Fic: Rogue (Gabriel/M, Gabriel/F, PG-13) 4/36
For full notes and other chapters, please see the Masterpost.
Notes: This is the third part of the Missing an Angel series. It is recommended that you read the first two before reading this one.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,748
Chapter Summary: Brody doesn’t think he likes the “god” hanging around his nephew, and attempts to put Gabriel in his place. “Attempts.”
CHAPTER 4:
Brody the Brave
Gabriel landed lightly outside the little stone cottage the MacLeods called home, shaking out his wings before folding them back inside his vessel and pushing the door open. Fergus was fifteen years old now, an apprentice to his uncle Brody, and he no longer had time to play games with Gabriel in the wild moors around Canisbay. While Gabriel mourned the loss of Fergus’ undivided attention, Fergus’ busier schedule did allow Gabriel chances for some real flights. Gabriel’s need to move didn’t die when he met Fergus. As much as he loved the boy, his reborn Cariel, Gabriel’s wings had itched to fly. Now, with Fergus otherwise occupied, Gabriel didn’t feel so guilty about taking to the sky. The angel left Fergus’ side for days at a time, spreading his wings and soaring around the world. Even with his wanderlust creeping through his grace, Gabriel always returned within a week. Fergus was still a young man, but Gabriel was all too aware of his mortality. One day, Fergus was going to die. Gabriel wanted to spend as much of his lifetime with him as he could.
The angel had long ago given up on trying to convince himself that he would leave Fergus’ side for good. Two years had turned into ten in the blink of an eye, and Gabriel was as much of a fixture in Canisbay as Brody these days. Fergus’ initial introduction of him as a god to the children who had not been his friends had been completely ignored. Gabriel was now Luke MacLeod to the villagers, a rather simple-minded relative of Brody’s and Issobell’s who had chosen to leave his home and stay with distant cousins due to some “indelicate indiscretions” back home. The villagers nudged each other’s ribs and nodded knowingly, but they had accepted “Luke” as a fairly harmless addition to their land. He kept the witch-boy out of trouble, picked up some odd-jobs around the village, and never once failed to attend church, though he did have a tendency to grin like a loon through most of it.
Gabriel couldn’t help it. Humans had gotten so much wrong!
“Welcome back.” Brody glanced up from his work, sitting by the cottage’s one window. As soon as he had seen who it was, his attention returned to the hose he was working on.
“It’s good to be back,” Gabriel answered, peering over Brody’s shoulder at his work. The hose was fine silk, not something the tailor often used. “Sir William hired you again?”
“His son, George, is headed off to Edinburgh at the end of the month and needed a new wardrobe, so as not to be seen as a country bumpkin,” Brody answered, lifting a hand to wave Gabriel out of the light.
“And you just happened to have fine silk on hand?”
Brody glanced up to give Gabriel a sly smile. “When I am in need, Mistress provides.”
Gabriel sighed. The ever-elusive “Mistress.” He had not seen hide nor hair of the demoness who had claimed his vessels as her witches, and neither Issobell nor Brody had offered a name for her. Even Fergus couldn’t help; he hadn’t learned her name yet either. Brody had been talking about inducting Fergus into their rituals, but Gabriel had always stood opposed to that idea. It was bad enough that Brody and Issobell called on demons for their own selfish pleasures. Gabriel saw no reason to bring the boy into it. So far, Fergus had managed to avoid the direct taint of witchcraft, though his soul, brilliant as it was, was collecting the standard tarnish of a boy discovering himself. It wasn’t enough to keep him out of Heaven though, so Gabriel wasn’t worried.
Thinking of Fergus, Gabriel looked around the small cottage curiously. Brody was the only one home. He opened his mouth, about to ask, but Brody answered the question before he could voice it.
“Fergus went to the village. The reverend had a fall, and that pretty daughter of his came running up here for help.” Brody’s sharp eyes were watching Gabriel for a reaction. Gabriel didn’t give him one. “You know Fergus always falls over himself around Gabrielle Innes.”
Gabriel did know. The reverend’s daughter, Gabrielle Innes (She’s named after an angel, Loki, isn’t that amazing?), was easily the prettiest girl in the village. With long blonde hair, a perky body, and a smile that showed no missing teeth, all Gabrielle had to do was toss her head or bat her eyes to get the local boys falling to her feet (She’s even prettier than angels, Loki, don’t you think?). Gavin Stout, oldest son of family of fishermen, would bring her the freshest fish from his catches. William Wright, apprentice to the village carpenter, often carved her wooden trinkets or did repairs around her home. Huchon Johnson, whose parents were the village bakers, always had a little cake or loaf just for her.
Fergus, bastard son of the witch and apprentice to the tailor, had no gifts of his own that he could present to Gabrielle. He would beg Gabriel to bring him back sweets or flowers for the girl whenever Gabriel went on a flight. Gabriel hadn’t wanted to encourage a relationship, but he couldn’t deny Fergus’ pleading face anything.
Not that Gabrielle was grateful. The pretty girl had grown into a spoiled woman, toying with her string of suitors, flirting with all the boys and offering them nothing concrete. Far too often, Fergus would present Gabrielle with an exotic gift from China, India, or Egypt and receive nothing more than a disdainful sniff in return.
Gabriel wanted to teach the girl a lesson or two in gratitude and humility. She was the prettiest girl in the village, but she couldn’t hold a candle to the beauties of the wider world. She ought to be grateful for the blessings she already had and stop stringing along the village boys. She needed to pick one and settle down… and preferably not with Fergus!
“Do you think he’ll be back soon?” Gabriel asked, looking out the open door. Should he stay here and wait, or was it worth going to the village to watch Fergus fawn over a girl who saw him only as a supplier of material goods?
Brody barked a short laugh, shaking his head. “Is he ever back ‘soon’ from that girl? Fool boy left just about an hour ago. He won’t be back before dusk unless someone goes to fetch him.”
Gabriel sighed again and turned back to the door. “I suppose that someone will have to be me. Unless Issobell…?”
Brody shook his head. “Issobell’s up with the Mowats, helping with Margaret’s baby. She won’t be back tonight.”
That left no one else, then. Gabriel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and took a step toward the door to fetch the wayward Fergus home.
“Hold up just one minute, Loki.” Brody looked up fully from his sewing, frowning at the angel. “I’d like a word with you, while it’s just the two of us.”
“Oh?” Gabriel turned slowly to face Brody again, his wings stirring against the walls of his vessel. He scanned the man carefully for any sign of a pre-prepared spell that could actually harm an angel but saw no visible threat. “About what?”
“About what?” Brody scoffed, shaking his head. “Don’t play the fool with me, Loki. About Fergus. You’ve been with us for ten years, but even the blind can see you’re only here for him.”
“Your nephew is charming.” Gabriel smiled disarmingly at Brody, careful to keep his body language open and non-threatening. He had honestly been expecting Brody or Issobell to confront him for years about his interest in Fergus, but up until now, they had both just accepted his presence as if it were normal for five-year-old sons to bring gods home from their day of play. “I like charmers.”
Brody’s flat stare told Gabriel that he wasn’t buying that answer. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the perks of a live-in god, but I want to know your catch. It’s been ten years. When’s the other shoe going to drop?”
“There is no other shoe,” Gabriel insisted, shaking his head. “Fergus found me, and he caught my interest. I want to see him have the best life he can. What’s so bad about that?”
“You’re a Trickster. You’re never interested in humans for their own good.”
“Why does it even matter?” Gabriel asked with a shrug. “I’m not hurting anything by being here.”
“Fergus follows you around like a baby duckling, like that mongrel dog of his follows him around. He’d do anything you asked him to.”
“Why does that matter?” Gabriel asked again, folding his arms. “I’m not asking him to do anything.”
“Not yet.” Brody glowered at Gabriel across the main room of the cottage. “But you’re grooming him. Setting him up to follow in your footsteps, your perfect little disciple. One worshipper’s all you gods need to stay in the big leagues, isn’t that right, Loki?”
“You think I’m trying to get Fergus to worship me?” Gabriel laughed at the idea. “I don’t need worshippers to stay active, Brody. I need to be remembered, and I’m doing just fine on that front with or without Fergus. You’re the one trying to groom him up to follow in your footsteps, with how much you encourage him to study those grimoires of yours.”
“The MacLeods are witches. Fergus will follow in our footsteps.”
“Like hell he will.” Gabriel’s good humor was gone, and he felt his grace boiling within him as he glared at Brody. If he had any less control, he might have started to cook the human with his eyes. As it was, he was fairly certain they were luminous from his own power. “Your footsteps lead straight to damnation. You know that. Issobell knows that. You’ve both signed your souls over to your Mistress. Fergus hasn’t. Fergus is good, and I intend to keep him that way.”
Brody met Gabriel’s glare with one of his own, his gaze much less powerful but no less determined. “Fergus has already been promised to our Mistress.”
“If you think-”
“His birth was foretold.” Brody’s needle punched through the silk with more force than was appropriate for the delicate fabric. “Before Issobell begat him, a star fell from the sky. It burned so brightly that night briefly turned into day. The whole town saw it, and they all swore it fell right over our home. Huge storms arrived the next day, with waves that tried to climb up our cliffs, and the wind was so loud we had to shout to hear each other even when inside. They lasted the entire week and destroyed our harvest. It was a rough winter.”
Cariel’s fall, Gabriel thought. That bright light had been the Seraph’s spirit, burning off the last of his grace. The storm… that wasn’t typical of an angel’s fall, but it was Raphael’s signature overkill. Raphael must have followed Cariel, or at least watched him fall. Maybe he thought Cariel had found Gabriel. Maybe he had hoped Gabriel would be here. A storm that fierce in this part of the world could only be a mark of the Archangel’s presence. Gabriel fought down a fearful shiver. Raphael had been here, but he wasn’t here any longer. If he had still been watching, Gabriel would have known long ago.
“We asked Mistress what it meant. When she heard the story, she told us that Issobell had conceived a special baby, a child of great potential. We were to teach him all we knew, and she would do the rest. He would be raised up as a ruler over the demons of Hell, seated at the right hand of Lucifer himself.”
Gabriel’s grace prickled uncomfortably at those words. It sounded like “Mistress” recognized the signs of a falling angel. There was only one surviving demoness Gabriel knew of old enough to remember the origins of the Knights of Hell, the original double-fallen.
Lilith.
Gabriel had a history with Lucifer’s first demon. He still remembered the days when she was Sorcha, his favored vessel, a true vessel, and still his preferred form when he disguised himself as a woman. She would laugh when he took her flying, and she once made him crash into a mountain when she seized control of his wings. Lucifer had driven her to madness, made her slaughter her son and all the other children of her village, and she was burned to death as a witch, as the first witch in the MacLeod family. Issobell and Brody were not direct descendants of Sorcha, but she was a distant relative. Gabriel still carried a heavy guilt over all that had happened to Sorcha. He had brought her to Lucifer’s attention. He had condemned her to the unlife she now lived as a demon.
Unless Azazel, who had survived the slaughter of the Knights of Hell, had been spreading stories, Lilith was the most likely candidate for Brody’s enigmatic “Mistress.” If she knew Fergus was a fallen angel… shit, if Azazel realized which angel he was…
Gabriel had to keep Fergus out of Hell. Better Cariel’s spirit find eternal peace as a soul in Heaven, forever separated from Gabriel, than he go to Hell to burn on Azazel’s rack. Cariel had been instrumental in destroying Azazel’s own grace. Azazel would not easily welcome him as a brother should.
“Fergus has already been chosen by our Mistress,” Brody was saying. “He cannot be yours.”
“Have you ever heard of ‘free will?’” Gabriel asked, fighting the urge to smite Brody here and now and be done with this whole farce. Fergus loved his uncle. He wouldn’t understand Gabriel’s attempt to protect him. “Fergus will only rule in Hell if he chooses it. If he chooses to follow me, there isn’t a damn thing your ‘Mistress’ can do about it.”
“Our Mistress is powerful, more powerful than you realize-”
Gabriel spread his wings wide, letting their giant shadows fill the small cottage, too numerous to be recognized as the limbs of an angel. He stepped toward Brody, looming in a way he hadn’t since he’d left Heaven. His grace swelled within him, roaring like a massive furnace, superheating the air until it shimmered around his body. “If she dares, if you dare to force Fergus onto a path of damnation, I will make you wish for the mercy of Hell!”
His hand twitched at his side, the heavy weight of his sword begging to be summoned up. He didn’t call for it. Brody was going to tell Lilith everything Gabriel did, of that the angel was sure. Gabriel might be able to hide his individual wings in a mass of shadow, but Lilith would surely recognize the description of an angelic sword. She’d recognized Gabriel by his blade once before. He couldn’t risk her doing it again. “Don’t test me, Brody MacLeod.”
Brody had tried to keep his ground as Gabriel stalked toward him, but the man’s courage had broken beneath the Archangel’s contained wrath. He shrunk back into his chair, his eyes huge and fearful. Gabriel loomed over him for a moment more, impressing his inhumanity onto the man, before he forced his grace down, withdrew his wings and became the harmless Luke MacLeod once again.
“I am going to find Fergus now,” he said with false lightness. “Perhaps you should advise Issobell of my protection over her son.”
“Don’t you…” Brody’s voice wavered as Gabriel turned away from him, cracking like the man was a pubescent boy again. “Don’t you force him either!”
Gabriel froze, his hand on the doorknob, and he slowly turned his head to look back at Brody. The human was sitting up a little straighter now, pointing a shaking finger Gabriel’s way.
“If I don’t force him to choose our Mistress, you don’t force him to choose your Valhalla, or whatever it is he’d get if he follows you! Free will!” Brody’s fear of Gabriel radiated from the man’s body, an acrid stench in Gabriel’s nose, but the angel had to give him props for his stubbornness. “We can both tempt him, but Fergus will choose.”
Fergus would follow Gabriel, when the time came. Gabriel smiled thinly, no mercy in his eyes for this corrupt man. “Fergus will choose wisely,” he agreed. “I won’t need to force his hand.”
Next...
Notes: This is the third part of the Missing an Angel series. It is recommended that you read the first two before reading this one.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,748
Chapter Summary: Brody doesn’t think he likes the “god” hanging around his nephew, and attempts to put Gabriel in his place. “Attempts.”
CHAPTER 4:
Brody the Brave
Gabriel landed lightly outside the little stone cottage the MacLeods called home, shaking out his wings before folding them back inside his vessel and pushing the door open. Fergus was fifteen years old now, an apprentice to his uncle Brody, and he no longer had time to play games with Gabriel in the wild moors around Canisbay. While Gabriel mourned the loss of Fergus’ undivided attention, Fergus’ busier schedule did allow Gabriel chances for some real flights. Gabriel’s need to move didn’t die when he met Fergus. As much as he loved the boy, his reborn Cariel, Gabriel’s wings had itched to fly. Now, with Fergus otherwise occupied, Gabriel didn’t feel so guilty about taking to the sky. The angel left Fergus’ side for days at a time, spreading his wings and soaring around the world. Even with his wanderlust creeping through his grace, Gabriel always returned within a week. Fergus was still a young man, but Gabriel was all too aware of his mortality. One day, Fergus was going to die. Gabriel wanted to spend as much of his lifetime with him as he could.
The angel had long ago given up on trying to convince himself that he would leave Fergus’ side for good. Two years had turned into ten in the blink of an eye, and Gabriel was as much of a fixture in Canisbay as Brody these days. Fergus’ initial introduction of him as a god to the children who had not been his friends had been completely ignored. Gabriel was now Luke MacLeod to the villagers, a rather simple-minded relative of Brody’s and Issobell’s who had chosen to leave his home and stay with distant cousins due to some “indelicate indiscretions” back home. The villagers nudged each other’s ribs and nodded knowingly, but they had accepted “Luke” as a fairly harmless addition to their land. He kept the witch-boy out of trouble, picked up some odd-jobs around the village, and never once failed to attend church, though he did have a tendency to grin like a loon through most of it.
Gabriel couldn’t help it. Humans had gotten so much wrong!
“Welcome back.” Brody glanced up from his work, sitting by the cottage’s one window. As soon as he had seen who it was, his attention returned to the hose he was working on.
“It’s good to be back,” Gabriel answered, peering over Brody’s shoulder at his work. The hose was fine silk, not something the tailor often used. “Sir William hired you again?”
“His son, George, is headed off to Edinburgh at the end of the month and needed a new wardrobe, so as not to be seen as a country bumpkin,” Brody answered, lifting a hand to wave Gabriel out of the light.
“And you just happened to have fine silk on hand?”
Brody glanced up to give Gabriel a sly smile. “When I am in need, Mistress provides.”
Gabriel sighed. The ever-elusive “Mistress.” He had not seen hide nor hair of the demoness who had claimed his vessels as her witches, and neither Issobell nor Brody had offered a name for her. Even Fergus couldn’t help; he hadn’t learned her name yet either. Brody had been talking about inducting Fergus into their rituals, but Gabriel had always stood opposed to that idea. It was bad enough that Brody and Issobell called on demons for their own selfish pleasures. Gabriel saw no reason to bring the boy into it. So far, Fergus had managed to avoid the direct taint of witchcraft, though his soul, brilliant as it was, was collecting the standard tarnish of a boy discovering himself. It wasn’t enough to keep him out of Heaven though, so Gabriel wasn’t worried.
Thinking of Fergus, Gabriel looked around the small cottage curiously. Brody was the only one home. He opened his mouth, about to ask, but Brody answered the question before he could voice it.
“Fergus went to the village. The reverend had a fall, and that pretty daughter of his came running up here for help.” Brody’s sharp eyes were watching Gabriel for a reaction. Gabriel didn’t give him one. “You know Fergus always falls over himself around Gabrielle Innes.”
Gabriel did know. The reverend’s daughter, Gabrielle Innes (She’s named after an angel, Loki, isn’t that amazing?), was easily the prettiest girl in the village. With long blonde hair, a perky body, and a smile that showed no missing teeth, all Gabrielle had to do was toss her head or bat her eyes to get the local boys falling to her feet (She’s even prettier than angels, Loki, don’t you think?). Gavin Stout, oldest son of family of fishermen, would bring her the freshest fish from his catches. William Wright, apprentice to the village carpenter, often carved her wooden trinkets or did repairs around her home. Huchon Johnson, whose parents were the village bakers, always had a little cake or loaf just for her.
Fergus, bastard son of the witch and apprentice to the tailor, had no gifts of his own that he could present to Gabrielle. He would beg Gabriel to bring him back sweets or flowers for the girl whenever Gabriel went on a flight. Gabriel hadn’t wanted to encourage a relationship, but he couldn’t deny Fergus’ pleading face anything.
Not that Gabrielle was grateful. The pretty girl had grown into a spoiled woman, toying with her string of suitors, flirting with all the boys and offering them nothing concrete. Far too often, Fergus would present Gabrielle with an exotic gift from China, India, or Egypt and receive nothing more than a disdainful sniff in return.
Gabriel wanted to teach the girl a lesson or two in gratitude and humility. She was the prettiest girl in the village, but she couldn’t hold a candle to the beauties of the wider world. She ought to be grateful for the blessings she already had and stop stringing along the village boys. She needed to pick one and settle down… and preferably not with Fergus!
“Do you think he’ll be back soon?” Gabriel asked, looking out the open door. Should he stay here and wait, or was it worth going to the village to watch Fergus fawn over a girl who saw him only as a supplier of material goods?
Brody barked a short laugh, shaking his head. “Is he ever back ‘soon’ from that girl? Fool boy left just about an hour ago. He won’t be back before dusk unless someone goes to fetch him.”
Gabriel sighed again and turned back to the door. “I suppose that someone will have to be me. Unless Issobell…?”
Brody shook his head. “Issobell’s up with the Mowats, helping with Margaret’s baby. She won’t be back tonight.”
That left no one else, then. Gabriel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and took a step toward the door to fetch the wayward Fergus home.
“Hold up just one minute, Loki.” Brody looked up fully from his sewing, frowning at the angel. “I’d like a word with you, while it’s just the two of us.”
“Oh?” Gabriel turned slowly to face Brody again, his wings stirring against the walls of his vessel. He scanned the man carefully for any sign of a pre-prepared spell that could actually harm an angel but saw no visible threat. “About what?”
“About what?” Brody scoffed, shaking his head. “Don’t play the fool with me, Loki. About Fergus. You’ve been with us for ten years, but even the blind can see you’re only here for him.”
“Your nephew is charming.” Gabriel smiled disarmingly at Brody, careful to keep his body language open and non-threatening. He had honestly been expecting Brody or Issobell to confront him for years about his interest in Fergus, but up until now, they had both just accepted his presence as if it were normal for five-year-old sons to bring gods home from their day of play. “I like charmers.”
Brody’s flat stare told Gabriel that he wasn’t buying that answer. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the perks of a live-in god, but I want to know your catch. It’s been ten years. When’s the other shoe going to drop?”
“There is no other shoe,” Gabriel insisted, shaking his head. “Fergus found me, and he caught my interest. I want to see him have the best life he can. What’s so bad about that?”
“You’re a Trickster. You’re never interested in humans for their own good.”
“Why does it even matter?” Gabriel asked with a shrug. “I’m not hurting anything by being here.”
“Fergus follows you around like a baby duckling, like that mongrel dog of his follows him around. He’d do anything you asked him to.”
“Why does that matter?” Gabriel asked again, folding his arms. “I’m not asking him to do anything.”
“Not yet.” Brody glowered at Gabriel across the main room of the cottage. “But you’re grooming him. Setting him up to follow in your footsteps, your perfect little disciple. One worshipper’s all you gods need to stay in the big leagues, isn’t that right, Loki?”
“You think I’m trying to get Fergus to worship me?” Gabriel laughed at the idea. “I don’t need worshippers to stay active, Brody. I need to be remembered, and I’m doing just fine on that front with or without Fergus. You’re the one trying to groom him up to follow in your footsteps, with how much you encourage him to study those grimoires of yours.”
“The MacLeods are witches. Fergus will follow in our footsteps.”
“Like hell he will.” Gabriel’s good humor was gone, and he felt his grace boiling within him as he glared at Brody. If he had any less control, he might have started to cook the human with his eyes. As it was, he was fairly certain they were luminous from his own power. “Your footsteps lead straight to damnation. You know that. Issobell knows that. You’ve both signed your souls over to your Mistress. Fergus hasn’t. Fergus is good, and I intend to keep him that way.”
Brody met Gabriel’s glare with one of his own, his gaze much less powerful but no less determined. “Fergus has already been promised to our Mistress.”
“If you think-”
“His birth was foretold.” Brody’s needle punched through the silk with more force than was appropriate for the delicate fabric. “Before Issobell begat him, a star fell from the sky. It burned so brightly that night briefly turned into day. The whole town saw it, and they all swore it fell right over our home. Huge storms arrived the next day, with waves that tried to climb up our cliffs, and the wind was so loud we had to shout to hear each other even when inside. They lasted the entire week and destroyed our harvest. It was a rough winter.”
Cariel’s fall, Gabriel thought. That bright light had been the Seraph’s spirit, burning off the last of his grace. The storm… that wasn’t typical of an angel’s fall, but it was Raphael’s signature overkill. Raphael must have followed Cariel, or at least watched him fall. Maybe he thought Cariel had found Gabriel. Maybe he had hoped Gabriel would be here. A storm that fierce in this part of the world could only be a mark of the Archangel’s presence. Gabriel fought down a fearful shiver. Raphael had been here, but he wasn’t here any longer. If he had still been watching, Gabriel would have known long ago.
“We asked Mistress what it meant. When she heard the story, she told us that Issobell had conceived a special baby, a child of great potential. We were to teach him all we knew, and she would do the rest. He would be raised up as a ruler over the demons of Hell, seated at the right hand of Lucifer himself.”
Gabriel’s grace prickled uncomfortably at those words. It sounded like “Mistress” recognized the signs of a falling angel. There was only one surviving demoness Gabriel knew of old enough to remember the origins of the Knights of Hell, the original double-fallen.
Lilith.
Gabriel had a history with Lucifer’s first demon. He still remembered the days when she was Sorcha, his favored vessel, a true vessel, and still his preferred form when he disguised himself as a woman. She would laugh when he took her flying, and she once made him crash into a mountain when she seized control of his wings. Lucifer had driven her to madness, made her slaughter her son and all the other children of her village, and she was burned to death as a witch, as the first witch in the MacLeod family. Issobell and Brody were not direct descendants of Sorcha, but she was a distant relative. Gabriel still carried a heavy guilt over all that had happened to Sorcha. He had brought her to Lucifer’s attention. He had condemned her to the unlife she now lived as a demon.
Unless Azazel, who had survived the slaughter of the Knights of Hell, had been spreading stories, Lilith was the most likely candidate for Brody’s enigmatic “Mistress.” If she knew Fergus was a fallen angel… shit, if Azazel realized which angel he was…
Gabriel had to keep Fergus out of Hell. Better Cariel’s spirit find eternal peace as a soul in Heaven, forever separated from Gabriel, than he go to Hell to burn on Azazel’s rack. Cariel had been instrumental in destroying Azazel’s own grace. Azazel would not easily welcome him as a brother should.
“Fergus has already been chosen by our Mistress,” Brody was saying. “He cannot be yours.”
“Have you ever heard of ‘free will?’” Gabriel asked, fighting the urge to smite Brody here and now and be done with this whole farce. Fergus loved his uncle. He wouldn’t understand Gabriel’s attempt to protect him. “Fergus will only rule in Hell if he chooses it. If he chooses to follow me, there isn’t a damn thing your ‘Mistress’ can do about it.”
“Our Mistress is powerful, more powerful than you realize-”
Gabriel spread his wings wide, letting their giant shadows fill the small cottage, too numerous to be recognized as the limbs of an angel. He stepped toward Brody, looming in a way he hadn’t since he’d left Heaven. His grace swelled within him, roaring like a massive furnace, superheating the air until it shimmered around his body. “If she dares, if you dare to force Fergus onto a path of damnation, I will make you wish for the mercy of Hell!”
His hand twitched at his side, the heavy weight of his sword begging to be summoned up. He didn’t call for it. Brody was going to tell Lilith everything Gabriel did, of that the angel was sure. Gabriel might be able to hide his individual wings in a mass of shadow, but Lilith would surely recognize the description of an angelic sword. She’d recognized Gabriel by his blade once before. He couldn’t risk her doing it again. “Don’t test me, Brody MacLeod.”
Brody had tried to keep his ground as Gabriel stalked toward him, but the man’s courage had broken beneath the Archangel’s contained wrath. He shrunk back into his chair, his eyes huge and fearful. Gabriel loomed over him for a moment more, impressing his inhumanity onto the man, before he forced his grace down, withdrew his wings and became the harmless Luke MacLeod once again.
“I am going to find Fergus now,” he said with false lightness. “Perhaps you should advise Issobell of my protection over her son.”
“Don’t you…” Brody’s voice wavered as Gabriel turned away from him, cracking like the man was a pubescent boy again. “Don’t you force him either!”
Gabriel froze, his hand on the doorknob, and he slowly turned his head to look back at Brody. The human was sitting up a little straighter now, pointing a shaking finger Gabriel’s way.
“If I don’t force him to choose our Mistress, you don’t force him to choose your Valhalla, or whatever it is he’d get if he follows you! Free will!” Brody’s fear of Gabriel radiated from the man’s body, an acrid stench in Gabriel’s nose, but the angel had to give him props for his stubbornness. “We can both tempt him, but Fergus will choose.”
Fergus would follow Gabriel, when the time came. Gabriel smiled thinly, no mercy in his eyes for this corrupt man. “Fergus will choose wisely,” he agreed. “I won’t need to force his hand.”
Next...