Chapter 9

- “Shaman or Priest it’s all the same, The Magician is my name.” The Magician, Bruce Dickenson

The Abbey, March 1st

“What the hell...” Caerys whispered as the room came into view. Walking slowly around the perimeter a short way she took in the cluster of seers in awe. Gabriel paced slowly in the other direction, reaching out gently with Light which passed through the barrier without any noticeable effect. Caerys reached out with her fingertips to brush against the barrier, but pulled up just short as she felt the hairs on her arm start to rise - she wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but her magic was reacting badly to it.

Behind them, at the entrance, Nazgul rapped the butt of her spear on the floor, once, pointing back the way they’d come as they turned.

“Someone following?” Gabriel asked, returning to the entrance. Caerys took a step towards them to see if she could make anything out, and suddenly flashes of light and fire shot through as she landed awkwardly on the floor. Lightning lanced along her nerves leaving her twitching and seeing stars, desperately trying to draw a breath as her lungs constricted. Someone nudged her leg, moving it, and the electrical arc died, allowing her to draw in a deep, deathly cold breath which immediately set her coughing. Rolling on to all fours, she shuddered for a few moments, wheezing as she struggled to get her breathing under control, becoming aware of the feet gathered around her. As her strength returned she thought about rising to her feet, but her legs quivered just holding her torso off the floor, and she settled for sitting back on her feet, opening her chest for deeper breaths.

Looking up she saw the Seers gathered around her, sightless gold-glowing eyes turned generally in her direction.

“What the actual fuck was that?” she whispered, wheezing into a gentle coughing fit from the exertion.

“You were pushed through the barrier,” one of the seers told her, a dark-skinned woman with swirling tattoos over her chin and lips, extending under her collar. Maori, she realised, recognising the Ta Moko tattoo style, the scarring over the lines as a result of the ink being applied with a knife or chisel. She looked around slowly, taking in a range of skin-tones and face shapes, all of them with the golden glowing eyes.

“What are you Seeing?” she wondered, not really expecting an answer.

“Lies. Projections.” the Maori woman explained, holding up her arm to shake the purple-glowing bracelet. “They can’t stop us seeing, so they try to drown it out.”

“Who? The Nuns?”

“Nuns,” a pale-skinned, tall woman scoffed in heavily accented English. “Vitun tyhmiä.”

“They do the bidding of their master,” the Maori shrugged, “they guard us but they don’t have the power to do this.” She waved towards the bracelet, then pointed to the barrier. “Or that.”

From the inside the barrier the view was distorted, wavering as though looking through an oil-covered window, the distortions shifting slowly. She could hear arguing, but it was muffled and dull; she could make out the occasional word, but with everyone talking over each other she couldn’t make sense of it. She reached out to try and wipe the surface of the barrier, wondering if she could clear up the image, but the tall pale woman snaked out a skeletal arm and snatched her hand back with surprising strength.

“Toinen vitun tyhmä.” she muttered, letting Caerys’ arm go when it was clear she wasn’t going to reach out again immediately.

“What did you say, I don’t understand, what is that Romanian?”

“Why would it be Romanian,” another woman asked with a hearty laugh and a Lousiana drawl.

“Because we’re in Romania?” Caerys offered. The silence she got confused her for a moment until she realised that was news to them. “You didn’t know ... how did you all get here?”

“Snatched off the streets, taken from our beds, hunted through the towns and the forests,” the Maori woman sighed. “Bundled into the dark, shackled and thrown in here to rot.”

“Different places, different times,” the Louisiana woman said again, propping herself up on one of the nearby beds. “All for no damned reason.”

“There has to be a reason, Shanta,” the Maori woman argued with the weary tone of familiarity. “They’ll have a reason, they just don’t care to tell us what it is.”

Caerys turned away from them, leaving them to a discussion that was obviously familiar to them, and eyed the barrier once more. On the other side, Gabriel, Nazgul and someone else were fighting at the entrance against some foe she couldn’t see, whilst Sophie and Giselle stood arguing behind them.

“You’re thinking, ‘it hurt but I lived’.” A thick, Russian accent spoke at her shoulder, and she turned slightly to acknowledge a tiny woman, barely more than a girl it seemed at first glance. Her face was smooth, but when she pointed to the barrier her hands showed wrinkles and lines. “It hurts on the way in, but it kills on the way out. Kaia thinks the pain on the way in is an unavoidable side-effect of a barrier that won’t let us out. Shanta thinks it’s deliberate, so we start with the pain and don’t think about interfering with it.”

“And you?”

“Who knows?”

“What have you tried to break it?”

“Break it?” she snorted, picking up a shoe from a nearby bed and tossing it underarm where it passed unhindered through the barrier.

“Does it only affect living tissue?”

“It only affects us, it interacts with our magic. The bitches can come and go as they please.”

“And the bracelets keep your magic active so it always works?”

“The bracelets just scramble the visions,” the Maori woman interrupted, coming up behind her again. “The magic’s always there, it’s part and parcel of who we are. Have you ever been able to turn it off?”

Caerys’ hand came unbidden up to the tattoo Elise had desecrated, remembering that flood of magic; since then, though, it had never not been there, hiding in the background.

“I guess not ... What about other magic?”

“Other magic?” the Russian asked.

“Yeah ... Gabriel’s spear, that passed through the barrier unscathed, so it’s not all magic.”

“These,” the Russian rattled her bracelet against a cluster of metal and plastic bangles. “They scramble any magic.”

Caerys smiled to herself, pulling her cuffs back and showing them her bare wrists. “I don’t have that particular problem.”

“You’re welcome to try,” the Russian pointed. “But others have tried before you. Once they throw you in here, you only get out when you’re dead.”

Caerys nodded and eyed the barrier again, reaching into her bag for her Tarot deck. She slid the top of the case open and the static charge lifted the hairs on her arms again. Cautiously she shuffled back towards the centre of the circle, before reaching into the deck. The Knight of Pentacles sat astride his stationary horse, hand proffering an over-sized coin with a five-pointed star engraved on it.

Hard work, repetition... she recalled. Methodical, regular... She wasn’t feeling inspiration, even as she found herself fixated on the coin. Pentacles represent the Earth...

She slid the deck back into her bag, closing the flap as the static feeling dissipated, and crouched low as she crept close to the barrier again. Looking down at the metal ring set into the floor she reached into her bag again and pulled out a scarf which she tossed through at ankle height, blocking out most of the light for a moment. She couldn’t make out the details, but in the absence of the glare she could clearly make out the angular shape of runes dug into the surface of the metal.

She smiled for a moment, thinking of what the construction of the runes might be, before she suddenly stopped and sat back, recalling something she’d heard but not really processed.

“Hey,” she called out, and the nearest few of the Seers turned to face her. She focussed on the Maori woman that had spoken to her first. “How did you say I got in here?”

“You were pushed,”

“That’s what I thought you said. Who by?” She looked around, turning back towards the struggle at the doorway and the cluster of people behind it.

“Her.”

The Abbey, March 1st (Gabriel)

Nazgul’s spear-haft rapping once on the stonework dragged Gabriel’s attention back from the strange barrier. He’d tried to test how strong it was only for Light to pass through untouched, but he wasn’t confident that it would be as forgiving for him.

“Someone following?” he asked quietly, returning to the entrance. Nazgul nodded and beckoned him forward. From the corridor came the growls and grunts of gargoyles, interspersed with the hissing screeches of the daemonettes.

“They’re coming this way.” Nazgul and Gabriel both spun at the deep voice that came from beyond the glowing barrier, but whereas Nazgul didn’t show any recognition Gabriel knew exactly who it was.

“One of the European forces commanders,” Dyani explained, “he surrendered to one of our patrols.”

“Did he give a name?” Gabriel asked.

“Donor, Admiral Donor.”

“Donner,” Gabriel corrected her pronunciation gently, stepping cautiously around the barrier until the figure came into view, obscured in the shadows. “Although he also goes by Marduk.” He wasn’t expecting a response, was just talking to cover his assessment of the tactical options, but the Nuns visibly tensed, bringing an array of weapons to bear.

“Charming,” Marduk sneered, stepping forward into the purple-tinted light, open hands spread wide.

“Looks like your reputation precedes you,” Gabriel muttered. Marduk took a step towards him, and Light came up between them, the blade clearly directed at him.

“You know that this is just one battle, Gabriel,” Marduk offered after a moment, not appearing disturbed at the threat but not advancing either. “We may not necessarily agree, but Camael is my enemy as much as yours.”

“Is Camael our enemy?” Giselle called out, coming into view to Gabriel’s right, keeping the basement wall at her back, not moving past the protection of Gabriel’s reach.

“Camael is everyone’s enemy,” Marduk snapped, sparing her the briefest of glances, then looking again when he recognised her. She just gave a sarcastic wave in response.

“Even if Camael is our enemy, that doesn’t make you an ally. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. I don’t even know that Camael is your enemy, you could be teamed up against Gilgamesh, or Absalom.”

“Absalom?” Marduk’s distaste was obvious. “Cowardly opportunist, he hasn’t had the mettle for the fight for ... decades. Maybe longer.”

Noise from behind caught both their attention, and Gabriel stepped to the side to keep Marduk in his peripheral vision while he checked to see what was happening behind him. Nazgul had turned back to the entrance, spear held at the ready, and was beckoning them over; Dyani stepped almost silently - on bare feet, Gabriel realised - to listen. Marduk made to move closer, and Gabriel waved Light’s tip in a small circle to ward him back.

“We don’t have long,” Dyani muttered, pitching her voice low so it wouldn’t attract attention.

“Something down here is drawing Camael’s bitch-creatures,” Marduk called out. “My forces are following them.” Something in the tone caught Gabriel’s attention.

“Your forces ... not soldiers ... You’ve lost control of the gargoyles, haven’t you?”

“Not entirely,” he half-admitted, after a moment. “Once they get wind of those things, though, it’s like they catch a scent, and they won’t stop.”

“Well maybe we should just let them take it out on each other, mop up the remains?” Delphine called out from near the control panel for the gun turrets.

“If these daemonettes are so instinctively opposed to the gargoyles maybe we should try to save them?” Giselle suggested. “Maybe they can help?”

“They are Camael’s weapons!” Marduk snapped at her.

“So are the gargoyles,” Gabriel reminded him. “Roffmai WAS Camael, remember, working right under your nose.”

“Not this batch,” Marduk argued, defensively. “Camael polluted the first run, but we’ve eradicated his influence now.”

“You don’t have that sort of talent,” Giselle laughed, and Marduk’s anger grew more apparent. “You’ve been his puppet on that from the start.”

“Il ne ment pas,” Sophie offered, quietly, from close by, “mais il n’est pas confiant.”

“What?” Marduk demanded, but Gabriel was caught by the noise of footsteps in the corridor. “I can help.”

“You can damn well stay where you are!” Gabriel felt his voice rising, but strangled it to a hiss, pointing to the nearest two Nuns who brought their rifles to their shoulders taking aim. Marduk appeared unfazed, and Gabriel wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have ensured some sort of enchantment against bullets, but he didn’t have time to find out.

He was half-way back to the entrance when the first of the daemonettes flowed past the silent gun turrets, and Dyani put a neat three-round burst into its chest. Nazgul thrust into the darkness, presumably striking another target from the screech, and Gabriel arrived between them in time to deflect a claw and lash out with Light. For all that it didn’t appear to have the same effect on the daemonettes that it did on Gilgamesh, it was still a heavy, sharp blade and cut deeply. Slightly restricted by the proximity of the two women Gabriel felt hindered in his options, but with two more bursts from Dyani painfully close to his ear they finished the cluster of daemonettes. When Gabriel turned back the two Nuns had held their position, and Marduk remained where he’d been standing.

“What is it that you want here?” Gabriel demanded of him, not moving away from the entrance. Keeping his eyes on Marduk he tapped Dyani on the the shoulder and pointed slightly off to the side, and then gestured the other side of the entrance, and the dark-skinned Nun began directing her troops.

“Them.” Marduk admitted, pointing into the centre of the room. “Camael’s been hoarding the seers for years. We - I - thought he was at least making use of them, but it appears they’ve just been going to waste trapped down here.”

“Delphine?” Gabriel asked.

“Our order is tasked with keeping them here,” she admitted. “For their safety, and everyone else’s. They’re dangerous.”

“And he isn’t?” Gabriel pointed, and Delphine at least had the decency to look away. “You can’t have them,” he informed Marduk.

“You can keep your favourite,” Marduk pointed, and Gabriel realised that one of the figures inside was Caerys. “You’ve no vested interest in the rest. Or are you making a play yourself.”

“Don’t try and paint me as like you,. They’re people, they aren’t possessions to be passed over in payment. They’re not mine to give.”

“Either you keep them, or someone else will sweep them up, Gabriel, they’re too valuable a resource to be passed over.”

“They need to be hidden,” Giselle muttered from next to the gun controls, low enough that it probably didn’t carry across the room. “What ... what is she doing?” He followed where she was looking, back to Caerys’ slightly blurred figure inside the barrier. Close to where she knelt it started to pulse a deeper purple, ripples that spread out around the barrier. The deeper colour looped around, and as it met back in front of her it pulsed again, deeper, harder.

Each pulse brought a sense of pressure - not noise, not something felt in the skin, but a pressure nonetheless, and the pulses came faster, the bands looped around quicker and the barrier started to distort. Sparks arced out, one of them lancing into the gun controls, and Gabriel reached out with his power to channel the electricity, as it emerged from the barrier, through Light and into the ground at his feet.

Marduk’s hands pressed over his ears, and Gabriel felt himself being pushed back, but it seemed that the Nuns were all unaffected. Christophe whimpered as Sophie doubled over, and for a brief instant Gabriel picked up a grunt of discomfort from Giselle before with a silent explosion of purple light, the barrier disappeared.

By the time his vision cleared, Gabriel saw Marduk appeared to be recovering, and that the Seers had clustered against the wall far from him. Sophie was rising to her feet, assuring Christophe she was alright, and Caerys was stalking in his direction, furious. He started to try to calm her and realised she wasn’t actually targetting him; he turned and realised she was headed for Giselle. With a glance back at Giselle, who appeared unconcerned, he stepped across a pace to intercept.

“Get out my fucking way.” she snapped, as Sophie drew close as well. Behind her the cluster of Seers appeared to be following slowly.

“What’s going on, Caerys,” he asked, keeping himself between her and Giselle, who stepped up closer behind him.

“She fucking pushed me in there,” Caerys jabbed with a finger.

“Of course I did,” Giselle scoffed, “It’s where you were all being kept safe.”

“Safe? It was a fucking prison you crazy bitch.”

“It was keeping them from being detected, it was a shield.” She sounded confident, and that didn’t sit right with Gabriel. She’d said that she’d learnt some things while they’d been apart, but she’d suggested that her magic wasn’t strong.

“That’s why it was ELECTROCUTING ANY OF US THAT TRIED TO TOUCH IT!”

Caerys lunged at Giselle again, who didn’t flinch; Gabriel caught Caerys under the shoulders with his outstretched arm, keeping her back, and couldn’t help but wonder if Giselle had known he would, or if she’d learnt other ‘things’ and just didn’t fear Caerys’ anger at all.

The Abbey, March 1st

Sophie looked at Giselle as Gabriel held Caerys back, expecting to see some measure of apprehension; instead, Giselle appeared disinterested, eyeing instead the cluster of other women who’d emerged from inside the purple wall. When she realised Sophie was watching her she started to speak, then turned away instead. Caerys lashed out to try and grab hold of her, but Gabriel effortlessly held her at bay.

“You can definitely keep that one...” Marduk muttered, and started to move towards the cluster of Seers behind Caerys.

“Stay away from them,” Gabriel told him, quietly, raising Light in his free hand to point at him, able to keep Caerys at bay without even concentrating.

“Come on”, Sophie muttered, resting a hand on Caerys’ arm. “Are you injured?” She asked the question, but she already knew from the brief touch, she realised; some nerve damage in the legs, small muscle tears in a number of places, typical results of electric shock. By the time Caerys had made another, largely symbolic, lunge towards Giselle, Sophie had knit the tears together, triggered the oligodendrocytes to begin the repairs to the damaged myelin sheaths where needed.

“Bitch!” Caerys snapped, pulling away from Gabriel, but not taking her eyes off Giselle who feigned an air of disinterest and moved over to sit with Nazgul and the Nuns by the entrance. Gabriel took a moment to ensure they were genuinely moving back, and then moved across to place himself between Marduk and the Seers. Caerys and Sophie took a wider route round them, and Caerys stepped amongst them, beckoning for the nearest couple to give her their hands.

The taller, incredibly pale-skinned woman pulled back a flaring sleeve to reveal an intricately woven mesh of cloth and metal threads; although dimmed now that the purple ring in the centre of the room had disappeared, there was still a slight glow to the bracelets.

Caerys reached out, running her fingers over the weave for a moment, her eyes flickering gold once or twice. She turned to the next woman, a tiny thing whose face appeared much younger than the rest of her - Perhaps magic, Sophie thought, or a really expensive surgical regime - whose bracelet was a solid metal bangle almost the length of her forearm set with dark gems.

“That’s not your call to make.” Gabriel’s voice cut across, and Sophie glanced to where he stood poised as an agitated Marduk stared at him in frustration

“I can get these off,” Caerys offered, after a moment’s more inspection, “but not quickly. They’re not ... they’re individually tailored to each of you, they’re not just linked to the ability to See, they’re feeding off your specific magic.”

“What does that mean?” Sophie asked, peering more closely at the metal bangle, noting fine spiralling engravings between and around the stones.

“It’s ... you’d only usually tailor something that finely to yourself - either something defensive or that you don’t want someone else to be able to use. It’s not often that you can know someone else well enough to synchronise the enchantment, but for someone to make this many...”

“She’s worried about their talent,” a sturdy woman with a tattooed face interrupted. “If it’s later, it’s later, don’t worry any more about it now. There are dangers here to deal with before we think about this.” She gestured behind them, towards Giselle, where the Nuns appeared to be agitated. Nazgul rapped her spear against the wall again to attract Gabriel’s attention.

“More coming?” He asked, and Nazgul nodded. “Gargoyles? Daemonettes? Soldiers?” Nazgul could only shrug, and the Nuns appeared to be leaving the communications to her.

Gabriel gestured for Marduk to lead, and followed him over to the entrance, as Sophie fell back towards Caerys, scooping up Christophe as she went. Caerys started to head back towards the other seers, but they both stopped and turned as more daemonettes burst into the basement.

They came faster than before, leaping in a cluster, and although Gabriel and Marduk both reacted quicker than Sophie could track, the three bodies that hit the floor as a result were only the first wave. Three others slipped in behind, fanning out only to be punched back by Delphine and Dyani’s three-shot bursts of gunfire. Two others slipped past the gun turrets, scrabbling on the stone floor for traction amidst the spilt blood. One lashed out towards Giselle, and Nazgul jabbed out with her spear to deflect the clawed hand only for the second to swipe up under extended arm, looking to sink the jagged, three-inch claws into the black woman’s armpit.

Sophie found herself taking a step towards them, even as she rationalised that there was nothing she could do to stop it, but had to cover her eyes as, with a flash of actinic light, the daemonette disappeared. The three daemonettes still moving called out in unison, a strangely poetic sing-song ullulation despite the coarse voices they had, and all three turned towards Nazgul.

Two more bursts of gunfire sounded out, and Gabriel spun Light in a tight-arc, and the three went down. Nazgul reached under her arm looking for an injury, but there was no sign of anything. Sophie stepped closer, gliding her hand a few inches away from the impact, but she couldn’t find any indication of an injury.

“Ca c’était quoi?” she breathed the question. Nazgul’s heart was pounding, adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol flooding her system, calcium, glucose and white blood cell levels spiking in her blood which pooled in her core as the blood vessels in her extremities constricted, and tense muscles increased her blood pressure. Fear was understandable, to be expected under the circumstances.

Nazgul took a quivering breath, her white-knuckled grip on the spear shaking slightly, as she turned to look at Sophie, reacting late to the question with a hesitant shrug. She gestured, vaguely, unclear it seemed on what she was trying to say more than how to say it.

“Argh!” Delphine squealed in frustration, kicking out at the gun control panel, and Sophie started at the sudden noise in the silence. Sophie laid a gentle hand on Nazgul’s arm, easing the adrenaline production down, calming agitated muscles and lowering her blood pressure. “It should be working,” Delphine was explaining to someone.

“It’s not broken,”
Caerys interrupted, “someone’s blinded it. Magically, blinded it, there’s ... I don’t know, something over the camera lens there.”

The tension ratcheted up noticeably, and both Caerys and Gabriel turned towards Marduk. “Me?” he snorted, warily backing away a step. “I was fighting them as much as you were, why would I? Maybe it was her,” he pointed to Nazgul. “What did she do, she should be bleeding out.”

Nazgul tensed to lunge at him with her spear, but Sophie squeezed her arm, increasing the serotonin and oxytocin levels to calm her.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Giselle cut in, “whoever did it they’ve done us a favour. We need to recapture them, study them ... they could be...”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Caerys interrupted, incredulous. Sophie had been on the verge of speaking out herself, but was struggling to find the English to express her indignation. “These aren’t an experiment.”

“Well,” Marduk pointed out, “I think they probably are.”

“They fucking shouldn’t be!” Caerys skin was flushed red with anger, spittle spraying from her lips as she shouted, but it was Gabriel that caught Sophie’s attention. Caerys anger was apparent, and the adrenaline she was fuelled by was just as obvious, Marduk’s fight or flight response was equally as noradrenaline heavy, and Nazgul’s tension was fighting back against the dopamine and endorphins that had flowed in the wake of the serotonin. Gabriel, though was pale, the masseter muscle in his jaw quivering as he raised Light up.

“Gabriel?” she asked, as the tip of the blade reached out under Giselle’s chin to rest against her throat.

“What?” she asked, starting to turn, then stopping as the pressure increased. “Gabriel?”

“Who are you?” he whispered.

The Abbey, March 1st

“Gabriel?” she ... it ... tried to laugh it off, but he wasn’t fooled. Not any more. He should have seen it, should have worked it out. Was it that good a disguise, or had he just wanted it to be the case.

He’d convinced himself that she’d been changed by her time in the other realm, but she hadn’t changed that much when he’d been there. He’d convinced himself that coming back had traumatised her, but trauma made people tired, anxious and sad, not secretive and conniving.

What neither the isolation nor the shock of the return would do, though, would be so fundamentally alter someone’s personality that they’d so casually talk about treating people like lab-rats.

“I asked you who you are!” he growled. He made a deliberate effort to unclench his jaw, but his teeth just started to rattle together, so he let them clench again. The head stayed still as the eyes looked around for support; Gabriel flicked a glance in the same direction to see confusion and some sympathy from, of all people, Caerys. “WHO ARE YOU?” he shouted, slamming the attention back to him.

“Gabriel, this ... what’s going on. You know who I am ... have ... is this some mind-control thing?” Giselle’s face eased slightly towards the Nuns and Marduk, but he wasn’t fooled.

“You look like her, your voice sounds like hers ... but you’re not her. The lies, the secrets, the ... the character. What have you done with her?”

For a moment he thought they might still try and argue, but with a sigh they closed their eyes and twisted her neck with an audible click, before looking back at him.

“
I didn’t do this, you did this, trying to drag her back without a body to come into, what were you thinking was going to happen?”

“What?”

“I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Completely reworking a body like that takes a lot of effort - and then she tried to actually push me out of it.”

“What are...” Caerys drifted into view, eyes glowing gold as she wove some intricate gestures with both hands, muttering under her breath.

“Are you ... is that...” one of the other Seers, with a Russian accent, drew closer as well. “Are you focussing the vision with Klava rune struc...” she asked, but Gabriel wasn’t in a mood to be distracted.

“SHUT UP!” he snapp
ed, stepping across in front of her, and nudging into Caerys.

“It’s ... it is her.” Caerys assured him, and his resolve started to waver. “Except ... no, it’s her body ... but it’s ... Oh fuck.”

“Caerys?” Sophie whispered from behind them.

“It’s fucking
Camael...”

“Give her back.” Gabriel demanded, and Camael laughed in Giselle’s voice.

“Or what, you’ll kill her? I have other places I can go.”

“Not easily you can’t,” Marduk called out. “Do you have a receptacle ready?”

“One? A receptacle? I have dozens ... you forget, Warmonger, this complex is mine. I created this, this order works for me.”

“Who are you?” Delphine asked. Caerys and the other Seers were huddled together, whispering quietly out of the way, but the others were pressing closer, interrupting.

“Don’t presume to question me, Sister!”

“SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!” Gabriel grabbed her collars, firmly but careful not to pinch the skin, and Camael sneered at him with those familiar features. “GIVE. HER. BACK.”

“Don’t try to threaten me, Gabriel, I know you don’t want to hurt her. If you finally start to behave I might just let her out to talk to you.”