General

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Michael scowled as his brothers ran from the room. Adaphat had dared to attack his mate’s home once again, after such a resounding defeat the last time they tried. It angered Michael, a cold fury ignited in his very essence. He needed out of this cursed bed and onto the field, to flay those black agents of the void until they were ribbons on the aether. How was flesh so cumbersome and unwieldy?

A bubbling noise broke through his irate thoughts. He turned his attention to his mate’s room instead of dwelling on what he could not change. What better place to begin acquiring knowledge of his human?

From his bed, the room was practically as sterile as the space between galaxies. A bed, a desk, and a bookshelf situated across from where he sat, if he was not mistaken. He had no idea what any of the books were about, only that they housed knowledge and it was possible to have a wide range of topics.

Hidden by the books on the top shelf sat a lighted little cube of water that burbled merrily, tucked in the corner farthest from the door. He had no secondhand reference for the water cube and no way to see it more clearly from his seat. There looked to be a couple of colorful things inside and maybe something moved in it?

Nothing would satisfy him more than to rise and examine it. His legs still ached in the most disturbing fashion, but he was almost tempted to try when his attention was diverted by the human in the doorway.

Adam.

His mate was just who he needed, the only one who made sense in this strange circumstance. And he was deeply indebted to Haniel for the mate he was given. Adam shined like the ancient swords of the Romans, bright and bronze, a subtle beauty of heart and soul. Adam smiled shyly at him, and why was that? Michael may have been unresponsive but he was not unaware while he regained his Fire, guttered in the fall.

Adam had lain with him dozens of times since he had arrived here, cared for his bodily needs in this heavy form, fed and cleaned him. True, his death would have sent him back to the Rift and therefore solved the issue from the start, but he could not find it in himself to be anything except overjoyed at his good fortune, as he understood the concept.

“What is in that little cube?” Michael asked with as unassuming a manner as he knew. “I find myself stuck here and cannot find out.”

Adam came deeper into the room and smiled wider. His body was as arresting as his soul, tan and muscular, eyes greener than a forest in high summer.

The human went to the water cube and pulled it off the shelf. A tube hung out of the back, bubbles no longer issued from it, and brought it to him. There was water inside and strange little plants colored in unnatural ways. A tiny creature, a black and blue fish by the looks of it, swam in a predatory circuit near the glass.

Once it was carefully placed in his hands, the fish flared out its gills. “What is this?” Michael asked, switching his gaze from the cube to Adam and back, thoroughly curious.

“That’s a Betta named Thorin.” Adam chuckled softly when he bent down and his gaze zeroed in on his creature with the flared gills. It was an enchanting sound. “He’s a fish and this is his home. It’s called a fish tank.”

“Ah.” Intrigued, Michael raised the tank up to eye level and reached his mind out for the little thing. He knew fish had very short memories, most lived such short lives, but he was pleased to feel its general contentedness. “Why do you have him?”

“He’s pretty,” Adam confessed and red suffused his face. “And quiet. Someone I can talk to.”

Michael held on to the cube a moment longer, just to watch the little beast. It had stopped its display and watched instead.

“I agree with you. He is very appealing.” Michael handed the fish back to Adam. “And aggressive.”

Adam took his fish back to the shelf. “He’s a fighting fish, they say. I just think he’s grumpy.”

When Adam came back to the bed and sat on the edge, he seemed like he wanted to talk about something other than what Michael wanted to discuss. Michael waited, for he had time, since he was captive of his own body and its ailments.

“I’m surprised you’re not angry about being left behind.” Adam looked at his hands and then continued. “Danny and Jason are.”

“What can I do? They are right and I will bow to their knowledge of what human bodies, though stronger because of our power, can endure.” Michael shrugged and kept his irritation from his face. “So I will wait until I can stand beside them. They are capable of defending this place without me.”

“You say that, but what if they come up against something stronger than they are?” A worried frown marred his mouth.

Michael thought on his mate’s question. It was true, there were creatures out in the vastness of the Universe that were beyond the Host’s power to turn away or destroy. Was that not the very problem?

“The danger you seek is not able to overcome our Host so quickly that we would not know it, even here on this world,” Michael said. It was a poor comfort, but it was a fact. “In the end, such a thing would destroy the star first.”

A flash of power caught his attention and Michael held up a weak hand to forestall the next question so clearly written on Adam’s face.

It felt like Zophiel, but how could that be? His kin was assigned to a very difficult adaphat and while it was possible Zophiel had completed his task, that would not explain why he was so close to this place, wherever it was. The Host were spread across the entire planet for a reason, except in dire situations. The more of them congregated together, the bigger a target they became.

Adam sighed and picked up the book left on the little table next to his bed. He lounged close to Michael and opened it, which allowed Michael to ponder the question as he wanted without his mate’s questions. He frowned at that. Adam’s presence was never a distraction, so why did the human think he was?

Gabriel came in as he considered that thought. “Michael,” he called.

Adam started from his seat on the bed, snapped his book shut and patted Michael’s hand before he left the room, straying no farther than hearing range, from what Michael gathered of human hearing. He wished his human would have stayed. He would keep nothing from Adam. But it was done, and his brother, and Michael assumed the form Gabriel wore was male, waited with barely checked impatience.

“Are here to tell me you saw Zophiel?”

“So you did feel his presence?” Gabriel asked. “That makes this a lot easier. Yes, he was here and he asks not to be revealed to the brothers.”

“Why did Zophiel make such a request?” Michael asked, completely baffled. “You must have told him that he can find a safe haven here.”

Gabriel looked away for a moment. A flow of some piquant emotion colored the air in the room. “He didn’t give me the chance. I think he’s known here and not as he is.”

Ah. One of the standing orders for all that came among humans was to hide their nature. It was not an inviolate order, but Zophiel was one that adhered to such things as though they were.

“What troubles me is that Zophiel was close to us when the adaphat made their play for us.” His kin mantled, feathers caught the unnatural light in the room and burned a burnished gold. “Why is he here? It only brings more attention to us.”

“He is under assignment.” Michael shifted to take pressure off of his right hip. The bed was extremely uncomfortable in some spots. “It is possible that assignment has brought him to within our vicinity.”

“I’ll bet he was under our noses the whole time.” Gabriel scowled at him. “Why has he not joined us?”

“As you said, he must have had contact with someone in this house at some point. There is no other logical reason to avoid us.” Michael waved his hand at Gabriel. “Tell me about the battle.”

Gabriel relayed it to him with the precise bearing of a soldier. It worried him that there was a leader to this large group of adaphat, but it heartened him to know that leader was scattered to the void.

“Such a large group to have amassed without reason,” Michael mused. “How did that happen?”

“I hate to say it, but Castiel must have drawn them here. He told me one came toward the end of the growing season and he did not destroy it.” Gabriel shook his head. “I know that we would’ve been noticed eventually, but that one adaphat most likely informed others.”

“I should have been there,” Michael grumbled and rustled. “I could have shredded the memories of one to find out for certain.”

“Yeah, well, you’re just going to have to suck it up,” Gabriel said, smiling. “We all had to. We didn’t come down like normal and we’re paying for it now.”

“That is the other thing. How did we come here?” Something very wrong must have happened to cause their ouster from the Host, but what could possibly do this?

Gabriel spread his arms and wings in a helpless gesture. “Your guess is as good as mine. We were in the final stages of my purge and the next, we’re here. I’m gob smacked, honestly.”

There was no memory of Gabriel presenting himself during the last of his purge, like there should have been. In the final stages, the memories from their assignment were loose and easily removed, for which they came to Michael. He plucked them out and released those memories that were not part of the Host to the void. It was a good practice. In the beginning of their interactions with humans, retaining those memories of life down on Earth had proved very detrimental. Armaros had never returned to the previous state.

“There is nothing to remember,” Michael admitted. “Too many questions that need an answer, but I am in no state to find them, even if I was not confined to this spot.”

“Is that petulance I hear?” Gabriel snickered at him, openly even. It rankled a little.

“I am older than this planet and command a terrifying army that battles the anathema of the Universe with every breath,” Michael pointed out to his brother. “Of course I am petulant. This cursed form is not conducive to finding answers.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Gabriel smirked at him in a very disconcerting manner. “There a great many good points to flesh and blood. Some of which you will even share with your mate.”

He had an intellectual knowledge of what Gabriel referred to. It was necessary to know s****l congress and reproduction for life to flourish and the Host to effect such life. But how was the act more than for making life? “I do not understand.”

With a chuckle, Gabriel waved off his statement, as though Michael would jest about such a thing. He had never been in a body like this before and the Host did not consort in the same way.

“Anyway.” Gabriel smothered another bout with his hand. Then he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I think you’re safe to put your feet up for now. Me and Castiel trounced those adaphat and I doubt they’ll come back anytime soon.”

“I still detest this forced helplessness.” Michael fidgeted with the sheet wound around his lap and legs. “I am not to be coddled like some fledgling bird that fell out of a nest.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you kinda are.” Gabriel rolled his eyes and sat on the corner of the bed. “Look, this is new and you’ve been out for a long time. That power outage you had did serious damage, so there’s nothing wrong with taking it easy. You just came out of it today.”

Michael did not bother to repeat himself. It was obvious Gabriel could not see his point of view, so there was no use. “I hear you.”

“Good.” Gabriel patted his sheet covered knee and stood. “Daniel is up to something, so I will tend to my mate. I’ll send yours back in. He’s been hovering just out of earshot, but he’s pretty anxious.”

He nodded and his brother left, but not before he showed one more piteous smile his way.

Adam rounded the doorway moments later and bustled over to his side. “You look like you’re drooping.”

He was unsure what that meant exactly, but Adam’s hands on his shoulders trying to push him back into a supine position told him his mate thought he looked tired. Could a being look tired? Yes, his body was quickly losing its energy and there was a distinct haziness to the edges of his vision, but he doubted it was exhaustion. He just needed fuel, because that was supposed to feed this fleshy mechanism, if he remembered correctly.

“How is it possible for a state of being to have an expression?” Michael demanded. “You cannot know that.”

“Your eyes are half-closed and you’re starting to tilt over,” his mate listed for him. “And your words are slower and slurred a bit. Of course you’re tired. From what I heard, comas aren’t real sleep.”

A sudden impulse to open his mouth overtook him, irresistible, and he went with it. Once it had passed, he turned his attention back to Adam. “Heard from where and I have no understanding of what coma means. I was in a recuperative state.”

“I had a friend in the medical corps during my service in the Army. She told me that. And that’s what comas are.” Adam smiled bigger than Michael had seen up to now. “Besides, that thing you just did is called a yawn. Humans do it when they’re sleepy.”

“I never needed such a thing before,” Michael protested. “Why do I need it now?”

“For an all-knowing archangel, you don’t know a lot.” Adam rolled his eyes and pressed him down. Michael went, for he held no will to fight his mate. “All creatures need rest and sleep to recharge. “

“We receive our sustenance and energy from the light,” Michael grumbled. What an inefficient waste of time, a system that left one unproductive for too long. In the endless span of his existence, he had never been idle.

“Is that how you get better after you’re injured?” Adam pulled the sheet up higher and wedged it under his wings. “After you fight that Entropy thing Castiel told us about?”

The cloth that pinned his wings felt more secure than constricting. His eyes became heavier. “No. We bathe in the eternal song of the Universe, in the music that all things create as they move through it.”

“What does that sound like?” Adam sat close to his arm, just avoiding his silver feathers. “Can you describe it?”

“It is like the beat of a human heart or the rhythmic crash of the ocean against a beach, but deeper and more.” The melody tumbled out in a hum of its own volition, a thing that soothed his mind and body. How glorious the song was, and how badly he missed its clearness. In his home, it wended its way through every part of the Rift, under laid all. It was the great harmony that paired with the voices of the Host.

“It sounds lovely,” Adam told him in a whisper. “But humans need sleep to heal, so do it.”

Michael groaned and rolled to his side, face away from his mate, buried in his own plumage. Such a strange thing, to see these extensions of himself become physical. And such a color! Shiny and smooth, like an unsheathed sword, but soft.

Adam patted his shoulder, affection washing over Michael in a blissful wave. “You can’t get up yet, anyway. Your legs aren’t working right and don’t pretend they aren’t.”

“Lying down any longer will make me hurt more.” He twisted so he could see Adam, not that it was necessary. Every sense, physical and metaphysical, was tuned to his human with total accuracy. Michael found it was easier to have his eyes on Adam, though. He was less anxious. “A body is not supposed to be so inactive.”

“One more day, Michael,” Adam asked. “Just one more day of rest and then you should be able to stand up without falling over.”

If he was to stay, he wanted nothing more than to drag Adam until he was huddled warm and secure underneath him. He was able to hold off the impulse, this time. It was an odd thing, instincts of this nature, and he was entirely sure that the parts of humanity he was forced to adopt to blend in on Earth were not as wonderful as those that frequented mortality told him.

Besides, Adam seemed eager to attend to some matter outside of Michael’s care. Probably an activity that he would find stranger still. But he made one more act of defiance to this human’s order, mate or not. He rolled once more until he was on the far side of the bed and swung his legs over the side, feet hitting the cool wood floor as he sat up. The sheet had wrapped itself tighter when he moved over, but it would not deter him, no matter how panic-inducing the feel of his wings bound made him.

A quick heave of his legs, muscles bunching and flexing in a coordinated symphony of components, and he was up. Michael staggered and stumbled to find his balance amid the unbelievable weight and gravity in action against his body.

Michael took one more step to right himself and the next thing he knew, the ceiling was overheard and the soft mattress was against his wings. Somewhere behind him, Adam was quietly giggling. A scowl settled on his face, lips twisted.

“I told you,” Adam admonished with that amusement still in his voice. “Now will you listen, before you actually injure yourself?”

His mate appeared in his line of sight and pulled him up with a little trouble. He hunted around Michael’s torso, rough hands taking time to gently pry him out of the cloth that trapped him.

“Yes,” he grumbled. Adam helped him lie down and tucked him in a little less tightly this time.

“Sleep, Michael.” Adam carded a hand through his hair.