Epilogue

“Could it be that, it’s all an illusion, putting me back in all this confusion.” Just An Illusion, Imagination

The Abbey, March 2nd

“Update from Major Berkely, sir,” the young soldier blurted, clicking to a halt at the foot of the ramp.

“Thank you, Corporal,” Ramage replied, calmly, taking the folded sheet of paper from him and glancing at it briefly. “Wait outside, would you?” The corporal saluted and turned crisply on the spot, not quite marching back up the ramp but close. His expensive shoes barely scuffing on the floor he walked back to the centre of the basement, pausing briefly to get a murmured update from the medic looking over Sophie.

Caerys was aware of him, caught the echoes of his movements as he passed through the ghostly images she could see, noted the slight reflection of her glowing eyes on his polished toe-caps as he stopped just out of her reach.

“Ms Michaelson?” he urged, not demandingly. Do you have anything? He’d asked a half-dozen times already; she did, she just wasn’t sure she was ready to share it with him. It had seemed the obvious thing when he’d sauntered down the ramp at the head of a line of fresh, clean, camouflage wearing soldiers - comply, work with him.

“Maybe?” Behind her, talking quietly to a line of suit-wearing officials, each under the watchful eye of a pair of armed guards, the Seers had been separated like suspects for questioning - which, perhaps, they were. Caerys had tried to see it from Ramage’s point of view, but she was too tired, too drained to care that much.

She started as something pressed against her face, and losing her focus the golden glow and the flickering figures disappeared. Ramage was crouched beside her, dabbing at her face with a hankie. She shrank back, which made him pause and pull back himself, offering the slightly bloodied cloth after a moment.

“Nosebleed.” he explained quietly, giving her a moment. Ignoring it, she forced her shoulders to relax and tried to reach for the visions again, but instead of glowing figures she just got darkening around the fringes of her vision, and she started to wobble. Ramage looked as though he was considering reaching to catch her, but her previous reaction obviously gave him pause.

“You are tired, Miss Michaelson,” he said, as though she’d not noticed. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve managed to find, and when you’ve had a rest we can determine our best course of action?”

“I can’t let the trace fade,” she muttered. “They’re gone ... somewhere, I don’t know where, I don’t even know if they’re together.”

“Do you know how they disappeared? Was it something Camael did?” At mention of his name Caerys glanced over at the shrouded body against the wall; despite her fears, it did appear that the body was genuinely dead. She didn’t for a moment think that meant that Camael was no more, however. At least Ramage appeared to accept the idea that it had been Camael in the first place.

“I don’t ... I think ... Nazgul’s magic naturally opposes Gabriel’s and Marduk’s. When Gisel ... Camael stabbed her, she had a fuck-ton of stored magic, maybe it was what she got back from the daemonettes. That ... Gabriel and Marduk were caught in it, and one or both of them lost control of their magic. Something in that ... I don’t know if they interacted, or there’s something else here ... or...”

“Just rest, Miss Michaelson,” Ramage beckoned one of the soldiers over with blankets and a thin pillow. “Rest, we aren’t in a hurry, we’ll still be here in the morning.”

“I need to find where he’s gone, though...” she whispered, not fighting any longer as the woman eased her down onto the pillow.

“I’m sure Gabriel can look after himself.” Ramage assured her.

“Not Gabriel,” Caerys’ eyes stayed open, fixed on Sophie, as she pulled Light and Dark in close against herself. “Christophe.”

Azer-Halan, Day 1

Gabriel ducked under another low branch, trying to avoid brushing the unfamiliar creepers and lichen hanging down. The persistent drizzle had him soaked through, but none of the vegetation even had leaves large enough to start to offer protection, so he kept circling outwards from where he’d woken up, looking for something familiar, or at least distinctive enough to serve as a reference point.

The grey, overcast sky above was so heavily clouded he couldn’t make out where the sun might be, and none of the plant-life was familiar enough to offer him any clues as to where they were. He’d heard no sign of wildlife; no birds, no rodents scurrying through the undergrowth, no insects. Occasionally a stray breeze stirred the cross-shaped leaves, but otherwise the woodland seemed completely unoccupied.

An hour passed, and he figured he’d covered probably three miles, only twice finding himself back on a path he’d previously covered, finding a deliberately broken leaf marker he’d left. The light hadn’t changed noticeably, the rain had neither eased nor increased, and devoid of any other information he was on the verge of changing his approach and simply striking out in a random direction when he finally heard sounds of movement.

A scratch of claws on wood, up and to his right, something moving in the trees. He paused, leaning one way and another to try to make out an outline in the foliage, but it was ideal cover for camouflage, and after a moment he started to slowly follow along. After a few minutes he began to hear someone clumsily moving ahead, but it took a moment to realise that it was closer and smaller than he’d predicted.

He slipped into the lea of one of the willowy, grey-barked trees and peered around in time to see a flash of cloth struggling through the deep undergrowth as a large, low predator stalked along the branches above. He was about to call out when he realised that there was no way he should have seen the creature, it shouldn’t have broken clear of the leaf-cover until it was ready to pounce, and he dropped and rolled away as another of the creatures slammed into the tree where he’d been stood.

Leaping clear, he cleared the low branch between himself and the struggling figure, sliding down a sharp bank and sweeping the child up as he went, dropping him into a patch of deep undergrowth as he suddenly turned and lashed out forwards at the leaping creature. Lightning erupted from his fist as it struck in the centre of the beast’s chest, driving the creature up and past them. The second came from the right and he dived under it, striking upwards with a flash of fire that didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect. The creature scrabbled on the ground as it landed awkwardly, at least pushed off balance by Gabriel’s strike, and he stood upright trying to ignore the deep gouges on his back where it had struck out as it passed.

The first creature stumbled back into view, its chest glassy and fractured where he’d struck, and the other scurried around sideways so they could keep him between them.

I should have made a weapon, he realised, glancing about for signs of one, but there was nothing immediately available. The glassy creature stumbled, and the other hesitated, perhaps confused. Gabriel took the opportunity, ignored the apparently damaged one and sent two parallel bolts of lightning at the other. It let out a pained hiss, but he didn’t let up and within a second or two it had fallen silent. The first lumbered at him, clumsy and off-balance, so he sidestepped the lunge, spinning and planting a solid kick into the side of its chest as it passed by.

Pain lanced up his leg as he connected with what felt like a rock, he could feel bones in his leg cracking, and he grasped at the nearest branch to keep his balance. The creature landed on its side, and after a moment Gabriel let out a relieved sigh as he realised that it wasn’t moving.

“Monsieur Gabriel?” came a querulous sob from the undergrowth, and he took his eyes away for a moment to look into the bushes.

“Christophe?” Resting back against the trunk of the tree Gabriel reached down to the damaged leg, feeling for the protruding bone and with a deep breath and gritted teeth forced it back into place with a crepitous grind that threatened to have him black out. The boy emerged, scratched and tear-stained, a deep cut on his cheek and another on the shoulder of his thin shirt. Shivering and scared he paused a moment, then dashed across the gap to grasp at Gabriel’s leg - the uninjured one, thankfully - and buried his face into Gabriel’s thigh.

Unclear as to what he could do or say, Gabriel just reached down and tousled his hair as he took a good look at the two fallen creatures now that they were still. What he saw made no sense; six-legs, and the mottled green hide looked to be covered with crystalline needles more than fur, their muzzles weren’t filled with teeth, but rather sported double-pointed beak-like openings. Where the lightning had struck they were both discoloured, but whereas he’d expect to see burns, these looked like they’d turned to glass.

“Where the hell are we?” he muttered, looking around at the unfamiliar - alien, he corrected himself - wildlife.

“Azer-Halan.” Christophe yelped in surprise, and Gabriel pushed off the tree, easing the boy behind him. From the treeline nearby Marduk stepped slowly into view. “Two cravan,” he noted, nodding in respect, not approaching too closely.

“You know this place?”

“Of course,” he spat, “this was where we escaped from to get to your world.”

Pembrokeshire, March 14th

The sun broke through the clouds as the morning’s rain dissipated, but Sophie barely noticed, laid out on the deep-cushioned couch. Her eyes were looking out through the glazed doors at the green valley stretched out in the watery sunlight, but she wasn’t seeing any of it.

The only part of her that moved, apart from the occasional blink, was the hand that slowly circled her growing belly. She’d developed that habit with Christophe’s pregnancy, and again she found herself falling back on anything that reminded her of him.