GABRIELLE
Nothing. We’d found nothing. We searched for days and couldn’t trace Aurora or Penelope. Poochie was missing and hadn’t returned from his search. Azrael was close to combustion and the only reason he hadn’t obliterated everything was the little boy who refused to release his hand.
Alec was syphoning everyone and everything around him and putting that energy towards calming my brother. My brother, who I never had to worry about taking extreme measures. Azrael’s wings were almost fully black now showing his loss of neutrality. He was willingly choosing darkness.
I hadn’t heard anything from our Father. He stopped all forms of communication as if he was expecting me to fix this. I couldn’t even find Michael to ask him for help. This felt like a test. One that I was miserably failing at.
I had to find Aurora and soon.
Somehow, I was meant to reign in my siblings, keep them from destroying the Earth, stop Penelope, find Aurora, and complete my tasks. This was a mess. Alexi and his brothers were losing it. I was utterly losing it.
This meeting was beyond overdo. I had to call my siblings in to help. Some came in as soon as possible, while others like Zach took their sweet time responding, or completely ignored my request.
I was the first to spot Zach strutting into the house, followed by Azrael who was on the verge of blowing. He was in his original form, all silvery white hair and face half void. “Where have you been?!” Azrael screamed.
Calm and patience I reminded myself, we could not have another city razed to the ground. It wasn’t feasible at the moment.
Zach waved a relaxed hand in a circle. “Unlike you all, I actually follow through with my duties.”
Azrael did not seem to find that answer sufficient and grabbed Zach by the collar of his shirt. “Where is she? You know where she is?” Raz snarled.
“Now what the Hell are you talking about?” Zach asked, gently prying our brother’s fingers off him.
“Penelope! She took her!”
Zach genuinely sounded surprised, as if he didn’t actually know what was going on. “Took who? What in the bloody Hell is going on?”
“Penelope took Aurora. We need to get her back,” I interceded. The sooner we had answers here, the quicker we could act. The search had to continue. Poochie had not yet returned from his search. I wondered what Penelope would have done to him if he found Aurora.
Zach turned a knowing smile, all sharp canines, at Azrael. “You should be more worried about what the girl could do to your poor soulmate.”
“Zach. I don’t have the patience for your riddles,” our brother responded.
“You knew. This entire time you all knew," Zach said swinging an arm out towards the rest of us. "But you refused to admit it to yourselves. You’re only harming the brat by not telling her the truth. If you don’t find her soon, she’ll kill her again and this time she won’t be coming back," He finished refering to Penelope.
I looked at Azrael. I hadn’t told him yet. I didn’t want to tell him what I suspected and already knew. That the reason we were in this situation was because of Aurora herself.
“You’re lying!” Azrael yelled, but I could see the disbelief in his eyes. The utter resignation of what we didn’t want to admit was true.
Zach simply continued undeterred. “Am I? You and Lucifer have always had that over us. You could cease our essence at your will. Lucifer could only do it once in a millennia because it uses so much of his power, but you. You always have that power as the Angel of Death.”
“I would never do that. You know this,” Azrael attempted to argue back.
“Ah yes, because Father imbued you with good and bad. Never to shirk your duties, always loyal to Father’s wishes. You’ve fallen brother. Even now your wings are almost done molting. And your daughter has your gift. She is just as lethal to us as you are,” Zachrael finished with a vicious snarl.
Zach left us there in complete silence.
PENELOPE
The Hellhound had found her. It must have searched high and low because it looked absolutely bedraggled. Thanks to the tiger spirits protecting this temple, the hound hadn’t been able to climb its way up.
That would soon be rectified if it was smart enough to tell the others. I did have the feeling that maybe it didn’t want to leave the girl––Rory she said to call her––before returning to whatever hole it crawled out of.
Now I needed to find a new place to keep her. I was reticent to give her back. I could admit she was kind of cute in her oversized clothes provided by the monks. That however, was not the reason I decided to keep her. I had to figure out why I recognized her cosmic essence. It had to be because her father was the Reaper.
But, there was something else beneath the layers of death and decay, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I just needed time.
“Penelope,” I heard the small voice come up from behind me.
I was standing at the edge of the cliff looking down at where the Hellhound paced the mount. Its fiery tail swishing back and forth, almost like an irritated cat.
“What?”
“I miss my brother…” she said trailing off. “and my daddy.”
That had me whipping my head towards her. Every day, there was another reminder of what she was. The little progress I had made in not disliking the child would go crashing to the ground.
She laid down flat on her belly before scooting up towards the ledge. I should have probably stopped her, but if she was an Angel, then she should survive the fall. “That’s Poochie, can he take me home now?”
“Not yet,” I responded, grabbing her by the back of her shirt in order to pull her away from the cliffside. It was so the Hellhound wouldn’t spot her.
Or so I told myself.