028.007

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Peaceful Days

Connection Established

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“You need to get some sleep. You’ve been awake for two days straight.”

“Can’t.” Multi-word responses were hard. They took too much effort. Alyssa had no such effort to spare. She had to focus all her concentration on the vial. Tzheitza’s most caustic counter-plague potion had almost no effect. At first, Alyssa had thought that it had done literally nothing at all.

Until Irulon stopped by. She had measured the ember and found that it was shrinking. Just slowly. So slowly.

“It hasn’t done anything for the last three days. Closing your eyes for a few hours isn’t going to change that. I’ll still be around to watch it. Tzheitza has been in and out. Even Fela is here,” Kasita said, patting the hellhound between her perky ears. “We’ll wake you up if something happens.”

Alyssa took in a deep breath, trying to gather strength for a longer response. “But you can’t see some things. Like demons and angels.”

“I can if I am paying attention. And I promise I will pay attention. I… Do I need to get mom down here?”

Narrowing her eyes, Alyssa just groaned. Her attempt at a glare fell through before it even started. Her eyelids were just so heavy. But the ember had shrunk by half. Two days more. That was it. It would be gone in two more days.

Unless, with a shrinking surface area, the speed at which it shrank also… shrank. But there was less volume to get rid of as well. So, it would shrink at the same speed. Right? Ugh. She needed math lessons. Not even Tenebrael’s math lessons, just any kind of math lesson at all. Or maybe she needed Irulon to come back and measure it again, to analyze and reestimate how soon it would be completely gone.

“Ah,” Fela made a little noise, somewhat nasally because she was holding her breath. Apparently, the ember reeked to her sensitive nose. “Her eyes are closed.”

Alyssa jerked awake with a bucket of cold adrenaline dumped over her head, finding herself inches away from those burning flames coming out of Fela’s eyes.

Tzheitza had contacted the plague containment team to warn them about the possibility of unknown artifacts appearing near plague sites. It made Alyssa hate herself for lying, but at the same time, she didn’t feel too bad about making them double check everything. They couldn’t be too careful. One of the members was standing off a bit away while Fela sat next to Alyssa.

And poor Fela. Kasita just smacked the back of her head. It really didn’t do much, but it did tussle some of Fela’s hair.

“Don’t say things like that,” Kasita said with clear admonishment in her tone.

“I’m fine,” Alyssa said. “Just two more days… Two… More… Days…”

Alyssa tried to stare at the flask on the counter. But she couldn’t quite see it. There were spots in her vision, fading in and out. Too many spots to clearly see. And the spots were growing.

The chair underneath Alyssa slipped out from under her. Or that was what it felt like. But Alyssa didn’t fall. Her worries, her fear, her anger. It all fell. But Alyssa did not. She was… floating. Adrift.

It had been a long time since she last felt like this. More than a month. It was that same floaty sensation that came when Tenebrael had tried drawing out her soul. The same one that she had fallen into when she had seen her bedroom torn to pieces. And now, she was having it again.

Because I haven’t slept? Alyssa had gone through sleep deprivation before. Maybe not quite as long as she had this time, but just about.

It was quite irritating. From previous experiences adrift, irritation was a good feeling to have, so she didn’t bother trying to fight it. In fact, she embraced the irritation. Her primary annoyance this time came from the mere fact that she had fallen adrift once again. It had never happened before Tenebrael drew out her soul just before they rescued Jason. Now it had happened twice since then. Neither time had involved Tenebrael. Was this just going to happen whenever something came up that shocked her? Or drained her, as the case was this time?

Still, it could be that this was more fortuitous than she had first thought. Tenebrael was somewhere out there. Physical distance, she gathered, didn’t actually matter much. If it did, she would never be able to connect to the Throne. That meant that she should be able to connect to Tenebrael.

It shouldn’t be her focus. That ember was still out there, smaller though it was. But, this place did strange things to her emotions. All her worry and fear was… just muted. Able to think rationally about it, Kasita had been right. Two days had passed without incident. She could have fallen asleep at any point during that time and nothing would have happened. Nothing would happen now either. She had friends. Allies that she could rely on. People who were not stupid enough to try to touch the ember.

Feeling like she had at least some time—and hoping that her time while adrift would give her body some much needed rest—Alyssa focused on Tenebrael. On connecting to Tenebrael.

Alyssa had never done so on her own. Only the one time when Tenebrael had been guiding her. She had never gotten a second lesson with Tenebrael which would have presumably included a little instruction manual on how to find an angel without being beckoned.

Last time, she managed to return to her own body by imagining physical interaction with it. Either in terms of punching Tenebrael or pricking her arm. Mostly confident that she could do so again, Alyssa decided to use this experience as an educational situation. A chance to test some things out in the hopes of grabbing onto Tenebrael.

Imagining grabbing onto Tenebrael elicited a response. A brief sensation that Alyssa now knew was her body. But she didn’t want that feeling right now. Holding onto that feeling would pull her back to her body. An important thing to remember, but for now, she wanted the opposite end of the spectrum. Or, at least, the opposite end of her arm.

Instead of imagining herself grabbing onto Tenebrael, Alyssa tried to cut herself out of the picture. She focused on the dark angel. Pale grey skin, luminous white eyes, black hair, black dress, and four black wings. Alyssa pictured her face as clearly as she could remember it. The white eyes, of course, but also the dark eyeliner, the tattoos that framed half of her face, the black coat of lipstick just beneath her small nose.

And just imagining her clearly wasn’t working. Alyssa couldn’t feel anything so far. But maybe she was imagining the wrong thing. To get back to her body, Alyssa hadn’t pictured what she looked like. She didn’t imagine brown eyes or the tribal sleeve that ran up her right arm.

She had imagined action. The act of grabbing Tenebrael. Of pricking needles into her arm. Of punching Tenebrael—something, she realized, that she had forgotten to do.

So with Tenebrael’s form clearly in her mind, Alyssa pictured the angel acting. Reaching out, stretching out her hand as if to offer it to some unimagined character.

That… did something. A warmth washed over Alyssa. That same sensation that came with holding the staff, tearing apart angelic spells, or just touching an angel. It was like coming inside after a cold winter day, curling up with a blanket in front of the fireplace while drinking some hot chocolate. With marshmallows. But there was a problem. The warmth, while a definite feeling that Alyssa was holding onto, was all encompassing. It enveloped her entire being. Because of that, Alyssa couldn’t tell from where the sensation came.

Releasing her hold on the feeling, the warmth faded. Once again, Alyssa had been kicked out into the snow. She wasn’t giving up. Just trying a new approach. This time, instead of Tenebrael offering her whole hand and the arm with it, Alyssa pictured Tenebrael just pointing with a single finger.

The effect was the same as before. The warmth wrapped around her like a blanket. If it felt like someone dropping a blanket over her shoulders, she might have been able to use that to find a direction. But it wasn’t. One moment, she had been standing out in the snow with nothing but her boots and underwear. The next, sitting in front of a fire with hot chocolate.

And just thinking about it like that was making her miss chocolate.

Alyssa tried a few more times. Time was utterly impossible to perceive while adrift, so she had no idea for how long she tried, but she imagined it had been for a while. All her attempts resulted in nothing but that blanket wrapping around her.

Maybe… Just maybe, the warmth might be all that she needed.

If she kept her grip on the feeling while heading back to her body, perhaps it would work to connect herself and Tenebrael. After all, wasn’t that somewhat similar to how it had been the first time? Even though it had been Tenebrael speaking, Alyssa had thought she had been drifting toward her own body. Perhaps she actually had, just with a piece of Tenebrael along for the ride.

Thinking about it in that light, she might already have completed the first step of a connection. While holding onto the warmth, Alyssa imagined pinching her own cheek.

The sensation was immediate and, thankfully, in a specific direction. She couldn’t tell what that direction was. Like time, space was essentially nonexistent while adrift. But even without knowing where it was, she was able to move toward it. Holding onto both sensations at once, Alyssa pulled herself toward the only one she could.

But before she reached it, she paused.

There was something else… out there. It was hard to tell where, but she could feel it somewhere. A warmth.

No. A heat.

Alyssa reached out to touch it, to grab it like she had with everything else she felt. It was more instinctive than conscious, but Tenebrael had told her to hold onto the things she felt while adrift. The second she made contact, she drew her metaphorical fingers back.

Angelic warmth was a nice blanket and a small fire. This seared. It was like reaching her hand into that fire.

Alyssa pinched her arm again. As soon as she felt herself, she pulled as hard as she could, wanting to be away from that searing flame as soon as possible.

She had a feeling that she knew what it was. And it wasn’t anything good.

One more tug and Alyssa found herself lurching forward in her chair. The familiar chemical smell of the potion shop came rushing back as she sucked in a deep breath. To her side, Kasita jerked. Fela, who had apparently fallen asleep as well, snapped awake, flames around her eyes burning bright with alertness.

I’m back. Alyssa breathed out. Her fingers felt tingly, but she was alright. She had made it back. And the potion shop hadn’t burned down.

That was nice.

“How long was I out?”

“A while. Night fell. The plague containment guy swapped out for that one,” Kasita said, pointing at…

It was Captain Trik, leader of the plague containment teams. A smaller man with a cleanly shaved face. He gave Alyssa a curt nod, but stopped abruptly as his eyes met hers. He tensed for a moment before shaking his head. With only a little hesitance, he looked down to a handful of papers. He didn’t have anything to write with, so he was just reading reports, probably.

“Tzheitza went to bed after checking on the ember. And absolutely nothing terrible happened while you were sleeping. Just like I said nothing would happen.”

“Yeah, yeah, you were right.”

“Did you know your eyes are glowing.”

Alyssa suspected after Trik’s reaction, but it was nice to have confirmation. “That’s what I was hoping for.”

Kasita looked over with a frown on her face. “Were you actually sleeping or were you doing something weird?”

“I, uh… feel more rested than I did before?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

Alyssa started to respond, only for a long yawn to stifle any attempt at proper conversation. Kasita did not look amused.

“I’ll sleep more later.”

“Uh huh.” Kasita let her displeasure hang for a moment before she sighed, letting it drop. At least for the moment. “So do your glowing eyes get us anything special? A way to contact someone special, perhaps?”

Tenebrael had never actually gotten around to showing Alyssa how to do anything with the angelic magic that heated her body at the moment. It had been on the list, but the one other time when she had been connected, Tenebrael had just told her to get used to the feeling. Alyssa was able to take some shortcuts with human magic, such as not needing to say the spell to cast it, so perhaps something similar would apply to angelic magic.

“Not here,” Alyssa decided. She didn’t want to blow up Tzheitza’s shop. And if Tenebrael did pop up, she didn’t want Trik to be around while she was conversing, if at all possible. “And not just yet either.”

“Why not?”

Alyssa didn’t respond. She stood instead, tossing off a blanket that someone had draped over her as she approached the flask. That heat she had felt while adrift.

It had to have come from the ember.

The liquid that the ember was swimming in wasn’t perfectly clear. Not perfectly opaque either. It was a strange mix of clouds that swirled around almost of their own accord. Or that was how it had been when Alyssa had fallen asleep. Now, the clouds were still there, but they weren’t shifting and moving. It was enough to give Alyssa a queasy feeling.

Taking the long metal spoon that they had used to stir up the mixture, Alyssa dipped it into the thick potion and started fishing around. She felt the spoon smack into something, but it slipped away before she could bring it to the edge of the glass. It took a second attempt to press it up to the point where she could see it.

The ember was no longer glowing.

It was an inert lump of coal.

Alyssa clicked her tongue as she glared at the ember. “Fela, would you mind coming over here and sniffing at the ember?”

The hellhound grimaced. She had been breathing through her mouth alone ever since she had arrived. It was thanks to her that the ember was confirmed as a demonic item without a doubt. But she didn’t complain as she dragged herself to her feet and walked over to the counter. The thick pads on her feet muted the sound of her walking, but her steps seemed to be even quieter than normal. With obvious reluctance, she leaned over the flask’s open neck and took just a single quick sniff.

A pause passed before she took a second, slightly longer whiff. “It doesn’t smell as bad as before.”

“And what about me?” Alyssa asked, holding out her entire arm for the hellhound to sniff. “Do I smell any different?”

“You? But—”

“Just check. Please. For my own peace of mind.”

Curious expression on her face, she stepped just a little closer and brought her face right up to Alyssa’s offered arm. After two long sniffs, she just shrugged. “You don’t smell like that,” she said with a distasteful glance at the flask. “But you don’t quite smell normal either.”

“Is it the air? Is the ember masking my scent? Should we move outside?”

“My nose is better than that,” Fela said with an almost offended scoff. “No. Your scent right now doesn’t smell bad. Just slightly different. It’s still you.”

“Alright,” Alyssa said, letting the tension in her shoulders drop. She had been… worried. The ember’s sudden lack of a glow had almost certainly been her doing. While adrift, she had bumped into something scorching. It had to have been the ember. If it had left something on her… in her… “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to come back and check at least once a day for the next week.”

“Is something wrong?” Fela tilted her head, getting her face just a little closer to Alyssa’s face. “Are you feeling sick?”

“No. I…” Taking in fresh breath of air, Alyssa smiled. “Actually, I feel pretty good, all things considered.” Some rejuvenation effect from being connected to Tenebrael? That seemed like a good reason to be feeling fine.

She wasn’t quite sure what had happened. The ember going dark was almost certainly her fault. Perhaps, because she had managed to connect to Tenebrael, touching the ember while adrift had destroyed it. The angelic magic simply overpowered everything about the demonic marble. Either that, or that scorching feeling she had felt while adrift had just been her imagination and it had all been Tzheitza’s potion.

Alyssa doubted that explanation, however. Adrift was a strange sensation, but probably not one that would give her hallucinations.

It did make her a little worried that the demons might try again. If she hadn’t gotten their notice before, she certainly had it now. And she had challenged that demon to try harder. This marble had clearly not been a good enough attempt.

If she had touched that scorching heat while adrift without having Tenebrael’s power with her, would something bad have happened? Very probably.

She would have to be more vigilant in the future. And, she decided, she would have to keep far away from any plague areas. Coming into contact with that demon again would surely result in another attempt to… do whatever it was that the demon wanted to do.

It was actually a bit disappointing that she had interrupted the dissolution process of Tzheitza’s potion. If the demons decided to leave those embers all over the place every time they collected souls, knowing that her potion really worked would have been a valuable bit of information. It had seemed like it would have worked after two days, but without that certainty, Alyssa felt like she might have ruined something.

Trik standing from the table let Alyssa ignore her worries for the moment. He locked eyes with Alyssa, apparently having a bit of trouble looking away, but managed after a moment. He seemed surprisingly calm about her eyes suddenly glowing, but perhaps he was used to that sort of thing with having spent time around Irulon. Taking hold of the silver spoon, he pressed the ember up to the glass for a closer look.

“That’s it then?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I just found the stupid thing.”

“It isn’t glowing and Fela thinks it’s clear, so it probably is.” He ran a hand down his face, scratching at his neck as he went. “I’ll ask if Princess Irulon will spare a moment to stop by tomorrow. We’ll get her opinion on it. For now, let’s leave it in that solution.”

“Even if Irulon thinks it’s fine, we should probably leave it in the bottle. Put a cork on it and toss it into the pit. Though I am far from an expert in these things. Maybe you shouldn’t listen to me at all.”

“The idiots at the Observatorium wanted to get their hands on it, but the Pharaoh shut them down. Something about this being a new element of demons to observe. If it is truly inert, they might try again. Personally, I like your suggestion better,” he said with a smile before looking back to the flask. “I’m being paid extra to spend all night here, so that’s what I’ll do, even if it looks like it’s dead. Fela, you too. I saw you sleeping. No slacking off.”

“I’ve been here all day,” she said, punctuating her statement with a wide yawn. The sharp incisors that jutted out from the rest of her teeth were prominently displayed well within biting distance from Trik’s face, but the leader of the plague containment team didn’t flinch in the slightest.

It had been a month since he had first met Fela, but he hadn’t seemed afraid even back then. Then again, if he had to deal with things like the infected Taker even infrequently, he was probably used to things far scarier than a fluffy monster who spent most of her time asleep.

“As I said earlier, you don’t have to stick around,” he said to Alyssa.

“I… I think I’ll retire to my room. If you need me, I’ll be just in there,” she said, gesturing to her door.

“Right.” With a nod of his head, Trik turned back to his own seat.

Alyssa just about asked for Kasita to join her, only to realize that the mimic was missing from the room.

Sometimes, Alyssa thought as she shook her head, I wish Kasita would just walk around like a normal person. Would she still be Kasita if she didn’t disappear and hitch rides on people to avoid walking? Yes. The answer was definitely yes. But still…

Alyssa got to her room, sat down on her bed, and waited. Counting down the seconds in her head, she turned just as she hit zero.

Kasita’s form was still shifting into position. It only took a second for her to solidify herself properly, but when she did, she had a look of abject horror on her face. “I am so embarrassed,” she groaned, burying her face into her hands.

Alyssa just rolled her eyes. Like Kasita hasn’t seen me naked before. The very first week she had met Kasita, changing in her room had been an exercise in paranoia. Now, she didn’t even bother looking for the mimic. She had better things to do with her time… most days.

Looking up, horror and shame completely missing from her face, Kasita asked, “So, what are you going to do with your glowy eyes now?”

“I was hoping that Tenebrael would pop up. There is almost no way she hasn’t noticed. And she still hasn’t done anything about that picture I sent her. As such… I think she might actually be in trouble.”

“Okay. But what are you going to do?”

Alyssa turned slightly, closing her eyes. Last time she had connected to Tenebrael, she had been able to see souls. That was still true now. She could see Tzheitza. A lone form in the rough direction of her room. It wasn’t doing much, just gently wafting all on its own. Trik and Fela were out in the main area. Their forms were far more active. Like the teacher and children back on Earth, parts of their souls broke off and jumped to the other. Just little pieces.

Looking further than them, Alyssa could see more and more forms. Walls didn’t matter. Distance didn’t seem to matter either. Some of the forms were way up high, far higher than any others. Those had to be people inside the palace. One of those high forms was… strange. Every form… Every soul interacted with souls around it. Alyssa wasn’t sure if it represented them talking, or maybe giving literal pieces of themselves to others. It was what it was regardless of her interpretation.

However, one form was… two. They intermingled far more than any of the other forms, thrashing and fighting almost. Rather than sharing parts of themselves, as every other soul seemed to do, these two took. They stole.

Irulon. It had to be her.

Was this what Adrael and Iosefael saw when they decided how wrong she was? Because she certainly felt wrong to Alyssa. From her description of what it was like to share a mind with a dragon, it hadn’t sound like the two fought or otherwise hated each other. In fact, they seemed to compliment each other quite a bit. But their souls clearly were not fine with the situation.

Alyssa might have to talk to her about that sooner rather than later.

But before she could think further on the situation with Irulon, one of the forms… changed. Putting words to the souls was nearly impossible. But if she were to try, it would be like… this particular form had been a candle, but now, it was just the wispy smoke rising from a recently snuffed wick. Although it had a few other forms around it, all of whom were interacting with each other, it no longer shared pieces of itself or received pieces from them.

A moment later, and the form disappeared completely from Alyssa’s view.

“I think,” Alyssa said slowly, “I found a way to tell where people are dying. If I watch a few more before they die, I might be able to predict upcoming deaths. Someone is taking those souls. If it isn’t Tenebrael, I’d like to know just who is running around carrying out her job.”

And if it was Tenebrael… Alyssa owed her a fist to the nose.

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