Grey IV - Chains

Chapter 14 - Shelter

We traveled quietly and cautiously, never staying anywhere for more than a day, strictly traveling at night, and changing cars often. We did everything we could to be easily missed, unremarkable, unnoticeable, without a trail or tracks to be followed. Ailech assured us that Abby's protections and wards would hold, would hide us from scrying or locator magic, even with him still being delicate from bringing him back. Which meant the only way we would be found was from a mistake of our own. So we made none.

Malachi was meticulously focused on his plan. He hardly seemed like the violent weapon from our train ambush, or the scheming prisoner from the Vault, or even the mischievous ally he had recently begun to show. And I understood why. It was clear he was following the same patterns from all the other missions he had dutifully executed, falling into the same schedules that had been carved into him for decades. And though I hated where they came from, they were impressive. He was impressive. He was a professional - no, he was a machine.

I had never really seen him in his element, but this was what he had done for years - tracking targets, hunting them, or making them come to him, planning every detail of every move of every day until he was sure he would succeed, because failure had never been an option. Because failure had meant punishment, torture, or death. And though that no longer hung over his immediate head, Baraqiel was still out there, searching for us, waiting to take us and twist us. Which made this the most important mission of Malachi's life, and he knew it.

Every day held the same routine for him; we would arrive at our unassuming mid-grade hotel early in the morning before the sun was up, he would ward the room, ignoring Ailech's rolled eyes at the 'unnecessary energy use', and then he would sit, watching a hotel brochure or business card in his hands, focusing on it. Sometimes he sat like that for an hour. Occasionally his pale eyes would shift to me, but then they would return to whatever glossed paper he held.

Then he would train, eat, train, nap, train, eat, and train again. And then stare at a map in the same way, intently watching our next location South, always steadily South, his eyes flicking to me once or twice. When I asked him, he simply said he was 'inviting our mother', though something about that explanation didn't seem right to me.

He worked with me on my blocks daily, my glamours too, which he had apparently grown substantially in since my Pair had known him, and recited the Book of Dust to me, read aloud from memory to help my Angel names and demon types, my heals and knowledge. His Sight was only about as good as mine, but he still insisted I practice, saying I should be able to easily surpass him. He tried to get my visions or prophecies to make an appearance too, but my mind only ever circled my last one, when I was sure I had felt some faint connection to my Pair.

He thought the vision must mean our next steps were in a southern city, a large one, and he had a methodical list to work through after asking me for any details I could remember. My information seemed thin at best, but he had just nodded slow, his tongue poking his cheek in thought, his piercing clicking occasionally. Then he planned our route like we had more than a hunch and a need for revenge to go off of.

He worked with Ailech too, sending him out as far as he could go from us, from his earthly tether. He practiced not just being pulled back to Malachi when the distance became too great, but appearing back with us by choice. Each evening, Ailech and Malachi worked on communicating silently, though they had only limited success, more feelings than words. Then they practiced Ailech's ability to be corporeal or vanish, stepping back into wherever the world should have been housing someone like him, someone dead. Malachi knew what Ailech could potentially do, because he had seen Ambriel do it, because he had been one of the ones to train Ambriel to do it. But I didn't like thinking of that.

And then, after his personal training, along with tutoring both me and Ailech, Malachi would have Ailech draw from him. Not with his dark gift but from their connection, to strengthen him and make our healer come into the world faster, many times faster than Ambriel had as she slowly stole from some dark mage to start, or my Pair in the end. The fact that Ailech was already as strong as Ambriel had ever been said volumes for all Malachi had given him. But still, every night, he lowered whatever blocks he had, laying his mind and power bare before my old keeper and let him pull from him to gain a stronger footing in our world.