Page 67 of Night in a Waste Land

“Humans working alongside conduits?” Beck asked. “Or…?”

“Shubert – and he still calls himself Shubert – is an angel conduit. No one’s been able to determine which heavenly being is wearing his skin, but his behavior and motives are shockingly human.”

Beck nodded. “And Lassiter?”

“Hell beast.” He paused. “No offense.”

Beck grinned, quick and sharp. “I’m flattered you think I’m that dangerous.”

Gallo cleared his throat. “Um.”

Tris hissed his name.

“No, it’s okay.” Gallo patted the air toward him, a comically soothing motion, given the obvious contrasts between the two of them. “Um. I’m just curious – and I don’t mean any offense, obviously.”

Rose sighed. “Frankie, just ask.”

“Mr. Becket–”

“Beck, please.”

“Beck. How did you go to hell, but you aren’t a conduit now?”

“Oh my God,” Gavin deadpanned quietly. “He’s gonna get us all killed for real one of these days.”

Tris punched his arm.

“Ow!”

“It’s a valid question,” Beck said, seeming to take him seriously. He linked his hands together behind his back, tucked into the shelter of his wings. “I’m afraid I don’t know the exact science of it.” He cocked his head, thoughtful – almost scholarly, despite the black horns curving back sinisterly above his ears. “But I do know that I was very much alive when I was pulled under. That I was…” He hesitated, and Rose took a half-step closer, her expression pained as she watched his profile. “Tested, I’ll say. The urge to break was immense, as you can imagine. But I held on, somehow. Time had no meaning, and most of the time I didn’t know up from down, nor the extent of my own body. But I knew that I wasme. And when the blue light appeared, and Derfel came – wraiths scattering from him like rats against a flashlight – I knew that it was me he was taking topside, and no one else. Not even a version of me.”

He grinned, close-lipped and rueful. “I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it that I know my own mind, and I know that I am not a demon wearing this skin – do your conduits have wings?” he asked, rippling his own at the ends.

“No,” Gallo said. He didn’t exactly sound convinced.

“If there’s some test you’d like to administer…?”

“Rose knows conduits,” Lance said. “Both kinds. If she says you aren’t one, then that’s good enough for me.”

Beck nodded. “Very well.”

Lance said, “We’ve had a run-in with Shubert and his people before.” He gestured back to the map, and the others crowded in to examine it as well, though they already knew about the headquarters – had barely escaped it on that disastrous op. “An extraction mission. At the time, we didn’t understand Shubert’s – condition.”

When Lance glanced up from the map, his gaze collided with Beck’s. God, but that glowing gold was unsettling; like wading through the tall grass of a field and finding yourself face-to-face with a lion – or maybe even a dragon.

“Care to debrief me?” Beck asked.

Lance took another deep breath – he wasn’t sure when his chest would stop feeling so tight. Maybe never. “Yeah. It was our last major op…”

~*~

Before

“You won’t need those,” Morgan said of the infrared binoculars Lance pulled from his pack.

He paused. “Why not?”

“I’ll be able to sense any conduits – heavenly or hell-spawn,” she said, in that placid, monotone voice that still left his hair standing on end. She offered him a semblance of a smile, though, like she was trying to put him at ease. “You’ll be more agile with less equipment in your hands, yes?”

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