sighing. “I suppose I was.”
***
“
They're putting a roof on,” Lalael said dully. He hated the attic. “I'm so bored I'm starting to think they're endearing.” He was slowly developing a vague, unwilling fascination for them.
“
We can leave whenever you like.” Lucien was absently following the conversation, curled up with a yellow-paged romance novel he'd found in one of the boxes here in the attic. It was a whole box of romance novels, in fact.
“
Mara said they wanted a symbol for the religion but no one could agree on a good one.”
“
Hmmm,” said Lucien, and turned the page. “That's interesting.”
“
Sinful roof,” Lalael grumbled. “We could just tell them not to.”
“
You were the one who didn't want to. You got all snippy about it.”
Lalael sat bolt upright. “You didn't find binoculars anywhere, did you?”
“
Nope... Why?”
“
I think Mara found Antichrist.”
Lucien scrambled out of his nest of dusty blankets and looked out the window. “Oh! She did! Bless her!” He ignored Mara when she waved cheerfully to him, snuggling the cat in her arms. “He probably smelled us and followed her home. He's so
smart.
Now how do we get him back from them?”
The ridiculousness of the question sank slowly into Lalael's exhausted, frazzled brain. The cat was right there. They were right here. This entire situation was beyond ludicrous.
Lalael snapped.
“
We're going to just go down and get him,” he said loudly. “And I don't care if they think I'm a god. They can believe whatever they – oh.”