Hubris - 58. The Head of the Snake

The wail of the horn seemed to sound from within Crowe’s own bloodstream. He fought through his body's aching protests, leaping over fallen debris. Barghast and Loras ran on either side, protecting his blind spots.

A torchcoat came into view. “Take this you practitioner bastards!” she screamed.

She was granted enough time to chuck something at them before Barghast took her life with a single shot from his rifle. The grenade rolled to a stop at Crowe’s feet.

“Back away!” Gyrell barked. “These grenades release fumes you don't want to breathe in…They contain the drug Drajen created to keep us from using our mana…”

The practitioner didn't need to be told twice to heed her warning. A near death experience at Fort Erikson was all the warning he needed. He and Loras fell back. The grenade spun around in the ground, releasing green fumes. It wasn't the only one: a smokescreen of green chemical smelling gas filled the street.

A practitioner came stumbling out of the fog, hacking. She held her staff in a feeble hand. “Help me,” she begged Crowe. Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Help me - I can't use my mana - I can't - “

She didn't get to finish her plea. Not before a bullet hole appeared between her eyes, killing her instantly. Gyrell's sword flashed once, twice, three times. She handed Crowe a a handkerchief. “Wrap this around your face,” she commanded. “Do it quickly.”

The rag smelled of dust and human perspiration, but Crowe didn't care. He tied the rag around his face so that it covered his nose and mouth.

The horn sounded again. Crowe whirled around, searching frantically for its bearer. Heading West on the next street, he spotted five riders still atop their horses. They were heavily armored and pulled a caravan behind them loaded with wooden chests strapped down by rope. Was this it? Was this what Gyrell had meant about finding the head of the snake? On the side of the caravan, the sigil of Elysia's torch was visible. A flag blew limply in the gusts of smoke-wind blowing through the streets of Caldreath.

He called Gyrell's name. “I think I found the head of the snake.” He pointed with his crippled hand.

She squinted through the smog. After a moment a slow grin spread across her face. “Aye. That's it. Very good, herald.”

Crowe started in the direction of caravan. “Let's cut off the snake’s head.”

The commander seized the back of his robes in a gauntleted fist, stopping him in his tracks. “I know you want to be the hero and end the battle, but first you must think.”

She yanked him behind a wall with Barghast scrambling behind them. “Get back, get back!” Something whistled overhead like a banshee. An instant later the wall shook as if succumbing under the blow of a mighty giant. It collapsed in a shower of brick that spilled out into the street.

Crowe shoved Gyrell's hand off her. Who was she to tell him what to do? “How can you tell me to wait? Our people are dying. With the drug, they have the upper advantage - not us. I'm not waiting…”

She shoved him back. Shoved him back hard enough he fell back on the ground. Barghast stomped towards her, baring his teeth. Gyrell silenced him with a glare. “Back off, beast! I’m not doing anything to hurt your precious twin o’rre - though there are times when I must admit I’d like to.”

“Fine.” Crowe pulled himself to his feet. “What is it you are suggesting?”

“Whoever is giving out the orders - the commander - will be inside the carriage. Where they are safe, sequestered away from harm. I doubt they have the courage to join their men in battle. As you can see they are heavily guarded. Not only will they be heavily armored, they will be well armed and well trained and they will certainly have more of those grenades. I know you have fought greater foes, but you do not want to go into this fight overly cocky. Am I clear?”

Crowe was too tired to argue with someone who had more experience in battle than he did, so he nodded. “We’re clear.”

 

                                  …

 

The trio snuck through the shadowy corridor of an alleyway. Figures ran past, cursing and screaming and dying. Each second that passed by was a second stretched out by terror. The street they stepped on had yet to be touched by the battle between Monad’s people and the Theocracy. The ship windows were still intact and dark with the illusion that they were merely closed up for the night.

The trio tiptoed through the shadows at a crouch. Crowe's heart ticked in his throat at a thousand beats per a second. At any second one of the armed sentries standing guard over the caravan could take notice of them and open fire. He cursed himself for almost charging into conflict without coming up with a plan. It's a wonder you’ve come as far as you have without getting yourself and Barghast killed - stay steady. Do as Gyrell told you. She has more experience than you do. Cut off the head of the snake and you win the battle.

When they were but meters from the caravan one of the guards turned their head and spotted them. They let out a shout and immediately reached for their belt. No doubt reaching for a grenade. Already the four other guards, leaping from the caravan into the street. Bullets whizzed through the air, sparking against the side of the caravan.

Within seconds the wagon was obscured by green gas. Crowe felt his world shrunk down to moving shadows. His breath came out in harsh gasps that were muffled by the rag tied around the lower half of his face. He’d lost track of Barghast and Gyrell. His only objective was to survive long enough to thwart his enemies and hope to reunite with his lycan afterwards.

A tall figure adorned in full armor charged out of the smoke at him. “In the name of Elysia, I set your corrupt soul from your rotting flesh!” his adversary roared. He swiped at Crowe with the blade of his sabre.

The practitioner leapt back, narrowly dodging the torchcoat’s advances. He tried to swing his rod and end mainly before it could end in his opponent's favor, but the torchcoat had longer legs and longer arms and was every bit the more experienced fighter than Crowe. Gauntleted fingers tore the rod from his hand and sent it skittering over the cobblestones. Before the practitioner could counter the attack with his dagger, a fist crashed into his face. His back hit the side of the wagon hard enough to knock the wind from his chest.

The torchcoat drew his arm back. The tip of the blade caught the moonlight.

Crowe reached desperately into the pocket of his robes. He pulled out the revolver he started carrying with him for just in case purposes. He drew back the hammer and cocked it. The gun bucked in his hand with a white flash of light. The weapon’s kickback winded him for the third time in one evening, but he kept his balance and fired the gun twice more. It took all of his will not to empty the rest of the chamber into the torch coat.

No sooner had the torchcoat fallen to his knees, another one swung around the caravan, bearing a rifle on him. There was no way to turn except to go down. He dropped to the ground. He wiggled his body between the Wheels of the wagon. Two pairs of feet chased one another within his field of vision but he could not tell who they belonged to. He searched for the Okanavian's paws. Pause that were bigger than most men's head. He swallowed down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, kicked at the hand that tried to clamp around his ankle.

He pulled himself out from underneath the caravan. He came up behind Gyrell who clashed with a torchcoat. She swung her sword once more and Crowe heard the sound of a blade slicing through flesh and a severed head rolling across the ground. Crowe heard the running steps of the torch coat to have tried to grab his ankle coming around the wagon. Dropping his dagger, the practitioner snatched up a fallen saber. The moment the torchcoat appeared, the sorcerer drove forward with all his might.

The blade punched through the torchcoat's armor, into her abdomen. The impact traveled up his arm down to his belly. Blood spurted down his chin. He staggered away from her sagging body, wishing he could vomit.

The door doors of the wagon flew open. “I am shielded by the light from Elysia's torch!” a voice shouted. Crowe glimpsed the bearded man within, saw yet another rifle bear on him. There wasn't enough time, enough energy to get his own weapon in front of him for the killing shot.

I’ve been lucky so far, he thought. Even the herald only has so much luck before it runs out.

He should have felt fear - much like the fear he’d felt when they put the noise around his neck at Fort Erikson - but he only felt relief. Relief that the war would be over. Relief that the task of bringing Monad's people back to Metropolis would fall to the herald of the Fourth Iteration. Shame at the thought of the devastation his death would cause Barghast. But the shame pales in comparison to the relief.

He closed his eyes. I’m ready.

Only death was denied him yet again.

Someone cocked a rifle. He heard a deep, familiar growl. He did not feel a bullet pierce his heart or the sudden blackness of death.

Slowly he opened his eyes. He sucked in a breath. I’ve been ready to die for a long time. Even before the Seraphim fell from the heavens to deliver my mission, I was ready to die. Perhaps I sensed, much like Petras, my life will not have a happy ending. That someone else plotted the course of my life. Which is why he's here. Which is why he's my anchor. To make sure I serve the purpose I was created for.

He looked up at the dark figure that towered over the torchcoat commander. Barghast pressed the muzzle of his rifle to the man’s temple. “Twin o’rre,” he rumbled. “Let me kill this fool and be done with it.”

He tried to answer through a throat that was raw and parched with thirst and heavy with the taste of his own blood. He was bruised all over. Always bruised. These bruises would fade but soon new bruises would appear to replace the old ones. Luckily someone answered for him.

“Do not shoot him!” Gyrell barked. The silver nimbus of her hair reflected the moonlight. “He will die! Justice will be had, but not yet! I have plans for him!”

 

                                       …

 

Crowe and Barghast had seen the consequences war could have on those who fell victim to it many times on their travels. Homes abandoned for sanctuary hundreds of miles away, treasured objects left to gather dust on empty fire hearths. Overturned wagons tipped over like tombstones, their contents picked clean, bodies left to rot under the open sun. Once he'd glimpsed a battle in a vision, but that had been an illusion cast on him by the enemy. None of it could have prepared him for what the morning light revealed to him after his first real battle.

Hundreds of bodies had been tossed in the back of wagons that had been pushed back to the Southern edge of the village. At first glance it was impossible to tell who was torchcoat and who was not; one limb looked much like another and could have been attached to anything or nothing at all. Clothes and flesh torn to shreds. Faces darkened to unrecognizability by dirt, and torn shrapnel. In death we are all the same. At the end of the day it doesn't matter who we follow or what we believe in: When we go under we are all as quiet as the grave.

Barghast, Gyrell, Rake, and he stood in a semi circle watching the survivors of those who had survived the battle drag out those who hadn't from underneath the rubble. Others busied themselves with digging through the debris and carrying it away. Few spoke. Everyone moved with the same dazed look Crowe knew he himself wore. And always the promise of fresh horrors ahead.

“Are you going to throw them all in one grave, Commander?” Rake raised a large glass bottle to his lips. He reeked of spirits and male perspiration.

“Of course not. The fallen will be sorted through. Monad's people will be given a proper burial beneath the earth. Those who follow the Whore…their fates will be deemed by the forests around us.”

The practitioner failed to suppress a shiver; he knew all too well what that fate entailed.

“And the prisoners?”

“They will befall the same fate. Speaking of the prisoners…” Gyrell glanced at Crowe. “We must begin the process of dealing with them. We will hold them in the pens until we are ready to dispense with them. But for now we must not be too nasty in delivering justice. They could prove to be of great use to us while alive.”

Crowe and Barghast exchanged uneasy glances. The sorcerer sensed the Okanavian was thinking of the night they'd trekked through the forest to the grove where hundreds had been nailed to the trees for the beasts of the wild to feast on.

You’ve done terrible things before…

He saw Charoum, thrashing about, in flames, his hair burning.

…you’ll have to do plenty more before your time is up.

What survived of the torchcoats had been gathered up and locked away in pens. Guards had been stationed around the cells, but the air that surrounded the cells was one of human defeat. Crowe resisted the urge to cover his nose against the reek of piss and shit. He’d traveled on the road for many weeks without a chance to bathe properly; it was a human condition he should be used to by now. Faces covered with dirt or blood or soot or all three glazed forlornly through the bars. A few prayed to Elysia but their prayers carried no conviction.

“Bring me Commander Barrick! Bring him to the shed!” Gyrell barked to a guard who appeared as if he were posted anywhere other than where he was. He sprang into action, glad for the opportunity to have something to do, it seemed.

Other than his garb and his title as Commander, there was nothing to suggest Barrick was different from other men. His medium-length hair had once been brown but was now mostly shot through with streaks of iron. From the pens to the shed he walked with his head held up and his shoulders straight even as his audience threw stones and fruit at him. He had the clear-eyed look of a man who had no moral compunctions for how he’d lived his life, the choices he’d made up until this moment. When a rock smashed into his face, tearing open his lower lip, he fell to his knees and lifted his hand towards the sky. “Elysia, my life for you!” he cried. “May not one of these heathens of the False Creator live! May my soul brighten the flame of your torch…”

“Do not fret over his show of courage,” Gyrell encouraged Crowe. “He may walk as a sure-footed rooster walks, but he was trained to. Remember where you found him during his moment of defeat: Cowering in his carriage, guarded, not out in the fight with his own people. No, what you see before you is just another mask of courage and we will take great joy in ripping it away…won't we?”

She grinned wolfishly at Barrick. Barrick might have shuddered but there was too much going around him to be sure.

In the shed they bound his arms to the rafters above his head. The head guard dumped a bucket of ice cold water over the man's head. Crowe tried to feel something as he watched the man sputter and shake it out of his face…and only felt numbness. Stop trying to see him as a man. Stop trying to see him as someone worthy of grace and mercy. He would not bestow the same kindness upon you. Be grateful you are not in his position.

At this thought Crowe was grateful. Grateful to be watching the proceedings as opposed to being the center of them. Gyrell stood two meters to his right. She watched the torchcoat commander, her expression as closed off and unreadable as a mountain wall.

The sound of a gauntleted fist connecting with solid flesh and bone reverberated throughout the shed. Barrack’s head fell back. A mixture of dirt, sweat, and blood marked a red-black trail down his chin that disappeared beneath the smudged collar of his jacket. Even has he stared death directly in the face, he did not appear afraid. “Go on!” he spat. “What are you waiting for? I know my fate is sealed! Go ahead and kill me…”

“We will. Of that you can be sure.” Gyrell pointed at the wall to Barrack's left. “Do you see the morning light coming through the window? You better get a good look because it's the last time you’ll ever see it!”

Barrack threw his head back and laughed. Several of his teeth were missing. “I do not fear the Bitch of Caldreath! Drajen is coming for you. Coming to excise the tumor that is Monad’s people from this world once and for all! He’s going to race through this town like a tidal wave and he’s going to turn it to dust…”

Crowe watched the exchange, uncertain of who to side with. It was impossible to say whose cause was just with the way the two commanders glared at each other, battling over separate sides of their morality…their ideology. Morality has no stake to claim in this matter. I am watching a battle in which both sides have lost all sense of reason. The Theocracy versus the practitioners. The Lion-Headed Serpent versus the torch-bearing mother of Creation. What does that make me? Am I supposed to break the tie?

“You Elysians are always so full of yourselves. It's to your detriment.” The commander knelt on her haunches so that her face was level with Barrack's. “So certain that you're right and we’re wrong. So certain that you deserve to live while we deserve to be enslaved and die. You might outrank us in technology and numbers but none of those advantages held away over our victory last night. This town is still standing even after your beloved Theocracy burned it to the ground over a century ago!” She stomped her foot proudly.

Barrack turned his attention from Gyrell to Crowe. He grinned through bleeding gums that turned into a mocking eye roll. “You're the herald? I expected a man, not a boy…”

It wasn't until he felt his hand smart that the practitioner realized he’d crossed the room and struck the man with a clenched fist. A stunned silence filled the stable; he could feel every eye in the room on him. He was glad his back was turned to them. He was glad he couldn't see Barghast's face. Though the lycan had yet to turn on him, Crowe feared his role as herald would push him one step too far for the Okanavian. Still he couldn't stop himself from confronting this man. Not this time. Circumstances had propelled him over a cliff from which there was no coming back.

He grabbed his head by the back of his ponytail and rinsed it around so that the commander had no choice but to look up him. Fresh drops of blood fell from his nose. “I'm not a boy. I'm not a man. Thanks to the Theocracy and your whore Elysia, I never got to be a boy and I will never get to be a man. I am a ghost trapped between what has never been and what will never be. I don't have a soul to worry over and I certainly don't know anything about justice. All I know is that your Drajen will burn everything to the ground until there's nothing left. No more blood to spill, no more bodies to throw into a grave. So I'm going to keep him from achieving his victory and unfortunately that starts with you…”

A shadow fell over him. Someone offered him an arm. He looked into Gyrell’s green eyes. A coil of chain was wrapped around her sleeved arm. The needle tips of the razors embedded in the chain caught the morning light. This time Crowe did not need a swallow of aether wine to encourage him. He took the handle with the grip that felt strangely steady.

He rose to his feet as four guards converged around Barrack and he. “What would you have us do, my Lord?” the head guard asked him.

“Strip him naked, remove his restraints,” the sorcerer said in a voice that belonged to a stranger.

A moment later the doors to the stable flew open. Barrack fell to his knees, naked. Crowe uncoiled the chain. He flicked it experimentally against the floor of the shed, kicking up straw. When he flicked his wrists a second time, the needles raked into the top of the man's shoulders. The torchcoat commander’s head ducked instinctively against the blow. He hissed through quivering lips. The practitioner watched blood rise up from the new wounds he’d made with a single stroke of his hand.

The chain’s end swung from left to right, then right to left. He resisted the urge to swing a second time if only to reward himself another moment of satisfaction. “On your feet!” he barked instead.

Barrack climbed to his feet with a grunt. Crowe directed him out of the barn. Barghast, Gyrell, Rake, and the guards followed along behind him like historians come to take their account of the proceedings.

When the torchcoat commander strayed away from the road, Crowe redirected him with another lick. The sound of the steel hissing through the air drew the attention of curious onlookers. By the time Crowe reached the well a parade of villagers had gathered behind them to taunt the man. Children danced joyfully over the trail of spilt blood he left in his wake. Gyrell beamed at the herald as a proud parent might her child. Crowe didn't know which feeling resided stronger with him: the uplift of her approval or the revulsion at the action it took to achieve it. It's too late to stop now, he reminded himself. Now that you’ve started down this path there is no going back.

This time Crowe did not have the influence of aether wine or the Mother or Monad or the ghost of Petras to blame. It was his hand that swung the chain with savage glee. It was he who drove deeper and deeper into the torchcoat's back until the air was heavy with the reek of blood and sweat.

By the time they reached the pens, blood flowed freely from Barrack's back. His face was an unrecognizable mass of scrapes and bruises and torn flesh. Crowe tried not to think about how the man looked like the version of Jalif he’d seen being led to the stake in a vision the practitioner had. One eye swollen completely shut, nose broken, an inch from death already. Crowe only has to let the people of Caldreath have their way to seal the fate of Barrack and the remaining torchcoats.

The practitioner would not grant him such mercy.

Barrack staggered ahead of him, feeding Caldreath with his blood. The practitioner ignored another wave of revulsion. He watched the torchcoat commander's blood seep in between the cobblestones. More souls for the town to feast on.

Barrack could not stand on his own. Two guards stood on both his sides, an arm looped over their shoulders.

Crowe's whipping arm felt so heavy he could no longer lift it.

The rest of the prisoners were gathered before the pens like a herd of cattle. Their clothes and flesh were torn from where they had been pelted mercilessly with stones and whatever the villagers could chuck through the bars at them. Their ankles and wrists were shackled together so that they were bound as a single entity. Stripped of their armor, Crowe could no longer tell the difference between a frightened practitioner or torchcoat. They huddled together as if forming one body could shield them from the fate to come.

He didn't remember anyone handing him Barrack's horn but it was there in his hand. He raised it to his lips and blew into it hard once. Several members in the crowd drifted towards the front with hatchets and knives and the hunger for bloodshed in their eyes. He commanded the guards to face the prisoners in the direction of the trees. Once they faced the open field, Crowe spoke again. “If we were to give them the chance they would hunt each and every one of us down like animals. They’d ride us down on their horses and cleave our heads from our shoulders with their blades. But today we will see them run, naked and afraid.”

More blades appeared in the crowd. Men and women pushed up to the front of the audience with the thirst for murder in their eyes. Crowe could feel his own blood boiling in his veins. He gave the guards the orders to remove the restraints from the prisoners and shoot down anyone who made a run for it before he gave the okay. Over a dozen rifles were cocked on the prisoners.

Once the restraints were removed, Crowe said, “Once I blow the horn the prisoners may run for their lives. Run as fast as their legs can carry them. Let it be said that unlike your Elysia, Monad can be merciful…if you catch him on the right day. Guards, only when I blow the horn a second time may the villagers give chase.”

This was met with silent nods of affirmation and salutes.

Crowe sucked in a breath. He scratched at eyes that had gone dry and itchy with fatigue. If the heavens had objections to offer about what he was doing, he did not hear them. He took a swig of aether wine. He licked his lips. He raised the horn and he blew once.

Hard.

The prisoners broke for the trees, starting out in a line that quickly disintegrated as those who were the most determined to survive surpassed those who faltered. Those who fell quickly picked themselves back up. Their breaths came out short and gaspy. Beside Crowe, Barghast drooled hungrily. The practitioner knew he would be the first to spill torchcoat blood.

Crowe waited until the first prisoners had almost reached the trees before he blew into the horn a second time. Just as he suspected, Barghast let out a mighty growl before barrelling after the prisoners, a dozen men and women on his tail bearing hatchets and knives. The bright blue sky and golden spokes of sunlight made a lie that this morning would be as peaceful as the last.

A dog weaved between the villagers, quickly closing the distance between the hunters and the escapees. It lunged at the closest man within reach, tearing at his ankles from behind. Soon Crowe could see nothing beyond the act of violence he'd ordered into reality. He watched a hatchet swing through the air before the blade buried itself in the back of a skull, releasing a spray of blood. He watched a hatchet slice open the throat of another unfortunate soul. More blood would spill into the grass; more torchcoats would feed Caldreath's hungry, hungry soil.

It seemed the melee was over before it began. Barghast returned to Crowe, blood dripping from his snout. In one paw he carried the head of Commander Barrack. “He made a mockery of you and so I made a mockery of him. I pissed on him right before I beheaded him. No one mocks my twin o’rre.”

The herald wrinkled his nose. It took all of his effort not to turn away from the “gift” that was being offered to him. “That's very kind of you, but I don't want it…You can bury it in the backyard tonight.”

Gyrell walked up to the practitioner, smiling. “It seems the air in Caldreath has done you good, herald. It has toughened your resolve considerably. The way you did that was beautiful. I don't think those torchcoats have ever known such terror in their life.”

“If only the nausea would cease,” Crowe admitted weakly before he could stop himself. He lit an aether joint with shaking fingers. How was it possible for someone to feel such triumph and revulsion at the same time?

The commander's eyes softened. “The transformation you are making is not one of beauty or of grace. You must let go of the fact that you are the savior. May I see that?” Without waiting for the lycan's permission, she grabbed Barrack’s head by its blood soaked locks and held it up before Crowe like a macabre ornament. She pretended not to notice when the sorcerer looked away. “You are not the savior. You are not the caterpillar who will turn into a butterfly. You're the caterpillar who will turn into a snake. One slippery scale at a time.”

 

                                      …

 

Later that evening Gyrell came to the door with a bottle of aether wine. She wore the blue silk dress that had become familiar to Crowe; it was a dress that must have had great value to her.

“Is there a special occasion?” he asked her once they were both seated at the table.

“I think every night here in Caldreath is a special occasion. That it’s here at all is a miracle. Last night’s victory is something to celebrate.”

“Celebrate how?”

Gyrell grinned. “The village has put together something special for you. I know Barghast and yourself have spoken together of your shared love for performance art.”

Crowe and Barghast exchanged surprised glances. How can she know about that? This is a conversation we had long before we reached Caldreath.

“Every few weeks we like to put on a show.” The commander uncorked the wine bottle. She filled two goblets the practitioner could not remember appearing at the table. “We dress up and play music. Not so different from what you saw on your first night here. We’ve put together such a show for you.”

Crowe searched under the beds of his nails for any dirt he might have forgotten to wash away. They were covered in blisters and scratches from where he’d been digging for most of the day. Before he could say, “I don’t think we’re up for seeing a show tonight,” he heard a tap at the door.

“Ah!” Gyrell said as if she’d forgotten something like this was supposed to happen. “Those must be the escorts who have come to take Barghast and yourself to the show!”

The practitioner did not hurry climbing out of his chair. Not for the first time he wondered what surprises had in store for Barghast and he tonight. Gyrell held a goblet out to him. “You’ll want to drink that!” she suggested sweetly.

He didn’t want to take the wine. Not at first.

Why do you think there’s an endless supply of this stuff kept in Caldreath? Why do you think everyone drinks it? To keep them content. To keep them docile. You keep forgetting this!

He gulped. Suddenly he felt very thirsty.

Before the voice could ask him more questions, Crowe silenced it by sipping from the goblet. He went to the door. He opened it. Two angels awaited him on the other side. Or at least they were villagers dressed up like angels. Crowe stepped away from the door with a frown. He decided it was best not to guess what they were.

He could still remember the messenger who had come to visit him the day he put Petras in the ground. How the Seraphim had dropped through a rent in the sky in which the city of Metropolis had appeared through. Crowe could see that city now filling the night sky, as if it too wanted him to join the show. The angels stood beneath it, their hair so white it appeared almost translucent beneath the dancing stars. They were winged with swords scabbarded at their side. They had silver eyes with long black pupils as long and thin as a blade. A horse-drawn carriage was parked beneath the Eternal City’s underbelly.

Crowe glanced at the carriage. He looked back at Barghast. He breathed a sigh of relief to find that the Okanavian was no more than a few steps behind him. When the barbarian reached for the rifle, the tallest of the angels spoke. “You won't be needing that. We can assure you, we mean you know harm.”

“Drink your wine,” the second angel encouraged them with a smile that hinted at no hidden intent.

Gyrell held up a third glass. She emptied it of its contents with a smile and a flourish as if to say, See? No harm here.

During the last minute or so, Crowe's thirst had only increased. It's so sweet. So cold. So refreshing. And there's always more of it when I want it.

He emptied the goblet. He passed it to one of the angels who took it silently. “It's just a show, right?” he said to Barghast. “It will be our first one together.”

“I'm right behind you twin o’rre,” the lycan reassured him.

With this the practitioner and the lycan turned away from the house so that the angels could escort them to the carriage.