Lies and Truth

“You know what they say.” Gabriel perched on the edge of the railing like a giant eagle, muscles tense, wings quivering with anticipation.

“Depends on who they are and what they’re saying it about.” Kyle watched the rioting mob, the puffs of tear gas and the flailing police batons. He thought it fitting, that the government agents wore black like the demons with whom they’d formed an unholy alliance. He’d been kept awake all night dreading even a glimpse of those shadows in the crowd.

“Lies hurt.”

“Yes.” Kyle slewed a glance at Gabriel, alarmed at his flat tone. Gabriel was never one for stating the obvious.

“Truth kills,” Gabriel said.

Kyle blinked. “Are you allowed to say things like that?”

Gabriel drew a shining steel sword from thin air and hoisted it high. It flashed, like lightning, in the sun. “I wield the Sword of Truth.” And he plummeted from the sky.

Kyle closed his eyes, murmured the same letters he sketched on the railing, and then he flickered from existence. He reappeared on the ground at the edge of the mob, and he began to sing.

(188 words)

A Bird In Hand

“Does anyone else think this is unnecessarily cruel?” Sylvia asked.

Sam curled her hand toward her gun; she noticed Dunham do the same. The three seraph-voice with them stood at the mouth of the tunnel, heads cocked, listening to what only they could hear. And then Damien stepped out into the sunlight.

“You know what they say,” he said.

“What do they say?” Jimmy was always distant, hollow-eyed, lost in his own little world.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Damien knelt, sketched invisible letters on the cement. Then he drew a knife, and Dunham flinched.

“Wait just a moment, kid,” Dunham began, and who was he to call anyone kid?

“Let him alone,” Sam said, but she flinched too when Damien sliced open his own palm, squeezed, shook his hand to spatter the blood across his invisible letters. And then he murmured under his breath, sounds from a language humans never knew and maybe were never supposed to know.

“So why aren’t we catching him?” Sylvia asked.

“Like the man said, two in the bush,” Jimmy said. He turned to Sam and smiled, and for the first time Sam saw horrifying lucidity in his eyes. “Why catch the one when he can lead us to more?”

Blood and feathers exploded overhead.

(219 words)

Devil or Angel

"Time was when angels walked the earth. Now they are not even in heaven," Cody whispered. He rocked back and forth, hands wrapped around his knees. 

Agent Dunham stood on the other side of the one-way mirror and watched him intently. "He's crazier than one who flew over the cuckoo's nest."

Sam shook her head.  "No, I don't think so."

Dunham raised his eyebrows. Sam could admit his skepticism was warranted; Cody was disheveled and unkempt, his hair and beard greasy and tangled, his clothes torn and stained. He looked like he'd been sleeping in a dumpster. Local PD had picked him up in an alley on the wrong side of town. 

"He's a complete and utter nutball," Dunham said.

Sam wouldn't tell Dunham that she'd heard the voice of the angel who accompanied Nicodemus Cohen, that she'd known deep down in the space between her heartbeats that she'd heard the voice of death.  But she couldn't hear its voice now.

"He's hiding something," Sam said. "I want to find out what it is."  She pushed open the door and laid a file down on the table. "Cody Cohen, we have to talk."

He lifted his head sharply, blinked at her like she'd flipped a light on in a dark room. "A young angel, an old devil," he said. 

"Where are the angels now?" Sam asked. 

"Gone with the wind," Cody said, and smiled faintly, as if at a distant, happy memory.

"Are they here?" Sam asked. 

Cody shook his head. "You know what they used to say?"

"What?" Sam asked patiently. 

"When the angels present themselves, the devils abscond."  Cody shook his head and laughed. "It's not true anymore."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because you brought them here," Cody said. "You brought the devils and gave them voices, and now they won't go away." He lifted his head and gazed up at her with hollow eyes. "Have you ever seen a person inside out?"

(325 words)

Listening to Classic Rock

“So you think you can tell heaven from hell.”

Sam took a deep, shuddering breath. She’d been careful not to be left alone with any of the choirboys on either side, to always have someone else there to ground her to reality, but now she could hear their voices.

She’d know Abbadon’s voice anywhere.

Some people didn’t believe in angels - but many did.

Most people refused to believe in Satan.

Sam was pretty sure she heard his voice - or something close to it. Abbadon had been to Satan what Gabriel had been to God during the War in Heaven. And now he was on earth, seemingly at the beck and call of the hollow-eyed boy sitting on the floor next to the radiator, fidgeting with a broken pencil

“Blue skies from pain?” another voice asked.

Another angel. Sam didn’t know any of their names besides the one that had first spoken to her when she was a child - Asrael - but this must have been the one accompanying the skinny moppet of a blonde girl who was curled in the cage in the corner.

A cage.

The things the government did that the people didn’t know, didn’t care about in their fear.

“What?” Abbadon asked.

Neither Abbadon’s singer nor the girl were reacting, and Sam couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t just hearing voices. She’d taken her meds. Hadn’t she? No one at the Bureau could know.

“Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?” that second voice said, almost sing-song, taunting.

“You know nothing,” Abbadon spat. “You’ve not yet seen hell, not seen half of the horrors –”

“And did they get you to trade your heros for ghosts?” the other voice continued.

Abbadon let out a snarl.

And then the blonde girl said, “Chill out. It’s just a song.” And she began to sing, “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.”

Sam straightened up. “You taught an angel classic rock?”

The blonde girl sat up. “You’re a Listener?”

(350 words)

Friends Forever

“You can’t go out there,” Kyle said quietly. He caught Cody by the wrist.

“Who else is going to go out there?” Cody looked steadily at Kyle and watched, for the first time, defeat darken the boy’s blue eyes. Elise was gone; Marsh was gone; both their angels had descended in a fury of feathers and unearthly power, the trumpets of Armageddon and the entropy of the universe coming to bear on the forces of the Fallen, but it hadn’t been enough, and now the Fallen were at their door, and the only place to go was down.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Gabriel, who was clutching the wound in his side and trying to look as stoic as possible.

“Are you sure?” Kyle asked.

Cody smiled and said, “Maiorem dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis.”

Kyle blinked.

“I can say it in Greek for you,” Cody said.

In the corner, Gabriel blinked, confused and amused.

Asrael curled a hand on Cody’s shoulder, and Cody said, “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ.” He reached for the doorknob.

Kyle said, “You’ve been reading the New Testament.”

“I had time on my hands,” Cody said.

Asrael leaned down and whispered, “Time’s up.”

Cody nodded and opened the door, stepped out into the sunlight.

Kyle sketched a handful of Hebrew letters, turned the wall into a one-way mirror, and he and Gabriel watched Cody go to face their enemies.

Gabriel was smiling. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Kyle said, “I didn’t realize he thought of us as friends,” and watched Cody step back over the cliff.

(291 words)

Hurry

“Would it be annoying of me to ask you to hurry?” Cody asked, his tone tight and more than a little sarcastic.

Kyle knelt at the base of the wall, scribbling Hebrew letters as fast as he could, murmuring the ward incantations under his breath. Elise was curled around her guitar in the other corner; she was too tense to even play. Marsh was watching the entire proceedings, mouth set in a thin line. He had a pair of dice in one hand and was rattling them, but he hadn’t thrown them yet.

All four of their angels were wheeling high overhead in the beams and buttresses of the cathedral like so many carrion birds.

“Hurry up, please,” Cody said.

“I’m almost there.”

Cody watched the seconds tick by on the face of his very expensive wristwatch. “Yes, well, the Choir of the Fallen gave us a deadline, and we have eighty-seven more seconds to meet it.”

“If you’d let me work, I could get this done,” Kyle said, “and then we’ll meet it.”

Cody forced himself to take a deep breath and step away from the wall. The government was insane if it thought it could control the fallen. The geological record was scarred with ice ages and volcanoes, earth-shattering cataclysms because more than on idiot had thought he could control the powers of darkness.

Then Kyle said, “There,” and sat back, wiped his hand theatrically across his brow. He grinned up at Cody. “That should keep them out.”

Marsh and Elise wilted in relief.

And then there came a pounding at the double doors, like someone had taken a battering ram to them, and Agent Samuels said,

“Open up! This is the FBI!”

“So much for those wards,” Cody muttered.

The four angels came swooping down to the ground.

(303 words)

Best Muse Ever

“Are you all right?” Israfel was tucked into a corner, a lap harp perched on his knees while he plucked desultory minor chords.

“No,” Elise said. She reached up to run a hand through her hair again and had to consciously force herself to stop, because she’d been doing that for the last hour and turned her hair into a rat’s nest. She sat on her free hand and continued twirling her pencil with her right hand. The staff paper remained stubbornly blank, and she couldn’t hear anything but those stupid minor chords. She twisted around and said, “Could you knock it off for just a little bit?”

Israfel obediently lifted his hands off the strings, and the instrument dissolved into thin air.

Elise narrowed her eyes, untrusting of the blank guilelessness on Israfel’s face, but she said, “Thanks,” and resumed staring at the empty staff paper. It was taunting her.

“The song is due at noon,” Israfel said. “It’s almost one a.m. now.”

“I know that,” Elise said between gritted teeth. She hummed under her breath, and the tune was catchy. Maybe she could work with it. But then she realized it was just the melody to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. Crap. She needed something original.

“Tick tock,” Israfel sing-songed, and he was grinning, that winged nuisance.

Tick tock, Elise thought glumly, and then it struck her. She yanked a blank piece of paper out of her math notebook and began scratching out lyrics.

Tick tock
It’s the running of the clock
The countdown
To the meltdown
And the end of
Time

Then she abandoned the lyrics and scooped up her guitar, and now she could hear it, her song, her one song glory. She tried chord after chord until she found the one that matched the beauty in her mind, and as she played it came to her, the slide of notes, the shift of chords, the pattern and the rhythm.

When she stopped to look at the clock again, it was almost five a.m. and Israfel was singing a countermelody for the chorus.

Deadlines were the best muse ever.

(355 words)

Loaded Dice

“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” Tabris asked.

Marsh was buried in a gaming manual, scribbling notes about storylines, NPCs, and possible adventures. “Because it’s not due for another couple of days. I can do it tomorrow night.”

“But what if you’re distracted tomorrow night?” Tabris leaned his chin on his hand and blinked at Marsh with wide gray eyes.

Marsh didn’t look up. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take, isn’t it? Life’s a game of chance. Homework is chance – either I’ll get it done, or I won’t, and in the end if I’m not supposed to get it done it won’t get it done, no matter how hard I work.”

Tabris hummed thoughtfully, tunelessly, and his eyes gleamed red briefly. “Perhaps. Or maybe you misunderstand your place in the universe – and mine.” He reached out and scooped up a handful of Marsh’s dice, cast them across the carpet.

“Don’t ruin my dice mojo,” Marsh said.

Tabris prodded him in the arm. “Look.”

Marsh huffed, annoyed, and rolled his eyes, lifted his head to look. And stared. All five dice had come up twenty. Marsh turned to Tabris and gaped.

Tabris fluttered his fingertips and said, “Just because life is a game of chance doesn’t mean you can’t take action to tip the scales in your favor. If you do your homework now, there’s a greater chance that it’ll get done and you’ll face no repercussion. But if you wait till tomorrow...”

Marsh set aside his manual and reached for his backpack. “It’s creepy, you know,” he said. “You’re a worse nag than my mum, and you’re a dude.”

Tabris arched an eyebrow.

“Well,” Marsh amended, “you’re sort of a dude.”

Tabris threw his head back and laughed, shook out his massive gold-tipped wings. “I’m an angel, and there’s nothing else like me on earth.”

“Except Israfel, Asrael, and Gabriel,” Marsh said.

Tabris swiped at him, and Marsh dodged, laughing.

At the foot of the stairs, Marsh’s mother stared at her son’s madness and shook her head. The doctors had told them it was hereditary; she should have known it would fall on her shoulders, one way or another. In her family, the dice were always loaded.

(369 words)

It All Went Wrong

Maybe Cody had been listening to Elise’s music too much, because as he stood facing down Agent Samuels and a dozen other armed agents, all he could think of were song lyrics.

Six feet under by age twenty-five.

It was a sad, sad day when his life could be summed up by the lyrics to song by a band called Venus in Furs. Somewhere, while she plucked playfully at Israfel’s wings, Elise was laughing.

“Stand down, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. Her voice shook, but her hands on the gun were firm.

Cody knew why her voice was shaking. Even though she couldn’t see them, she could feel them, the Fallen who’d accompanied the choirboys the government had rounded up, had foolishly thought were prizes. Samael, Abbadon, Malpas and Zagan. They hovered on the edges of the crowd, black eyes glittering with malicious glee, and their choirboys stared past Cody, eyes devoid of human soul.

“I have nowhere to go but down,” Cody said. “Six feet under, from the looks of it.”

“You don’t have to die today, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. “What do you say? Will you come with me?”

Samael was the first to move, had always been the first to move, from the war in heaven to the war on earth, and he was grinning.

Cody felt afraid and tired, but mostly tired, because he’d spent the last ten years being afraid, and he was tired of it.

“Can you hear me? Cohen? Don’t listen to your angel. Listen to me. Cohen!” Agent Samuels said.

She didn’t know Asrael was gone and, for the first time in a long time, Cody was alone.

Agent Samuels shouted again, “Cohen!”

And Cody remembered lyrics to a song half-forgotten.

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but...

“Hallelujah,” Cody whispered, and stepped back over the edge of the cliff.

(322 words)

Welcome to Growing Up

“Well this is an unfortunate turn of events,” Cody said, staring at himself in the mirror.

Behind him, Asrael spread his wings, and for a moment it looked like Cody had two heads and a pair of massive feathered wings. “How so?”

Cody poked at his jaw. “I have a zit.”

“Aren’t blemishes a common occurrence for all adolescents?” Asrael said. He tilted his head to one side quizzically.

“I’ve never had one before, and school pictures are today,” Cody said. He sighed. It didn’t really matter what he looked like for school pictures since people only really saw Jonathan’s pictures anyway, but he shuddered to think about what Sterling Shepard’s friends would do if they saw.

“As you always say, there’s a first time for everything.” That Asrael could smile and make a joke like that was disturbing, seeing how he was the angel of death. Or maybe he’d just been around Cody for too long.

Cody sighed and reached for his toothbrush. He’d heard his mother nag Jonathan plenty of times – if he didn’t pick at it, it wouldn’t scar.

Asrael studied Cody’s reflection some more. “After school, if you like, I can help you practice your piece for your bar mitzvah.”

Cody blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Asrael nodded. “I’m nowhere near as talented as Israfel, but –”

“Thank you,” Cody said. “I’d really like that.”

Jonathan banged on the door. “Cody, stop talking to yourself in there. It’s creepy.”

“I have a zit,” Cody called back.

Jonathan laughed. “Welcome to growing up, little brother. Now hurry up and get out of there – my study group will be here any moment now.”

Cody rolled his eyes. Jonathan just wanted to impress the pretty girls in his college classes.

Asrael started to fade from visibility. “You don’t want to be late for school,” he said.

Cody rolled his eyes again. The angel of death was starting to sound like his most annoying nanny.

(322 words)

The Voice

It was the night after Grandma Bernstein’s funeral that Cody first heard the voice. He was almost seven and Jonathan was supposed to be preparing for his bar mitzvah, so Cody thought Jonathan was practicing what the cantor had given him to sing, but after he opened his eyes and listened, he realized it was neither Hebrew nor Jonathan’s voice.

Except Jonathan was the only one in the house who called him Cody.

Can you hear me, Cody? Will you listen?

Cody said, “I’m listening.”

Will you follow my voice?

Cody kicked the covers aside. It sounded like the voice was whispering over near the door, so he followed it.

Come along, the voice whispered, so softly Cody couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The door creaked open. Cody tip-toed down the hall, tracking the soft whispers. Was it just his imagination, or were the shadows moving? He thought he felt something slither against his ankle as he turned into the drawing room.

As he moved across the carpet, he realized the voice was leading him toward Grandma Bernstein’s favorite chair.

Well done, sweet singer, the voice said.

Cody blinked at the empty chair, confused. “I’m not a sweet singer,” he said. “That’s Jonathan. I can’t sing at all.”

The susurration that followed could only have been called laughter. But you will speak for a member of a choir, and through you my sword will sing.

Cody had read about swords in books. They sounded fun, but people usually ended up getting hurt. “I don’t want a sword.”

Worry not, the voice said, for this sword is not of steel and shine but of silence and chaos, and it will show you the edge of the world.

“What’s at the edge of the world?” Cody asked.

Death, the voice said.

“Like where Grandma Bernstein went?”

There was no answer.

Cody peered at the chair. “Hello? Is that where she went?”

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he yelped.

“Nicodemus,” Mr. Cohen said. He looked annoyed and half-awake. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Cody immediately ducked his head. “Sorry. I thought I heard something.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Go back to bed.”

Cody obeyed. As he tugged the covers up to his chin, the voice whispered, right next to his ear, Good night.


(389 words)

Reading and Writing

“What was that?” Mr. Cohen glanced up briefly from his newspaper.

“Nicodemus,” he said.

“Yes, that’s your name.” Mr. Cohen returned to his perusal of the Wall Street Journal.

“That paper over the fireplace,” Nicodemus said. “It says Nicodemus.”

“Yes it does,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan blinked and paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “You can read?”

Nicodemus nodded. “Yes. That paper – it says Nicodemus Matthias Cohen. Nicodemus is a very long word. I don’t like it.”

“It’s your name,” Mr. Cohen said. “Whether or not you like it is irrelevant.”

Jonathan goggled at his father, then at his little brother. “Nicodemus, how old are you?”

Nicodemus blinked and looked down at his hand, then held up four fingers.

“Say it,” Jonathan said, because for the first three years of his life, Nicodemus had been reluctant to say anything at all.

“Four,” Nicodemus said.

“How do you spell it?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m not sure,” Nicodemus said. “It could be f-o-r, f-o-r-e, or f-o-u-r.”

“Dad,” Jonathan said. “Nicodemus can read.”

“As can you and I and the maid and the miscreant who washes our windows,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan reached into his pocket for a pen and notebook, and he scribbled out four letters. “Can you read this?”

Nicodemus leaned forward in his high chair and peered, nose scrunched up in concentration. “Um...does it say yahweh?”

“Where did you learn to read Hebrew?” Jonathan’s eyes were wide with excitement and awe.

“You have a book,” Nicodemus said. “Beginner’s Guide to Hebrew. You left it in the toy room.”

Jonathan twisted around in his chair. “Mama, Nicodemus knows how to read!”

Mrs. Cohen glanced up from her folder full of complicated papers about a party she was planning for some of the other wives in the neighborhood. “Really, Nicodemus?”

Nicodemus said, “I don’t like my name. Too long. I want to be...Cody. It’s short.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Absolutely not. It’s a terribly plebeian name after a charlatan who made a living off of racism and genocide.”

Mrs. Cohen raised and eyebrow at Jonathan and said, “What have I told you about telling tales? Now eat your breakfast. The driver’s already got the car warming. You don’t want to be late for school.”

Jonathan tried to protest, tried to explain that Nicodemus could read, but then Nicodemus got his pen, and his pen met the fine white tablecloth.

(400 words)

And a Spare

Mr. and Mrs. Cohen stood over the bassinet and gazed down at their son.

“Nicodemus is a noble name,” Mr. Cohen said.

“Compared to Jonathan, you don’t think it’s a bit...austere?” Mrs. Cohen asked.

“He’s a Cohen,” Mr. Cohen said. The baby boy in the bassinet blinked big, dark eyes up at his father and pressed his tiny chubby fist to his mouth. “He will adjust as is necessary. Children are more resilient than we give them credit for.”

Mrs. Cohen eyed the blue romper suit the nanny had chosen; she didn’t like the color, but the baby seemed comfortable. “I really liked David, though. It would be poetic, don’t you think? Jonathan and David.”

Mr. Cohen shot her a withering look. “You know what people today say about Jonathan and David. Besides, Jonathan was prince, but it was David who became king. That’s not how things will be in this house.”

Mrs. Cohen nodded and stepped back from the bassinet. “I know. Heir and a spare. Jonathan already takes after his father.”

Mr. Cohen cast the baby one last look before turning and heading for the door. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t need a spare, but life never gives us the guarantees we want. Now come along – I want to hear from the tutors how Jonathan is doing.”

The door swung shut, and the baby was left staring up at the ceiling and wondering when a pleasant face would come back.

(244 words)

Down to Chance

“I don’t like to read much,” Marsh said.

Elise raised her eyebrows at the stack of books next to his knee and strummed her guitar. “Really?”

“Sometimes reading is necessary, of course,” Marsh said. “But that doesn’t mean I like to do it. I can just do it quickly. And remember loads of it.”

“Those look like textbooks,” Elise said.

“They are, of a sort.” Marsh glanced at the stack of books. They were hardbacks and had lavish fantasy illustrations on the covers. Elise tilted her head to study the titles. Monster Manual, Psionics, Players Handbook, Exalted, Dragonlance.

“What are you studying?” They didn’t look like they would be useful in any subject at school, not even at Cody’s fancy private school.

“Rules. For a game,” Marsh said. “Every game has rules. The best players understand how the rules work – and how to make the rules work for them.”

Elise hummed thoughtfully, a counterpoint to the chords she was playing. “All right – what’s the most important rule in that game?”

Marsh’s smile was so sweet it was frightening. “Everything comes down to chance.”

(183 words)

In the Beginning

Kyle read in a strange, rolling tongue, “En arché en ò lógos, kai ò lógos en pròs tòn théon –”

Cody glanced up from his worn copy of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon and said, “What are you reading?”

Kyle blinked, startled out of his narration, and looked up at Cody. “Pardon?”

Cody nodded at the antique-looking volume Kyle had propped up on his knees. “What book are you reading? And for the record, what language?” They all spoke Hebrew, to one degree or another, and sometimes Aramaic and Latin came in handy, but that sounded brand new.

“It’s ancient Greek,” Kyle said. “And I’m reading from the Bible.”

Cody raised his eyebrows. “The Bible?”

“Yes,” Kyle said, and he began to recite, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God –”

“The New Testament,” Cody said flatly.

Kyle shrugged. “Yes, well, I do have Gabriel.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, Gabriel isn’t named till the New Testament, now is he?” Kyle smiled and returned to reading aloud in his rolling ancient Greek, leaving Cody to puzzle over that piece of information.

Cody finally spat on his fingertips and drew some Hebrew letters, and Asrael coalesced from the shadows, blinking and looking like a cat that had been unceremoniously dumped into a frigid swimming pool.

“Yes?” Asrael asked.

“Where in the scriptures are you first named?”

Asrael raised his eyebrows. “Well, they never really named me in the Qu’ran - there they simply call me the Angel of Death. I have many names, of course. But you won’t find my name in any canonized scripture, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Cody’s mouth shaped the word Qu’ran but no words came out.

Asrael smiled and patted his shoulder. “Maybe you need to read something else.”

(297 words)

For Food Money

Elise was surprised that the person who knew the most pop songs was Kyle. Cody had an ear for classical and ethnic music, most of which wasn’t suited for the western musical scale, and Marsh was a fan of old rock and alternative rock, in that order.

So Elise let Kyle sit beside her on the corner of Harney and 11th while they played for food money. Elise had put a lot of effort into learning weird Indie music and grunge rock – so maybe Cody calling her a Courtney Love cliché had some truth to it – but her taste in music wasn’t going to get them fed.

“Try some Leona Lewis,” Kyle said. “You can sing, right?” And he hummed the melody.

For all that Cody assumed most days Elise was uneducated white trash, she’d had a decent enough musical education, and she could pick out a chord progression for a melody. “I don’t know the words,” she said..

Kyle sighed. “Fine. Just for you, I’ll break out my countertenor skills. You ready?”

Elise tested the chord progression, and then Kyle explained the verse-chorus-bridge layout to her, and they began another performance. A group of girls stopped to listen and coo at Kyle (who looked all of six and was really twelve) and nod along to the song, and they dropped some actual bills into Elise’s case, and maybe at the end of an eight-hour day they’d have enough to buy supper for all of them.

Kyle scanned the streets and spotted a group of retiree tourists.

“How’s your American folk music?” he asked.

Elise could play Spanish guitar with the best of them. “What do you mean?”

“Woody Guthrie,” Kyle said. “I know all the verses.”

So Elise played, and Kyle sang, and they were paid.

(300 words)

The Harp

“You play an instrument?” Elise asked.

Marsh thought her eyebrows were going to fly right off her face.

“It’s not uncommon,” Cody said, hunching his massive shoulders defensively. “Reading music helps children read better when they’re younger, and practicing an instrument instills discipline –”

“Yeah whatever,” Elise said, waving a hand dismissively.

Cody hunched his shoulders further. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?” Elise asked. “It’s not something embarrassing like the tuba or triangle, is it?”

Cody cast a shifty glance in Marsh’s direction.

Glee lit in Elise’s eyes. “It is the tuba, isn’t it?”

“It’s the harp,” Cody said flatly.

“The harp? Like...angels on a cloud harp?” Elise’s glee turned to puzzlement.

“It makes sense,” Kyle said, and Marsh blinked; he’d almost forgotten Kyle was there. Kyle was prone to long bouts of silence while he set wards on a safehouse.

“I guess...since Cody’s so big he can carry one around,” Elise said, but she was eyeing Cody with a newfound skepticism.

“King David played the harp,” Kyle explained.

“Like David and Goliath David?” Elise asked.

Marsh hummed tonelessly and attempted to sing, “I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord –”

“I always figured it was a piano,” Elise said.

“They didn’t have pianos back then,” Cody said. He cast Israfel a look. “Don’t you teach her anything?”

Israfel shrugged and sketched quavers in the air. “She sings, and I answer.”

“Play us a song,” Elise said.

Cody cast her a withering look. “I don’t have a harp with me.”

Elise snapped her fingers. “Israfel. A harp for the boy.”

“He’s an angel, not a genie in a bottle,” Cody said.

Elise shimmied her hips and sang an old pop song. Cody sighed. Marsh laughed. Kyle finished the wards.

(300 words)

Walked and Walked

“I learned this song when I was a kid,” Cody said.

Elise arched an eyebrow. “Can you even sing?”

Cody cast her a withering look. “Hello. Jewish? Have to sing at your bar mitzvah. Private lessons with the cantor and everything.”

Elise shrugged her shoulders defensively, tugged her backpack higher. Overhead, the sun was scorching and white-hot, and waves of heat drifted up from the tarmac. Once or twice Elise had stuck her thumb out, struck a sexy pose, but Cody and Kyle had tugged her back into line. Marsh was bringing up the rear, huffing and puffing under the weight of his pack.


After hacking off Elise’s hair, they all looked like bedraggled boy scouts who’d long lost the rest of their troop. So far no one had stopped yet, which was what Kyle wanted. As soon as they could find more idiots to mug for clothes, they’d be that much safer. People wanted to help lost boy scouts, after all.

People were afraid of the seraph-voiced.

“What was the song?” Kyle asked politely.

“It was long and repetitive, and I think it was supposed to make me feel better about having to walk long distances –”

“When the driver and the Rolls were occupied,” Elise said dryly, and rolled her eyes.

Cody ignored her. “But it had a pleasant tune, and it worked. For the most part.”

“Sing it,” Kyle suggested.

Elise groaned.

“You sing all the time,” Marsh said. “Give Cody a shot. If I have to listen to one more Veruca Salt –”

“Fine, sing,” Elise snapped.

Cody took a deep breath, straightened up. And he sang.

“Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked.

Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked.

They washed at streams and worked and played.

Sundays they camped and read and prayed.

Week after week, they sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.”

“That’s not a very Jewish song,” Elise said.

“It was pleasant.” Kyle smiled.

At the back of the line, Marsh picked up the melody, stumbled over the lyrics. Elise corrected him automatically. Kyle started singing along, helping Marsh with the lyrics. Cody started singing again, and then Elise sighed, joining in.

Together, the four of them sang as they walked, and walked, and walked...and walked.

(394 words)

Let's Ride

“I’m not a frickin’ gladiator. I can’t just...run. And catch that thing,” Marsh said. He had his hands on his knees and was panting heavily.

“We’re not asking you to step into an arena and fight for your life,” Cody said. He was staring out at the railway up on the ridge, to the spot where golden light filtered from a dusty hanging lamp. “We’re asking you to run.”

Marsh rolled his eyes. “Do you have to take everything so literally?”

Kyle smiled. “You can do it. It’s not a big deal. It’s all cargo, so it’s not going very fast. We can hop cars till we find somewhere soft to sleep.”

Marsh arched an eyebrow. “You do this often?”

“I’ve been around the block,” Kyle said easily.

Elise made a low noise of disbelief. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t.”

Kyle turned his easy smile on her. “There’s more than one block in a city.”

Cody took a deep breath. “Come on. We can do this. Let’s just...run.”

Marsh ran his gaze up and down Cody’s husky form. “Can you even run, tubby?”

Cody glared. “I can run just fine.”

“Yeah. From bullies,” Elise said.

Cody glared at her too. “Let’s go, Kyle. If these two want to go back with Agent Samuels, they can.” And he loped up the hill. Kyle followed.

“I thought runaways only did this in movies,” Marsh complained, but he started up the hill after them.

“We’re not runaways,” Elise said. “We’re enemy soldiers. Let’s ride!” And she charged up the hill, blowing past Kyle and Cody easily, her coltish legs carrying her swiftly than Marsh had thought possible. She ran alongside the train, matching its pace, and then she sprang, caught the ledge of an open car and rolled. When Cody and Kyle caught up to her, she helped them in.

“Fine,” Marsh muttered, picking up the pace. “Gladiator it is. Let’s ride!”

(321 words)

There Yet?

Even though it was Elise’s car, she knew she was only the driver. Kyle was riding shotgun, crammed into the front seat, all elbows and knees, leaning against the door with his face turned toward the sunlight streaming through the open window. Marsh and Cody were crammed into the back seat, studiously ignoring each other.

Technically, Elise was the road trip DJ. After all, it was her car, her stereo - that she’d paid for with her own gig money - and her iPod.

“Let Kyle choose the next song,” Cody said. The way he deferred to Kyle just because of who Kyle sang for was downright pathetic, but Elise sometimes found herself deferring to Kyle as well. It had more to do with his own presence than with Gabriel hanging over him, but still, deference to Kyle was a natural reaction in almost anyone.

Almost.

Because Marsh was rolling a pair of dice in one hand and grinning wickedly in the rearview mirror, and by some not-magical but certainly supernatural coincidence Elise’s iPod shuffle kept turning up songs that Marsh liked – songs that no one else liked.

Elise had a rule about long car rides – driver’s iPod was the source of music, but prior to the journey every passenger could contribute a playlist, and whoever was riding shotgun had the ultimate veto power. That Marsh was using Tabris to play the odds in his favor, knowing Kyle’s indifference to most music, was downright annoying.

It didn’t help that all of the green highway signs seemed to be saying the same thing: they were no closer to their destination than they had been an hour ago. Elise knew it wasn’t true, but the mileage numbers on the signs were downright intimidating. Add to the fact that Cody and Marsh were glaring daggers at each other in the back seat while Kyle sunned himself like a gangly puppy and Elise was being aurally assaulted by the likes of Lady Gaga, and Elise found herself saying,

“Are we there yet?”

Pink flooded the speakers, and Marsh bobbed his head, smirking victoriously. Cody groaned and closed his eyes. Kyle turned away from the sun, and he said,

“This is interesting. Who’s singing?”

Elise had to resist the urge to bang her head against the steering wheel. “Next stop, Cody’s driving and I’m shotgun,” she said.

“But I don’t have a license.”

“I don’t care!”

(400 words)