Page 9 of Vanish Into Light

She looked away first, steeling herself. Now was not the time to think about Beck, or Lance, or any of their tangled personal bullshit.

Lance punched in the code, and the first pneumatic door slid aside with a hiss.

~*~

As they entered the air lock, and the guards on duty saluted and then began to spin the big bank vault wheel that would allow them to access the cell’s inner chamber, Lance was keenly aware of Becket’s presence behind him.

He’d long since grown used to Morgan’s strange energy, that faint hum at the edges of his awareness that wasn’t normal, but wasn’t unpleasant. He could sense humans, to a degree – but it was more instinct, a standard military hypervigilance, and a recognition of footfalls, of breath. No one was ever silent – the one who came closest was Rose, and his affinity for her, the keen awareness of a lover, always granted him knowledge of her.

But with Becket, it was like a shadow was flickering at his periphery. A phantom whiff of smoke; the sense of being watched by a predator – and not a human one. It unnerved him more than he was willing to admit aloud. Mostly because he had the sense that one show of weakness, and those fangs would be in his throat, that spade-tipped tail lodged in his heart.

He suppressed a shudder, and stepped into the inner cell.

The space was walled in white fiberglass panels that reflected the caged lights in a bright flare that left him squinting. But behind the fiberglass was a layer of lead, a mesh of consecrated iron, and a final skin of silver, beneath the heavy steel frame of it. It had been designed to hold a conduit of either sort, and he wondered, with a quick glance over his shoulder as the five of them spread out around the edges of the room and the door was sealed, if any of those materials would affect Becket. If they did, the man didn’t show it; leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms folded, light gleaming along all the ridges of his dark, curved horns.

Stop worrying about him, he scolded himself, and turned his attention to their prisoner.

Timothy Shubert had been dropped down into a chair bolted to the floor and chained hand and foot to it. His shirt was shredded and black with dried blood. A smear of it, nearly-black and flaking, marked his chin and throat. Two more dots that indicated the puncture wounds – already healed, along with his other injuries – where Becket had bitten him. He lifted his head, his gaze still that unearthly, glowing blue of all heavenly conduits – but dimmer than it should have been. Ringed with dark circles like bruises, his eyes darted, touching each of them, and a hard, obvious shudder moved through his body when he spotted Becket.

“Shit,” he muttered in his human voice.

Lance stepped forward, snapping his fingers to get his attention; Shubert’s head turned slowly – too slowly. Something waswrongwith him, and he didn’t know if it was the effort of healing his badly injured mortal shell, or if it was something else. Something that had been caused by Becket drinking his blood. When he thought of Becket’s hand phasing into Shubert’s stomach, he wanted to shudder himself.

“Yeah, you’re in deep shit alright,” he said, voice gruffer than intended.Rattled, he thought, a little wildly.Gotta stop that. “Start talking.”

A ghost of a mocking smile touched Shubert’s mouth, but not his eyes, which stayed dull and frightened. “What–” He swallowed, as if his throat was dry. “What would you like me to talk about?”

“How the hell your human still has any autonomy, for one. And what angel’s living in your skin, for another.”

He coughed a hollow chuckle. “Only trifling things, eh? Would you also like to know my master plan? Or what I had for breakfast?”

Lance gathered breath for a retort – and paused when he heard the light slap of leather.

No, not leather. Becket’s wings. He pushed off the wall, wings settling around his ankles, and stalked around behind Shubert’s chair.

Shubert, it appeared, wasn’t too proud to keep still. He twisted as far as he could, all traces of humor gone from his face, and tried to follow Becket’s progress as he prowled the back of the room with the unhurried grace of a predator, tail flicking lightly behind.

“I can answer two of your questions, Lieutenant,” Becket said. “One” – he lifted a single, claw-tipped finger – “the angel occupying Timothy Shubert’s body is the archangel Barachiel. Morgan can confirm this.”

Shubert made a choking sound.

“Morgan?” Lance asked, turning to her.

She nodded, gaze fixed impassively on the restrained angel. “Yes. That’s true.”

Lance felt his brows go up. “And no one was going to mention this?”

“I’m mentioning it now,” Becket said, tone quelling, and when Lance met his gaze, he earned a head tilt and another of those strangely intense looks that left him quivering inside his skin. “As for the why of the body-sharing, I believe that’s down to Barachiel himself being a guardian angel. A patron of the family. Isn’t that right, Timothy?” he asked, bending forward at the waist, and leaning forward to shove his face into the angel’s.

Shubert shrank back away from him, skin pale and waxen. “Y-y-yes, that’s right.”

Morgan said, “No, he–”

Becket straightened, grinning, his fangs catching the light. “He’s of course a liar, though. He isn’t the patron of family and marriage. I could tell that the moment I tasted him. This is Baraqiel, with a Q. The angel of lightning. Thefallenangel of lightning.”

Lance looked to Morgan, who nodded.

“He’s strong enough to stay in the body,” Becket continued, moving to stand in front of Shubert – Lance was forced to side-step or else stand overlapping with the bastard; up close, he smelled like ash and metal – grinning still. “But not to control it fully. I imagine Timothy enjoyed the power. They’ve developed a symbiotic relationship.”

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