Page 24 of Night in a Waste Land

“Yes.”

“Can he be brought back?”

“Yes.”

Rose felt her brows go up, shocked. She started to reply.

Morgan said, “It is not an easy thing. It requires sacrifice, and great strength of will. It requires a token – a hell token.”

“You saw my dagger.”

“Yes. Who will you kill to offer for his return?”

“That’s not the tough question you think it is.”

Morgan cocked her head, glowing gaze seeming to pierce through skin and skull, like she could see the inner workings of Rose’s mind. “No. I don’t suppose it is. Not for you.”

“Do you know how to draw the pentagram? All those symbols? Would you help me?”

Morgan blinked slowly. “It’s not something I have ever done. It goes against my purpose.”

Rose gritted her teeth, and fought not to bare them. “What purpose?”

“Angels are not a monolith. We all have different strengths, and different callings. It goes against everything I am to open a portal and pull something out. I tend to put things back in.”

“You won’t help me, then.”

“Did you expect me to?”

“No,” she admitted, shoulders slumping. “Not really. But I had to ask.”

“It pains you terribly,” Morgan said.

Rose sent her a look that saidduh.

“I am sorry for your loss, but I would be poor help.”

“Meh. I’m not used to having help anyway.”

“There are other methods, though. Simpler, and more likely to be successful.”

Rose stared at her, assessing. “Why do I get the feeling you aren’t going to come right out and tell me what they are?”

Another twitch at her mouth, in what might have been an attempted smile. “Your hunger for the answers will fuel the process. Keep searching. A heart as focused as yours will find what you seek.”

Frustration sat heavy in her belly; she’d known not to hope, but it had flared anyway, just a little spark of it. Having it doused hurt like a broken bone. She tamped it down, pressed it beneath the rock sitting on the sad stack of her emotions. Snorted. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”

“A what?”

“Nothing. Maybe I’ll find one and bring it to you, sometime.” Rose stood, and brushed nonexistent wrinkles from her tac pants.

A thought occurred, as she headed for the door. “Are you ever going to tell us your real name?”

“When the time is right,” Morgan said, peaceably, and turned back to her lunch tray.

~*~

Their next op started hum-drum, and ended spectacularly fucked up.

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