Wayward Son

By Dabeagle

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Chapter 17

“So what then? We dial up Azrael to come get this guy?” I asked. I glanced at Gideon who was still healing and I hoped he was almost done with whatever patching up he was going to do. Reasonably he shouldn't be doing any healing at all, not after his recent ordeal. If the need weren't so dire at the moment, I'd have done my best to forbid it.

“Something like that, although I assumed you'd be a bleeding heart and want to try the noble path first. And since Gideon usually goes along with you...” Woolcott shrugged.

“Noble path? He tried to kill Gideon.” I huffed. Woolcott waited patiently while I stared at him. Thoughts of his previous speeches about proceeding without knowing all the facts paraded through my head, and my serenity trembled with my moral outrage that we were even healing this pile of angelic slime. I realized, unhappily, that making smart choices meant listening to things that weren't strictly convenient and I finally sighed and asked. “What will Azrael do to him?”

“He will torture him first, Azrael is a big believer in pain as a motivator and a path to truth. I'd imagine he originated the axiom about sparing the rod spoiling the child.”

“What else aren't you telling me?”

“His...motivation is normally fatal.” Woolcott shrugged, “He doesn't see life as we do, he hasn't the same respect for it. So if we 'dial him up' as you say, that is the likely outcome.”

I sighed internally. On the one hand a vocal part of me wanted this guy dead, wanted him to face the pain and terror he'd inflicted on my Gideon. On the other hand allowing Azrael to come in and butcher him would make us no better than the demons, would it? Furthermore, I wasn't the only one affected and had no right to make a decision for us all. I glanced at Aila who was in full angel of death mode, watching for the nephilim to wake.

Gideon's feet were just settling to the ground, the sweat clear on his brow and I stepped into him just as he began to slump from the effort. “I shouldn't have let you heal so soon after you just healed yourself.” I chided.

“Had to be done,” Gideon muttered. “The stasis slows things down dramatically, but he'd have died without healing and we still need him.” He sat heavily and smiled up at me, “I only healed the most serious stuff, wouldn't want him to burst awake at full strength.”

I guided Gideon over to a chair and went to get him a bit of food and see if any of that glowing water was left while Aila maintained her vigil. Once I'd made sure Gideon would sit still and recover a bit I went to examine our nephilim. He was a young man perhaps in his twenties with unremarkable features. His hair was dirty and mussed, small wonder with the combat, and his clothes were ragged but that seemed to be a longer term issue than the battle. Perhaps he hadn't been living so well?

I tried to force that out of my mind and concentrate on the issue at hand, but when I got down to it I just didn't think I could hand over someone, in essence issue a death sentence. Combat was one thing, and that was awful enough, but execution...no.

“Woolcott,” I bit my lip as I looked down on the sleeping nephilim, “What alternatives are there?”

“Well, a great deal hinges on his state of mind. If he's as brainwashed as the thrall were, there isn't anything. Truly, death would be a mercy.”

“Wait, what's going on here?” Gideon asked suddenly.

“I'm guessing your boyfriend is concerned with our bloodthirsty prisoners well being, more than he is about him just trying to kill you or the fact that Lucifer still has his best friend.” Aila growled.

“I haven't forgotten a fucking thing, and if you think that for a second you don't know me,” I fairly screamed. “But I'm also not capable of cold blooded murder and just handing him over would be that.”

“Have to break a few eggs to make an omelet,” Aila shrugged.

“He's not an egg. He's a life and right now we hold it in our hands. It's not a power I envy anyone,” I turned to Gideon who had an unreadable expression on his face. “Gideon, shouldn't we at least consider the options?”

He sat silently staring at the nephilim, and I could feel the hatred coming from him. He glanced at me for a few moments with a question plain on his face before returning to the slumbering form. Slowly his eyes grew dark with shadow and a small tendril of darkness stretched out and slowly wrapped itself around the sleeping forms head. For a few long minutes it was nothing more than that, but after maybe five minutes or so Gideon slowly rose from his seat and, as he did so, his dark form took over. His wings spread wide and he floated while the shadows delved into the the nephilim of light, probing his cranium. After not more than ten minutes time the shadows began to recede and Gideon's feet touched down. Slowly he resumed his seated position and a struggle was plain on his face.

“Gideon?” I walked over to him and knelt next to his chair. A tear tracked down his face and my heart broke. How could I have even considered the well being of another when they had caused Gideon so much pain? Maybe even now he was doubting my commitment to him; wondering if I'd sacrifice him so that another could be spared. I took his hand, my mind brimming with apologies and protestations of my love for him but my tongue couldn't place them in order and so I said nothing.

“It isn't his fault.” Gideon said into the quiet room.

“How can it not be his fault?” Aila barked while gesturing at the still form. “He was cutting parts of you off, Gideon! Those holes in your wings were from his attacks while you were helpless! He was going to kill you!”

“Yes, he was.” Gideon nodded, “But it wasn't his fault.”

“Gideon...what do you mean?” I'd been on the verge of calling him 'baby', or perhaps some other term of endearment, but none seemed appropriate.

“His mind...it's knotted up.” He took a shuddering breath and looked guiltily at me, “When I heal I can look at a persons physical self, but I can also look at their mental health as well. The brain is still pretty complex in comparison to the other organs but I can tell if something is wrong.”

“You mean like...”

“Mind reading? No, nothing like that. But what is going on in his head is more like brain damage, and worse you can see the scarring. It was done deliberately; he's been mentally, maybe spiritually tortured. I...” he glanced down at his hands, “I can probably fix the physical part but...”

“What?” I squeezed his hand, reminding him I was there for him.

“I was ready to kill him.” Gideon whispered.

“You were fighting for your life, why wouldn't you?” Aila replied in a sympathetic tone.

“No, I mean...just now. Handing him to Azrael. I was...”he glanced at me, dropped his gaze and then slowly fixed me with a firm look. “I started to question my relationship with the one person that is making me a better one. When I took the time to look into his mind and saw the damage...I realized Daniel was right. Handing him over would be like handing a pit bull over to euthanize rather than punishing the owner that had caused him to be vicious.”

I could think of nothing to say, since my own mind had wondered if I were being disloyal. I instead pulled him tight and simply stayed that way, taking a few moments of closeness, reveling in them to forestall any more decisions.

“Well, the endgame here is the same, but we obviously have paths to choose from. I believe the safest one is to call Azrael in, but to specify that this nephilim isn't to be harmed as we aren't done with him. Once that happens and Azrael has his information we can go after Michael or Raphael. What say you?”

I glanced around the room. Aila frowned but nodded at me and Gideon simply whispered in my ear, having not let go of me, that we should follow my own heart. I turned back to Gideon's face and studied his brown eyes, absorbing their warmth and trying to think of the best way to get what we all needed.

“Joel is safe for now, Woolcott said so, if we can trust that.”

“You little bastard,” Woolcott sputtered but I put up a hand to forestall him.

“I meant as far as Lucifer sticking to the rules of the bargain, not that you were lying.” I glanced back to Gideon and tried to avoid the daggers Aila was driving into my back with her eyes. I found I couldn't and returned her gaze. “I've known him since we were little. He's my very best friend, he's the first person I came out to and he gave me my first kiss, even if it wasn't exactly the most romantic thing ever done.

“But for right now, he's okay. Arguably he 's safer, since there is a decent chance we'll have to fight some more before this is done. So don't look at me like I forgot him; I could no sooner do that than forget my arm.” We continued to glare at one another but at long last she nodded slightly, neither of us happy but she was going to accept this for now.

“If we take this...person to Azrael...there's no telling what's in his head, no telling how he'd react to Azrael. For all we know Azrael could say he makes no promises and shred him anyway, how would we know any better? Plus there is this little fact too,” I looked up at the ceiling as it seemed the only safe place, “If something like this ever happened to you, you should hope to fall into the hands of someone who would try to help you instead of passing judgment and killing you; even though that may be the only course in the end...it would be...unethical at best to not try and help.”

“I don't know if we can. How many people can we really help?” Gideon sounded defeated, “So far our track record is pretty crappy. We set out to help one guy, and in the process got another of us kidnapped, been attacked by demons and are now stuck between an archangel and and demon old enough and smart enough to have not been found out as a demon for a few centuries.”

“Realistically he's right,” Aila nodded. “What can we really do for him? If Gideon repairs the damage to his brain, there is still all the programming that's been put there. That won't just go away.”

“No, it won't but...” Woolcott had his hand on his chin. I was aching to ask what he was thinking, but stayed silent while he thought. “Yes. It won't be ideal, but it may yield some positive results.”

“Going to enlighten us?” Aila asked.

“Of course, don't I always? Why, I illuminate rooms and minds wherever I go my dear.”

“Woolcott, what's the idea?” Gideon asked tiredly.

“Well, it's just a thought, it might not make real sense even though it's logical. If someone teaches you an act or a bit of information it gets stored, much like a computer. I wonder if we can't...erase some parts of his memory. Just the parts with damage, perhaps. Do you think you could try?” Woolcott raised an eyebrow at Gideon.

“Well,” Gideon rolled his shoulders and I decided it was time I showed him where my loyalties lay, if there were any questions of that.

“Not tonight. Tonight you relax, you come with me and maybe after you've had a good nights rest you can examine him and see if there is anything more you can do.”

“Oh, yeah, he'll get lots of rest with you.” Aila snorted. I ignored her, but took Gideon by the elbow and steered him back towards our room. He allowed himself to be taken, a vaguely amused look on his face. We stepped into the room and no sooner had I closed the door than I clamped my mouth onto his, a desperate kiss that I hoped conveyed my hearts intent to him. I broke the kiss and stood back a step.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't sacrifice someone, even that guy, not in cold blood. It's not that I didn't hate him for what he was doing to you. Killing...that was hard, but this would have been murder.”

“You don't have to apologize for not killing someone. Not ever.” Gideon replied. He took my hand and together we let the troubles outside our door recede in passion and what I could only hope was love - one that deepened with each passing day.

Afterward we dropped into sleep, dreamless sleep that only seemed to come when I lay in his arms. It's funny, I reflected in the early morning, that I had slept so long on my own and never felt as if something were lacking. Even when Joel stayed over I didn't miss him not being there the next night. But now, knowing the intimacy and security of laying with Gideon with or without the lovemaking, I had a hard time imagining going back to sleeping alone.

But that morning Gideon had an arm across my stomach, his head laying on my chest and his soft breath ran across my skin. His chest moved him with each gentle breath, a slight pressure increase on my ribs. In his sleep his leg moved, and covered one of my own as he sought to get even closer and I lay still, trying to concentrate and feel each point that he made contact with me. I idly thought of how scared I had been of him, once I knew what he was, and how inaccurate that picture had been. If anyone should know about not judging a book by its cover, it was he and I. Idly I stroked his hair and, after only a few minutes of that he began to stretch and gave me a gentle squeeze.

“Good morning,” he said with a raspy whisper.

“It is, isn't it?” I smiled down at his head.

“Yeah. I'm going to stop there though or I'm going to say something incredibly sappy.” He yawned deeply and gave a stretch that pushed him farther onto me.

“Oh come on, just a little sappy? For me?” I grinned at him.

He fixed me with those eyes. It was odd, whenever people write about how captivating someone's eyes are they are always piercing blue, flashing green or perhaps like ice chips. Not Gideon, his eyes were filled with warmth and a healthy dose of sexy. “Every morning that I wake up to you is a good day, better than my best day waking up before I knew you.”

I admit, I was stunned into silence. Gideon does sappy really well.

“Now, I have to pee.” He gave me a quick peck and pulled on a few articles of clothing so as to be decent and left the room. I got dressed as well and headed out to wash up and meet everyone else in the kitchen. Aila was dozing in a chair and Woolcott was...cooking. I mean honest to goodness cooking over a stove. Eggs, bacon, sausages and a stack of toast were on the counter before him.

“Woolcott! I didn't know you could cook!” I smiled as I approached.

“I can't, it's a hell of an illusion though, isn't it?” He said cheerfully from a chair in the corner. I turned to look at him and the back at the counter which still had food but no Woolcott.

“Yeah, pretty excellent. The food though? The smell?”

“Illusions are like a well told lie; they have to have just enough truth in them to be believable.” He smiled widely, “I knocked over an IHOP this morning, I was bored.” He shrugged. I laughed and went to fill a plate.

“Hey what smells good?” Gideon walked in and I directed him to a chair and handed him a plate. He glanced at Woolcott, “Robbed an IHOP huh?”

“Robbed? Did you say robbed? You make it sound like a convenience store hold up with a Saturday night special. I think I manage a bit more panache!” Woolcott huffed.

“You did say you knocked one over,” I pointed out as I filled a second plate and went to shake Aila from her slumber.

“Figure of speech,” He waved his hand, “I left plenty of Monopoly money to cover it.” Gideon laughed at him and dug into his food. Aila stumbled to the table and muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Coffee.” She pointed at the carafe on the stove, emblazoned with the IHOP logo. I snagged it and several cups.

“Woolcott? Want me to make you a plate?” I asked as I began to load another one.

“I dare you to try!”

“I meant would you like a plate of food,” I rolled my eyes.

“Pity, I was curious how you'd make me a plate.” He sighed theatrically, “But no, thank you, I ate while there.” Gideon burst out laughing. I sat down and just watched him giggle, smiling at his amusement but wondering what was so funny. Once he'd settled a bit I asked him.

“Last time he did that he ordered half the menu. You should have seen them bringing plate after plate and he just keeps stuffing his face. That he came back with all this? He must have ordered the menu twice over.”

I smiled at Gideon, thinking it wasn't all that funny. He grinned at me and decided to elaborate, “Picture Woolcott sitting at a booth, with plate after plate in front of him, jam stuck to his beard.”

“Fiddlesticks and fish fur! I never get jam in my beard!”

“And while he's got that, and whipped cream on his nose, he's sexually harassing the waitress who looks like she's contemplating pouring coffee on his crotch!”

“In some cultures that is considered a mating call.” He harrumphed.

“The sound of your screams as your balls are being scalded?” Aila burst out laughing and we joined her. Woolcott shook his head, resigned to our amusement.

Once breakfast was done we addressed the elephant in the room, who had been hidden by Woolcott during the meal. Gideon first checked on Seth, who seemed to be holding steady for the moment, at least until his body began to overload on light again. Satisfied for the moment, Gideon turned to the still immobile nephilim and studied him for a moment. I have no idea what was going through his head, but I simply sat down and waited for him to decide when he was ready.

“That mark on his wrist, the burn. That was the mark you identified as Azlea's?” Gideon asked Woolcott.

“It is.”

“I recognize it, or I should say it has very strong similarities to another symbol I've seen for a demon.” Gideon glanced at me but let his eyes land on Aila, “Moloch.”

Aila strode over and glanced at the brand on the man's wrist and pursed her lips. “You think she's behind Moloch?”

“Well, she's got something to do with him. She can't be him, I don't think, since histories show them in different places at different times. Have to do some research to confirm it though; but that symbol is too similar to ignore.”

“Do you...think you can do anything for him?” She asked.

“I'm not sure. The brain is...” He shrugged, “It's complicated. I can try to repair obvious damage and if I go with the theory that the damaged parts are the places she altered then we might get something. I mean,” he ran a hand through his hair, “What she damaged can't be something that controls, say, breathing because he'd be dead already, so it stands to reason what I fix won't cause damage like that.”

“What about a trap? Like you fix something and it leads to that?” I asked.

“Unlikely,” Woolcott demurred, “If anyone has a bigger ego than I do, it's Azlea. Think about it, she's been masquerading as an Angel for who knows how long? At this point, with the exception of Azrael being after her, she has to think she's pretty clever. So much so as to not build in a poison pill if one of her lackey's gets saved.”

I shook my head, “I don't know Gideon, it's got to be your call. If you don't feel like it's safe...”

“I'll just take it slow. Maybe you and Woolcott can go get some Chinese for when I get done?” Gideon looked hopeful and Woolcott sighed.

“He complains if I rob a pancake stand but now he's advocating me to steal from a Chinese place. Does anyone else see the duplicity here?”

“I'll take General Tso's and a side of the house fried rice,” Aila smiled before raising a finger quickly, “Oh and a pint of shrimp with snow peas?”

“Oh, shrimp and snow peas sounds good. I want some peanut chicken too,” Gideon smiled.

“Do I look like a delivery boy?” Woolcott thundered.

“Delivery grandpa maybe,” I muttered.

“I heard that!” Woolcott rounded on me, “Come on, let me show you how to steal food you, you...little barbarian!”

Woolcott strode from the room in the direction of what I'd begun to call his trinket room in my mind. I called out good luck to Gideon and hurried after the sorcerer. I had a fleeting thought that Gideon was trying to get rid of me for a little bit for some reason, after all he was sending me for food when we'd just eaten an enormous breakfast. Then again, he'd need the calories after a big healing session like this; after all he did say that he hadn't healed the person fully to start with and now he was going to do some very delicate work.

Woolcott waited at the blank wall that his his room and tapped his foot at me. I waved my hand and spoke the incantation that revealed the door to his secret cache.

“Now this is a totally new endeavor for you. Illusions are trickier than incantations because they rely partly on the mind of the one being fooled. For instance,” he strode through the door and began to rummage as he lectured. “By putting the smell of the food in the room it was easy to make you see me cooking and imagine a stove and counters where there was just a table; partially because your mind could easily picture such a scene.” He glanced at me, “Though why your mind should ever conjure me cooking, I can't imagine.”

“So when you get food, it's an illusion? They don't get real money?”

“They think they do, and the illusion will persist for quite a few days worth of people thinking they have real money. For instance, the pizza delivery drivers? They see the cash, and it's what they expect. When they turn in the cash to the store, that's what they expect and so it reinforces the illusion. It may get discovered after it gets to a bank or after it's been in a vault or some such – eventually the illusion will wear off and all that is left is the raw material you started with.” So saying he produced a wad of actual Monopoly money.

“So we really are about to steal from someone?”

“What do you expect me to do for cash? Get a job?” he snorted. “Can you see me as a clerk at a market? Or some office computer nerd? I think we both know the answer to that.”

“Yeah but, we're stealing.”

“True, but think how many people will be affected if we don't succeed with what we're doing? Why our actions could prevent some sort of disaster and do you think the world will pay up? No!” He waved a hand, “We'll get no credit and no reward. So I think it's fair, don't you?”

“What disaster will we prevent?” I eyed him wryly.

“Well, what about that Y2K bug everyone was worried about?” He offered.

“But nothing happened!”

“Precisely! Think how much the banks saved! The aggravation of the average consumer that the personal computer didn't crash on it's little circuit boards.”

“You did that?” I felt awfully skeptical.

“Well, no.” He allowed, “But you only asked for an example, you didn't specify it had to be real. Anyway,” he said loudly over my objection, “You need to learn to create portals and work an illusion;, you never know when it will save your ass.”

“Fine. I don't have to like it though.”

He handed me a coin and gave me the proper incantation to use. “Now the only other thing is this;, the incantation opens a portal but you have to know where you want to go. It's easier to go to a place you know well, but you can use other things to get you there. For instance,” he produced a copy of a menu that had the picture of the Chinese restaurant on the front. “Notice the narrow space between buildings? Not really an alley, but a sort of breeze through? Put that in your head and that should be where the portal opens.

Nodding and taking a deep breath I fixed the space into my head and repeated the incantation while tossing the coin into the air, so thankful that my serenity basically recorded incantations and so many other details so that I didn't have to consciously recall them. It twirled and flashed reflected light as it gradually widened and resolved itself into a portal.

“Excellent, well done!” Woolcott stepped through the portal and immediately began to swear uncontrollably. I poked my head through to see a wino with his pants down peeing where Woolcott had just been.

“Would you look at this? My trousers! You miserable excuse for a human being!” he ranted.

“Hey, you walked into me..uh..buster. I was already pissing on this here wall, why would you...come between me and my wall? That's just dumb.”

“Normal people don't pee on the sides of buildings!” He shrieked.

I muttered the phrase to put the wino into stasis and he was suddenly a statue in the alley, unfortunately still with his pants down.

“Oh, now what? Did you have a stroke?” Woolcott eyed the wino.

“No, I figured we didn't want too many people running around claiming people stepped out of thin air next to their favorite Chinese restaurant.”

“Nonsense,” Woolcott muttered as he cast some spell on his pants that caused the wino's leavings to fly off him and onto the ground. “This isn't anyone's favorite Chinese restaurant. I should pee on his leg when we leave.” Woolcott sniffed. I pushed him along and we emerged from the confined space and walked into the restaurant. We picked up menus and Woolcott began circling a multitude of quart items.

“They both wanted shrimp with snow peas and Gideon wants peanut chicken.”

“Yes, yes. What did Aila want? Pepper beef?”

“General Tso's,” I replied.

“Pepper beef it is. Now,” He handed me a few bills of Monopoly money, “When it comes time to pay you must be completely calm and natural when you hand him payment so that he believes it. Put this single on top, it will help if he sees real money and you do too.”

“Hey...you always had money in the jar by the front door when I met you. Where did that come from?”

“Change from a hundred?” Woolcott asked innocently showing me a pale yellow one hundred dollar monopoly bill. “Surely you can't complain, that one bill provided many others with actual transactions!”

My argument was cut off as the girl working the counter asked what she could get for us and Woolcott handed her the menu with his selections. I asked her if he'd selected the General Tso's as we needed one and she added it.

“Could have sworn she said pepper beef, spoil sport.”

When the time came for payment I was sweating, and not happy with cheating them and in the end that's probably what did me in. I handed her the money, the real single on top of a few fake bills and she gave me a look like I was a complete idiot.

“Oh you grabbed the game money! How silly, here let me,” Woolcott reached into his pocket and removed a wallet from which he withdrew several bills to pay for the food. I, of course, felt like a moron. We sat down to wait for the food and I sighed.

“Why did we have to go through that if you actually had the money?”

“I didn't, my illusion was just more successful than yours.” he stated. “Plus, you need practice. You never know when your power of illusion will be something you need to save your skin.”

I sat and ruminated on that, but decided I'd be better at it if I weren't cheating people. As long as he and I were waiting, I thought I'd ask a question or two though. Kind of make the time useful so to speak.

“So you said that chamber of unmaking had residue from dark being...murdered.” I glanced at him and he nodded to continue, “Well Gideon had mentioned that spell once and said that there wasn't anything left behind, not even dust. That it would even burn out other people's memories of them.”

“Yes, when done properly, it should. Glad you caught that actually, because I have been thinking heavily on that very subject. I have a theory.” He fell silent and watched people walking past the window in the front of the restaurant.

“Are you going to share this theory?” I prompted.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, well I'm not certain of it but clearly the spell wasn't done properly. The fellows that perished at the old residence were rather militant in their obsession, but how could such zealots not complete the ritual properly?” He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow and I sat back to contemplate that.

“I'm not sure how the spell works,” I said slowly, “But I guess if there is a weak link in the chain, so to speak, the spell might not go off as intended?”

“Close enough, yes. My thought is that some of these light wielders are thralls, as we saw before, but some are true zealots and yet others may be like the fellow we have back at the ranch.”

“The ranch?”

“Sure, the old homestead. You know, our little home on the range?”

“Anyway,” I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, anyway, my theory is that not all party members are pushing this as hard as they could or should, thus making it less than complete.”

“So maybe the guy we have, he wasn't totally sold on what they were doing and kind of subverted it or didn't focus enough?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, “For all we know he's a true zealot, though the brain issues kind of make that doubtful. I need to pee, is that fellow still in the alley?” So saying he popped to his feet and strode purposefully outside. I suppose without my concentration the wino had hiked up his pants and made for safer, less strange walls to pee on.

“Pity, I so wanted to return the favor. My god,” Woolcott looked at me with a wrinkled nose, “Did this breezeway smell this bad the first time we passed through?”

“Now Wooly, is that anyway to greet an old friend?”

We turned as one to see Azlea lounging against a wall, a disemboweled demon at her feet. “Apparently you took his eye, he was a little cranky.”

“Well, demonic eyesight is overrated is the rumor.” Woolcott replied neutrally.

“You don't seem happy to see me, Wooly.” Azlea commented.

“Azrael is looking for you.” He replied with a shrug, “That is never a good thing.”

“Oh I know it, but he's got it in his senile head I'm a demon. Can you imagine?” She smiled, dazzling whites behind her full lips.

“Well, he was reasonably convincing,” Woolcott hedged.

“Oh, you didn't,” She stomped a foot as she squared her shoulders at our position. “You made a bargain with him, didn't you?”

“Well, it did seem prudent at the time. There is some evidence...”

“Evidence? Like what, outside of Azrael's statement?”

“Well, you always were a little bloodthirsty.” He opined.

“That makes me demonic? Have you looked at humans lately?” She scoffed.

“We captured someone, has your marking on him.” I blurted.

“Oh my...you found Ithuriel? Please say you did?” Azlea seemed genuinely hopeful.

“How would he have your symbol scorched into his skin? And why does it bear such a close resemblance to the sign of Moloch?” I demanded. I was a tiny bit surprised Woolcott hadn't shut me up yet, but I figured answers were answers and if she was here to kill us she'd have tried it already.

“Simple, little sorcerer,” she smiled. “Yes, word travels fast when a sorcerer takes an apprentice. But to your question – angelic symbols are very similar to alphabets. If you take a 'V' and invert it, add a line and you have an 'A'. Moloch fell very early, one of the older members of my family line. Ithuriel is my brother and his symbol is mine, but inverted...and he's been missing for a millennium.”

“When you say millennium,” Woolcott asked.

“I mean it literally, about a thousand years.”

“Hang on. So you're saying we didn't capture a nephilim, but an actual angel?”

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